(CS) Chapter 9. D1 (Patreon)

After finishing up lunch and ending his conversation with Nisha, Arik changed into the workout gear that the Initiative had provided him with, and headed to his first outside class, Practical Tactics. It would be a continuation of the lesson before lunch, but focused more on the actual execution of tactics, rather than their planning. In other words, another period of introductions, most likely.

When he got to the field, he saw Alexander standing on a platform at the center, surrounded by the students. After waiting a while, the teacher raised a fist into the air. The conversations of the other students quickly faded, as their attention was brought to him.

“Alright, students! Earlier we were all introduced by our words, but now, we shall be introduced by our blades!” Illysius lowered his raised hand, pointing at a rack of wooden weapons. “Everyone, please grab a training weapon of your own choice. They have been blunted, but you’ll find that their heft resembles metal. They have been crafted out of the remains of an Essence Plant, specifically, a Steel Tree. Don’t be afraid to use your full strength; these training weapons can take it. With that said, please avoid using magick. Today, we learn each other’s physical strengths and weaknesses; we can go over magick at a later date.”

Arik made his way over to the rack and inspected a few of the weapons. He started with a couple of the lightweight ones, just to see if there were any that would fit him, but eventually discarded them and went with what he knew best: a huge sword. Specifically, a claymore. Once he’d picked it up and hefted it over his shoulder, he walked back to his position.

It took a couple minutes for some of the other students to find their weapons, but once they were all done, the teacher came and set them all apart by build and weapon type. Arik, himself, was paired up against someone with a maul. If he remembered correctly, the student’s name was Hevard, and he used fire magic.

When the starting whistle blew, Hevard charged him, but his movements were sluggish, and Arik was able to move out of the way before his maul could slam into his side.

Arik slashed his claymore against Hevard’s back. The big kid fell to the floor, carried forward by his own momentum. He rose with a thunderous expression. Arik could’ve probably ended the little duel there by just hitting the kid repeatedly, but he knew he’d feel bad for it later, so he waited for him to get to his feet before advancing on him.

Hevard took a powerful stance, maul at the ready, muscles tensed. Arik baited an attack by stepping into the other student’s reach, then stepping back to avoid the following swing. The kid had clearly put all of his strength into that one attack, opening himself up to a counterattack from the Paladin. Instead of taking that opportunity though, he opened his dumb mouth.

“With heavy weapons like these, it’s important to be able to swing lightly. If you can’t keep control of the weapon at all times, then it’ll be very hard to recover. You’re clearly strong enough, so I’d recommend either increasing your Limit or picking another- erp!” Arik had to dodge out of the way of another swing from the furious maul. This time, Hevard managed to recover more quickly, but by then, Arik was swinging down on his shoulder.

All 16 Physique in Arik’s possession were leveraged into the attack, and it landed heavily on the kid’s arm. The pain was enough to make Hevard drop his maul and bunch up. Arik kicked the stunned kid in the chest, causing him to stumble backwards, falling for the second time in the fight.

The claymore in Arik’s hands was raised over Hevard’s chest, and the young man quickly conceded. Arik looked up to see if the end of the fight had been noticed by the teacher, and found Alexander staring him down, his gaze disapproving. A couple other students had watched as well, and some light clapping commenced, but died down as they turned their attention to the other duels. Alexander’s eyes, though, continued to rest upon Arik for a while longer before he turned away.

That’s weird. Did I do something wrong? Arik thought for a moment. I mean, I didn’t fight all that well. I let most of my advantage slip, and I guess lecturing my opponent was probably going too far. Arik determined that he’d be more ruthless in his next fights. While it wasn’t exactly nice, being nice in a real fight would get him injured, so he should practice as though it were real.

Once all the fights concluded, Illysius gathered everyone back up.

“I watched all of your fights, and saw a lot of room for improvement, but also a lot of potential. Don’t feel bad if you lost today, you’re all new to this. If you’re really concerned about it, just make sure you train really hard, and maybe you’ll get another chance to show your opponent who’s really the top dog! Now, since we’ve got some time, let’s go over some of the things I saw out there today…”

Alexander went on to describe some of the errors he saw in the student’s fighting. Arik felt a bit called out when he mentioned taking advantage of openings and not talking to your opponent, but the teacher didn’t say any names, addressing the entire class with his advice. He also mentioned that it was important to think not only about what your opponent is doing, but what they’re going to do next.

He also mentioned how important control was with heavy weapons, which was almost exactly what Arik had been getting at during the fight. With large, heavy weapons like his own, strength was very important. Physique determines how much you could lift and how heavy your swings were. However, the main reason that Physique matters is that it increases your endurance and lets you move faster with the weapon. It doesn’t matter how hard you can swing if you never land a hit.

After he gave his advice, Alexander ended the class a bit early, and Arik had an hour to kill.

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Arik sat in his room, casting Starlight over and over again. While he didn’t particularly love the spell, and it would probably be the first thing he discarded once his Skill slots got full, so long as he could find something to replace it, it was still good practice. He’d have more spells someday, and this practice would prove useful then.

Like he’d done before, he worked on ways to shape the sphere of light differently, casting [Starlight] after [Starlight]. He had limited success, but it was alright. The point of this exercise was to work on shaping one cast of the spell after another, over and over again. It didn’t drain that much Essence, though to him, it was still significant, just because he had so little. I should really fix that soon. He spent about 15 minutes doing this exercise, casting the same spell over and over again, just slightly different. At one point he tried using two casts at the same time, but he canceled it after a moment due to the Essence drain.

Once he was done with his practice, he headed back outside, to his Basic Combat class. He was pretty early, so he ended up having to stand around awkwardly and wait for the teacher’s current class to end. Once it did, he walked in and saw Johnseph, of all people.

The Hulendorian man gave him a big grin. “I was hoping I’d have ya for one of my classes!”

Arik smiled back, and asked, “I wasn’t expecting you to actually be teaching. For some reason I thought you’d be one of the staff.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess that doesn’t really make sense for a Pedagogue, huh?”

John chuckled, and started asking him about his classes while they waited for the other students to arrive.

Eventually, he called for the students to line up on one end of the yard, and they parted.

“Alright, ya cubs, I think it’s about time you learned something that really matters!” He chuckled for a moment, then barked, “Arik, what’s the most important step in combat?”

Arik was momentarily stunned, but thought back to what John had taught him until then. “Be prepared for anything?”

The big man’s chuckle returned. “No, but close. That’s the second most important, and it is indeed the first step, the one we’ll be spending much of this class mastering, but the single most important step in any battle is to win.”

An Illysian raised their hand, then spoke without being called. “That’s a bit of a brutish answer, don’t you think? You have to factor in matters such as losses in manpower and expenditures of Essence, really, sometimes it’s much more valuable to-”

“Shut up.” Johnseph glared him down. “If you’re in a battle you’re not in control of, then you’ve already lost. If you’re in a battle that will take more than you’re willing to give, then you’re stupid. Now keep your trap shut and stop questioning me.”

The big man took a moment to school himself. “My apologies. In any case, the most important step is to win. With that said, it’s also the final step. The first step, as Arik mentioned, is to prepare for anything, and I do mean anything. By the end of this class, I expect you to be able to do battle with any weapon I give you, or with your body itself if I request it. You’ll be able to fight at 100%, whether you have access to your Essence or not.

“The second step to winning a battle, as I mentioned before, is to pick your battles. If you rush in without a second thought, then you’re telling the world that you’re willing to give everything to fight, even knowing that you might just be throwing your life away. Finally, once you’ve prepared for combat, and you’ve picked your fight, then you give whatever it takes to win. Remember, at this point, you should already know what it will take.” John tapped a foot against the ground. “I am Pedagogue John Girillen. You will call me John. I’ve been given the year to shape you into perfect fighters. It will not be enough. You’ll all still be worse at fighting than a fledgling arkovinus by the end of this course, but it’s a start.”

For the remainder of the duration of the class, John taught the students how to hold themselves in unarmed combat. More accurately, he yelled at them until about half of them were able to hold a basic boxing stance properly. Then he shrugged and dismissed the class, with a suggestion that they all raise their Talent and Wisdom.