Transcendence, page 39
part #6 of The Beginning After The End Series
“Well then, let’s train hard and get even stronger.” I stuck out a hand.
Kathyln stared at my open hand for a moment before gingerly accepting the gesture.
Her palm and her fingers were warm to the touch—hot, even—and her hand remained absolutely still in my grip. Making sure my friendly gesture didn’t last too long, I gently squeezed her hand before letting go. “Goodnight.”
Without even a pause, she whipped her head away and shut the door. From the other side of her door, I heard a muffled, “Goodnight, Arthur.”
Chapter 46
Aspect of Unpredictability
GREY
Nico slapped the back of my dueling vest. “Are you ready, Grey?”
I continued the last set of my stretches, more out of anxiousness than to loosen my body. We were in the underground waiting area where dozens of other students were either practicing their techniques on the padded mats or restlessly pacing until their name was called by one of the officiators.
“Ready as I can be, I suppose,” I finally replied, swinging my arms.
“Come on. You’re going to have to be more confident than that—hungrier,” Nico pressed. “I know how hard you’ve had it, being bullied by everyone from the second and first division—”
“How could you possibly know how hard I’ve had it?” I cut in, annoyed. “Moving from Division Four into Division Three last year made their ‘pranks’—most of which gave me welts if not broken bones—worse, because I apparently didn’t ‘know my place.’”
“My bad,” Nico stammered, taken aback by my sharpness.
“You’re in the first class of Division One, respected by teachers and peers. I’m proud of you for that, but don’t think that means you know what I’ve been through these past years.”
He nodded. “I was just trying to help.”
“It’s fine,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. I’m just really sick of those nobles flaunting their house names like a badge that lets them do whatever they want to me.”
“Yeah. It doesn’t help that most of their parents are generous donors to the academy. It only serves to make the teachers turn a blind eye to students like us, with no family to back them.”
“At least they treat you well,” I said, sitting with my back against the cold wall. “Being better than them intellectually doesn’t seem to hurt their ego nearly as much as being better than them in combat.”
“Thank God for that,” Nico chuckled. “At least you can defend yourself.”
I agreed. “I’m just hoping the judges will be more fair than they have been and finally let me into the second division.”
“Seriously. Even if your ki level isn’t as high, your overall combat ability should have at least put you in Division Two last year. I still can’t believe they held you back even after you pummeled that mouthy kid.”
“Remember him taunting me before the start of the match, saying he could beat me with one hand?”
Nico suppressed a laugh, perhaps fearful that the boy in question was somewhere in the large room. “That match was over so quick, he didn’t even have time to take his hand out of his pocket.”
“Yet, here I am, taking part in these rigged assessment duels.” I thumped my head against the wall, letting the dull pain wash away my despair.
Nico lowered his voice. “I have heard from the other engineering students that there’s a new judge this year, very cold and impartial.”
I raised a brow. “How would the engineering students know about that?”
Nico coughed and looked away. “Supposedly, she’s also a very attractive lady. You know how it is with the engineering guys; they’re a lewd bunch.”
“Seems like that includes you as well,” I said, shaking my head in mock disappointment. “I wonder what Cecilia’s going to think when I tell her this.”
“You wouldn’t.” Nico’s face blanched. “After all I’ve done to try and help you—”
Just then, a gruff voice called my name over the intercom. “Cadet Grey to Arena Six. Failure to appear will result in an automatic loss. Once again, Cadet Grey to Arena Six.”
I picked up the blunted dueling sword that I had borrowed for the assessment and winked at Nico. “I’ll keep you and your engineering dogs’ little interest to myself.”
Nico hung his head in defeat and motioned for me to go.
Waving back at my friend, I made my way up the wide ramp that led to the surface. I had to raise a hand to shield my eyes from the midday sun until they could adjust, and when they did, I found myself in the center of a wide outdoor stadium.
Raised circular platforms dotted the large field of grass. Students and faculty members surrounded the platforms, some judging or scouting while others were just there to watch their friends or an upcoming opponent.
The bleachers surrounding the stadium were dotted with people—too far away to recognize, not that I would know any of them. Prior events had made it easy to assume most of the adults seated here were family members of the students participating in today’s assessment duels.
I made my way toward the sign that read ‘Arena Six,’ slipping through the crowds congested around the arenas in between.
“Great, an audience,” I mumbled to myself. There was a large group, of varying ages, excitedly chattering amongst themselves. One portly middle-aged man had his arms up on the arena, giving last-minute advice to a boy my age, until the slender referee informed the man not to lean on the stage.
I barely had room to go up the stairs that led to the elevated dueling arena, and eyes bored into me the entire way. Some cast assessing gazes, trying to size me up to make their own prediction on whether their son—or cousin, nephew, or whatever the boy up on the stage was—could beat me.
I reached the arena platform. There was only me, the boy I’d be facing, and the referee. The vests, the only source of protection we were provided, spoke volumes about what our academy thought in terms of our safety.
Broken bones were common, and even life threatening injuries couldn’t be considered shocking. As if sensing my discomfort, the referee stepped toward me and peered into my eyes, scrutinizing me.
The later rounds of assessments would have a panel of ‘unbiased’ judges as well, but this first round would be determined by this one referee, so I’d have to do my best to impress him.
“Make us proud, Simeon!” the portly man roared.
“You can do it, Simmy!” a curly-haired woman hooted excitedly.
“Sir, the barrier will be up soon, so please refrain from leaning forward into the arena. I will not remind you again,” the slender referee said sternly.
“Dad, please!” the boy named Simeon groaned, shooing his father away.
Without further delay, the referee took out a key and slid it alongside the far edge of the arena. Immediately, a light flickered around us, casting a translucent wall about thirty feet high.
“Weapons in position,” the referee announced. “Traditional dueling rules apply. Match will end when one of you yields or when the protective barrier around your dueling vest shatters. Points will be earned for solid contact, not glancing blows. Cadet Grey, Cadet Simeon Cledhome, are you ready?”
I kept the blade of my sword low, gripping with only one hand; Simeon took a more traditional pose, with both hands firmly on the handle and the blade positioned vertically out in front of him.
We dipped our heads in acknowledgement, our gazes locked on each other.
“Begin!”
Immediately, Simeon lunged, clearing the distance between us—over ten feet—in a single bound. He had concentrated his ki to his back leg, pushing off and redistributing back to the rest of his body after gaining the momentum he needed—not an easy feat.
However, his burst seemed like wading through viscous waters to my eyes. By the time his sword was lined up in position to stab at my vest, I had identified three different courses of action and was contemplating my choices.
I went with the simplest option, pivoting so his blunted weapon would barely glide across my chest.
Executing the same technique as Simeon, I concentrated ki into my back leg and torso for support. In one swift stroke, I stepped into range and spun, using my leg and hips for momentum. Even though I didn’t enhance my arm with ki, the strength of my attack was enough to knock Simeon off his feet.
Just before my sword struck him, he managed to twist so that his left shoulder took the force of the blow, not his vest.
“Gah!” Simeon yelled in pain, dropping his sword and cradling his injured shoulder with his right hand.
I thought for sure he’d yield, so I held my position, my eyes shifting between the referee and Simeon.
A muted thump drew my attention, and I could see the father banging wildly at the barrier. “Get up, Simeon! Get up!”
After a series of groans and curses, my opponent was back on his feet, his left arm dangling limply by his side while he struggled to hold his long sword in his right hand.
I cast a doubtful look at the referee, but he shook his head. The match wasn’t over.
In an act of desperation, Simeon tried to catch me off guard while my attention was on the referee. He lunged once more, sacrificing his speed by allocating most of his ki into his arm. With his right arm strengthened, he was able to easily swing the heavy dueling sword.
His stubbornness was respectable, but the match was already over.
I struck Simeon’s right hand, making him immediately drop his weapon. Without stopping, I spun and kicked his right thigh, which was unprotected by ki.
Simeon grunted as his knee buckled under him. The tip of my sword was already waiting for him underneath his chin.
“I-I yield,” he breathed.
“No!” his father protested, banging wildly against the barrier. “The boy cheated! No way my Simeon would lose to some no-named rat!”
“Enough!” the referee shouted. “Cadet Simeon Cledhome’s remaining assessment duels will take place amongst the other defeated cadets while Cadet Grey will move on. That is all!”
With that, the referee withdrew the barrier and allowed us to leave. Simeon walked down those stairs like his soul had just withered. I almost felt bad for him. His ki control was considered pretty good—most kids in my division were now getting a firm grasp on basic body strengthening, not ki allocation.
His mother immediately gave him a hug and gingerly caressed his wounded shoulder while his father stared daggers, as if his son’s loss was because of me. I guessed it was, so I stared back and did the respectable thing.
I smiled politely at the portly man of House Cledhome. Now… if he saw that as being rude or arrogant, that was on him.
ARTHUR LEYWIN
“What were you dreaming about?” a familiar coarse voice asked, startling me awake.
My eyes shot open to see Virion, his face just a foot away from my own, wrinkled with a wide grin.
“Gah!” I yelped, bolting up and nearly colliding heads with the old man.
From the side, I could hear Emily and my sister giggling; even Boo and Sylvie huffed in amusement.
“Damn it, Virion. Your face is terrifying,” I said, gathering my wits.
“You were smiling so widely that I just had to wake you up and find out what it was you were dreaming about,” the old elf snickered. “Was it perhaps one of those dreams?” he continued, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“Are you sure you’re fit to lead this continent’s army?” I groaned, fighting the urge to roll my eyes.
The commander—sitting casually on the ground next to me, his back against the cold metal wall of the training room—simply shrugged. “I’m pretty sure smiling lewdly while sleeping in a public setting isn’t very fitting for a Lance either.”
“It wasn’t a lewd smile!” I protested.
“It was kind of creepy,” Ellie chimed in.
“It was just a dream about when I was younger. You know, when times were simpler,” I shot back.
It wasn’t a lie. Just not the entire truth.
Ellie exchanged glances with my bond and shrugged.
‘Was it another dream of your former life?’ Sylvie probed, concern in her voice.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Sylv, I comforted her.
Turning my gaze away from my vulpine bond, I watched as Kathyln and the three elders finished warming up. Only a day had passed since the first training session, but the fact that I couldn’t get any sleep due to my futile attempts to extract mana out of Uto’s horns—without the acclorite in my right hand absorbing it first—made it feel like a week had gone by.
The last thing I remembered was coming into the training room and seeing my sister and Boo with Virion. While Emily and Alanis prepared the training equipment she had made for Kathyln and the elders, I’d sat down and talked with the commander. I’d asked him about my personal training assistant—how he ever found someone like her, and why he’d never bothered to mention her to me.
Virion had explained that he had first met Alanis while visiting a unit stationed near the southern border of Elenoir, where the Elshire Forest ended. He had stumbled upon Alanis in one of the medic’s tents where she was helping a soldier who had been ambushed by the corrupted beasts. Though she was only a nurse there, Virion had seen the true value of her deviant magic and brought her to the castle. While I was training in Epheotus, Virion had made all the Lances undergo evaluation with Alanis so they could improve their mana flow where it was the weakest or slowest.
Virion had been explaining to me that ‘corrupted beasts’ were what the soldiers dubbed the mana beasts infected by the Vritra—and the next thing I knew I was waking up to the sight of the old man’s face hovering over mine.
Trying to shake off the lingering weariness, I got up and stretched.
“Looks like the boy is ready,” Virion exclaimed, motioning Emily over.
The artificer hurried to me, carrying the upgraded training equipment. I was impressed she had managed to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time.
Instead of wearing the full leather armor to bounce back the mana waves Emily needed to record the power of my spells without interrupting Alanis’s internal readings, I now only had to attach a few bands to my arms and legs and wear a thin chestplate with the gem embedded on it.
As I finished putting on the new equipment, my training assistant approached me, her eyes glued to her notebook.
“General Arthur. I have finished compiling the training schedule for the next seven weeks, focusing on improving your mana flow times during body augmentation and spell casting of your lesser elements,” she said, raising her gaze to me while handing me her notebook.
“The first two weeks will be one-on-one training,” I said after giving it a cursory glance. “That probably isn’t the best use of time considering I only have two months, right?”
“I agree.” She nodded, taking back her notebook. “However, your goal in all this, General Arthur, by immersing yourself in combat scenarios involving all of the elements, was to acquire the knowledge of which elements can be best utilized, depending on the situation, in order to apply that in later battles, correct?”
Her thought process was a lot more technical, but she had the gist of it. “Correct.”
“While it’s commendable that you’re willing to become a training dummy in order to achieve this goal, it’s impractical for one main reason.”
Her statement piqued my curiosity. “Go on.”
“After your assessment with all four trainers, I believe that the main reason for your—forgive my bluntness—problem stems from how solidified your fighting style is already,” she answered. “It is my understanding that you have previously tried to train your lesser elements by forcibly inhibiting your strongest elements, correct?
“Yet, even after doing so, once you allowed yourself to go back to your more comfortable elements, your fighting style reverted to what I perceive as close-combat with elemental integration in your attacks.”
“That sounds about right,” I said, thinking about what my core fighting style was. Many of my abilities had improved since my time as Grey, but my core style, which was the use of the sword and body, was still the same—albeit improved after my training with the asura Kordri.
“In order to accustom your body to modes of fighting outside of your usual methods, a slow transition is required, along with another important component: unpredictability.” I could tell by the twinkle in Alanis’s eyes that she was almost as enthusiastic about training regimens as Emily was about artificing.
“General Arthur, you will start off with one-on-one sparring against the four training partners here today. They will trade places at random intervals so you will not have the chance to acclimate,” she explained in a serious tone. “In addition, in each session, you will be forbidden to use one element.”
“And which element is that?” I asked, looking over her notes.
The usually impassive elf showed the slightest glimmer of a smile. “That will be chosen—and switched—at random, General Arthur. Unpredictability, remember?”
“It seems my original idea of brainlessly sparring four against one has become much more convoluted,” I murmured under my breath.
“The training regimens she made for the other Lances were just as complicated,” Virion remarked, standing up.
After dusting off his robe, Virion headed to the door. “I’ll be by later to see how things progress. Alanis, don’t break Arthur. I still need him.”
Alanis nodded sternly, as if she had seriously considered the possibility.
With that, the old elf bid us farewell. Kathyln and the elders, who had just finished warming up, showed their respects as the commander left.
“The equipment is all ready to go,” Emily exclaimed as soon as the door closed behind Virion.
I looked around at the training room, spotting Kathyln blotting her forehead with a handkerchief and Hester straightening out the creases in her tight-fitting robe. “So who am I going up against fir—”
