108: Excess

Entering the hall, I saw Hari watching as both Darren and George were going through the steps to build muscle memory. Hari caught sight of me straight away but made sure the two of them kept swinging, pulling out a training sword and throwing it in my direction.

“Jump in there, Trev—you’ve not practised in a while.”

I took up a position next to George and tried to remember the steps, but I failed miserably.

What seemed like forever later, Hari let us stop, and George immediately asked me to spar. We had a rivalry of sorts back at the academy, no… orphanage. Lukas was far more competitive, but George was always there, and he never actually won, so I suspected today would be the day he got his revenge.

“All right—no abilities, no buffs, and we’re not trying to hurt each other,” Hari said.

I stood across from George, who currently had a one-handed sword and a small buckler, while I was holding a slightly longer sword in two hands with no shield.

I know Hari said no abilities, but I still wondered if I could sneak some Barrier Melon without him noticing.

“All right, go,” Hari said.

George lunged towards me, going for a stab—which I saw coming; that was his old move, he always opened with that. What caught me by surprise, though, was that it was a feint, as George pulled the strike just as I was moving to deflect and came from another angle, striking me on the side.

I leapt backwards to put some distance between us, but before I knew it, George was already inside my guard and tapped me again.

I tried my best to make an opening of some kind, and every chance I felt I had, his buckler slipped into place just in time.

The fight didn’t go on for long. I didn’t hit George once. It highlighted two things to me: the first was how little I actually knew about fighting; the second was the value of Hari’s training.

I didn’t have time to dedicate days like George and Darren, but I felt that if I could spare an hour a day to some basic practice, it would help me out. I wasn’t planning on engaging in combat anytime soon, but it would be nice to be able to defend myself in a pinch if I were forced.

Once our fight was over, Darren stepped forward to spar with George, and I was rubbing my arm, feeling embarrassed at how poorly I had performed.

“Not as bad as I suspected,” Liane whispered.

“What do you mean? I lost horribly,” I retorted.

“You did, but you don’t have the stats for it, nor do you have the training and the passive skills. Remember, a soldier gets a basic weapon-mastery passive, so they are going to be a step above you in combat even before training,” she explained as I walked to Milo’s area.

“True. I’d like to get a little better though—just in case I need to defend myself one day, you know?”

Liane just nodded, and when I entered the cave area Milo had been working in, I was rendered speechless by the sight in front of me. Where there was once a giant hole in the stone cave, there now was a very large, intricately carved stone balcony that overlooked the ocean—but even more than that, I noticed now it had a thin lattice of stone preventing someone from falling out.

Or, I guess, stopping someone or something from coming in. Looking closer, I noticed he had also made several planter boxes, clearly for Joanne.

“Looks amazing, Milo,” I said, making him jump.

“Thank you,” Milo beamed. “I’m just adding the finishing touches now, but it’s all pretty much done. This mini-lake here is rather special as well. I don’t know how sensitive to your surrounding mana you are yet, but that lake has a potent presence of water mana.”

“I didn’t know you could feel different mana types,” I said, scratching the back of my head.

“Oh—sorry, that’s my fault. I forget you didn’t have any lessons on mana and magic. Well, very quickly: everyone who has access to skills that use mana will be able to sense their surrounding mana with a bit of effort. It’s an important skill, as the surrounding mana will affect the strength of your spells,” he explained.

He gestured towards Crisplet in the brazier. “This lake here, for example, would likely serve to dampen Crisplet’s spells, and he’d find his fire less potent. But, more than that—even ones like earth magic—the stone is stronger, the dirt heavier, due to the water mana condensed in it. I suspect that’s why the stone around here is as strong as it is.”

“So if I cooked down here, Manaflair Crust would take on water-mana properties for the meal?” I said, remembering the brief description mentioning that the environment affected the results.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Probably—but if Crisplet were involved, you’d find it was likely cancelled out, as the fire mana around Crisplet is likely more powerful,” he said.

“You two are boring when you talk magic like this, you know that, right?” Liane said with a smirk.

“Yes, but he has to learn,” Milo said to Liane, clearly missing the mirth in her tone.

I walked out onto the balcony, approaching the edge, where the water crashed into the rocks below. The smell of the salty air was strong here, but there was beauty in it all as I watched the ocean below, despite being so high up.

“All done now?” I asked Milo.

“Yeah, all done. I’m going to take my samples, even if I feel I have worked out the reasoning already. There could be something else affecting these rocks I have yet to discover.”

“Oh—before I leave, would you be able to fill up the two barrels I purchased with water? I need to soak them for a couple of days, I was told,” I asked.