Chapter: 420 – Let’s Get to It

Here Begins Millennial Mage 11 – Flockbound

Tala couldn’t help but smile as Rane walked into the massive underground training room, unescorted.

Only Refined were allowed here—special exemptions aside—and he arrived solely based upon his own merits.

He stood tall, his inscriptions newly refreshed, his eyes full of life. His aura was on full display, held at presentation distance, roughly an inch out from his skin. It was a lovely, chartreuse yellow.

Tala was still giving him grief for instantly surpassing her on the path toward Paragon, if only just.

Terry—on Tala’s shoulder—trilled in greeting and congratulations, getting a mirthful smile from the new Refined.

The Defender unit leaders, spread throughout the space around Tala, turned to face the same way she was, smiles spreading across many faces.

This was quite different from her own induction as a Defender.

Here, Rane was well known, well liked, and his advancement and acceptance had been long awaited and was now openly celebrated.

Tala had been unknown and unusual to the extreme.

Speaking of which, Tala stayed back, letting him keep the spotlight. Well, that was her intention.

Rane immediately met her gaze and waved, a nervous smile on his face. That sent some attention her way, but it didn’t linger.

His nervousness wasn’t from meeting all these powerful Defenders. No, that was old hat for him. He was nervous because what he and Tala had was still new, and he was as unsure how to act with it as she was.

They had been courting for nearly two months—at least in name—but they hadn’t really told anyone that they were courting or done anything differently because of it, not yet.

They’d been waiting first for Rane to Refine, then for him to recover, and finally they’d wanted him to be inducted as a Defender.

That day had finally arrived.

Master Grediv announced Rane, but otherwise was far less involved with Rane’s induction than he had been with Tala, and the reason was rather obvious. As Rane’s master and ancestor, he was seen as obviously biased toward the young Archon.

With Tala, he was seen as an unbiased third party.

Thus, after that introduction, Master Grediv moved to stand beside Tala. “It’s almost anticlimactic in a twisted sort of way.”

Tala cocked an eyebrow toward the Paragon. “Would you rather he had struggled more… openly?”

Master Grediv shook his head. “No. It’s just hard to really process a person’s internal struggles. It’s easy to brush them aside as not having mattered, and yet, I know they did.” The older man’s voice dropped to a whisper so low even she could barely hear it when right next to him. “He broke, Mistress Tala. He failed. His foundation was tested and found wanting. I still don’t know what changed. He hasn’t decided to tell me, not yet.”

Tala nodded. “I’ll let him be the one to do that, but I am not the core of his Refinement. I never should have factored in at all.”

“Yet, you remain important to him.”

“I hope that’s always true.” She stiffened then, realizing what she’d said.

He glanced her way, a small smile on his features. “I hope so as well.”

The induction went quite well overall, with Rane giving a good showing of his skills and abilities before requesting to join Master Clevnis and Mistress Cerna’s unit.

There weren’t strong objections from others, and the unit leader couple heartily agreed to have him join them.

That put them up to an eight man unit, but as cell-duty had moved to a rotation, it wasn’t of as much consequence as Tala’s joining had been.

From there, the festivities wound down slowly, and once everyone left besides their unit, they relaxed a bit more. They grabbed more food and just spent time getting to know their new member.

The various Refined had chatted with Rane before, but this was different. They approached talking with someone who was just around every so often differently than someone who would be working alongside them for the foreseeable future.

Another change after most had departed was that Terry left Tala’s shoulder for more than just brief moments.

As a consequence, the avian flickered around the group, enjoying the challenge of stealing food from the plates of the various Refined.

In essence, the game was that he would flicker in and if they reacted before he snatched something, he’d simply move on. Otherwise, some of their tasty, tasty food would be his.

At least, that’s what Tala assumed he was thinking. Terry did like other people’s food quite a bit.

The group talked through quite a few things, one of the most important being that Rane would be the Defender who would fight any threat that came during their unit’s duty shifts, so long as he believed he could handle the magical beast or beasts.

Just like they’d done with Tala, the unit wanted Rane to get his Refined combat legs under him and build confidence in a relatively controlled set of circumstances.

They would obviously be near at hand for the fights in case interference was required or assistance needed. Even so, it was a tried and true method for helping new Defenders gain skill and understanding of their own abilities.

It was shortly after that when the unit moved to discussing the training that they all did, both together and on their own, separate from the unit.

When that was wrapping up, Master Clevnis seemed to come to a decision. “I want to test you myself.” He stood, pulling a set of practice swords out of his soulbound dimensional storage. “Master Rane, I trust that you are able to suppress your inscriptions. Yes?”

Rane stood as well, grinning. “Absolutely, yes.”

“Good, I want to see what your skill and ability level is without your magics directly involved. Enhancement magics are, of course, encouraged.”

He caught the sword that had been tossed his way before walking a good distance from the rest of the unit—and the food tables—and assuming a ready stance.

Tala always found it fascinating how different people would naturally prefer different opening guard positions.

There was some skill involved in choosing one to counter your opponent’s, which could lead to two masters simply shifting between guard positions, continually countering and being countered in return. That didn’t happen here.

Rane preferred what was sometimes called a high guard, which—given his size—put the sword quite high indeed.

It was a stance far more suited for fighting magical creatures that were often bigger even than Rane, but it was also the stance that he was most comfortable in.

Master Clevnis fell into a more central position, the point of his sword pointed straight at Rane’s heart from ten feet away.

The unit-leader smiled. “Begin.”

They both moved in an almost unified blur. The crack-crack-crack of their practice weapons striking and deflecting was so rapid that it seemed almost like listening to a giant drumming their fingers on a table.

Tala was able to track the movements, of course, but she knew that no mundane human would have been able to.

Still, it was fascinating to watch the two men, and how their movements varied.

Rane seemed to almost move in fits and starts, pausing between exchanges, then lashing forward with greater speed than Master Clevnis had demonstrated thus far.

The older man—on the other hand—seemed to keep the exact same pace throughout, simply flowing from one movement to the other without pause. This had the result of making even his blocks and counters seem as if he’d planned them in advance.

More than anything, it looked like he was simply moving smoothly and consistently through a well-known sword form.

Stolen novel; please report.

The fact that Rane was there seemed all but incidental, even if Tala knew that it wasn’t true.

Though their pace was one that would quickly exhaust even the most well conditioned mundanes, neither was going to wear out any time soon, and they continued their friendly clash unabated.

Only after quite a few exchanges did something finally change.

Rane started it first, charging forward and forcing Master Clevnis to respond with movement of his own, and soon their clashes were ranging back and forth through much of the massive space.

Finally, Master Clevnis’ stoic face broke out in a smile. “Get ready.”

Rane frowned but didn’t otherwise respond.

Then, Master Clevnis changed his pace just a bit. He was just slightly faster than he had been, and Rane struggled in vain to keep the balance that he had—up to that point—maintained relatively easily.

Rane fell more and more onto the back foot until finally, the practice sword slipped through an opening and cracked against the larger man’s leg.

He winced, but still blocked the follow-up strike, back in command of the tempo.

That didn’t last.

Once again, Master Clevnis slowly advanced in initiative until he snuck another strike through.

This time Rane hissed in irritation.

Rane’s eyes blazed with intensity, but he kept mastery of himself, seeming to buckle down and speed up to match Master Clevnis’ new pace.

“Good!” The older man laughed. “Very good. Now, get ready.”

Rane was not ready.

Once again, the pace of the clashing shifted and the younger, less experienced fighter received strike after strike. Though, none were strong enough to trigger his family boon, his berserking rage.

I wonder if that’s purposeful on Master Clevnis’ part?

-It is likely. He has to know about it. Master Grediv wouldn’t have kept it a secret from the unit leaders.-