Chapter 8

Hambel took his position holding his far shorter sword with just one hand. “Go ahead, show me what you can do.”

Arthur rushed towards as he raised his sword above his head, when Hambel was within reach of the blade Arthur brought it down with his full force. Hambel quickly and quite easily blocked the overhead attack and parried hitting Arthur in the cheek, one of the few places he didn’t have any armour.

Arthur staggered back and clutched his face, clearly Hambel put a bit of force into that.

“You're not all that terrible for someone without proper training, but if you want to kill more than just a few goblin outcasts you will need to change that.” Hambel walked towards Arthur until he was only 2 meters from Arthur. “First things first I think we should work on your strikes and then we can work on blocking.”

“What do I need to do?” Arthur asked.

“Well for starters you can attack from other directions other than overhead. You can even mix in a few stabs. Go ahead try it out, I won't attack, I will simply block.”

Arthur made several strikes from various directions to Hambel who blocked with ease.”

“Not bad lad.” Hambel smiled as he congratulated Arthur. “Why don’t we try following up each attack with another.”

“So like a combo?”

“Yeah I suppose so. My family always called them attack chains though. Just be sure that you attack me as fast as you can without losing form. There is very little value in a strike not done with the blade.”

Arthur did his best to perform an attack combo with a fair amount of success but he never did hit Hambel.

/- - - - - -\

+ Long Blades Level 2

\- - - - - -/

“Well lad although we haven't been doing this for too long I can already see some improvement.” Hambel had a large grin on his face as he spoke. “I think now is a good time for you to get some practice in blocking attacks now. Don’t worry I will go slow enough for you to block them, but don’t think it will be easy.”

Hambel struck Arthur from several directions one after the other, just giving him enough time to block them. Slowly Arthur could feel each strike making him more and more tired until Hambel knocked the sword out of his hands.

/- - - - - -\

+ Block Level 1

+ Block Level 2

\- - - - - -/

Arthur dropped to the floor breathing heavily.

“Well done lad-” Hambel gave Arthur a pat on the back. “-take a break and we will continue. I will be over at a table getting a drink, feel free to join me if you want.”

As Hambel walked off to get himself a drink Arthur took a seat on the ground to catch his breath.

‘Well that was terrible but I did learn a bit from Hambel. This is also a lot harder than magic but that might be mitigated if I use those points to increase my vitality or constitution. I should ask Hambel about that.’

Arthur stood up and made his way to Hambel for a proper place to sit and to ask him a few questions.

“Hey there lad, want a drink?” Hambel offered Arthur an empty mug.

“Sorry but not now.” ‘Alcohol, I remember that. I also remember how easily it could destroy people's lives.’ “I do have a few questions though.”

“Sure thing, go ahead.” Hambel said as Arthur took a seat across the table.

“Well My first question is about how to use points in my HUD?”

“You haven’t used any points yet? Well you can assign them whenever you want but they won't take effect until you sleep. It takes a bit of time to become more powerful and sometimes if you use too many points at once It may take more than one day.”

“Thank you. My second question is what do you think I should use my points on?”

“Well that depends on what you want to do. Endurance and vitality will always be important though regardless of what path you choose so investing in those will always be helpful. How many points do you have?”

“Twenty.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“20 Points already. I personally would put 5 into endurance and vitality and the other 10 you can put wherever you would think they would help you best.”

“Thank you Hambel, I think I will take your advice.”

“Oh one more thing. When you reach 30 the amount of points you will need to increase the value by one will increase by 1. That same thing will happen at 50, 70, and 90. The maximum without any very rare potions or divine intervention is 100.”

‘So there is a bit of exponential growth in requirements and once you reach one hundred you need either potions or the help of a god.’ “Thank you again Hambel. I have one last question for you and then I will leave you to drink.”

“Very well ask away.”

“What is that meeting that Cassia had to go to about?”

“Oh that meeting from this morning. Everyone was there to update us on the plan for the fortress. The first thing we were told was that we will need to wait a few days until reinforcements arrive so we can actually properly secure the facility. After that everyone who wasn’t a mage was told to leave as whatever they were discussing had nothing to do with us.”

“What do you think they were talking about?”

“Well it was either how and where to collapse the walls and or ceiling to stop anything from overrunning us or they were talking about you and your magic talents.”

“Well neither of those is particularly nice to think about, especially the second one.”

“You are likely a one in a 1000 years prodigy. Some people even take weeks to get to where you have gotten.” Hambel then leaned in and whispered. “And they probably want to keep you on their side, so don’t do anything to antagonize them or they will come down faster than Nymbus’s hammer.”

“Tisk” ‘This kingdom or empire or whatever it's called probably won’t let me go. Although based on what Hambel said about that Yolan empire it isn’t a good place, so for the meantime I will stay away from there and hopefully none tries to force me to stay.’

“Then all I can do is hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Mmmm.” Hambel gulped down his alcohol. “Well my beer is all gone so we can continue with your training now.

Over the course of a few hours Arthur and Hambel sparred in the training area. Hambel kept his strength and his attacks to a level that Arthur could handle.

When supper time had finally arrived Arthur and Hambel decided they would stop for the day and continue tomorrow.

/- - - - - -\

+ Long Blades Level 3

+ Block Level 3

\- - - - - -/

“I'll be back out here about noon tomorrow to continue your training. We should probably focus on armour seeing as you are a complete novice when wearing that set.”

“Thank you again Hambel. I will be sure to be out here by then to learn as much as I can from you.”

“Good good. You know you might just make an excellent Spell Blade one day.”

“You can fill me in on the details tomorrow.”

“Ha ha ha. I'll see you then.”

“You too.”

Arthur quickly made his way back to Cassia’s tent and when he found it he immediately ducked under the flap.

“Dear heavens Arthur. Why do you smell so bad?” Cassia exclaimed the moment she could smell the sweat dripping down his face.

“I was training with Hambel and we forgot about the time.”

With disgust clear on her face Cassia pointed her open palm towards Arthur and all his sweat floated off into a slightly cloudy sphere that she quickly sent out the tent flap.

“That is much better but you still need to clean yourself properly. Actually I have an idea, using a tub of water to clean yourself only using your hydromancy skills. That should be excellent training before you attend dinner.”

“How long will that take?” Arthur asked, a bit of fear visible on his face.

“Don’t worry there will be some food leftover for you, we don’t eat that much. And if we should eat that much I will save you a bit. Now get before you stink up my whole tent.”

“Alright alright just tell me where the baths are and I'll leave before I contaminate your tent.”

“They are all the way west at the end of the tunnel. There are several curtains around for privacy.”

“Okay I'm going to do that now, and remember to save me some food just in case.”

Arthur quickly made his way in the direction he thought was west. Very quickly he figured out he in fact did not go west and had to circle around the walls of the tunnel until he found the baths.

‘Finally I found the bathing area. Now all I need to worry about is finding the dining area after I finish up here. Hopefully that doesn’t take too long.’

Arthur took the farthest tub and filled it with water that was in a barrel not too far away. Arthur then dragged over a few curtains for his privacy before he undressed.

Arthur first took off the armour he had been wearing almost since he woke up. After looking it over for a bit he placed it on the ground and took off his shirt.

Arthur placed his hands into the tub of water and began to manipulate it. The water slowly flowed up his arms and across his torso cleaning him any dirt, sweat, and smells that were stuck to him. After several minutes of scrubbing with as much control as he could he could feel his control greatly increase.

/- - - - - -\

+ Hydromancy Level 2

\- - - - - -/

‘This is far easier and more mana efficient than making the water float. Perhaps that's why I ran out of mana so quickly.’

Soon all of Arthur’s upper body was clean and he would need to wash his lower half. As Arthur started he could hear the footsteps of someone else, based on how loud it was either a child or someone every short. Arthur could hear them drag over several of the curtains grumbling the whole time, the grumbles sounding slightly feminine.

Arthur decided to try and quickly finish up so he could get something to eat. Upon finishing he picked up the clothes he had woken up and decided to look them over. They weren't shabby but they weren't exquisite in any way, unfortunately the only boots Arthur had were the plate boots that were a part of the armour so he would need to wear them and carry the rest of the armour.

Arthur exited his little bath area and out of a bit of curiosity looked over to the other curtains and saw steam rising from the top. Then someone created an opening from the inside and walked out.

A young looking elf walked out and immediately saw Arthur looking over to her.

“A-Arthur? What are you doing here?”