Vol. 2 – Chapter 50 – Mediocre

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On a windy night, a crimson-haired young man walked outside the warm house that guested him not to long ago, where a small creature the size of a little boy tagged along, downing a leather armor that was skintight, and at first sight holding a dagger around the belt of his trousers.

The young man kept on moving at a greater distance from the house, stopping at the periphery of the courtyard.

The small creature looked around himself, confused, but soon the crimson-haired young man cleared his thoughts.

"This far will not disturb Fayrene's sleep. You can train here without having to worry about random people staring at you, or others that might annoy you. This is my training place since I knew this place."

The small creature using his draconian eyes could see in the dark night the training ground settled down by the young man, a space, delimited by some trees, and full of weeds that could soften a landing.

"How should I train?"

"Like how you used to do back home?" inquired the young man, with some confusion in his tone, while gazing down at the small creature that got embarrassed immediately.

"I didn't really do that much, except for swinging the dagger around so it doesn't feel awkward." responded the small creature, taking out his dagger from the belt and starting showing to the young man how he trained, by doing some basic sword attacking patterns.

Inside the young man's brain, a voice belonging to an old man ringed, commenting along with the observation of the red-head.

{That kobold has some talent for someone who was never taught the sword or any weapon in general. Still, lad, have him stop my eyes hurt just watching him. What is with that footwork? Barbaric swings, he holds a dagger for Rebecca's Ass, the movement and fighting style is completely different from a sword.}

'I mean, his attacks seem to flow instinctively and from his reflexes. They are efficient when it comes to killing your enemy.'

{Yes and no. His movements are too wild and stiff which would lead to him getting opened up. Sigh, do you really want to know what using a dagger-type blade looks like?}

'It doesn't hurt me knowing, but how will you show me? I can only hear your voice, without seeing you.'

{Do you know how to dance?} inquired Haycien something out of ordinary, which made Mathias look confused as Vek was swinging around the dagger in a careless way.

'I know a bit, since my mom was adamant to me enrolling into the school dancing club, but what relevance does knowing how to dance have here?' replied Mathias in a short way, with his memories about the time in his elementary school that he enrolled in some program to learn how to dance.

{Well, it does. You just have to move according to my instructions, and maybe you will open your eyes to what dagger play is supposed to be.}

After the two settled down on how this training session would look like, he went to light some torches that he placed around to make the atmosphere amiable for the night. Looking at Vek who was playing around, he took out a dagger-type weapon from his inventory that was something dropped by the mountain bandits he killed, a normal-rated weapon without any effects besides the statutory attack power.

Grasping the dagger in his hand, the voice of the old man whose voice gave off some eagerness to what was about to happen.

Starting off slowly, Haycien told Mathias about some fundamentals, from how his feet should be positioned and how the guards should look like. The guards suggested by Haycien had a weird pattern, that from his view were lacking defense.

'Sir, are you sure the guard should look like this?' asked Mathias who raised his right hand, holding the dagger up, as if he was readying to block a punch to his side.

{Just follow my lead, as you learned to dance. This will be a coordination, between my voice and your body, so don't think too much}

Isolating his thoughts away from disturbing him, Mathias then allowed Haycien to continue on guiding him, who remained on the idea of having his leading hand raised with the dagger before he moved.

The way he told him to move was also a fundamental thing for the dagger play, never extending to much, and using short steps, it a sense as time passed it made him feel he was pivoting on a boxing ring, reading himself to strike.

His movement was noticed by Haycien who could feel his executing each step to the word, and was surprised to see how well coordinated Mathias was under his commands.

{Good, we played a bit with the footwork and stances. Now is the time to start something you have probably been waiting for a while. I will not go into much detail tonight, since we have plenty of time on our hands.}

Not questioning back, giving a silent answer to the old man who was smiling widely, his wrinkled and ancient face seemed to release some Red Aura, but it soon vanished in empty air.

Nevertheless, the training for Mathias just began, as he was listening to some weird attack patterns that he at first didn't question but when he visualized an opponent in front of him, he stopped in place and asked out loud.

"Sir, aren't those dagger techniques too reckless? My defense when attacking is completely exposed, and if I am not wrong once someone parries or blocks my strike, I am certainly dead if not severely wounded."

{Kid, this is where you are wrong. Less questioning my techniques and practice those movements until the sun rises. All the basic things I've taught you tonight, practice them until your nose bleeds.} replied Haycien in a direct way, telling him in his face the steps he should follow to get down the basic techniques for the dagger.

'No offense sir, but I feel you took me wrong, I am not really interested in the dagger as a weapon, but the spear. I wanted to give a hand to the kobold and maybe teach him some fundamentals to take him to another level.'

With Mathias saying that in his mind, he still did the dagger strikes taught by Haycien, where an instinctive thought of his was to also combine the footwork, similar to the 'Raven's Movement' and the spear techniques taught by Corvus. When he combined the footwork taught by Haycien, something clicked in his mind and it wasn't the old man.

His movement got more fluid together with the footwork, and his strikes got unconsciously enhanced adding a more swift and domineering appeal to them. In that moment he discovered the new changes, his face was giving off a faint smile that made Haycien remark.

{You say you don't like the dagger, but it seems you have a blast right now.}

Hearing the old man say that, Mathias suddenly stopped in place, glancing around himself and later at his right hand that was grasping the dagger tightly.

{There's nothing wrong with being able to use more weapons. Lad, if you want to stand at the pinnacle of this world, only by knowing how to use a sword, or a spear, the basic weapons that most people would focus on, will not suffice. I don't even have enough time to explain to you the advantages that learning other types of weapons would bring to you, as you grow forward.}

{But I will start with this, learning different weapons, it means you learned what your future enemies might be able to do. Think lad, the advantages you could gain above the rest who just focus on a sole weapon.}

{For example, you still choose to main the spear, but this is in theory because you are still young and your convictions will fluctuate as you learn more and understand your body to another level. Yet, for example, you face a dagger master, knowing what a dagger master can do, using your spear, tell me, how would you feel?}

Mathias who got such deep words from Haycien was silent, contemplating on what was said, and at the beginning, he was prone to disagree with what the old man said, and even mentioned.

'Sir, but don't you think that with the time I have, it should be better to simply master one weapon?'

{That would be something you naturally are inclined to do, that's how I was when young, and mastered the spear. But then, after you master it and notice the natural weaknesses of the spear, things you can see only by experiencing certain defeats. Thus, to make sure those defeats never repeat, you diversify your knowledge and master more weapons, until you turn sick of how much information you got stored in your mind.}

With the old man's response which sounded a bit sinnister in the grand scheme of things, Mathias agreed with his point, it felt as if a small seed was planted inside the mind of this young man, whose ideals were still swaying, not fully knowing the correct path to the pinnacle, but standing there silently gazing at Vek who was slashing his dagger and moving like how Mathias did, he remarked taken aback.

"It would take a crazy person to pull this off. Does this mean I am with the greatest madman in history? How long do you say it will take me to master your knowledge?"

{Hahaha, thanks for the compliment. How long do you ask? A lifetime.}

"More specific?" inquired Mathias gazing at the moon in the sky that gave off a gentle light one of the views that captivated him, the moon that was constantly smiling to him whenever he was down or tired.

{Specific? Lad, the rate you assimilate information is a quick one. I've noticed that you managed yourself well with the footwork, maybe because you use those lousy steps you call 'Raven's Movement', nothing to brag about for a signature footwork. Regardless, if you really put your mind into this, and train yourself constantly, assimilating my knowledge, you will stand at the top by the time you are in your thirties.}

He didn't comment on the estimation Haycien gave him, and only contemplated to himself, but when he saw Vek make some mistakes in his movement, his moment of thinking ended.

"Come here, little kobold, that's not how you do the footwork."

"It is not? But I thought I had mimicked your technique correctly." responded Vek who got called by Mathias.

Later on Mathias showed to Vek in a slow way the pivoting of the footwork taught by Haycien, along with the strikes that made the kobold step back as he felt the pressure of each attack.

Continuing showing to Vek the right way intended for the techniques, he later gave a chance to the kobold to demonstrate if he understood what he explained.

The kobold movement was still off, that he later got hit by a branch Mathias picked from a nearby tree, in a similar style Corvus taught him by beating him whenever he would mess up.

It took a while for Mathias to instill some discipline in the kobold who was recklestly doing the footwork without any coordination, just acting on instincts, but slowly with the night flowing and the two training together, the changes in the foot placement in Vek started to be seen, while Mathias was reinforcing his newly acquired skills by teaching the latter.

"Vek, you need to practice the technique in a clean form to understand how the footwork and strikes work, otherwise just by blindly following the technique you will later encounter moments when those will not work or be countered and you will not understand why. Slowly repeat the footwork and slashes, until you feel the motion fluid, just like you saw in me."

"But why?" asked Vek who felt slightly flustered by how slow he was asked to move and attack.

"So you can master the technique and adapt it to all sort of situations of combat"

{Well said, lad. Well said. You really are fit for teaching others. Unlike me, your patience is slightly higher. If it was me teaching that kobold, I would lash that branch on his body until he got each step correct.}

'I am not a fan of violence, what I did was just giving some stimulus to enforce certain ideas, and help the kobold rectify what was wrong. Anyway, now I will train my spear a bit. Sir, can you tell me afterwards the things you've seen me doing wrong?"

{Sure, not like I had anything else to do.} remarked Haycien jokingly, giving his approval to what Mathias requested.

Nodding his head, Mathias took out Ragnius, the dark crimson spear which looked normal, but was still in a slightly poor condition even at this point. Yet nothing of concern to Mathias, who began doing his normal spear drills.

From the spear stances that he began combining with attacks, such as [Piercing Rain] or [Sweep Thrust], which were diligently trained regardless of how boring they seemed as he continued on that path, aware of the fact that those boring repetitions would take him far.

In the past when he was training those drills, each and everyone of his attacks would leave him grasping for breaths, with now the [Piercing Rain] consuming 35 MP, along with the [Sweep Thrust] that were linked together. They indeed took a toll on his mana resources in the past, but to the new Mathias, the one who had the class of Saharan Successor, the former techniques that would drain his small mana core, were now just small droplets of rain to his mana core.

Hours flew by, one by one with Mathias religiously training his body, spear technique and mind, leaving himself covered in sweat that he took off his shirt, leaving his upper body naked to be chilled by the night's wind.

Vek stopped from what he was doing, after getting tired of the relentless drills Mathias told him to execute, lacking in Stamina compared to Mathias who was like a phoenix, shining with the Red Aura enveloping himself.

{Mind and body controls the Red Energy, lad. You are leaving your Red Energy radiate outside.}

His mind was starting to get fatigued with his Stamina resource reaching a low level, and with Haycien's warning, he began to take deep breaths, while swinging his spear in a menacing way.

Getting the Red Energy under his control again, he activated 'Raven's Movement' and started to get to the finishing part of his drill, combining all of his attacks into a pattern he made out, visualizing in his mind the fights and challenges he underwent. From the encounter with the Lurking Spider Queen that marked him, where he was running that encounter in his mind, trying to find a way he could have lasted longer, to Evander's fight where he took in all the attacks he saw from the bandit leader and later in his mind doing the fight again.

This method that might sound crazy, only achievable by those with a visualizing capacity, and strong minds alike, but it was something that give Mathias this feeling of being "wierd", being able to remember the things that marked him to the smallest details, while the events that didn't mark him, being slowly removed from his mind.

Executing all of his spear techniques and draining himself from mana, and stamina, he collapsed on the greenfield, and while gasping for air, he asked out loud.

"How was it, sir?"

{Mediocre.} remarked Haycien with a serious voice, not sounding sarcastic nor joking.

"I see … "

Mathias in those moments he was recovering his breath, felt a bit down hearing that appraisal of himself, but then the old man continued.

{Mediocre by my standards. If it was Dehakel he would probably proclaim you as some "genius" for the dedication to the spear you have shown. Nevertheless, your techniques that you have drilled, besides my skills that drained you quite fast of your mana and Red Energy are the basic stuff I would maybe teach my grandsons too.}

"This means I am not bad?"

{No, not really. You've got the basics down, and are like a rough diamond waiting to be discovered and polished by a master jeweler. Lucky for you lad, you got that Master Jeweler right besides you, who will clean you up of all impurities.}

"Hah, that sounded a bit wierd."

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Some minutes passed after he said that where it got silent, but then, the old man's voice resounded again inside Mathias's mind, confused.

{Kid, I am still weak, and as I pondered to myself what to work with you, I have just too many skills and techniques especially for the spear. Yet here is the problem, I can't teach you my lineage spear techniques until you slowly master my techniques.}

'It is fine sir, no need to stress yourself about this. The techniques you've given me suffice for the starting journey and as I master that technique and you also slowly recover, you will be able to teach me.'

{Sigh, to heck with this, I really wanted to teach you something cool. Fuck, it seems I am only limited to those basic techniques, and those more advanced ones, require you to grow and for me to recover a bit.}

'It is fine, thanks for the help regardless.'

{It is not.}

'We'll manage something, but to not derail from the subject, can you tell me the things I make mistakes with the spear?'

{Where should I even start?}

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On another hand while Mathias and Haycien were having their discussion, trying to improve one beginner spearman's mistakes, the same could be said for the rest of players who didn't stop from advancing in this journey of theirs, regardless of what path they pursued, they didn't stop.

The levels of those players were raising ever so slowly, with only two days being enough for a certain one called Kraugel to dethrone the Uncrowned Champion, where beside him was the one who made the most buzz in those early days of the game outset, Red.

He managed to rise to level 33, while Kraugel got to level 35, with Vivian and Paula stagnating since Iljnoks Raid.

However in those early days of the game, everything could change with a snap of fingers, since there were still more people joining the game daily, beginning their adventure, or those who got slowed down by a chain of quests, ignoring the leveling aspect, and focusing more on those early intricate quests.

Such was the case of a lady, in her mid-twenties, with black hair and brown eyes, wearing a clean chain armor that small decorations imprinted on it, a sign that is was some cheap metalwork, but instead an excellently crafted armor.

Currently, she was staring at a middle-aged man who had purple long hair, who looked at her uninterested, but nevertheless, he listened to the woman before him who told him about the story of how she helped out an old man inside a recused village in Fullbaz with all sort of menial things, from washing his clothes, spreading ointment on his back that was filled with scars.

It was a special encounter of this young lady, which marked both old person and girl, as such, for her efforts of ridding the old man of his pain, he mentioned to her about his past which shocked her.

With her story told to the middle-aged man in front of her, whose expression got caught by the raven-haired woman, and after she finished her part, he remarked.

"To think that retired old man would still be breathing and even remembered the Church he so selfishly chose to leave behind. Nevertheless, it seems you two got connected in a sense, so I will listen to that single request I've left for former Cardinal Thomas Wolsey."

"Your Holiness Pascal, I want to join Judar's Church and follow in the footsteps of old Tom."

"That's the request you want using the last favor that old man has with me?" asked the middle-aged man sitting on his ecclesiastic throne, glazing more intently at this woman in front of him that was rather gorgeous if he took his time to admire her appearance.

"Indeed, Your Holiness, I want to join Judar's Church."

"Haha, then why didn't you go to the priests first to ask for enrolment? You wouldn't be using that favor."

"Sir Thomas told me to use it, and directly ask you, Your Holiness."

"Tsk, that annoying old man. His Greatness, God Judar the Lord of Wisdom and Health, is witness to my early days as a priest who got under Cardinal Thomas's wing, learning the craft from him. Do you know why that old man instructed you to tell me this?"

The raven-haired woman, in the chain armor, shook her head, waiting for the middle-aged man to respond directly.

"That's because now I have to return the favor for all of his teachings and take you under my wing. Hah such annoyance, how old was that old man by now? Around, maybe 71 years old? Can't he kick the bucket by now? Regardless, take this medallion of mine, and present it to Cardinal Reinhard and he will guide you for the beginning since I am busy right now.

After you progress, I might think about giving you a chance to be under me."

'Didn't you just say you will accept it? Now you changed your mind? Hah, is this really the place old Thomas mentioned with such melancholy? I only feel I landed in the wrong place.' thought the young woman while glancing shortly at the man on the Ecclesiastical Throne, Pascal.