Chapter 36: Combat Arts, Part 1

Chapter 36: Combat Arts, Part 1

It was noon, and the warm sunlight shined upon the land. People in Geldern were running around, going about their day as usual.

With long strides, Gerald went straight to the Headmaster Orin's office at the Magic Academy. He figured the old man could provide him with more details about the so-called Combat Arts.

At first, Orin Gezor was somewhat surprised, as he thought that Combat Arts were common knowledge. Even if not many people knew them, their existence was no secret. Still, he took his time and explained what he knew as best he could.

He said, "Combat Arts are like you would expect, a form of magic. However, differently from the Combat Magic spells, they were not newly created by us."

As he saw Gerald listening to him with interested he cleared his throat and continued, saying, "As you know, many artifacts were found in the past millennia. Many of them were written in ancient Elven language and we cannot fully translate them yet."

"However, some of them seemed to be copied much later, maybe in the hope of preserving them, and because the language was changing, we were able to translate some of them. Many of them contained records of history and it's those that helped us understand what the world was like before the Dark Ages."

"Did you also find Combat Arts magic in there?" Gerald jumped in with a question.

"Well yes, we did" answered Headmaster Orin, "But they were too advanced and we couldn't understand them even when they were translated. I think we just lack a piece of the puzzle to unlock their secrets Anyways that's beside the point."

"What I wanted to tell you is that among all of that, we found some old fighting techniques, that were supposed to strengthen your physical body. Unfortunately, they were also way out of our league, and we couldn't make use of them."

Gerald nodded in understanding and said, "That's a shame. I can imagine their creators would be dispirited if they knew their life's work would be lost in the river of time."

Orin's lips lifted in a slight smile as he said, "That might not be so."

"Oh?"

"Although we are indeed unable to make use of the original, many brilliant people tried to adapt those techniques to make them functional once more. The Unmoving Boulder, for example, was adapted from a technique called Stone Body Iron Heart. According to our calculations, it should be something like a top High-grade spell."

The Headmaster continued to explain as best he could. The Stone Body Iron Heart could supposedly make your entire body as hard as a rock and your organs as tough as iron. Apart from the unknown spell-casting method, there was also a high requirement for Mana.

It was not just a simple Mana requirement at the beginning, like other Novice-grade spells Gerald came to know. For its operation, it required a constant supply of Mana directly from the body of the user. It could not make use of any external source of energy.

Gerald frowned when he learned that. It appeared that internal Mana was somehow different from that inside of Elemental stones gathered from animals. Luckily he already had a way to increase his internal Mana, although it would probably take him a while to do so. At least he had some hope.

He took a cup of water and imbued it with his own Mana. Then he tried lifting it up all at once. The amount of water was not much, however, it felt like he was trying to lift it with a sieve.

When he lifted up a rock, he could hold it at one end and it would still float. Water, however, was completely different. After many tries, he discovered that his mind was not in the right place.

To manipulate Water Element he needed to completely incase the liquid inside his control, not giving it an option to drain out of his imaginary container. The more he tried, the worse the results were. It was also really taxing on his mind.

Gerald rubbed his temples in frustration and said, "That's enough for today, I have other things to do. Maybe I'll get an idea on how to solve this problem, later."

He took out another notebook and started writing about Stone Bolt spell. At the beginning of the book, he made an extensive and at the same time simplified description of the primal forces in the universe.

He had to make it so, otherwise, people probably wouldn't be able to understand the later parts of the spell.

Even with the shortened and simplified version, the spellbook still came to be over thirty pages long, including the spell itself. That came to be because he wrote it in the easiest and simple language he possibly could. There were a lot of explanations and examples as well as pictures to make it easier for the reader.

Time quickly passed and it was already late at night when Gerald finished. He was just about to go to sleep when he heard light knocks on the door. Although he thought it was weird, he still went to check who was disturbing him this late.

Surprisingly, it was Luna who came knocking. Gerald didn't know what was going on, so he asked, "Can I help you?"

"I'm sorry for disturbing you this late Gerald, but I was told it's an emergency" Luna said apologetically.

Gerald lifted his hand to stop her apologizing and said, "It's okay, don't worry about it. Tell me; what's going on?"

"Actually, I don't know. Kerius came and said he had to talk to you, and that it was an emergency."

'Kerius, huh? I really hope he didn't come this late just for the book. Also, what's the emergency?' Gerald thought to himself and followed Luna to the hall.

It was a pretty quiet night and there were only a few people left in the Guild hall. Torches and oil lamps threw some light on the otherwise dark room.

Gerald found Kerius sitting on a bench next to a wall, nervously looking around. He immediately knew something was wrong, but he still went to meet him.

"Kerius, good evening, I guess. Whatcha got for me?"