Book 2: Chapter 28: Preparations

Book 2: Chapter 28: Preparations

“That’s it, Victor! You got him now!” Edeya yelled from the sidelines. She’d shown up a few hours into his session with Polo and was enthusiastic in her support for him, though it seemed to make Polo want to thrash him even more soundly every time she cheered. Still, Victor appreciated the encouragement and pressed his attack, using everything Polo had deemed “okay for sparring.”

Sovereign Will pumped up his agility, Inspiring Presence guided his axe, and Channel Spirit flooded Lifedrinker and his arms with inspiration-attuned Energy. Polo had told him not to use any rage Energy, saying it would make it harder to learn rather than help. He’d been enthusiastically in favor of Victor using inspiration Energy, though, and it seemed to be paying off—Victor was getting noticeably faster and more graceful in his axe movements as the afternoon stretched on.

“Go! Push him!” Edeya cheered as Victor drove forward, whipping Lifedrinker through the air in glittering silver-gold arcs, her blade sizzling with inspiration Energy as it sliced the wind. Polo backed up, dodging with an economy of movement that left Victor bewildered. As Victor’s fourth cleave in his lightning combo arced dangerously close to his shoulder, the big Vodkin seemed to shrug, and then his colossal axe blade was there, taking the blow in a shower of golden sparks. Still, Polo whistled for him to stop, backing up a step.

“That was the first time I had to block or be cut. You’re learning, novice!”

“Thank you, First Axe,” Victor said, the honorific coming more easily to his tongue after several hours of enforced usage.

“C’mon, don’t stop now!” Edeya called, and Polo grinned, his big, whiskered jowls bouncing with the movement.

“Your vicious little friend is right. Now’s the time to push it!” Polo thrust his axe forward, suddenly smashing the blunt top into Victor’s armored chest, knocking him back a few steps. Victor grinned and lifted Lifedrinker, then renewed his efforts to take a slice out of Polo’s mountainous body.

Polo was an expert instructor, seeming to always be just out of Victor’s reach, yet never so far that Victor gave up. It was like he knew exactly how close to let Victor get, so he’d keep thinking he almost had him. With each narrow miss or parried blow, Victor gained new insights into how the huge Vodkin moved, and he began to subconsciously anticipate the big warrior’s maneuvers.

It was just such a moment when Victor had a true breakthrough, running through a combo, knowing how Polo would respond, and changing up the arc of the final cleave at the last second. Polo’s eyes widened, and, again, he moved his shoulders in an almost shrug, seeming to flip his axe through space somehow, so the big, flat blade was suddenly in front of his neck, catching Lifedrinker’s edge as she arced in a gleaming slice. A shower of hot sparks sizzled around the two combatants, and a System message appeared in Victor’s eyes:

***Congratulations! You’ve learned the skill: Axe Mastery - Advanced.***

“Fuck yes!” Victor shouted as sudden understanding flooded into his mind. Suddenly, many of Polo’s movements that had seemed like mysterious magic made sense to him, and he knew their counters. What’s more, he felt his muscles flex with sudden memories—knowledge of how to flick his blade into parry positions and adjust his momentum a hair’s breadth to turn the angle of his attack, catching his opponent off guard. These and a thousand other sparks of insight flooded through his mind and body, and Victor dropped to a knee as he processed all the information.

He was just starting to wrap his head around his new skill level when hundreds of little balls of golden Energy began to form in the air around him. He took a deep breath, bracing himself, and then they surged toward him, bursting like little, golden fireworks as they crashed into him. He held his breath, hoping for another System message, but nothing came, and he sighed, letting out his air in a heavy sigh, “Damn!”

“What?” Edeya asked, having run up to clap him on the shoulder.

“Was hoping I’d get a level off that, but no such luck.”

“Hah, the impatience of youth,” Polo said, lifting his huge axe and dropping it on the ground with a thud to add inflection to his words. “I think you must have been close to improving your axe skill on your own because I’ve never seen someone go so quickly from improved to advanced.”This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

“What’s your axe skill at, First Axe?” Edeya asked, saving Victor the trouble.

“Legendary, pup. One of only three on this continent. Unless some axe master is hiding out there that doesn’t want me to know about it.”

“Legendary . . .” Edeya breathed, her eyes unfocusing as she visualized it.

“That’s right. I was nearly two decades moving past Epic. I didn’t have Inspiration Energy cheating for me, though. You’d be smart to practice with this one,” Polo gave Victor a slap on the shoulder. “Assuming Rellia doesn’t cut him up in a few days.”

“Victor will win. You haven’t seen him lose his temper.” Edeya reached out and gave Victor’s trap a squeeze. “You got this, Victor.”

“Thanks, Edeya.”

“Rage might help. If you weren’t a berserker, I’d tell you to keep your cool, but I’ve seen what a rager can do—if you’re going to win against Rellia, it will be because of your rage. We need to practice more, though—she’s going to know about your berserking, and she’ll have a plan for it. Trust me—it’s all anyone’s talking about in the city right now.”

“What? Seriously?” Victor stood up and slipped Lifedrinker into her belt loop.

“Well, among certain circles, at least. I’d heard of you even before Lam’s messenger came for me. It’s not often you get a tier four, old, razor beak coming out of retirement to fight some nobody at the Harvest Fest.”

“Is it true Rellia had more kills than Asyr-dak in the Beneset Wars?” Edeya asked, her eyes still distant while she pictured some imaginary battlefield.

“Hah! If you heard that, you can be sure the rumor started with Rellia. Asyr-dak was already a legend before that war even began, and he left this world shortly after. I can assure you that Rellia’s not so much as a shadow to his flame.”

“Left this world?” Victor asked, having no idea who they were even talking about. “As in died?”

“No, lad, he traveled off world, seeking greater challenges. In the scheme of things, Fanwath is new. I don’t know many Energy users at my level, and I’d be considered a novice on some of the older worlds.”

“He just, uh, traveled off world? Like in a spaceship?”

“Through the Settlement Stone, you goof,” Edeya said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Victor nodded, and he supposed he did vaguely remember people talking about how you could pay for teleportation through the Settlement Stones if you had enough money.

“Enough chit-chat. Girl, go stand aside; I’m going to see what Victor can do now.”

“Yes, First Axe!” Edeya said sharply and scurried off to stand by the door.

“Well, lad, I told Lam I’d give you a thorough evaluation, and I can’t do that if I make you hold back all your skills. You ready to show me what you’ve got?”

“Um, yes, First Axe, but do you mean I can use Berserk? I’ve been working on my control while I do it, but I can’t promise I won’t hurt you.”

“You should go clean up and then do some cultivating. If you can hit thirty, you might gain a new skill or two with your class refinement. I’m sure Rellia has intel about your berserking, but she won’t know what sort of refinement you’ll get—it could make all the difference.”

“Yeah, I must be getting close, don’t you think? I’ll try to level my Core again, and hopefully, that’ll do it.”

“I have no idea how close you are—Lam’s the only person I’ve spent any time with that’s higher than tier two. I’ve heard that it gets slower and slower to level as you gain power, though. It makes sense, I suppose; each level requires more Energy to improve your attributes and build up your pathways to handle the surges of your skills. You’re lucky you’ve improved your race so much. If I ever want to see tier three, I’ll need quite a few racial advancements to handle all that Energy.”

“Yeah, Thayla told me something similar. All right, well, I’m going to head to my room, Edeya. Thanks for hanging out with me today. See you in the morning?”

“Of course. See you then, Victor.” She smiled and waved as he scooted back the bench and stood.

On his way back to his room, he saw that Binna was sitting at her station, and he stopped to say, “Binna, I’m going to spend the evening cultivating. Please make sure no one, well, no one other than Lam or Thayla or Edeya, bothers me. I mean, I won’t need any maid service or food or anything, okay?”

“Understood, Mr. Sandoval.” Binna bowed, managing to look like she’d just received an important quest.

Victor went into his rooms, noting that they were clean and that his bed had been made. It crossed his mind that he could get used to that kind of service, and he instantly felt guilty. He wasn’t sure why, but the idea of people having to go around cleaning up his mess filled him with a desire to get his shit together. Maybe it was his abuela talking, but he felt like he should be able to make his own bed.

He went around the two rooms, closed all the blinds, then sat in the middle of the bedroom's carpet and looked at his attribute points, not wanting to waste any time:

Strength:

127

Vitality:

90

Dexterity:

40

Agility:

63

Intelligence:

32

Will:

203

Points Available:

10

He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t spent his available points yet. He supposed that, on some level, he’d wanted to get some advice, and he’d been hoping to have more one-on-one time with Lam. He could have asked Polo Vosh about it, but they’d been so busy with actual sparring that Victor hadn’t thought about it. Now he was about to try to push his way into another level, and he felt like he should distribute his available points first. What if it made a difference with regard to his class refinement?

One thing was certain: he’d learned that none of his attributes were pointless. Even intelligence seemed to play a factor in how he performed in combat. He’d learned that all of his physical attributes were related in one way or another, but he seemed to be doing fine, balancing them. So far, his lower dexterity hadn’t negatively impacted his strength. Even when he cast Berserk and his Titanic Rage kicked in, pushing his strength up around five hundred, he hadn’t noticed a problem. “Would I notice when I’m raging out, though?” he asked the shadows in the room.

Victor couldn’t deny that his high will had served him very well. It helped him to avoid fear, avoid mind control, and allowed him to dominate others with his Project Spirit ability. More than that, he could boost his other attributes with it. “Fuck it,” he said, pushing ten points into will.

He hadn’t tried to make any new constructs for rage in a very long time, and he didn’t know if he wanted to. He decided to stick with what worked, going through his cultivation cycle several times, working through each of the rage constructs he’d made so long ago, sitting in the cage at the Wagon Wheel. Like always, they worked, allowing him to cycle red, pulsing rage through his pathways and slowly build its intensity as he pushed it along until he felt his body was brimming, vibrating with the fury. Then he slowly pulled it back, compressing it into his Core. Each time he did it, he could see the red, throbbing heart of his rage attunement get just a little brighter.

When the disparity between his rage Core and his inspiration Core became apparent, he switched, cultivating the inspiration constructs he’d made while hiding away deep in the crevices of the Greatbone Mine. The discomfort and irritation that had lingered with his rage cultivation faded away, and he built up the white-gold Energy of inspiration in his pathways, over and over, filling himself to bursting and then pulling it in, pushing it into the shimmering sun of his inspiration attunement.

The hours faded away as he continued to cultivate. When his inspiration Energy was built up to the equivalent of his rage Energy, he started again, running through the whole process for each of his attunements dozens of times.

When he felt the click of his two attunements breaching some sort of invisible barrier, he knew that if he looked away from his Core, he’d see the System message telling him his Core had leveled. He didn’t look right away, though, hoping that he’d have messages waiting to tell him that the growth of his Core had been enough to edge him over the threshold of level thirty. He sat there for several minutes, staring at his Core, at the two orbiting suns of his attunements, and waited, steadying himself.

Finally, utterly calm, his heart barely beating, Victor opened his eyes and looked out, away from his Core, and read what the System had to say:

***Congratulations! Your Spirit-class Core has advanced to: Base-Seven.***

***Congratulations! You have achieved level 30 Herald of Carnage, gained 10 will, 8 strength, and have 10 attribute points to allocate.***

***Level 30 Class refinement is available. Class refinement is permanent. Human Energy cultivators will next be offered a Class refinement selection at level 40. To view your options and make your selection, access the menu through your status page.***

“Fuck yes!” Victor hissed between his teeth. “Time to see what kind of surprise I can pull out for Lady ap’Yensha!”