Chapter 18 guiding the way
“No no no your movements are still too stiff you guys, are you actually the best fighters in this kingdom?” Zack yelled at our new students.
“What do you mean, too stiff? What are you talking about? Our movements are as fluid as a stream of water that never stops moving!” A stubborn male knight shouts back at Zack.
“Oh you think your movements are as fluid as a stream of water huh, I wish you could even do half that good, your movements are as fluid as stone golem that an average mage could form!”
The male knight from before was baffled at Zack’s comment and was fuming at his comment but just gave up. “If you're gonna complain about my comments on your skill, focus on how to fix your mistakes in your movements that way you prove me wrong!”
I then looked back at the knights I was supposed to be teaching for that day about ten it looked like. Now how can I help these guys in a way they’ll understand I mean Zack’s not wrong about their movements. I know they are practicing on dummies but their movements should be swift or atleast have each motion go into another like a perfectly done dance that never stops. Even if they don’t realize it they stop their blades just a bit too long for the speed that they can move and attack.
Oh I have a fun idea that should help them practice and it’ll be funner then using those dummies all day long. “Hey you guys stop striking those dummies, it's time you practiced with something else.”
One of the ten knights then askes “what exactly are you going to have us practice with other than these dummies? Wait, are we sparring against each other for once? It’s been ages since we did that!”
“While that sounds fun I think you need to practice a different way before you can spar with minimal injury. So who’s up first?”
The first knight stepped up while I had the rest step back and just observe what they would soon be doing. “You ready? All you have to do is block or dodge these attacks but I’d prefer if you parried them because it’d help you more.” I quickly fired some slow white flames at the knight to just get them prepared as he soon readied his sword. I then unleashed a gust of wind to expand the flames and increased their speed crashing towards the young knight. In the end he leaped into the air to escape the torrent of magic so I dispelled it and then sent a flurry of golden lightning at the knight. He couldn’t escape the blast so he had to block it as he landed which threw off his balance when landing, almost cutting himself. I then fired a small rock which he parried just barely so kept going with a flurry of pebbles. Sadly he failed to parry them all as one broke through and scraped the side of his face which made him pause from the pain of the flesh tearing off. Luckily it did little damage but it definitely hurt at that speed.
“Alright take a break, next!”
Up next was an older female knight who prepared right away unlike the previous knight. This time I started with a barrage of wind, so she side-stepped out of the way as I then sent a jolt of lightning her way. She then conjured her own lightning to block the attack just barely deflecting. I then decided to mix together some elements sending blasts of water with a few rocks hidden in them with gusts of wind encasing the bullets of water.
She slashed at an impressive speed to parry and block the barrage of bullets. By the end of it she looked like they were about to collapse. Her sword was heavily dented and broken from the attack but she managed to hold out so I stopped. “I think I realize what you mean now Cellen”
“Oh you do that’s good make sure to keep it secret so the others can figure it out themselves they’ll learn better that way”
“Yes sir!”
Gleefully the female knight walked away smug as the others stared at her asking questions but not getting an answer.
The rest of the knight’s took their chances at my little test of their swordplay and only 3 others managed to improve from before and like the female knight they were all a bit older than the rest. I would guess they were around maybe 30-40 just a bit before they would get some gray hair. “So what have you have learned from this, younger knights?”
“Uh we lack experience in combat and it hinders our movements and knowledge of how to train properly to improve?”
“Pretty much anyways you can go rest for the rest of the day it’s seems the sun is close to setting just look at that amazing crimson and orange hue of the sky!”
Zack then asked “so I think it’s time we give their commander special treatment right Cel?”
“Yeah we’ve kinda ignored him all day, so how shall we train him this evening”
“Hey wait, if we are here all night how will I eat dinner!?” Deral pleaded
“If you can prove you don’t need our help training and end it early enough to go eat with the rest or you could just ask one of the knights to request that food is brought to you.”
The knights walked away from the training court snickering as the commander began to stretch nervously as Zack walked up to him while I watched from the podium in the center for what was about to occur and help guide the commander through.
Zack then lifted a small platform beneath them as they started talking about how they would be training. It appeared Zack was going to teach the commander some extremely close hand to hand combat. Which the commander needed because seemed to struggle with hand to hand combat before and relied on his divine magic for getting in close without a sword. Zack quickly sent a flurry of light jabs at the commander who desperately tried to not fall off the 3 by 3 platform that was a solid few feet in the air. Zack paused so that Deral could regain some ground and Deral quickly tried to go for a leg sweep which failed as Zack hopped over and landed on Derals leg. Deral made some progress as I shouted out some advice here and there but he failed to make enough progress to earn dinner early. His breathing was ragged as he walked out the training grounds mumbling under his breath as crystal came by to bring him some food which helped him perk up.
Since we were done for the day training the knights we decided to go hunting for our dinner before heading back to our room. Hunting at night always seemed so satisfying to me for some reason it felt so freeing and natural. The crisp cool air felt very comfortable. We had to go pretty far out because we were staying in the center of the capital so it took us awhile but finally we found some half bull half bunny beasts in a horde all together. We cooked them practically where they stood because of our hunger and just slept out in the forest right outside the capital and looked at the stars.
We pointed out some weird shapes the stars made and how they reminded us of dragons, undead, vampires, and sort of Zack. But Zack argued it looked a bit more like me than him. “It’s just shining too bright to be me!” We slowly lost our energy to argue what it looked like as the lul of the silent almost empty forest pulled us asleep.
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