Chapter 188

The truth was that the obstacle course wasn’t designed for someone of Luke’s level. The first section, for example, was comprised of platforms that had obstructions hanging between them. Challengers were supposed to go around by leaping to the left or right and using the poles rising up out of the ground as walls to bounce off of. They would follow a zig-zag pattern as they went back and forth.

Luke noted that the obstructions were simple sheets of wooden hung off a rope strung up overhead, and that the rope was only ten feet above the small platforms he was supposed to land on. He jumped straight up over top of them, landed on the rope, and ran forward in three great bounding strides that took him to the far end of the first obstacle.

The second obstacle was a twenty-foot-wide pit with a rope hanging in front of it. Luke was supposed to climb the rope and use the handholds provided at the top to cross, kind of like crossing the monkey bars as a kid. Instead, he took a running start as he came down from the first section and leaped the entire pit in one go.

The entire course went like that. It just wasn’t designed for somebody with his level of stats. The wall with the single nubby hand-hold slowed him for a second as he landed on the second peg from the top, balanced on one foot, and launched himself straight up and over it. Many of the lesser obstacles he avoided altogether by either jumping through empty space or leaping up to the framework overhead and using it to help him cross.

From front to finish, it took him about two minutes to complete.

Then he ran it again, and again, each time shaving a few seconds off his time. After his fourth lap, Hakiro flagged him down and said, “I think this course might be a bit too easy for you. Besides, we should let the people who are actually supposed to be training get back to it, don’t you think?”

“Oh, right. Sorry about that,” Luke said.

“It’s fine. They’ve had enough of a break.” Hakiro paused and regarded him. “Maybe something a bit more exhausting? By the time you run yourself out of energy on this one, the sun’ll be up anyway.”

“What did you have in mind?” Luke asked, peering around. He didn’t see a second obstacle course anywhere.

“Sparring ring will tire you right out,” Hakiro said. “I’ll be your partner.”

“If you’re sure,” Luke said. He didn’t want to hurt the man, but the truth was Hakiro was a higher level than him and fairly strongly combat oriented.

“Don’t worry about holding back. We’ve got plenty of on-staff healers. And by plenty, I mean three. That’s more than enough to fix any sparring injuries.”

Hakiro led Luke to a dirt circle lined with rocks and a simple wooden railing. It was a hundred feet wide and had a little tool shed looking thing at one end. Hakiro went inside, then came back out with a set of padded jackets, metal vambraces, and a pair of dull swords. “Here, put these on,” he told Luke, passing him the jacket and the vambraces.

“Oh damn, these are pretty heavy,” Luke said as he fastened the metal to his forearms.

“Help wear you out faster,” Hakiro said. “And I know the sword isn’t your weapon of choice, but it is mine. You’ll be on offense, and this’ll help keep me safe.”

That all made sense to Luke. He put on the protective gear—the padded jacket was also lined with some sort of heavy metal strips—and gave the sword a few test swings. “What is this all made out of?” Luke asked. He was pretty sure he had better than four hundred pounds of metal on him.

“Some sort of steel and pyre gold alloy, I believe. Bit softer than a standard weapon and a hell of a lot heavier, so it’s useful for training purposes. It’ll still hurt to get it with it, of course, but at the level we’re working at, the sword will bend before we do.”

“And pain’s an excellent motivator to learn not to repeat mistakes,” Luke said, thinking back to some of his initial fights when he had first arrived on Aros. Even with his new stats making him stronger and more resilient, he’d gotten his ass kicked more than once. He hadn’t always learned his lesson the first time, but he’d damn well done his best.

Hakiro took his place about twenty feet away from Luke in the center of the ring and raised his sword. Luke’s own weapon felt awkward in his hands, like it was poorly weighted and balanced even though he knew it wasn’t. He was used to all the heft being at the end, swords just weren’t built that way. It didn’t help that he was going from a rank 5 [Mace Mastery]to a rank 1 [Sword Mastery] skill.

“Come at me whenever you’re ready,” Hakiro said.

Luke took a few practice swings to get a feel for the sword. He had no idea what pyre gold was, but it was certainly heavy. If the sword weighed less than fifty pounds, he’d be surprised. Between that and the vambraces on his arms, his attacks were going to have a lot of inertia behind them. They’d hit hard, but changing direction or reacting to counters was going to be difficult.

He couldn’t decide if this was a lesson about thinking ahead before committing to an attack or if it was just weight training to build up strength and stamina. Probably both, and maybe a few other reasons he hadn’t thought of besides. For Luke though, it meant tiring him out faster, which was exactly what he was here for.

“Here I come,” he said, then blurred across the distance in an instant with [Burst Step].

Luke’s opening attack was a straightforward lunge. It relied on the power of his movement skill to cover the distance before Hakiro could react to it, but he would have honestly been surprised if it worked. Hakiro wasn’t caught off guard. Far from it, he was moving a fraction of an instant before Luke even started his attack, and by the time they met, Hakiro had already sidestepped and had his blade up perpendicular to the ground to block Luke from turning his lunge into a horizontal slash.

He also kicked out at Luke’s ankles in an effort to break Luke’s footwork. That at least was something that translated over regardless of what weapon Luke was using, and [Unarmed Martialist] served him well there. Luke backed up a step, then attacked again. Each slash or lunge was intercepted or blocked, and though Luke had a definite strength advantage, Hakiro’s technique was far, far superior.

They went round in circles for about five minutes, Luke pushing relentlessly in an attempt to wear down his opponent and force him to make a mistake, and Hakiro thwarting every attack with ease. He made it look effortless too, like he was battling with a kindergartner.

[Burst Step] was less useful when engaged in a one-on-one duel in melee range since it didn’t work great for anything other than straight line movements. He hesitated to use [Power Strike] in a sparring match, mostly because he knew he was stronger than Hakiro and the skill would do nothing but cause damage. That wasn’t the goal here, so Luke held himself back from using it.

That having been said, [Life Surge] was always good for tiring him out a bit, and Luke was nothing if not competitive. He knew Hakiro could kick his ass in a sword fight, but he also knew that playing fair was for chumps. He activated the buff skill just as Hakiro moved to slip out of the way of an attack. The man had a measure of Luke’s speed now. He knew exactly when to move and how far, until all of the sudden he didn’t.

Luke landed his first blow against Hakiro, though even that was a glancing thing, barely clipping his opponent’s arm. He got in one more good strike before Hakiro adjusted, and soon the two were moving in what might have appeared to a casual observer to be a wild and uncontrolled brawl.

“So you’re a cheater, are you!” Hakiro said with a laugh. “Very well, let’s see how you do when I fight back.”

Then something happened with the XP Luke could feel inside his opponent, something that washed over Luke and beat down on him, that demanded he drop his weapon and surrender. To call Hakiro’s XP presence intimidating would be doing it a disservice, but whatever it was, Luke knew the solution. He activated [XP Mask] and the pressure disappeared instantly.

Hakiro’s eyes widened and he almost missed his next step. Luke’s sword flashed by his eyes, so fast that the blinded man had no choice but to drop to his knees to dodge it. His own blade glowed brightly for a moment as he slashed upwards, striking Luke’s parry and throwing the weapon out wide. Luke stumbled back two steps, giving Hakiro more than enough space to get back to his feet.

“Trickster,” Hakiro said.

“If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough.”

Luke struck again, only to be foiled by Hakiro, and then he heard a soft ding in his head. Frowning, he stepped back and held a hand up.

[Congratulations! Sword Mastery has reached rank 2. 250 XP awarded.]

“Huh, how about that,” Luke said. “Got a rank up in [Sword Mastery].”

“You must have been close already if a single sparring session was all it took,” Hakiro said.

“Not… really?” Luke tried to recall all the times he’d used a sword. Other than in the monster arena for a few fights, he hadn’t touched one since he’d first arrived, back when he’d been scrambling to find any sort of weapon to defend himself with. He’d spent more time fighting against people with swords than he’d spent wielding one himself.

Maybe that had helped too. Knowing how to defend against a swordsman was an important part of knowing how to wield a sword. There was a decent amount of overlap there. Or maybe it was just the fact that he was fighting against a guy with some sort of advanced sword using skill that was maxed out at speeds that would be a blur to a normal person. That was probably good for an insanely fast development speed too.

Luke wasn’t particularly excited about the new rank. The XP was a drop in the bucket, and he had no real interest in learning to use a sword properly anyway. The distraction had only served to break the rhythm of battle, so he supposed it was better to get it out of the way now rather than when he was fighting something as strong as Hakiro for real.

[Life Surge] gave out then, and Luke’s shoulders sagged. “I think I’m done for the night,” he said. “Thanks for the help.”

“It was no problem at all. If you ever reconsider learning the sublime art of swordsmanship, I would be happy to instruct you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Luke said, as diplomatically as possible. He was going to be working with Hakiro for the next few weeks, and these people from the east continent all seemed to be touchy about their belief in the almighty sharpened metal stick being the superior instrument of violence.

Luke made his goodbyes, walked back to his room, and took a moment to rinse himself off with a bowl of water that someone had left there after he’d first gone out. He assumed one of the guards had done it, or at least passed the request onto a servant. These people really were quite familiar with the peculiarities of high stamina people.

Clean, worn out in a good way, and with his mind finally quieting down, Luke dropped face-first into his bed and slept.