Past Life Hero, ch 44

Max stood across the training field from Gantry, with Professor Grave Call to one side. The tall Man had pulled a simple chair over from somewhere and was just watching Max and Gantry watch each other. Max had noticed other students heading in their direction or watching from a distance for a while now. It definitely wasn't the entire class, but apparently a decent number of students had seen Gantry come back. Or maybe one of their spirits had alerted them of Max’s return like Gantry's had.  Max could imagine why the other students were curious, even if they didn't know that it was him currently facing off against Gantry.

"Are you going to choose a weapon?" Gantry asked. Max made a face.  He'd ignored the weapon rack when he'd first entered the field.  Meanwhile,  Gantry had grabbed a wooden sword with a worn handle that had likely been his training tool during all the classes Max had missed.

Max was mentally arguing with himself. On one hand, he had made the decision to start using his Summoner powers during fights. However, this wasn't a real fight. It was just a duel. The best training took place during real battles.  And he wasn't even one hundred percent sure why Gantry wanted to fight him, although he did have some suspicions.

He mentally sent a question to Lavinia, and the spirit responded, Yes, you’re right that you have already practiced this stuff, but I think you’re underestimating duels.  I think this is a perfect time for you to use your Summoner mojo. After all, even though the stakes are low here, you’re still facing a real opponent. Yeah, you might not get quite as good of training from it as a life-and-death situation, but I personally prefer the 'crawl, walk, run' method versus your 'crawl, sprint, crawl' style.

Max didn't respond but mentally acknowledged her point and decided to follow Lavinia's advice. That meant he wasn't going to use a sword.  At least he didn't think so. But he also didn't want to unnecessarily shame or insult Gantry.  Max moved to the racks of training weapons, selected a short sword, and attached it to his belt. He'd already left his real weapon in the grass on the sidelines. Then he faced Gantry again.

"Much better," said the other man.

By this time, more students had gotten close enough to see that Gantry was dueling Max. Some of the slower ones were excitedly jogging back to friends who hadn’t made it yet. Shit, thought Max. He didn't mind an audience, but this all felt a little unnecessary.  It also felt wrong to give away what he could do as a Summoner in front of more people, but he really did need to start using all of his abilities.

"Before we start," said Max, "why do you want to duel me right now?  Why the sense of urgency?"

Gantry quirked a smile. "Only a short while ago, I dueled you and barely won. And now, you are getting a reputation–as a first year–for having terrorized the Mystic Spear Path Academy to the point where policy has changed for the entire Quartet. I knew when I met you that you were exceptional, and I believe that you were able to do all the things I've heard you've done. But I still want to see it for myself. I need to know where I stand, relatively, so I can keep progressing.  And even though it's a selfish request, I believe that you would help me with this. We might not be real friends..,but maybe we could be one day. And even if not, I'd like to think that we're a team and probably will be for some time."

Max was taken aback by the transparency and vulnerability in Gantry's words and tone. In response, he just nodded, hoping that he’d understand. Apparently, the other man received the message. A ghost of a smile crossed his face.

"Are you ready?" He said.

"Just a moment," said Max. He glanced once more to the side and saw that more than half of the class was watching this duel. "Oh well," he muttered.

Then Max mentally commanded Lavinia, Armor! Quick as thought, ectoplasm erupted all over his arms and legs, covering his limbs in ghostly plates. On his torso armor was a stylized dragon. When Max had practiced this armor generation with Lavinia, they'd both been somewhat surprised to find that one of Lavinia's summons could do decorations like this.  The spirit had some sort of deep affinity with dragons.

Max had noticed that Lavinia and her spirits grew less powerful the further away they were from him.  That had led to wondering how to use spirits while as close to his body as possible.  Armor had been developed from these brainstorms.

The armor could glow if Max willed it.

Gantry's eyes flew open in surprise. But then he smiled and ruefully shook his head. The white-haired man drew his sword and began to close with Max.

Their first duel hadn’t gone well, but this time, Max was an awakened Summoner. So he flicked open his third eye and was able to see shadows of Gantry's spirits. Now he could witness how Gantry was being followed by a spirit subtly guiding his motions. The spirit had an aura of martial experience and battlefield knowledge. A couple more spirits also followed Gantry, hovering to the sides, and Max assumed they were responsible for the weird jerky movements the other man had used to beat Max before, or at least one of them was.

Max did not draw his sword and stalked forward to engage in the duel. But armed or not, Gantry was obviously not taking him lightly. The white haired man took advantage of his weapon and longer reach to deliver a series of blistering strikes that would have been worrisome for Max before.  Things were different now.  Not only was he covered in armor, now he was a one-star mana body Blade Sorcerer. Max dodged the first two strikes and instructed his armor spirits to reinforce his arm before blocking the third with his forearm. The reinforcement hadn't been necessary since Gantry was using a training sword, but Max had already decided to use this duel as a training opportunity.

The old saying, “Train as you fight,” was wise.

When he and Lavinia had come up with this usage of their power, one of its strengths was that there was plenty of extra ectoplasmic material that Max could call upon to strengthen various areas of his armor if he needed it. In actuality, his armor was composed of all of Lavinia's spirits, manifested and interlocking together. So shifting mass from one area of the armor to the other was extremely simple. What's more, the spirits could choose whether to raise or lower the mass of their ectoplasm.

Mastering this skill was likely going to take Max a long time, but once he did, it would allow him to move much quicker in combat while still delivering more powerful strikes as if he were wearing heavy armor on that limb. If the mass of his arm armor were suddenly increased mid-swing, the strike would carry more power.  Theoretically.

After Max blocked Gantry's sword, he kicked out, catching Gantry in the chest. Max had pulled the strike enough not to seriously hurt the other man, just knock him back. But despite not being on Max's level anymore, Gantry was still a talented warrior. The other man fell to the ground but rolled quickly, springing back to his feet with a slight assistance from one of his spirits. The move looked like something from a wire fu movie from Earth and Max’s lips quirked in appreciation.

He flashed forward while delivering a mental command to his armor spirits, strengthening both of his arms’ armor and giving himself reinforced, ghostly gauntlets..  Before he closed, Gantry pivoted and delivered a nasty overhand chop.  But Max parried with his bare hand. As he had done with his spirits in the Mystic Spear Path Academy, directly touching Gantry had allowed his spirits temporary direct access to the other man's body. And although they were not very strong when used like this, they were still fairly close to Max and sometimes it didn't take much power in the right place to make a difference.  The new ectoplasm inside Gantry's palm expanded, forcing his hand open.

Max darted in and delivered an armored chop aimed directly at Gantry's sword. As he did so, one of the white-haired man's spirits tried pushing him to the side so his blow would miss, but Max had sensed the spirit and leaned into it, not allowing himself to deviate in the slightest. His chop caught Gantry's sword and the combination of his strike and the ectoplasm trying to force Gantry’s hand open caused the sword to fly away end over end. Then Max used boxing footwork to clear the gap in a flash, his elbow directed at Gantry's throat. Before he actually impacted the other man, he stopped and backed off.

Gantry had not moved from his position he'd been in when the sword had flown out of his hand. He was still blinking. Finally, he lowered his arm and gave Max a genuine smile. "I have never heard of a Summoner using their spirits that way." He ruefully shook his head. "You probably have no idea how envious other Summoners have been of me for finding Indyus, a spirit with knowledge of being a sword master. And I'm eternally grateful to have contracted him. But what you did right now–" Gantry's voice trailed off. He turned his head then looked back. "Even Indyus has no idea what all that was."

Max began to respond but was interrupted by clapping. Professor Grave Call stood from his chair, clapping both Max and Gantry on the shoulders. "That was fairly one-sided, but Gantry, never doubt yourself. Your performance was still excellent.  Even since you've been in this class, I have seen you improve. You might always be able to find more spirits you can make contracts with, but the tools you have right now are helping you be a better skilled, more deadly fighter in the future. You are mastering the basics. And the basics will never fail us."

Then he turned to Max and said, "I'm glad you are officially part of the class again, because there is no way we can lose you from the Summoner Academy team. I'm going to go directly to the Headmaster right now and talk to him about this!" With that, Professor Gravecall turned and without began walking away further ado .

Max blinked as he watched the eccentric professor leave. Lavinia mentally asked, Are you going to tell him that the headmaster already gave you his blessing?

No, responded Max, because the payment I gave him before should have been from the Headmaster. So he either isn't thinking things through or there's another reason for him leaving than the one he gave out loud. His eyes flicked around at his astonished classmates watching. He mentally sent, There are quite a few ears here.

Point taken, said Lavinia.

Max met Gantry’s eyes and finished what he had been going to say before being interrupted by the professor. "Gantry, you said you don't know what I did. Well, how about this?" He paused and Gantry cocked his head in a silent question.  Max continued, "We'll figure out a time that works and I can help train you in my martial art for a while."

Gantry's eyes widened in undisguised shock again.  "Really?" he asked.

"Yeah. But come closer." Max turned to the small crowd of students who were watching and gestured for Gantry to come in closer. He whispered, "I can teach you, your team, and I want to teach my team from this class too. That's probably the max number of people that I can handle. But I'm only going to be taking this one class with Grave Call two days a week, if that. So i will have extra time. Anyway, there's a lot of people watching right now. Do me a favor, please. Collect your people and my people and meet me later this afternoon somewhere private."

Gantry's eyes met Max's. "When and where," he asked.

"I'll keep in touch with you. Using my tablet. We can do that, right?"

"Oh, yeah, that's a good idea," said Gantry. "Sounds good."

Max nodded before turning and walking away.  He trusted Gantry to speak to the other students and he really didn't want to deal with some of the others that would be left out of training. At the end of the day, Max knew from his experience teaching martial arts on Earth that he would not be very good at teaching really large classes. In fact, the number he'd already accepted made him worry a little bit, but he was game to give it a shot.

Without anything really pressing to do, he went to the cafeteria again. Now that he'd already opened an account with the cafeteria, it took far less time to be scanned through and pay for his meal. He realized as he was going through the line and deciding what to grab that payment must work like a buffet. Nobody seemed to care what he was eating, just that he'd shown up. He filed that fact away to verify later.

Max grabbed what looked like corn dogs, except the meat inside was steak of some sort.  He also got a few pieces of bread, and a slice of cake. It was nice to know that he could survive in the Quartet without food, but he had desperately missed eating while he'd been training out in the woods before.

Everything had truly changed.  He felt bittersweet about it.  The days of allowing his edge to stay dull were gone, so Max kept track of his surroundings and maintained a wary eye. He noticed the reactions of students around him, more of which seemed to recognize him now. Some were obviously not happy to see him, but others looked at him with expectation or even respect. None of it phased Max because he had received far stronger reactions in his first life.

He kept his face neutral but was frowning inside. Deep down, he'd been excited about the possibility of being a normal student in a school like this. It seemed it would not be his fate in this life either though.

After sitting down to eat, Max saw a person approaching that he'd been both looking forward seeing again, but also dreading. He took a bite of his faux corn dog and chewed before the man walked up across from Max and sat down.

"Hi Lance," he said. "I'm glad the Mystic Spear people didn't kill you again." That possibility had actually been on Max's mind, but there hadn't been much he could do about it before.

Lance stared at him for almost a five seconds before leaning back with a sigh and crossing his arms. "Max, you haven't even been my friend for that long, but right now I'm trying to decide whether I should punch you in the face or give you a hug."

Max gave a crooked smile and said, "Would it help if I told you that's not the first time I've heard that?"