The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Quickly switching his clothing into what he was given, Larek laid his previous clothes outside of the circle where he thought they would be perfectly safe. It wasn’t that he was worried about the clothing themselves getting damaged, but if something the Martial Instructors did to them caused one of the Fusions to rupture, the explosive detonation of all the Mana releasing could be unfortunate.

As soon as all of the Fusions were off his body, he immediately felt weaker and slower, as all the Boosts were now absent; with his stats essentially cut in half, Larek felt a bit more vulnerable than he had in a long time. In addition, stripped of every Fusion he had relied on for so long while fighting monsters, the Fusionist didn’t have any way to heal himself or automatically defend against attacks. He didn’t even have his axe with him, as he decided beforehand that if he was going to learn how to fight at the Fort, he needed to be able to adapt and use different weapons besides his beloved Logger’s axe. The most important reason for this was because his axe wasn’t designed to be a weapon; it was a tool, and while he’d used it to fight monsters thousands of times, it was still classified as one when it related to his General Skills – more precisely, his Axe HandlingSkill. If he was going to improve as a Martial, he needed to improve his Weapon Expertise Martial Skills, something that couldn’t be done with his current axe.

Not that he was planning on abandoning his best friend anytime soon, but he considered his axe to be part of his “Mage”-based weapons, the same as his staff, and wielding it as a Pattern construct felt almost as natural as creating Fusions. Larek’s time at the Fort was to learn about and improve his combat abilities as a Martial, not as a Mage or Fusionist.  As such, he needed to temporarily put aside the advantages that he possessed through his Fusions and demonstrate what he could do with simple, raw stats…

…but not all his stats, of course. Even without his Boosts, he was still quite a bit stronger and faster than normal trainees, and possibly even had stats higher than his Instructors. Though, when he looked at the Drekkin – which still shocked him to see one of the residents from underneath the desert of Lowenthal there in the Kingdom – he could sense the immense Martial power within him.  If he was going by his Magical Detection’s observance of the lizard-like Instructor’s Stama levels, then the Drekkin was one of the more formidable Martials he’d seen in a long time.

As prepared as he was going to get, Larek forced his hammering heart to slow down after letting the Instructors giving him his evaluation know he didn’t have any other questions. Instructor Wendie paused for a moment before saying, “Begin.”

Things happened quickly as soon as the signal was given, and the Fusionist saw the one that had spoken harshly toward him earlier immediately move behind him, a wooden – but still sharp-looking – sword slashing at his left side. Even a small portion of his Agility stat was enough to evade the strike, and he flung himself to the right, only to feel a poke in his upper ribcage as a wooden dagger sliced through his borrowed shirt and pressed against his skin. His Body stat was high enough to prevent the sharpened wood from penetrating, but it was shocking enough of an attack that he didn’t even see coming from Instructor Wendie that he froze for a second before knocking it away with his hand.

That was when a block of wood on the end of a handle smashed into his left leg, as the Drekkin appeared and attacked. While it didn’t hurt him, the momentum behind the blow lifted him up and nearly made him fall on his face; it was only a last-second twist that saved him from the indignity of face-planting during the evaluation.

Unfortunately, that was just the start.

At first, he was able to avoid or even block with his hands a few of the strikes and blows that assaulted him from all sides, but they kept coming incessantly. None of them did any damage to him other than potentially a bruise here and there when one connected just right, but they didn’t bother or hinder him – especially when they were healed within a few seconds because of his Body Regeneration Skill at Level 39.

After a minute or so of being battered and poked, he finally cranked up the amount of Agility he was applying to his speed. For the next 10 seconds, he was able to avoid quite a few more attacks, only to mistakenly move in a way that left him open to another from a different direction. He started to use his hands to physically block what he couldn’t avoid, pushing them away with a burst of his Strength stat, but as soon as he began to do that the Instructors began to attack from directions he couldn’t predict and was soon blocking nothing. It was at that point that they sped up their attacks, and while he felt that he was faster than them, they utilized their Agility to swiftly move in ways that used an economy of movement that was a complete mystery to him. The end result was even though he was technically faster, they were able to keep him trapped between them without a way to avoid their attacks.

It was frustrating, to say the least.

Just when he thought he was going to have to increase his speed past what he wanted to demonstrate to these Instructors, they abruptly pulled back and gave him time to collect himself.

“You have high Agility, but have very little sense in how to use it effectively,” Instructor Wendie suddenly said, startling him. Oh yeah, this is an evaluation. He hadn’t exactly forgotten that this was what he was there for, but in the heat of combat it had become a secondary consideration.

“You can take a hit without too much damage,” the more hostile of the Instructors went next, derision clear in his voice, “but part of effectively utilizing your Body stat is in how you can move to minimize or avoid injuries. It’s not a matter of being fast enough, but knowing your body well enough that even the slightest movements can make a difference. Unfortunately for you, the movements I witnessed are sluggish, unrefined, or simply nonexistent.”

The Drekkin went next. “You’re strong, but Strength is more than simply exerting force upon your opponent. Restraint is sometimes more important than raw power, and your frantic flailing left you open to additional attacks that would’ve been less obvious if you had restrained your follow-throughs. I see potential, but it’s far from being utilized properly.”

Larek immediately felt horrible over the assessment of his stats – or more precisely, his effectiveness in utilizing them – but he pushed aside his feelings. He knew he was poorly using them, after all, which was one of the reasons he was there at the Fort.

He eventually nodded at their evaluation, knowing what they said was true.

“Combat ability is next, which we prefer to assess with you using a weapon,” Instructor Wendie said. “Pick one out from the rack over there.” She pointed to a wooden weapon rack which held approximately a dozen wooden practice weapons. Larek quickly jogged over and picked out a large, double-bladed battleaxe, which was as close to his preferred Logger’s axe as possible.

“Now, this time, instead of just defending, we want you to attack; we will defend ourselves, so you will need to try and avoid damage, but for now this will be a one-on-one assessment.”

Begin,” she continued as soon as he was back in the middle of the circle and prepared with his wooden axe. It felt odd in his hands, though not necessarily unwieldy; it just wasn’t as comfortable as his own axe felt when he was wielding it.

Instructor Wendie approached first, and Larek attacked her, attempting to chop into her neck, but the woman somehow minimally deflected his attack, ducked the barest amount to avoid being struck, and then attempted to stab him with one of her wooden daggers. He managed to scoot backwards in time to avoid being struck, but she took a step forward and moved close enough to attack again, and it was all he could do to bring his wooden axe around to block her. Even though he managed to deflect one of the daggers with the haft of his weapon, he was unable to block the second or move in time to block the second, and it “stabbed” into his stomach.

The Fusionist attempted to chop into her from above in response, but she practically twirled around him, avoided his swing, and then stabbed him three more times in various places on his body.

He struck out at her another dozen times over the next minute, never getting close to actually hitting her despite his Strength and applying about half of his Agility. She, on the other hand, would’ve killed him several times over from all the hits she landed – if she was able to penetrate through his skin, of course. Still, the end result was an absolutely humiliating showing.

He felt that if he had applied all of his Agility, he might have been able to surprise her at least once or twice, but even that he wasn’t exactly confident in. She seemed to be able to predict his movements before he even shifted his limbs, which just went to show how skilled she was in combat – and how unskilled Larek was.

The mock combat against the sword-wielding instructor didn’t turn out too much better, as while he wasn’t quite as fast as the woman, he had longer range and was able to deflect his attacks even more skillfully than she had. He didn’t seem to have the same supernatural prediction of his movements that Wendie possessed, but the Instructor was still adept enough to avoid any hits upon him and “killed” Larek at least three times during the assessment.

Lastly, he was completely unmatched against the Drekkin, who was more skillful than the others by far. What was even worse was that the Fusionist began to detect that the powerful Martial was actually handicapping himself so that Larek could feel as if he was actually making progress, but it was all an illusion. It was as if he was leaving himself open to see what the trainee would do, but Larek was unable to capitalize on any of the openings. Afterwards, as he thought about it more, he realized that while in the heat of the fight he had seen at least a half-dozen openings, on later retrospective, he thought he identified dozens more that he didn’t see at the time.

Needless to say, he had a lot to learn.

“Pathetic,” the sword-bearing Instructor said when this part of the evaluation was finished. “You’re like a mindless brute swinging around a club at anything that comes near. Very little combat ability to speak of, though I suppose most weaker monsters would simply throw themselves at you, making your style of fighting simple enough to execute in that case.”

Larek didn’t think he was that bad; he’d killed thousands of monsters after all, and not all of them had been weak. Still, using a weapon other than his Logger’s axe made a huge difference, because he wasn’t nearly as skilled in its use, even if he thought that it was similar in application.

“While that assessment is a bit harsher than I would give you, I have to agree with most of it,” Instructor Wendie commented. “This isn’t about your effective use of your stats, but more about your awareness of your surroundings and ability to both attack and defend yourself against an opponent. In both areas, you are particularly… inept.”

It was harsh, but not as harsh as the other Instructor.

“Agreed,” the Drekkin added. “While I sensed some instincts in there during the fight, I saw no hint of any formal training present. Your stance is completely atrocious, your movements are exaggerated, and while you seem to prefer an axe to fight with, it appears as if you have very little knowledge of how to even hold it, let alone wield it properly as a weapon.”

“With those two assessments over, it’s time to assess your Martial Skills. To help us with that, we need to know what your highest offensive Skill is currently,” Instructor Wendie stated as soon as the Drekkin was done. “You’ve already explained that your Body Regeneration is high due to some accident, so that isn’t something that we need assess during this evaluation, but your offensive capabilities are definitely something that we need to determine.”

Larek looked at his Status and tried to figure out what exactly she wanted to hear.

Martial Skills:

Blunt Weapon Expertise Level 1/35 (350 AF)

Stama Subjugation Level 2/35 (350 AF)

Bladed Weapon Expertise Level 3/35 (350 AF)

Unarmed Fighting Level 4/35 (350 AF)

Throwing Level 20/35 (350 AF)

Dodge Level 24/35 (350 AF)

Pain Immunity Level 20/20 (N/A)

Body Regeneration Level 39/50 (500 AF)

As she already stated, Body Regeneration wasn’t something they needed to test, which probably also included his Pain Immunity Skill. Dodge was his next-highest Skill, but that didn’t seem to be offensive in nature; besides, he had demonstrated that at least somewhat during his earlier assessments, even if he wasn’t very effective at it.

So that left… Throwing? It was at Level 20, which was fairly high, he supposed. If that didn’t count, it would be Unarmed Fighting at Level 4, and he was fairly certain that they had seen how poorly he had done during his assessment concerning his stats.

“Throwing.”

That seemed to surprise her, as well as the sword-wielding Instructor. He couldn’t tell if the Drekkin was surprised or not, as he hadn’t really become adept at determining their facial expressions despite all the time he spent in their tunnels under the desert.

“Throwing? That’s… unusual.” Shrugging, she jogged over to a table behind the weapon rack that he didn’t notice before, grabbed something quickly, and then moved over to Larek. When she handed it over, he found it to be a rolled-up leather strap with pockets containing an assortment of what appeared to be throwing knives. He recognized what they were, of course, but he’d never actually thrown any of them before.

“This will give us at least as baseline for where you’re at, and whether you’re applying your Skills effectively – similarly to how we assessed your stats. Go ahead and hit that stationary target over there a few times,” Instructor Wendie said, pointing to what appeared to be an archery target against the far wall, “before we test your ability to hit a moving target.”

Larek nodded, grabbing the first of the knives out of the leather strap. Having seen them thrown before, he had an idea of how to hold them, and he let the first go with as good of a throw as he could. He was fairly accurate in his aim, hitting the target just off-center, though as it flipped through the air it ended up rotating to the point where it hit handle first; it stuck in the straw target for a second before slipping out and clattering against the stone floor. His second attempt was much better, as it hit near the center and actually stuck, though it impacted at an angle instead of straight on. His third was almost perfect, as it stuck deep into the center of the target with no problems.

He might not have used them before, but his Throwing Skill apparently adjusted for that lack of experience quickly enough that he was able to get the hang of it fairly easily.

Of course, hitting a moving target – in this case the Drekkin Instructor – was something entirely different. The lizard-like Instructor ran, dodged, and even jumped to avoid the knives that Larek threw at him, batting away any that got close with his wooden weapon – not that many actually got close. He had to admit that his experience with throwing in the past hadn’t necessarily been focused on precise, moving targets, and especially with weapons in which he was unfamiliar. Give him his Logger’s axe and he could probably shave the wings off a fly at 30 feet, but throwing knives were just awkward enough in his hands that he didn’t have that kind of aim.

“Barely passable for someone with Level 5 in Throwing,” Instructor Wendie said once he was out of knives. Larek inwardly winced, considering that he was Level 20. “Are there any other offensive Skills that you would like to demonstrate?”

He thought about it for a moment, before shaking his head. They’d pretty much seen it all already.

“Alright, then it’s on to an assessment of how you handle your Stama.”

Uh, oh.

“Please subjugate your Stama and direct it toward different portions of your body.”

Well, that’s not going to happen.

Still, he attempted to do what she asked, even knowing that it would be unsuccessful. Inwardly reaching for the source of his Stama inside of his chest, he attempted to grab some of it and direct it where he willed it to go, using everything he’d learned about it from Penelope and his other Martial bodyguards in the past. Unfortunately, that method never seemed to work for him, even after he obtained the Stama Subjugation Skill.

“We’re waiting,” the impatient, sword-wielding Instructor complained.

Larek gave it one more try before giving up.

“I’m sorry, I cannot control my Stama,” he finally admitted. “It’s the main reason that I’m here, other than to obtain combat training.”

“Understood. So, that would preclude assessing any Battle Arts since you shouldn’t have any without control, I suppose—”

“That’s not entirely true,” he interrupted. He knew that he had to be at least honest about this if he was going to get help controlling his Stama and Battle Arts. “I actually have two Battle Arts.” Technically, Larek had three, but Tactician Mind applied 50% of his Agility stat toward Intellect and Acuity – something he would rather not bring up right now, considering it would out him as also having Mage stats.

“You do? Can you show either of them to us?”

He nodded before shaking his head. “Again, they aren’t something that I can control. They seem to only trigger in times of supreme emotional distress and are, to put it mildly, dangerous – especially when used in conjunction with each other.”

“What are they, if you don’t mind sharing?” Instructor Wendie asked, and he told them. None of them had ever heard of them before and asked for an explanation of what they did, so he pulled up the information by concentrating on both Furious Rampage and Consuming Speedand then shared them so that they could see them floating in the air.

Furious Rampage

Effect: Double Strength stat while reducing Body stat by 30%

Duration: 90 seconds

Base Stama Cost: 150

Consuming Speed

Effect: Triple Agility stat while reducing Body stat by 60%

Duration: 20 seconds

Base Stama Cost: 300

“Powerful, but extremely dangerous,” the Drekkin Instructor said after a moment of looking the information over. “I’ve seen a few similar to those two in the past, where your body is weakened in order to strengthen something else. We typically discourage even developing them, however, as they are what we call ‘Final Sacrifice’ Battle Arts. They are used when all hope is lost in a battel and a Martial gives everything they have in one final attack, sacrificing themselves so that his fellow Martials and Mages can potentially escape. It almost inevitably ends with their deaths, because even if they manage to survive the attack, their bodies are so torn up by the time the Battle Art ends that they have difficulty even moving.”

Larek could well understand that, as he had fallen unconscious after using both Battle Arts the first time. If his body hadn’t been as strong as it was or if the fight had gone on further, he might not have survived. It was only with the addition of Tactician Mind that he was able to even control himself somewhat while he was under the influence of the other Battle Arts, and it also helped him stay aware enough not to push himself to unconsciousness.

But that still didn’t mean he knew how to control it.

“So, he’s useless. He might be strong and decently fast, and he didn’t seem to suffer any lasting injuries from the evaluation, but without being able to control his Stama, he’s nothing more than a meat shield on the front lines.” The words stung, even if it was coming from the Instructor that didn’t seem to like him for some reason. For once, though, he at least knew it wasn’t because he was tall. “This might be an evaluation to see where we need to focus his training, but why should we even consider training him at all?”

Instructor Wendie stared at Larek for a moment before she sighed. “As much as I hate agreeing with Instructor Hasat, I have to agree. If he cannot properly subjugate his Stama, then training him would be… well, not a waste, as he can certainly be an asset with the proper combat training, but without reliable Battle Arts, his usefulness is greatly reduced.” She looked him in the eye and asked, “Are you sure you don’t have even the slightest bit of control over your Stama? While we don’t expect new Martials to have the ability to completely subjugate their Stama immediately, all of them should have at least an instinctual knowledge of how to interact with it after their Stama Subjugation is unlocked. We can teach you how to properly subjugate and control it at that point, but if you can’t even get that far… well….” She shrugged, as if it was out of her control.

Larek’s heart dropped after hearing this, as he was now worried that they wouldn’t be able to help him at all. He had hoped that going to one of the training Forts would be all that was needed to teach him how to control his Stama and Battle Arts, but it seemed as though he was, once again, unique to the point where he couldn’t be helped.  This has just been a huge waste of ti—

“You make a good point, but I can sense something within this young trainee that tells me that there is more to this than just an inability to subjugate his Stama,” the Drekkin abruptly announced, interrupting his defeatist thoughts. “I will handle his training, as I have a few ideas I want to try in order to fix this little problem.”

“SeniorInstructor Torge, this isn’t a ‘little’ problem,” the sword-wielding Instructor—Hasat—said, not looking at Larek anymore, but right at the Drekkin. “Your expertise is better-suited toward advancing our existing students’ combat abilities, as they are the ones that show promise. Not this one,” he added, waving distractedly at the Fusionist’s direction, the disgust more than evident in his voice.

“Your concern has been noted on the evaluation, Instructor Hasat. However, I am taking personal responsibility over his training, and that is final.”

The scathing look that Instructor Hasat gave the Drekkin finally clicked something in his mind. He’s not angry at me. He’s jealous and ambitious; jealous of my already high stats – regardless of my inability to utilize them properly – and ambitious to the point where he is willing to confront the Senior Instructor, looking for a way to take him down a notch. That, and he seems like he has a genuinely unfriendly attitude; definitely not a good combination of traits.

Instructor Hasat stormed off, and Instructor Wendie left shortly thereafter, a look of pity on her face for some reason. When Larek glanced back at the Drekkin, he thought he recognized what might be a smile on the Senior Instructor’s face…

…and that made him shiver involuntarily.