Chương 20: Swordsman Apprentice

When Evan woke up the next morning, shaken awake by Alex's hand on his shoulder, his system interface greeted him with a new quest alert. [Quest: Swordsman Apprentice Gain apprentice-level skills in swordsmanship. Reward: +7 Strength, +5 Dexterity] Next to him, Oliver pushed his blanket back and rubbed his bleary eyes.

"Huh, I got a new quest in my sleep. It wants me to become a swordsman apprentice. Woah, the reward is amazing."

"I got it too," Evan said.

"Will we always get the same quests while we're in the same party?"

"No," Alex said.

"You'll still have your personal quests. They'll show up white in your quest log. Party quests show up in yellow." Evan double-checked his quest log.

"It's white. So we both randomly got identical quests at the same time?"

"Not randomly, no. No one really knows how the Celestials distributed quests. They both guide and reinforce certain behaviors, but they also adjust to your personal goals and talents. An aspiring crafter, healer, or scholar will get different quests than a mana user who's training to be a monster hunter." Evan tried to wrap his head around Alexandra's explanation, but as always when he tried to think about the system too hard, his mind came to a screeching halt. It was just too…

strange, and every attempt to make sense of it just made him feel like he was losing his marbles even harder. He'd decided to just go with it. At least these Celestials—whoever or whatever they were—seemed to be benevolent, if they rewarded monster hunting with achievements.

"So the Celestials listened to our conversation about wanting to train in sword fighting yesterday, liked the idea, and decided to give Oliver and me an extra push in that direction?" He looked around as if he expected to spot a Celestial hiding in the bushes, eavesdropping. Alex shrugged her shoulders.

"Something like that, yeah. Now stop overthinking and put your boots on. We don't have all day to train." Quietly, so they wouldn't disturb Maya, who was still snoring—in a very cute, girly way—under a heap of blankets, they gathered their equipment and followed Alex. She led them to a small clearing between the trees, still in sight of Maya and their little camp.

"I think if we're going to do this training properly, I should temporarly join your party so I can better see what I'm working with," Alex said. A moment later, a message popped up in front of Evan. [Alexandra Tyodadi requests to join your party. 1/3 spots available. Allow request? Y/N] Evan mentally selected yes, then headed straight to his party interface. Alex appeared on the list now. Driven by curiosity about how powerful a mana user at Rank 11 was, he dove deeper into her stats.

[Name: Alexandra Tyodadi Affinity: Storm Rank: 11 Health: 264/264 Mana: 294/294] [Strength: 82] [Endurance: 67] [Speed: 112] [Dexterity: 98] [Perception: 65] [Spirit: 84]"Holy cow," Evan muttered under his breath. He thought about how hard-earned every single stat point had been for him until now and wondered how hard Alex must've trained to reach these power levels. Intrigued, he took a look at her skill list.

[Cyclone Guard] [Wind Blade] [Gust Dash] [Spark Strike] [Lightning Bolt] [Wind Blast] [Summoned Cloud] [Hail Volley] [Thunderstrike] [Stormrider] [Eye of the Storm] [Sky Anchor] Evan had only a vague idea of what most of those skills did. [Stormrider] was probably the cloud horses, and he was pretty sure he'd seen [Lightning Bolt] in action when Alex had lit the campfire last night.

"Are you done snooping yet?" Alex asked him, arms crossed, a grin on her face. Startled, Evan quickly closed the menus.

"Sorry. Was that inappropriate? I'm still trying to figure out how much sharing about your stats and skills is the social norm."

"It's fine, I'm just messing with you," Alex said.

"If someone joins your party, they have willingly granted you access to their profile, and it's perfectly fine to make use of that. You're going to fight side by side after all. You need to be familiar with your team members' strengths and weaknesses." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"Looks like you have strengths and super-strengths."

"I've been at this a lot longer than you two. You'll get there too if you work hard. Do you want me to take a look at your profiles? I might be able to give you some advice on which path to take as you rank up." Both Oliver and Evan nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay, Detreyo, you first." For a while it looked like Alex was just staring at empty air, but Evan knew she was actually looking at her menus, inspecting Oliver's attributes and skills.

"Not bad," was her final verdict.

"Your earth affinity combined with your natural attribute distribution would lend itself well to a defender-type fighting style." Oliver looked like Alex had just served him his birthday cake early.

"You really think I could be a fighter? I thought earth was mostly good for farming. Plowing the field, growing the crops." Alex shrugged.

"I don't know much about farming. I'm sure you could develop a skill set like that with the right gems, but earth is also a very fitting affinity for tanks. If that's the path you want to go down, keep your eyes open for Gems of the Shield, Armor, and Bulwark. Train your strength and endurance attributes, and you're going to be a beast."

"I want that!" Oliver quickly proclaimed.

"I want to be a tank."

"Calm down. You don't have to make any decisions just yet. Think this through before you commit. Some people change their minds several times as they advance through the ranks and end up with a really weird skill set. Jack of all trades, master of none. Now, Evan, you're next." She accessed her menu again. Evan felt a nervous flutter in his chest. She wasn't even looking at him directly, just at his stat screen, but somehow he felt like a bug under a magnifying glass.

It took him a lot of effort to suppress the nervous fidgeting while he waited, especially when Alex started to frown.

"Celestial?" she said.

"I've never seen that before."

"I got it when I arrived in this world," Evan explained.

"Please don't tell me it's totally useless."

"It's not," she said.

"Not at all. Quite the opposite. Celestial magic is the most refined form of magic we know of. It's strong both against physical and magical defenses, and it has no elemental disadvantages."

"Elemental disadvantages?"

"Most affinities have some weakness against certain other affinities. Fire and Water, Light and Darkness, that kind of stuff. Let me see your abilities… okay… a shield ability, that's always useful. Teleport, that's great. Fantastic, even. Very sought-after ability. Great for fast-paced fighting styles like mine. I envy you a bit. A sword skill that delivers magical damage. Good, a classic. Now let's take a look at your gift. Ah… oh, wow."

"That's a good wow, right?" Evan asked nervously.

"Yes, that's a very good wow. A mana regeneration gift. That's rare. And that rate… crazy. You're basically a bottomless well of mana." Oliver smiled.

"See, I told you it was a really good gift. So Evan would make an awesome mage?"

"He definitely would." Mage. Evan repeated the word in his head. He, a mage? He'd been a nurse less than a week ago. One hell of a career change.

"What do you say?" Oliver asked.

"Could you see yourself as a mage?" Evan glanced at the sword in his hand.

"Could I still use this?" Traveling to a medieval fantasy world, being gifted a cool fire sword and then not using it to slay monsters seemed like a bit of a waste.

"Battlemage might be up your alley," Alex suggested.

"You would really need to dig into the whole sword fighting thing, though." With a grin, Evan gripped his sword hilt tighter.

"Let's get started then." Alex started the training session by making Evan and Oliver spar with each other. After they'd awkwardly hit each other's swords a few times, careful not to hurt each other, Alexandra had aborted the sparring with a facepalm and a pained groan.

"Stop it, before one of you cuts his own fingers off. Looks like we need to start from zero." And that was exactly what they did. Alex showed them how to hold a sword properly and how to stand while holding a sword, and how to move their legs when they wanted to swing a sword. Evan felt a little silly at first. Like he was a little boy again, pretend-fighting Sith Lords with his toy lightsaber.

But his new sword was even cooler than the light-up plastic toy his father had given him as a Christmas present, and Alex was a much better teacher than the Star Wars prequels.

"Loosen your grip. You're strangling the sword, Oliver."

"Don't chase the blade, Evan. Move your body behind it."

"Oliver, bend your knees. If you're stiff, you're slow."

"Keep your weight centered. Don't lean, Evan." Alex was strict, correcting every wrong muscle twitch, and trying to keep everything she told him in mind without stumbling over his own two feet was a challenge, but after an hour of repeating the same motions over and over again, Evan started to get a feel for his blade. He rolled his shoulder to loosen his sore muscles before attempting the sequences of strikes and swings Alex was making them practice anew.

Straight thrust, off-line thrust, vertical cut, upward cut, downward cut… a system alert nearly made him drop his sword. [+1 Dexterity] Evan pumped his fist and whooped.

"It's working! I gained an attribute point!"

"Don't expect your stats to continue progressing this fast," Alex said. Her tone was stern, but Evan spotted the hint of a smile on her face.

"It'll get harder once you're past basic proficiency." Evan checked his quest progress and deflated a little when he realized this training session had only brought him 4% progress. Still a long road ahead before he could call himself a Swordsman Apprentice. Oliver wiped the sweat off his forehead. He looked a tad disappointed that his attributes hadn't leveled up during their training session.

"The sun is getting pretty high in the sky. We should probably wake up my sister and get going." They returned to the campfire, where Maya was still snoring softly. Oliver woke her up with a very realistic pig grunt right next to her ear, which did the job but also earned him a slap on the nose. Evan smiled as he watched the siblings banter with each other until his thoughts wandered to his own family. He wondered when… and if he'd ever see his own sister and brother again.

After they'd extinguished the campfire and packed up their things, Alex conjured up the four stormcloud horses again. Evan noticed they looked exactly the same as the horses before. The same distinct colors and patterns.

"Do they always come out like this?" he asked Alex as he climbed onto the horse's back.

"I could swear this is the same horse I rode yesterday."

"It is. They all have their own individual look and personality, and they're always conjured in the same order. It's fun. Almost like having a whole herd of familiars." Evan's face lit up.

"Familiar? Like a pet?" He'd always wanted a pet, but his father was allergic to cats and his mother was afraid of dogs, and his sister hated reptiles and rodents.

"How can I get one?"

"There are skill gems that grant them."

"Are they expensive?"

"Yes, very." Evan's shoulders drooped a little.

"Too bad." Alex gave him an empathetic smile.

"Maybe you'll get lucky and loot one of those gems. Higher-rank monsters drop them occasionally." She looked over her shoulder, making sure Oliver and Maya were on their horses.

"Everyone ready? Good. Because I decided on a change of plans. We're not going to take the direct route to the mountain pass. Instead, we're going to check the farms and villages along the way. I want to make sure none of them experienced the same thing we witnessed yesterday." Thanks to their speedy cloud horses, they arrived in the next village only an hour after they'd packed up their camp. Their magical horses drew a lot of attention from the village folk.

They instantly gave away Alexandra's status as a high-ranking mana user, so when she requested to talk to the town's mayor, she didn't have to wait very long. The crowd that had gathered around them and their cloud horses parted to make way for a stout man with graying dark hair. He shooed the bystanders away so they could talk without half the villagers listening in. When Alex informed him about what they'd found in the neighboring village, his friendly face darkened.

"That's very concerning," he said grimly.

"Very, very concerning."

"Do you have any idea what might've happened to them?" Alex asked. The mayor rubbed his chin.

"No. This has been going on for about two weeks now, but so far it's only been single houses or farms in remote locations, a bit off the wayside. We thought maybe bandits or robbers, you know? But a whole village…" He blew out air and shook his head.

"There were over thirty people living in that village. Who could've done such a thing? And why?"

"I wonder that too," Alex said.

"They didn't take any valuable items from what I could tell, so ordinary bandits are unlikely." Evan remembered the claw marks he'd spotted on one of the house walls. Yeah, he doubted ordinary bandits could do that kind of damage to a plaster wall. The mayor blanched.

"A rogue mana user?"

"Possible, yes. Probably even more than one."

"And you have no idea what they did to those poor people in Thornfield? Where they took them?"

"I looked around but found no trace or hint of their whereabouts," Alex said.

"But I admit I'm not much of a tracker. My companions and I are on the way to Stormhaven. We'll report what we found to the Guardian Guild." The mayor rubbed a shaky hand over his face and shook his head.

"It could take weeks until someone from the guild gets here…"

"I will personally make sure they take this seriously," Alex promised.

"I have some friends in the guild. I'll make sure they send a team to investigate and hunt down the people who did this as soon as possible."

"Thank you," the mayor said.

"The guilds in Stormhaven tend to forget about us and our problems on a regular basis. I guess we're just too far away from the capital. The last time a healer passed through was over three months ago, and don't even get me started on monster hunters. Most of my people are afraid to travel to the neighboring villages nowadays, because the trees are full of Spitbeaks." Alex's eyebrows rose.

"Spitbeaks, you say?"

"Their population is getting out of control." Alex glanced at Evan and Oliver, standing nearby, and smiled.

"That at least is something we can take care of for you."