Chapter 36 — Tina the Overenthusiastic Assassin

The training was far more brutal than Ria could have imagined.

Ria barely dodged an attack only for Tina’s other wooden dagger to stab into her armor mercilessly, sending her flying yet again. Everything hurt, but there was no time to relax. Tina was already moving to stab her again before she could get up.

At first, it was just a spar to determine Ria’s basic skills, but each time that Ria adapted and exceeded her previous limits, Tina raised the difficulty and pushed her harder.

Flowing energy to her arms, Ria threw herself backwards and rolled to her feet just in time for a finishing-blow to strike the ground instead of her head.

There was no time to confirm the situation with her eyes, instead she had to rely on her energy perception to maintain awareness of everything around her, raising her wood dagger just in time to deflect another blow and jump back, letting the force of the impact give her extra distance.

“Excellent!” Tina praised her.

But she had already learned that earning Tina’s praise was a terrible thing.

Suddenly, shadows were reaching for her feet.

Ria clamped down her control of the energy around her and rolled to the left, barely dodging the shadows snaking across the ground… only to have another set of shadows wrap around her legs from where she escaped to.

Desperate, Ria pulsed out light magic around her to disrupt the shadows that were binding her. Light magic certainly wasn’t her strongest, but the opposition of elements worked in her favor, allowing her to throw herself to the side again just as a dagger strike passed by. Wood dagger met wood dagger and the follow-up attack was blocked, but a kick to the stomach sent her flying again.

This time, Ria pushed a third of her inner energy through the Wand of Shielding and obstructed Tina’s advance.

Tina’s shadow energy crashed against the shield made of air magic, and two slashes of her suddenly energy-coated daggers tore the barrier apart.

Ugh. What now…

If Ria could use her inner energy to increase her speed and strength over her whole body like Tina was doing, that would help with her reaction time. There was maybe enough energy for one more exchange.

Concentrating during the moment Tina was dashing forward, Ria accelerated all her muscles, dodging enough to reach under Tina’s stab and attempt one of her own. Just before the impact, Tina twisted, turning the stab into a glancing slash.

The tiny impact was a small victory before Ria’s feet were kicked out from under her, and a finishing strike met her throat the moment her back and head slammed into the ground.

Thankfully, Tina stopped the dagger a moment before impact this time.

“That last move wasn’t bad. You chose to gamble on one spiteful attack when you lost hope instead of trying to find additional ways to hold out longer. Not necessarily the wrong choice, but one that should be made with the intent of winning,” Tina critiqued.

Tina was right of course. Ria had chosen one last attack as a consolation prize to giving up, but it was still just her prideful attempt to choose the manner of her defeat not a serious attempt at winning or escaping.

Ranger was making concerned noises from where he was ‘guarding’ her satchel.

Tina got up and walked over to her own bag. “Don’t worry, Ranger. She’s not seriously hurt.”

“Wrowr. Rowr,” Ranger complained.

Ria let her breathing calm enough that she could drink an energy restoration potion. Her stomach wanted to heave from all the abuse it had taken. To keep the expensive liquid down, she distracted herself from the nausea by focusing on how the potion was affecting her body.

The way the potion worked was actually interesting. She did get some energy immediately from the energy-imbued ingredients, but as the ingredients themselves were absorbed and processed, her body’s natural energy production was increased for a time.

The one potion only restored a third of her maximum energy, unfortunately. Ria went to work healing her injuries and fatigue to an extent that she could stand up.

The Air Shield wand went back in its leather case. Ria was thankful that it had survived the spar—one of the reasons she chose that particular wand; she could use it to block with as long as she projected the air shield around the wand, and if the wand did get broken, the spell was one that she could already cast on her own to some extent.

“Your recovery speed is rather surprising, as well. Interesting,” Tina commented while chewing on a stick of jerky.

“How did I do?” Ria asked and grimaced as she tweaked something not fully healed while wobbling over and plopping down next to her bag. Once a healing potion resolved the remaining soreness and bruising, Ria pulled out a wrapped snack and waterskin that had been prepared ahead of time.

“Hmm… how best to answer that? If a prodigy hears that she is doing well, wouldn’t she lose some of her drive and slack off? Instead, if the prodigy is frustrated by defeat, won’t she strive even harder to improve?” Tina teased.

A prodigy? That seemed rather optimistic… and irrelevant.

Ria shook her head. “I’m more interested in efficiency. I have reason enough to strive.”

“Oh? That’s quite the resolve for someone your age. So, you want it straight, huh,” Tina mused, mirth crinkling the corners of her eyes. “That was the most fun spar I’ve had in a while, which means you put up a good fight against a B-ranked opponent. Naturally, I was holding back a lot, but you weren’t using your offensive magic either. Guess I’d put your current survivability around D-rank. You'll reach C-rank quickly once you address your weaknesses and gain more combat experience.”

Ria nodded and took a sip from her waterskin. That would make sense if Jarrel was C-rank.

Tina continued, “As far as your skills go, footwork is poor, dagger techniques are quite poor, conditioning and strength are reasonably good, physical flexibility is poor, balance is barely adequate, awareness is excellent, energy reserves are excellent, energy control is good, magic power is good, wand use is good, and your body-strengthening capability is promising.”

Ria chewed on some leftover roast and a pastry. Tina’s list was mostly as expected, but having things quantified was helpful. She knew her footwork and dagger skills were poor, but for flexibility and balance to be the physical abilities needing the most improvement was much more interesting.

Tina smirked. “And the reason you wanted to train with a dagger expert is because you are worried that your close combat capabilities are considerably inferior to your ranged skills. That sound about right?”

“Yes. I’ve mostly relied on sneak attacks from range, and I don’t have much confidence in my ability to fight an opponent directly—mostly because of my size and relative physical strength,” Ria confirmed.

“Yes, that is a wise concern.” Tina nodded. “However, since you have magic, you can overcome your physical limitations with body-strengthening. Earth magic is the most effective generally, but fire can produce better burst strength in certain situations and also enhances flexibility. Shadow magic is tricky, so I don’t recommend that for beginners when you have decent affinity with other elements.”

“I am a generalist, but I have good compatibility with fire, earth, and shadow magic. I have the most skill with fire currently,” Ria said as she finished up her snack and watched Leon’s training.

Leon couldn't believe what he saw of Ria's training exercise. Surely, if you hit a girl Ria's size that hard, she was going to die… right?! How can that crazy woman send her flying with a wood dagger anyway?!

He dealt with some of his frustration and anxiety by channeling it into swinging harder at his instructor. Burtan easily blocked with his shield but the strike made a much louder impact.

"Good! That one was much better!"

The encouragement was followed up with a blow to his own shield that knocked him to the side, but he adjusted his footing to maintain his balance. Learning about how moving his feet affected his center of balance was eye-opening to Leon. He had never put any thought into things like that before.

"Not bad," Burtan evaluated. "But, better would be to use your footwork to fade back and soften the blow or to press forward and meet the blow. With practice you'll learn which method suits you better. Softening the blows will sap the attacker’s stamina while maintaining yours. Repelling or challenging blows puts strain on the attacker's arm and might unbalance him."

The strategy of combat was much deeper than he had realized. Every move, whether an attack, feint, dodge, or block, was a battle against time, costing him and his opponent vital resources. The goal, of course, being to either tire or disable the opponent as efficiently as possible, and surprisingly, everything relied on footwork. Being in position to affectively attack or defend was all a matter of distances, balance, and orientation.

Leon practiced both repelling and softening the blows he was receiving and tried to flank before attacking, earning himself some more praise from Burtan.

The getting-hit-part hurt and sucked just like he expected it would, but the knowledge that he was learning and improving was much more rewarding than expected. There was also something about physically smashing things that helped him release the stress and worry that he had been building up about inheriting the bakery from his father.

While he had mixed feelings about being thankful to Ria for convincing him to intentionally subject himself to this torture—paying for it even!—the thought solidified that continuing this training would be beneficial to him even if he did decide to inherit the bakery. Gods forbid, he might even enjoy it…

"Okay, let's take another break," Burtan announced. "You're shaping up nicely. We'll work on your sword skills next. After that I'll teach you some practice exercises that you can do on your own between our sessions."

Leon's legs were like rubber, and he was almost gasping for air as he followed Burtan back over to where they left their stuff. Somehow, he had become so focused on trying to accomplish specific tasks that he hadn't noticed his own condition. Fortunately, Ria had him buy potions earlier, or this would effectively be the end of the session.

While sitting down, drinking from his waterskin, and eating the lunch Ria had prepared for him, Leon glanced around the training grounds located behind the Adventurers Guild and its affiliated tavern. He didn't see Ria or her instructor, so unless she really had been injured, the two had moved their training elsewhere.

"Is there another training ground?" Leon asked.

"Yeah. Practicing dangerous magic here might damage the village wall or the guild’s storehouses, and there really isn’t enough room for serious archery practice," Burtan said as he gestured at the palisade that bordered one side of the practice area and the storehouses that bordered the other. "So, the guild has a training field outside the wall for that."

Leon was slightly disappointed that he wouldn't get to see Ria's magic. Just as he was thinking that, the clouds above flashed and a crack of thunder rumbled from somewhere outside the wall.

"That girl sure is something special, isn't she?" Burtan said with an appreciative whistle.

That was Ria? Just how ridiculous was her talent for magic?!

Tina gazed on stunned as a cloud of debris settled back to the ground behind the large practice target. Except for a singed hand-sized hole, the front of the target was almost entirely intact. The back of the target clearly wasn't in anywhere near as good a shape—if it even existed anymore.

"Rather more effective than I was expecting," Tina admitted. "Was that your full power?"

"No." The little twelve-year-old shook her head, and her hair swayed back and forth cutely. "I don't think the wand can handle any more than that, and I was worried that it would break or explode or something."

Opposite the wand, the girl had a feather in her hand that was almost assuredly a phoenix feather. Where would she get something like that? If she has that, how much more impressive would the girl's fire magic be?

"You definitely don't want to exceed the item's limitations. Even pushing the wand to the limit like that can cause wear," Tina advised. "That said, there are still ways to improve the effect. I'm not an expert on air magic, but I'm fairly certain that the efficiency of the spell can be improved, and branching the bolt to jump toward additional targets should be possible. Those are things that Neryl can probably help you with."

The girl looked shocked. "I-I never even thought about using it to hit more than one target…"

Tina smiled. "Save that thought for later. For now, let's get to working on your bow form, then I'll teach you the dagger forms and some practice exercises that will help with your flexibility and footwork."

"Right," the girl nodded and readied her bow, a serious expression on her face.

She had pushed Ria really hard during their first spar, and the girl had held on with unexpected grit and creativity. It hadn't been a mistake. After showing a taste of the kind of power that was obtainable, the girl's eyes had become hungry, watching everything that Tina did, trying to learn her secrets.

Tina didn't know what happened to make this girl desire power so much, but for the girl to have that much talent and motivation at such a young age meant that she had a good chance of becoming an elite. A-rank was certainly in reach if she found the right environment to challenge her. Even becoming the first S-rank of her generation might be possible.

The thought was enough to give Tina shivers of excitement.