Author's note: Thank you all for reading Curse of the Forsaken. We are going to be leaving the "research" facility in the next couple of chapters after a bit of a training montage coming up, and a bit of a time skip plus a few more things to look forward to. This chapter, or almost half a chapter was something I decided I wanted to add "somewhere" to the story around here, I just couldn't find enough "other" stuff to add to it to make a full chapter out of it. So I apologize if it seems short. It's mostly just filling out the MC's daily activities as we start to move into the training montage/time skip. We should be through with this dark dungeon soon, so look forward to that when I return from work tonight with a number of new chapter releases coming up.

While his studies took on a new urgency his physical training wasn’t neglected either. It was pointless to “exceed” with an unknown like magic and simply settle for average in other interests. He didn’t have enough time in the day and while he knew sleep was important he simply couldn’t afford to take it easy anymore. He had to live in a way no one else would live. Glancing at the wizard in the training room he made a calculation. Time was limited so…

He had to walk a path of insanity.

He had to walk a path no one else would walk

He had to exceed in everything

No one was his ally, but as long as they thought he was necessary he could count on them to keep him alive. It wasn’t insane. He could expect them to be concerned. It wasn’t insane. He could count on them for now. This was a calculated risk that only looked insane.

He walked over to the weapons rack and started trying out swords. One sword after another. Some weapons were clear one handed sword designs with a short hilt and blade. He spoke with the others there, they said there were three types of blades, much to his surprise. He had always thought of swords as being more complex than that but the locals seemed to think differently.

The first type was a one handed weapon. These were the shorter blades. Nearly no one used them. The next type was the “long sword”, which was a category which seemed to encompass pretty much every sword they had. The main difference between the one handed blade and the longsword was the one handed blade had a very short hilt, literally only as wide as a palm. With an edge that was no longer then the leg of the man holding it. If the blade tip reached the ground apparently it was too long for the man using it. The long sword of course was longer than the 1 handed blade, with a hilt long enough for one or two hands. After hearing that definition it would put a katana (if they had a weapon like that) easily in the classification of a long sword on account of the long hilt.

The last type was called a two handed sword. The point where the long sword and the two handed sword diverged was when the sword was no longer wearable on the hip. They felt the main point of the two handed sword was to kill the mounts of mounted troop; power through armor of heavy armored foes, or to fight some of the larger monster and creatures of the world such as dragons, land worms or something called a Stone Devil. Though when talking about “fighting” and stone devils, most people made a face like that was insanity.

He tried almost all of the long swords. But none of them were long enough for what he wanted in his hands. So he started to play with the two handed swords. Of course most of these blades were too large for what he had in mind as well. Eventually he zeroed in on a type of one handed weapon. It was basically untouched, probably because the blade was far too long for the locals to use. It looked like the sword had been made originally to be a long sword but at some time the smith decided to give it a short hilt. Either way the part that attracted him to the sword the most was the full hand guard, which wrapped around the hand

In a lot of ways this sword felt like a natural progression over the wooden stick he was taught to fight with all that time ago. He already had a great deal of reach advantage over the locals, and a lot more strength. This opened up a lot of possibilities to him. He spent several days familiarizing himself with the weapon and had the men walk him through the process of using true one handed weapon. He learned the different guard stances. Finally, he walked out into the floor for a spar without any armor on.

He could see the hesitation in his opponent’s face. No shield, no armor. New sword. They must have thought he was insane. It took almost ten minutes convincing them to fight him like normal.

He took a deep breath and watched the blade tip of his foe and started to parry.

He was hurt badly of course. In just two hours of sparing he had to be healed 3 times. Two times due to nearly being killed. Once he took a thrust to his chest, creating a bloody mess. He seriously thought he was going to drown in blood.

The Wizard was not happy. He could see the man was reaching the end of his patience. Still he felt he had found his path forward. He had failed over and over again. Nearly died twice, and been seriously injured three times. Yet he felt like he had taken large strides forward. He didn’t know what weapon he’d end up settling on long term, but he knew this was the first time he felt comfortable with a sword in his hand.