I wake up back in my room in the barracks. The curtains are closed again courtesy of me, I stand up from my bed and take a peek behind the curtains. The sun is currently rising right now as it gives off an orange glow. My skin burns as it makes contact with the rising sun. I immediately close the curtains and begin processing what I need to do for today.

First I need to meet up with Santi midmorning at the guild. Second I need to eat a lot, and lastly I need to cast some spells. I started casting the spell I need.

“Lontihol as you have given me protection I ask you again for it as your daughter.”

I feel the magic coursing around my skin as if to protect me. I go out of the barracks again and go to the same place to eat as yesterday. The food there tastes delicious enough that I can almost forget my unending hunger. Seeing Mrionong preparing as soon as he sees me, he waves at me. I wave back at him as I try to find the seat from yesterday.

************************************************

The same thing still happened as I left the tavern. I order food, then him trying to make small talk as I try to study the book. Nothing different at least. As soon as I got out of there I made my way to the guild.

When I made my way to the guild it’s already mid morning and I expected Santi to be here. I get through the front door and ask the receptionist if Santi is already here. Surprisingly she gives a confused face while asking.

“Who’s that.?”

I describe him to her “He’s the guy that wears leather armor with a sword and dagger with him.”

“Oh the guy that Sylia often deals with I think he’s right there in the lobby but I’m not sure because I haven’t seen him recently here.”

“Thanks for the info.”

I go to the lobby where adventurers are already gathering around each other. I try finding him using my sight but can’t seem to find him properly either. Then I remember using my nose to try and detect him. He’s here, that's for sure his scent is one of a kind so I try looking where he is until someone taps my shoulder.

“Looking for me?” He says to me.

I jump back for a bit and realize that it’s Santi.

“You scared me for a bit there.” I reply to him.

“Well you did your best to try finding me. It’s passable at this phase.”

Passable? I didn’t even know that he was already near me or see him within the crowd. He continues.

“Either way. I know a place to practice together.”

“And pray tell where is this?”

“Oh it’s just in the ruins. I know a place where we wouldn’t be disturb.”

“Well if it’s you saying that probably it’s true.”

“Let’s get going then don’t want to waste more time standing still here.”

He beckons me to follow him as we walk out the door.

After walking for a long while we reached the edge of the ruins, he kept walking as if it’s his own home. Walking around, making turns at certains landmarks like a ruined building near a crossroad, going through buildings like they’re part of the path we’re taking. Finally we get into a clearing with seemingly enough space to be considered as a training ground of sorts.

“We’ll be training here and improving your abilities. Now first off we’ll talk about your skills over there in the shade.” He points to a bench near a tree. We make our way over there and sit on the bench with some distance between us. He then asks me.

“So can you give me your weapon?” I hand him the sword that my father gave me when I left the village. He looks at it carefully and comments.

“How in the gods are you able to use this sword against the Zokun?! Forgive me if it has any sentimental value for you but this sword in no way should be able to do the things you were able to yesterday.”

“What’s with the reaction?”

“This sword is already rusted from use and it’s dull to a point that it’s a joke that you were able to decapitate. If you want I could get someone to make a new sword for you or if you prefer other things to use that would be fine as well.”

As much as I want to honor my father by using his sword, maybe it would be best if I didn't destroy it or anything. It's been 2 years since I last saw him in the first place.

“Yeah that’s fine for me but what weapons would you suggest to me then?” I ask him

“You’re incredibly strong that’s for sure, fast so-so, maybe an axe or two would suit you, easily hack and slash someone maybe cleave them for good measure and a small weapon in case something happens like my dagger over here. I always keep a sword and dagger on me.”

That’s actually a good idea, with my raw strength I could probably be more deadly than just swinging a sword. Besides I don’t think I have the grace of using a sword.

“But how about the other weapon, I can’t just use my fists right?” He gives me back my sword as I put it in its sheath

“That’s true so I might as well suggest to you to use a dagger as well. After this we’re going to make some orders to one of my friends.” He sighs a bit before continuing

“So how much do you know about magic in the first place?”

“Just enough to cast some spells.”

“So you don’t know the fundamentals on why spells work in the first place.”

“All I know is that in order to be able to cast spells we are supposed to make a prayer to the respective god or goddess that handles that kind of spell. And sometimes you have affinity to certain gods in a way that they favor you more into doing prayers and ultimately be a part of that church. For example like this.”I start chanting one of my favorite spells.

The most important thing when doing a spell is to call on the god or goddess you’re trying to get power from. Then you need to know their respective elements, describing them and generally ask for their help in whatever you need to do. Finally you say the name of the spell and modify the spell to fit what you need. Although too much can make you tired or for worse consequences for your body.

“Niyontia, you who grace us with the substance of life and with her embrace, please send one of your powers to show your virtue. Ice spike”

An ice shard materializes in front me. I aim at one of the buildings in front of us and fire it. The speed isn’t really that fast, you could say it’s as fast as a Von running compared to say a Ranteral or a horse. It manages to pierce the wall of the building and stay there.

“I see so that is the extent of your knowledge. Did you know you don’t have to actually pray to that god in order to use spells?”

“Isn’t that superstition, man-made spells without any source of power wouldn’t be able to manifest.”

“That isn’t what I mean, what I mean is as long as you say a certain passage while chanting the spell you are able to replicate it albeit it being longer than what most people. Like for example do you worship the earth god Basrila?”

“I don’t actually, I never have the affinity for doing so and never bothered to learn about it.”

“I’m going to teach a simple spell called Earth spike like the ones I used yesterday with the goblins.” I do slightly remember that by the end of the confrontation there were spikes that impaled the goblins

“Oh that one the impalement thingy, you did with the goblins yesterday.”

“Yeah that’s right so I’m going to teach you a chant to use that spell.” I nod to him

“Then let’s get started.” He cougars for a bit then he starts chanting.

“Lord Basrila you gave this earth to tread upon. You shape the land into whatever you want and as such as your faithful worshiper let us borrow your power to impale. Earth Spike.” I feel the magic power from him as it leads to a spike rising in front of us. It keeps rising until it reaches our heights. Then Santi says to me.

“Now it’s your turn, just repeat what I said and make sure not to put too much power into it. I don’t want you getting tired this early.”

I then repeat his chant although I made a few mistakes it seems to be that it isn’t working. I then correct myself and start chanting again properly and say the right words and suddenly another spike rises up from the ground and since I didn’t put too much power into it became half the size of Santi’s spike.

“Not bad, not bad for your first spell.” He praises me.

“That was surprising, I never thought I would be able to do a spell from Basrila.”

“Well there’s a lot of things this world doesn’t know. I’ll teach you the other chants that you can use but for now let’s start practicing how you fight.” He then stands up from the bench then walks into the field. I stand up as well and follow him. He then picks up some wooden swords that must have been hiding somewhere in the wreckage

“Here take this” as he throws a wooden sword.

“We’ll be practicing with this so as to make sure we don’t wound ourselves badly.”

He then gives his wooden sword a few swings. I do so as well to feel the weight of the sword. I then remove my father’s sword from my belt and put it aside where I can see it without any distractions.

“Okay we’re going to be sparing in a few moments.” he then relaxes his body and I try to copy him. He then moves towards me in a flash. He then proceeds to slash at me as I’m almost caught off guard as I’m able to parry his strike within a hair’s breadth away. He then tells me.

“First rule: don’t let your guard down no matter what.” He follows up with another strike at my body as I dodge away from him. This is training I might as well put all my effort in.

He chases me as I see him mouth some words. He’s chanting I know it but I can’t focus on it enough to know what exactly he’s chanting. He gives more strikes at me while I try to parry or dodge most of those.

I could feel some hitting me but not enough to do damage for now. I can only get a swing at him for every few strikes he makes. Then suddenly I see that I have fallen down to an hole I didn’t see during our sparring.

“Another lesson when defending your best bet is to try to get the upper hand or do something to give you and your opponent some space and prevent him or her or it from doing any funny business.” He says to me while crouching down to get the same level as my head.

He then gives me his hand while I grab it from him as he pulls me out of the hole that he made.

“But I didn’t hear an incantation or the like.”

“That’s because you were too focused on handling my strikes that you didn’t hear me saying that. In my book the one that is able to ultimately surprise their opponent is the winner.”

“I’ll take that into note when I fight again I guess. But can you teach me to do that while sparring right now?”

“The most important thing in order for that to work is to be able to get used to chanting while doing anything. If you wanna try practicing that try swinging your weapon while trying to cast a spell.” He gets into stance and readies his wooden sword and he continues.

“But first we gotta practice sparring first while you’re dealing with me. Just remember to be wary in the environment when you’re fighting. That’s how you got surprised by that big goblin.” He closes his eyes for a second and I feel him tensing up.

“Let’s start…… now!”

He lunges towards me as I mirror him in response. This time I tried getting the first strike to him first. I sacrifice the power for speed in this strike. Then finally I was able to hit him first while I got hit at the side of my waist. Looking properly he doesn’t seem to stagger from my strike as he says.

“You’ll get there.”

He follows up with another strike as I jump away from him enough to miss his strike as I counter against him. He parries my strike as I follow up with more strikes at his head, his arms, his body, and his legs. He either parries or avoids them as I swing my sword to him several times. At one point when I feel like I missed my rhythm at swinging my sword, Santi makes a counter-attack against me.

He continues his assault by giving more strikes as I keep parrying them. At this point if I have to get the upper hand against him, I better make use of his teachings. I try chanting one of my spells that I often use. He takes notice as he interrupts my casting as soon as he can. I get away from him and I try to chant again. As I expect him to strike using his sword, he punches me in the gut as I stagger to the ground.

“Another lesson to be learned, learn how to fight dirty. The zokun and other Von will and won’t fight fairly. Now are you okay?” He gives his hand to me. I grab it again and pull myself up from the floor and ready myself.

“I’m good for another round.” I reply to his question.

And we started sparring again.

*********************************************************************************

After a few sparrings that lasted until noon. I was feeling hungry that Santi suddenly said.

“Maybe we should start preparations for eating, then after eating let’s meet the guy that’s probably going to make or have an axe suited for you.”

“Yeah sure I just hope we have enough food here.”

“Don’t worry I already made preparations for that before we got here.”

He proceeds to go to one debris on the ground, in particular a wall from a building nearby, then he brings up the wall and reveals some food from the ground. It’s filled with meat, some vegetables here and there and then finally bread. The amount seems right around what I need actually. Color me surprised that I wouldn’t expect that to be hiding there. So I ask Santi.

“How did you manage to put it underground in the first place?”

“Well I have my ways, but don’t probe any further or I wouldn’t be able to do this again. Let’s start preparing. You could get the cooking utensils in the building over there. Last I remember it’s in the kitchen and you could wash it with the sink over there, and don’t worry the water’s working in this part.”

He points to a building west of us. Now that I notice the building seems to be refurbished or what’s the proper word for it, ah yes “recently used”, it seems that it’s more recent than the others.

With that series of instructions I put inside my head. I start following the first instruction and head inside the building he pointed to. Inside the place, there isn’t that much dust compared to an abandoned house. At first glance the place seems abandoned but looking more properly it seems that the place is being taken care of but the furniture and other stuff just seems to look disorderly. I immediately find the kitchen with all the pots and cauldrons.

I take a cauldron and a pot and a grill to be used for cooking simple dishes as far as I know of. I proceed to clean them as part of the next instruction that Santi gives me as I also grab a bowl or two and wash them as well.

Thinking about it, Santi seems to frequent this place or has it taken care of at least. If I remember properly he did have a few partners or apprentices, so he must’ve trained them here instead at the barracks. Doesn’t make me feel special if I were to be honest, but at least no one’s going to disturb us if I don’t think about the fact that the Zokun can ambush us at any moment.

“Hey Prina are you done washing the utensils??” He shouts at me from outside

I take notice of myself and begin drying the utensils with a cloth that seems to be clean inside a drawer. I take all of them and put them inside the cauldron and carry the cauldron itself back outside and take it to Santi.

He seems to already have taken out the food that we’re cooking today. He’s pulling up a barrel and standing it upright and puts a cutting board and starts chopping the vegetables already.

I get beside Santi and put the cauldron down and bring out the other utensils that were inside the cauldron. I then ask Santi.

“So are we just going to make a simple stew? Or is it something more special than that?”

“Sorry to disappoint you but it’s just going to be a simple stew and probably some grilled meat and then some bread to complement with. Anyway can you fill up the cauldron with water at least half? I know for a fact that you’re going to be eating a lot”

He continues chopping the food he got from his stash, the juicy meat, peeling the potatoes and carrots. I bring the cauldron inside the house again and fill it with water just like he said. I bring it outside and see him start chopping up the meat. He notices me and instructs me again.

“After you put down the cauldron near me, get the firewood near the cart over there. Light it up with a spell if you want to and boil the water in the cauldron.”

We continue on like this, him instructing me to get some stuff while he cooks with a manner that says he’s used to this kind of thing. Finally we put every ingredient and spice we need inside the cauldron and we’re waiting for everything to be properly cooked. He stands there stirring the whole thing while I’m here sitting on the ground staring at him doing his own thing.

We’ve been doing this thing for at least an hour and suddenly sniffs the cauldron one more time and says.

“Yep this is already finished, get over here and get the bowls. We’re eating the whole thing.”

I get up from the ground and give him the bowls and he starts pouring the stew. He hands me my bowl and I start eating the stew already. I must have been hungry from all that time waiting. I keep munching and slurping the stew as he stares at me with a bit of smile on his face.

This stew is delicious to be honest that I just keep getting more servings after one serving. We continue eating with each other until the whole stew disappears from the cauldron.

I lie down on the ground rubbing my stomach from all the food that I have eaten. Santi comes up to me and says.

“Guess you’re happy with that huh? Well we still have to clean up these stuff first before we finally go to this blacksmith I know.” He motions me to stand up as he picks up the utensils we used.

We start carrying the cauldron as he picks up the other stuff he used and goes with me to the kitchen inside the building. We cleanup all the dishes we used and at the end Santi places them where I first found it as if he does this from memory. He tells me.

“If you want you could rest up for a bit while I fix up this place for a bit before we go.”

“But why?” I ask him

“I don’t want anyone to find this place, even the Zokun.” He says with a somber face.

I did what he told and just rested on the ground as I saw him do his own thing. I try to gauge how much energy I got left for the day by seeing if my protection is still working properly after all that sparring with it. I check properly if I get any headaches at least. I tend to ignore the headaches until I start hallucinating instead. And luckily so far I haven’t got headaches.

Comparing the whole training thing so far with Santi, I do believe that Master is more strict with how he handles my mistakes. That must have been him still not trying to get with the times I guess. That guy already lived for so long I wonder how he still persists to this day. The most important thing is that I learned from him and that’s all I need for now.

Santi comes back to me after cleaning the place and tells me.

“Well get up Prina, we still have the afternoon to meet with this guy.” He gives me his hand again and I reach for it again as he pulls me up.

“For now let’s get out of the ruins and head to the commercial district.” He says to me.