After our little meeting with Emperor Marcus, Quincy and I have begun our hellish training for the next two months. I’ve gotten back into my usual training schedule of practicing magic with Vasavir, and aura training with Armstrong. The only difference being that instead of doing sword training with Lilith our whole party has been training together. We’ve been told to do our party training outside of Colonus by the imperial knights. Reason being that when our party gets together we tend to cause a lot of damage to the surrounding environment. I’m pretty much just going to blame Ryder and his explosions for that.

It's around 5:30 A.M in the morning and I have decided to join Quincy and Armstrong for their daily morning training. Quincy doesn’t seem to be so distraught at being awake so early in the morning so I guessed he’s usually awake at this time. I have two hypotheses as to why; One he’s awake to read at this time or two Armstrong has been forcing him to get up and train at this time. Probably the 2nd one, or both, who knows?

It’s been about 4 hours and all we have done is run around Colonus. I’m starting to get tired even with my aura enhancing my strength and stamina. Quincy looks as if he’s at least gotten used to running and I suppose he has more physical stamina than me at the moment. He’s even reading a damn book while running. Is that an ability he’s developed during training, if so--that’s a completely useless ability. God, I hate running, I wish my warclass was magician so I could just fly everywhere like Vasavir does. Wait, he just teleports around and jump scares people, doesn’t he? I still need to work on teleportation, but it still scares the living hell out of me so I haven’t attempted it much.

“Hah Hah, Hah. . . . Why are we doing so much running? What does this have to do with aura training anyway?” I complain.

“It’s to increase your stamina boy. If you increase the strength and durability of your body--then you’ll be able to fight longer and your aura will increase as well. You’re going to have to bulk up if you want to have a decent fight against the emperor, you know.” Armstrong informs.

“How strong is the emperor anyway, and why did he perk up so much at the thought of fighting?” I inquire.

“While he may not be as physically strong as me he’s still one of the strongest and experienced fighters in the empire. To answer your question he’s a fight-a-holic, like me. He’s the one who’s established the Westphalian Grand Skirmish as the empire’s most important event,” Armstrong responds.

“Westphalian Grand Skirmish?”

“Oooh I read about that in a book,” Quincy interrupts looking up from his book.

“Of course you did, I bet you even know what Emperor Marcus ate for breakfast yesterday” I say sarcastically.

“It was an omelette made with dragon eggs and waffles with maple syrup. It was in the newspaper since the royal head chef was trying out a new recipe, but never mind that. The Westphalian Grand Skirmish is basically a tournament consisting of the best fighters in the empire. People from each guild in the states come to the capital to fight for the title of strongest warrior. That’s what the colosseum at North Point is for,” Quincy claims.

“You’re certainly well-read, boy.” Armstrong says complimenting him.

“I wonder how I’d do in that tourney with my current strength,” I mumbled.

“You’d probably get wrecked, the fighters in the Westphalian skirmish are all usually champion level at least,” Armstrong notes.

Damn, pretty much everyone I’ve fought so far in this world is pretty much stronger than me. I’ve technically beat Lilith and Ryder in a fight, but I wouldn’t count getting extremely injured as a result a true win. Nazuko one shotted me when we first met, I can still remember the pain in my groin. I’d say Remi and I are probably around the same strength level considering our abilities. I could beat Azura, but that doesn’t make me feel any better since she’s a healer. Now all of this is just getting me depressed and I feel like I’m in a fighting mood at the moment.

“Screw all this running, let’s have an actual fight,” I announce as I stop running.

“Heh, why not? I’m always up for a bit of hands on training,” Armstrong claims.

“Quincy, you gotta help me, I know you’ve been wanting to slug Armstrong in the face since you two first fought. If we work together, maybe we can do some damage,” I assure him.

“But I want to keep reading though. . .” he argues.

“Look, if we kick his ass now, then training's over for the day and you can have more time to read later.” I say attempting to persuade him.

“Ugh, fine if you put it that way. I just remembered I do have a grudge that needs to be settled.” Quincy says putting down his book and getting into a boxing stance.

“Alright!” I say getting pumped.

I decide it’s time to use the power of the ring on Quincy, hopefully to give me an idea of what I’m working with at the moment. Hopefully he can serve as a good shield since Lilith’s not here.

Name:

Quincy

Class:

Monk → ???

Luck:

Bizarre

Defense Level:

Medium

Aura and Magic:

Completely dependent on Aura

This being is close to developing their specialization. I would advise you to back him up using long ranged attacks.

“Wait a moment, who just said that,” I say out loud.

I look around at Quincy and Armstrong and they give me rather weird looks. I think I just heard someone’s voice but I don’t know who just said those words. The voice sounds female and rather soothing or calming in a way.

I did. I am speaking to you inside your mind.

Inside my mind? Am I going crazy since I hear voices in my head?

“Who are you and how are you talking inside my head?” I say mentally.

I am Mythril. I am a spirit that resides within your ring. I am here to assist you in achieving whatever goals you may have.

“The ring? Oh so you emerged since the ring has been slightly restored from me killing that demon earlier.”

Affirmative.

“Geez, this thing has a lot more features than Vienna told me about. How much of it has been restored anyway?” I ask the spirit.

The ring’s power is functioning at around 25% effectiveness.

“I see so I’ve only unlocked about 1/4th of its potential. Hey this is just a side thought, but at its full power will I be able to see a girl’s three sizes? For research purposes, of course.”

You will.

“I will?! That’s awesome!” I cheer.

However, I may withhold that information in the future if I deem it unnecessary.

“Dangit, but why?”

If such information is not relevant to your goal it will be hidden from you. Would the size of a girl’s chest really be helpful to you in a fight?

“Mythril you fool, you have yet to grasp the concept that such information is helpful in a fight. For example, a girl with a larger chest may have a different center of balance than other girls. That can affect their mobility and fighting style,” I say intellectually. I would push up my glasses right now if I wore any.

I see… I shall take that into account in my future analysis.

“Hey, Will, are we going to fight or what?” Quincy says interrupting my mental conversation with Mythril.

I just realized I’ve been standing around talking to my ring spirit for about a good minute so to them it must seem like I’ve been staring off into space.

“Oh yeah, yeah sorry I was ummm, coming up with a plan,” I say justifying my actions.

I ready up and pull my weapons out of my pocket dimension.

“Do these look like toothpicks to you now?” I ask hopefully intimidating Armstrong.

“Hah, impressive weapons, but let's see what you can do with them. LET’S FIGHT!” Armstrong announces.

Quincy is the first to attack as he charges towards Armstrong in order to give him a good right hook. Armstrong dodges it by stepping back and kicks Quincy, but he puts his arms up to block it. It only manages to send him a few feet back. So he charges forward again with his hands up protecting his face like boxers do. I decide to heed Mythril’s advice and support Quincy by shooting Armstrong with a few wind bullets everytime he tries to attack Quincy. I’m at least preventing him from attacking and defending Quincy at the same time. I’m limited to small attacks like these since I can’t use tornado without harming Quincy.

“Okay it's time to deal with the long ranged attackers first,” Armstrong says while dodging Quincy’s latest attack and rushing past him.

He’s headed in my direction now and it looks like I’m about to get a punch to the face. I barely manage to dodge the fist heading towards my head and I roll to the left to gain some distance. He charges forward at me and starts sending out a flurry of blows. Thanks to my training with Lilith I’ve gotten a lot better at dodging, so I can manage to dodge quite a few of his blows. However, it’s taking all I have just to dodge. I can’t find the moment to counter attack.

“What’s the matter? You can’t win by just dodging,” Armstrong tells me as he continues to send out punches.

I attempt to slash him with my katana after he throws a left hook, but he uses his right hand to slap my hand and I end up dropping my sword. In the next second we both attempt to punch each other in the face and both hits connect. However, my punch doesn’t do much as he shrugs it off and his punch sends me flying into a nearby bush. OW! I forgot how sturdy this guy was when he fought Quincy. Quincy comes over to me and helps me get up.

“Get up, you evil-looking power ranger, we can’t lose until we give him a hit that looks like it damaged him.” Quincy tells me.

“Yeah, but how do we hurt a guy who’s too fast to hit and too tanky to take damage?” I ask him.

“I don’t know, just hit harder? Isn’t that what you basically did against that demon you told me about?” he responds.

“Yes, but I need my sword for that and it’s currently lying right next to his feet,” I tell him.

“Ugh, fine I’ll stir up a distraction while you go get your sword,” Quincy tells me as he starts running towards Armstrong.

Quincy runs up to Armstrong and kicks up a ton of dirt in his direction to blind him. I take this chance to run and grab my sword. I need to catch him off guard in order to even have a chance at slashing him. I get an idea and I open up a portal and jump into it. From the sky I can see Quincy slugging it out with Armstrong as they exchange punches. His punches look slightly more effective than mine so there’s that at least. Armstrong finishes the skirmish with Quincy by uppercutting him sending him flying at least 50 feet in the air. Jesus christ.

“Now, where is the other one?” Armstrong says looking around for me.

“Oh, hi Quincy. Bye, Quincy” I say as he’s going up and I’m going down.

“Oh, hi Will. Bye, Will.” he responds as he continues to rise.

As I continue to fall I use the power of my sword to enhance my strength and I give Armstrong a powerful slash, but he catches it with his left hand. He proceeds to punch me back a few feet. A few seconds later Quincy lands right next to me making a loud thud noise. I see Armstrong leak a small drip of blood from his left hand.

“Not bad kid, you gave me a papercut,” Armstrong exclaims.

“You did hear that Quincy we gave him a papercut!” I say in a celebratory manner while slapping him awake.

“Great, does that count as a win,” Quincy groans.

“In my book it does,” I tell him.

“We’re not done fighting yet you two. It’s my personal code to finish fights and we are just getting started. It’s time I show you two a special move,” Armstrong says while his fist starts to have this red aura being condensed into it.

Uh oh, that looks really bad. Umm, what do I do, what do I do. Someone help me.

Given your physical abilities successfully evading such an attack has a success rate of 10%, such an action is ill advised. Therefore the most suitable move is to redirect the incoming attack.

“Redirect? Ah, I see how that could work. Thanks Mythril,” I say mentally.

I don’t know how to feel about having a magic spirit reading my thoughts, but I’ll take it if it helps me live.

In the next second Armstrong charges at me and throws a punch with blinding speed. However I open a portal to catch his fist and open a second portal right next to his face so he ends up punching himself in the face. The force of his own attack sends him flying back a bit and as he gets up I can see he has a bit of a bloody nose. I don’t know how to feel about the fact that the only attacks that work on him are his own, but I guess that just shows how weak we are at the moment.

“HAH, that’s the first time I’ve felt real pain in years. Not bad first hero. I guess I should be a little more careful with my attacks. Let’s see how you handle this!” he yells as a large ball of energy starts to form from his hands. He then proceeds to shoot the ball of energy the size of a large truck at both me and Quincy. I attempt to pull the same trick as earlier, but as I open a portal to catch the aura ball it maneuvers out of the way of my portal and continues heading towards us. What?! It can do that?! That’s just not fair.

“Will, please tell me you have something else to deal with that attack?” Quincy pleads.

“Nope, kinda a one trick pony at the moment,” I responded.

“F*ck!”

“F*ck indeed!”

I think to myself and analyze the options I have at the moment. Wind? Nope, Armstrong can just maneuver the aura ball again. Telekinesis, maybe? Nope, I can only move objects within five feet of me at the moment. I really wish I didn’t put off that teleportation training as it would be perfect for this situation right now.

“Mythril, save me!” I plead to the spirit.

Sorry to say this, but there is a less than 1% chance you can avoid this. In other words, you’re ‘kind of f*cked,’ at the moment.

“Damn it.”

In a split second, the ball of energy collides with me and Quincy which then explodes sending us flying a few miles into the sky in the direction of the castle. As we fall we manage to land right in the castle courtyard and both Quincy and I are having a bit of a difficult time standing after that attack.

“You know, how about we start avoiding fights with Armstrong as much as possible from now on, I think we should at least fight people who know when to stop,” I groaned.

“Agreed,” Quincy says in a pained tone of voice.

I hope the emperor isn’t going to kick our ass as hard as Armstrong, but knowing our luck, he probably will.

“Have you made any progress in figuring out how to get home?” I asked, changing the subject.

“I think so, there’s a certain forbidden book that the librarian of Colonus told me to read, but I can’t read it because it's in the language of the gods,” Quincy responds.

“Hmm, let me take a look at it, I think I might actually be able to understand some of it,” I informed.

“Really, did you go through 20 years of druid training at some point,”

“No, I can just read it due to this ring, but I don’t know all of the words in that language,”

“Ugh, fine I’ll show you the book as soon as we are capable of standing”

15 minutes later and we wobble our way to Quincy’s room and yep, there is still a crap ton of books in here.

“Just stand there, Will, I don’t want you causing another book tornado, it took ages to clean that up,” Quincy commands.

“I might be so inclined to try it again, or maybe it’ll be a book earthquake instead,” I taunt sarcastically.

Quincy gives me this look of annoyance and goes to fetch a book that has these weird symbols on it. These are definitely the same kind of symbols that were inscribed on my sword. I take a look at all these weird symbols, and I’m capable of transcribing some of them, but it’s still mostly incomprehensible. Maybe I can’t read ancient spirit language, but I do have an ancient spirit on my side.

“Hey Mythril, can you translate this text for me?” I ask the spirit in my head.

Due to the ring’s current condition, my ability to translate the language of the ancients is heavily dampered. Fully restoring this ring will allow you to read it.

Well, that’s great, I guess I have to go grind some monsters for a bit.

“So, can you read it? Can we finally go home?” Quincy says with a hint of excitement in his voice.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I can only read about every 4th word or so, I think I need to get way stronger before I’m able to fully understand it,”

“Dang it Will, why can’t you get stronger faster, I don’t want to go on any more life threatening adventures,”

“Hey, it’s not my fault, this was originally your job to get us home wasn’t it,”

“Yes, but I don’t want to go through 20 years of druid training just to read one book,”

“You might be able to read two books--who knows, but it seems we are going to be here for a little while longer,” I say closing the book and tossing it on the ground.

“Say, why are you interested in getting home, don’t you love this whole hero thing you have going here?” Quincy asks.

“Well while I am enjoying it I have almost died like 50 times since coming here. If we keep going, I might actually die for real,” I respond.

“We already died once, so it’s not like we are in desperate need of dying again. Also I don’t really have an emotional connection to this land and its people. I’m just trying to do the right thing. Although my attempts at being a hero and getting stronger only seems to cause chaos so I’m not sure I’m doing it right.”

“If you could really read that book and send us home right now, would you do it?” Quincy asks.

“I… I don’t know. But I don’t want to think about things that don’t matter right now. We can’t go back now anyway so we might as well make the most of our lives here right.” I suggest.

“Yeah at least I have all these books to keep me occupied in the meantime,” he says.

“You have fun with those and try not to die. I’m going to go to bed and hope that Nazuko’s not already in it,” I say reluctantly.

Man what’s with all the hard questions today? Would I really choose to go back out of my need for self preservation or would I step up and be the hero according to the prophecy? Only time will tell, I’m pretty sleepy right now.