“I feel like I’m starting to hate this thing,” Reysha complained, staring at the Runeblade. She had used it to learn how to use Edge, the Martial Art that allowed her to project a keen edge around her joints or weapons she was holding – provided she had the necessary concentration. As a Runeblade, the weapon's silver edge, black spine, and golden sigils in her hand eased the process of certain Martial Arts being used on or through it.

She was currently trying to unlock the second of those: the Martial Art known as Spellslice. Mages were the bane of many a melee combatant, courtesy of their long-ranged barrage of attacks. Often spellcasters were even capable of covering large areas. In such cases, dodging became either impossible or improbable.

Three solutions had been created to counter that problem. One was to ignore it, to make one’s body so sturdy that they could ignore the damage from a mage and just waltz on through. Second was to shield against it, utilizing either thick armour or shields and imbue them, by means of enchantments, buffs, or Martial Arts, with the defensive means necessary to withstand the supernatural assault. Third was to answer fire with fire, to disrupt spells through means of Ki. A fireball that was torn apart before it could explode was no danger.

Reysha was currently trying to learn how to utilize that Martial Art. Problem was that Mai was ever the practical teacher. As far as the Infiltrator was concerned, all skills should be acquired in situations at least resembling what they were to be used in. Consequently, Reysha was currently getting bombarded with Winter Bolts.

Moving rapidly, Reysha swerved side to side, dodging two Bolts that came at her in rapid succession. The cold, divine energy drifted by her, frosting the autumn air in their path. “Or maybe I should just hate you!” Reysha shouted at the person sending the Bolts flying at her.

“I thought we had buried that hatchet!” Mehily responded in a loud voice and brought her palm forwards in a slow esoteric motion.

“I’M DIGGING IT BACK UP!” Reysha screamed, to amp herself up for what came next. Desperately pouring all of her efforts into her weapon, she manifested a purple glow around it. Pointing it at the Priest, the tiger girl prepared herself for what was next. A consistent stream of cold mana, creating an aura of snow around it, chilled the forest air as it travelled towards Reysha.

Slightly correcting the angle of her weapon, Reysha held steady. The spell reached the Runeblade and then, like a jetstream of water slamming against a pointy obstacle, was parted into two sprays. The chill remained, but was diminished to a merely annoying degree. More importantly, none of the devastating damage that spell could do made it to her or even the weapon.

“Don’t engage in mana competitions with mages!” a chiding voice suddenly reached her from the left. Reysha barely managed to jump to the side. The sweeping kick missed her butt narrowly. Reysha turned twice, before swiftly getting into a battle-ready stance again. “That’s enough for now, Mehily,” Mai shouted over to the Priest. “I’ll be taking over. Take a breather.”

“Can I take a breather?” Reysha asked with a broad grin. She kept her breathing under forceful control and her gaze focused on the blonde, lean, blue-eyed Infiltrator. She looked more like a high elf than anything else today. The tight leather armour and wooden sword were not the expected garb for that species, however. “You know, just long enough so you can run to your husband and get your brains screwed out.”

“Hubby can last a while, so no,” Mai denied and rolled her shoulder. “You haven’t collapsed yet, I can still push you.”

Reysha hissed and her left arm expanded in response to the agitation. The skin turned as black as coal, the red colour of her nails intensified until it was no longer translucent. Thick and large, more like the claws of a wolf than a cat, her nails extended from her digits. They cut trenches into the ground as her fingers curled.

In a perceived instant, Mai was no longer in front of Reysha. The tiger girl tried to react in time, but she just couldn’t. The wooden weapon cracked over her right shoulder and dull pain spread throughout her entire body. Sending a jolt of ki to her wrists and ankles, to her neck and the muscles around her spine, she tried to emulate what Mai had just done.

It seemed to work for a moment. Reysha moved and the eyes of the Infiltrator were stuck where she had just been. Before she could get a swing of her demonic arm in, the tiger girl’s teacher was focused again. Her blue eyes darted to the side and she caught the black-skinned paw by the wrist. “You’re still not doing it properly,” Mai chided, releasing her pupil only to kick her in the gut.

The power of a high-level adventurer was overwhelming. Reysha flew back nearly three metres, before landing on her back in a puddle of thankfully clear rainwater. Wheezing and gasping, she tried to get over the immense pain. Mai had at least enough mercy to take a break there.

“Mehily, heal her!” the Infiltrator ordered the Priest.

The blonde hurried over, first helping Reysha out of the water and then starting the rejuvenation. Slowly and efficiently, the healing energy spread through Reysha’s body. The pain was chased away by a relaxing cool. Clicking her tongue, Mai made her annoyance known. “I don’t have the mana to use Mending,” Mehily explained. “Rejuvenation will have to do.”

“…Fine,” Mai sighed and sat down on the forest floor. She then broke out into a lecture that Reysha, in her recovering state, could not interrupt with any quips. “To repeat until it gets drilled into your skull: the Shadow Step consists of two components. First is to use a rapid burst of Stealth to throw the enemy’s attention off you. Second is to give yourself a considerable burst of speed by reinforcing your muscles with Ki. Combined, it allows you to make it appear to your enemy as if you were teleporting.” She grabbed the Runeblade off the floor and pointed it at Reysha. “YOU only ever do one of the two.”

“Can I get some credit for having even learned that bit of Stealth?” Reysha croaked, when her lungs started working properly again. Because she was a more combat focused Rogue than was common, developing the basic Sneak Skill into the more advanced Stealth variant had not been an initial focus. It still wasn’t. A burst of it was way different than a consistent application of it.

“You don’t need credit, you need results,” Mai responded, harshly. “I’m teaching you a highly advanced move, because it will up your survival chances against the Deathhound considerably. Do you know what you are, Reysha?”

“A sexy little thing?”

“Unfathomably blessed.” The answer made the redhead’s smile drop in favour of an actually puzzled expression.

“Really?” she asked. “I don’t feel particularly blessed; I have to tell you. I’d rather not have a fucking Deathhound at my back or get my shit kicked in for…” She tried to recall exactly how long it had been since the training began. “…four weeks straight.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t face hardships, I said you were blessed,” Mai responded. “I told you before how talented you are for the Class you chose and I have to amend that further: the attributes you were born with and acquired may be the most optimal for a Rogue I have ever come across, your impatience aside. You’re good at improvising, ruthless, risk-taking, and your species is gifted with better sight and hearing, which are further boosted by your Noir condition. It and that demon arm of yours fundamentally diminish the main disadvantage of Rogues.”

“If I may ask, what would that be?” Mehily asked. She had only been part of this current training regimen for three days. It had been her, rather than Aclysia, for two reasons. One, Mehily needed to use her new eyes to follow moving targets more, helping her to grow accustomed to them. Two, both Mai and Pronthin were certain the metal fairy would have held back or gotten otherwise uppity, when the tiger girl was hurt. “In the interest of my survival, since Reysha has declared a vendetta against me again.”

“Already forgot all about that,” Reysha hummed. Gradually, her organs felt like they were back in their right place.

“As Rogues our primary strength comes from exploiting windows of opportunity with Martial Arts that allow for a burst of power.” Mai crossed her legs, her fingers drumming impatiently. “We call the Martial Arts of our niche Combat Tricks. Here, let me show you.” She rammed the Runeblade into the dirt and picked up a long, two-finger wide stick she found nearby. With the other hand, she raised up the wooden practice blade. “This is a Warrior,” she said, raising the practice weapon. “A deliberately shaped weapon. Consistent. Made for purpose. Reliable. Predictable. This,” she raised the stick, “is a Rogue. Unsteady. Not entirely defined or narrowed down. Hiding its true potential under the bark. Would you agree that you could beat someone up with either of these?”

“I would,” Mehily responded sincerely. That made Mai blink a couple of times in confusion. Teaching Rogues for so long had made her forget that it wasn’t normal for students to sass back at everything she said. The attitudes that drove people to seeking underhanded combat versus divine guidance were vastly different.

“Well that is… good.” Mai glared at the giggling redhead, then continued with the next question. “Which one would you rather wield in a duel?”

“The sword, obviously,” Mehily continued, having a vague idea where this was going. “As you said, it is more reliable and would probably lie better in my hand.”

“Quite so. Similarly, it behaves when a Warrior fights a Rogue. The Warrior’s Martial Arts are all made for repeated or even consistent usage. To put in number terms, the Warrior always fights at 120 percent of their strength, while the Rogue is typically limited to 100. However, combat tricks subvert this.”

Stretching the stick out to the side, Mai concentrated on it. Suddenly a loudly vibrating edge of mana expanded from the upper half of the wood. The sound grew even louder, until it was akin to metal screaming over metal. Then it was suddenly gone. Reysha stared at that wide-eyed. That was not the Edge she knew.

“For brief windows, we push our capabilities to levels that can penetrate even the defences of other adventurers. We aim for the one blow that decides the combat. We raise our capabilities to enable it and then use poison or other dirty tricks to make sure even a grazing hit sticks.” She tossed the useless bit of forest wood aside. It collided with a nearby trunk and burst into moist splinters. Insects and time had already taken its toll on that ‘weapon’. “We trade the effectiveness of our successes for a high price for our failures. Taxing our mana circuits with such massive releases makes it difficult to repeatedly execute our Combat Tricks and between their usage, we can only rely on our speed to avoid being turned into paste by the melee Classes apt at dealing consistent damage or into ashes by you spellcasters.” Mai pointed her weapon at the now fully recovered Reysha. “And that’s what makes you blessed, young lady. Noir elevates your physical capabilities higher and with that arm of yours you can hope to even win physical competitions against Warriors. Even if you don’t and that arm breaks, the demonic regeneration won’t leave you crippled for long.”

“I mean, I totally get all of that.” Reysha stood up and stretched. “What I don’t agree with is you calling me BLESSED!”

On the last word, the tiger girl suppressed her presence and boosted her muscles as much as she could. How satisfying it would have been if she had gotten it perfect at that moment. However, Mai had been in this line too long to be surprised even by a well-executed Shadow Step from a relative rookie. Reysha’s Stealth wore off after her strength increase did and her leg slammed against a defensively lowered arm.

“I had to go through HELLS,” Reysha hissed, not letting the lack of immediate success disturb her. The regular way, she went on an offensive. With a calm face, Mai knocked aside every attack that came her way. “And I definitely never fucking asked for THIS!” Her left arm slammed into the trunk of a pine tree, splintering the solid bark and denting the wood underneath.

Mai, having dodged, kicked the feet away from under the redhead. The demonic fist scraped over the rough bark. Black mist swirled off the bloody knuckles, as the thick blood crusted over in a matter of seconds. New skin had appeared before the heavily breathing tiger girl was fighting to get back on her feet. Even healed, she was still exhausted.

“Get over yourself.” The Infiltrator grabbed Reysha’s red mane and dragged her to her feet. “I already told you what I did with my early life. Do you see any culminating advantages I got out of causing the deaths of thousands?” About to strike again, the tiger girl instead found herself getting tossed. Disoriented, she lay on the floor.

Barely, she noticed the foot coming down on her. A rapid activation of Stealth made Mai hesitate for a split second. Enough for Reysha to roll onto her back. Hard, the heel stomped down where her torso had just been.

“Progress,” Mai noted, while Reysha barely held onto consciousness. “You can pass out. I’ll wake you up in thirty minutes.”