I twisted the sword around to get a feel for it as well as loosen my wrist, watching Gregory’s position and stance. Finally, he looked over at something. In that moment I pushed off the ground with every bit of force I could muster. My sword was already swinging at his chest while the knife stayed close to my body.

  In an instant, the hand nearest me suddenly held a wooden sword. It deflected my attack without moving. The force of the deflection was enough to force me to the side and past him. My entire body rotated as I sshed my knife up.

  Gregory took a step back to avoid the strike. As soon as the knife was past him, he moved forward again. Unfortunately for him, I was still running away from him. This caused his fist to miss my leg. Instead, it impacted the ground where I had been.

  “Not bad.” Gregory nodded at me. “But you still didn’t hit me.”

  My shoes kicked up dust as I skidded to a stop. Turning to face him, I attacked again. Again he effortlessly deflected it. This session seemed to be a repeat of our first session. Snippets of what he said during that training session came to me unbidden. Anger swelled in my chest as I attacked him. Something inside me wanted to kill him. No, not kill him. Make him unable to threaten Victoria again.

  It was with that realization that I stopped attacking him. I knew that, while it was powerful, if I kept fighting out of anger, I would lose any real fight. Standing at the edge of the circle of dirt, I closed my eyes. Forcing myself to calm down. To find my center. Surprisingly, I found myself in front of my core. The surface rippled and sloshed as if churned by a storm.

  The waves rose high enough at times to lose their tips to the air as they vaporized. As I calmed, so did the storm-like churning until finally, the surface was mirror smooth. Opening my eyes, I turned and faced Gregory. Bowing to him, I said, “Thank you for waiting.”

  He nodded to me. “Good. I was worried you would become a berserker. While they have their pce, they tend to lead short violent lives.” I lowered back into a fighting stance before charging him. Not attacking with all my force but with light strikes and stabs. Following what my parents taught me rather than relying on the power I could generate. Not that power would help here anyway.

  The sound of wood smacking against wood echoed off the trees in a steady rhythm. At times I would attack and he would defend or he would attack and I tried to block. Quite a number of times I would be hit. I ignored the pain and continued the attack.

  Eventually, I got the feel for his attacks and he stopped hitting me. At that point, he increased the speed until he consistently started to hit me again. This went on quite several times until I could no longer increase my speed. I could see where he would hit and how I could block, but my body was unable to move fast enough to do what was needed.

  Gregory spoke after we had been fighting at the same speed for a while. “Either increase your speed or pn your blocks ahead of time. Do you need your entire sword for one? What about using your guard? Can you lessen the injury and take the hit instead?”

  He made it sound so fucking easy. Any time I thought I had figured out some sort of pattern to his attacks, he would change them. Usually, these changes were accompanied by multiple hits to every limb if not my chest.

  In a fit of desperation, I tried something. Recalling how controlling the mana inside of me felt, I pulled on a bunch. Under my breath, I softly said “Lux Erschafir” as I closed my eyes. Picturing the spell fshing in front of me before vanishing.

  Bright white light fshed between us. As soon as it was gone, I opened my eyes. Gregory’s eyes were closed and his off-hand was moving up to cover them. Taking instant advantage of his positioning, I attacked.

  His sword blocked each strike but not as fast as it had before. He was forced to take a couple of steps back as he rubbed his eyes. Opening them, he smiled down at me. “Well then. Seems like you are ready to take it to the next level.”

  At that point, I knew I was fucked. “I thought we were working on speed and pnning.”

  “Sure, but now that you can use mana while fighting, we will be adding it in as well.” He put ten feet between us with an effortless jump. “While spells are nice and all, sometimes you need a bit of a boost. For that, there is little that can compare to empowering your body with mana.”

  “But Marcy said that some spells are better for that,” I said, lowering my weapons to my side.

  “She fights with magic and not physically. Of course she would think that spells would be better for everything.” Gregory rolled his eyes. “Now there are two common ways to accomplish this. One can flood areas with mana to get a massive boost or loop mana through for a controlled boost. While flooding one's body is great for massive bursts of power, it wastes mana. Looping it will allow you to recim what the body doesn’t use.”

  “Which method should I use?”

  “For now? I would suggest that you practice flooding your body with mana. Once you can do so consistently, practice doing so for shorter and shorter periods. After that, practice doing so only in one or two limbs. After you get all of that down, practice looping mana through one limb for longer and longer periods. Eventually working up to boosting your whole body for as long as you need.”

  That was a lot of instructions for something he made sound so simple. “How do I flood my body with mana?”

  “Did you notice what happens to your mana when it leaves your control?”

  I felt my eyebrows knit together as I answered his question. “Yeah, it vaporizes.”

  He wiggled his head back and forth a bit as he said, “Sort of. For you it would become a thin vapor as it expands. What it is doing is boosting your body at the point that you released it. This time, try to attack as you release the mana from your control.”

  Gregory held up his sword in a defense stance. Internally, I grabbed a chunk of mana, holding it in pce as I attacked him once. Then, releasing it, I attacked again. The sound the swords made was noticeably louder. On top of that, the sword had seemed to blur for a moment. Almost as if it had suddenly gained speed.

  “Good. Now, defend yourself.” His sword was a blur as he attacked me. My sword rose to block it. As soon as they touched, he was pulling it back. This time his sword came swinging in from the side. It was not a strike I would be able to block. Mentally, I swept my metaphysical hand through the surface of my core. Flinging mana out of it in a wave.