Lorn's training was simple but difficult. It was mock fights against Lucas.
The Guildmaster put many limitations on himself. The main one was that he wasn't allowed to block Lorn's attacks and could only dodge at only half his base Agility which was 30. The number looked too small for someone so strong, but since he only had Strengthening that boosted his Agility, it turned out like this.
Anyway, Lucas also had to keep his soul visible at all times, even though he had Imperceptible Spirit in his arsenal. Hunters' skills required certain movements of the soul to work properly. Everyone could choose their preferred movements and imaginations when they were first unlocking the skill, but it was impossible to change them later on.
So by becoming familiar with Lucas's skillset, Lorn would know which skills would be coming next by just looking at Lucas's soul.
This fact didn't really help him much.
When Lucas was fighting with him, he would mess with Lorn's senses occasionally. Visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile illusions were tamest of the senses Lorn would feel. There were many more fucked up things Lorn had to suffer through.
The feeling of being scalded on his hand, the feeling of an arrow going through his neck, the feeling of something giant coming from his side, the feeling of having his hand cut off… and the times when Lucas would decide to simply cut off Lorn's every sense and leave him inside an abyss.
It was a certain kind of hell to fight against Lucas.
At least Lorn learned to expect these skills due to Lucas's soul projecting it beforehand, but he still struggled desperately to avoid them, in fear of Lucas's infamous Effect and Cause.
Lorn didn't understand this spell that well before, but experiencing it first hand, he got an idea. He could only describe it as one's nightmares becoming reality. It was the fabricated senses in Lorn's mind becoming reality.
Since his body was feeling scalding hot, there must be something heating it up. Since there was an effect, there must be a cause. The heat surrounding him would rise to incredible numbers burning his skin.
Since his fingers felt crushed, they really must be fucked. If Lorn looked at his hand, he would only find a bloody mess.
Effect and Cause provided Causes for Effects. Lorn didn't dare find out what would be the Cause of all his sense turning themselves off was. Every time Lucas used the sense-annulling skill, Lorn would throw everything he had in his arsenal to somehow disrupt the skill-casting process.
Almost instinctively, Lorn would also try to swat Lucas's soul with his own, hoping it would cancel the skill, but it was his own soul that would become scattered. After all, Lorn's soul was gaseous, while Lucas's was solid. There was no competition between the two.
In short, Lorn's desperate attempts to disrupt Lucas were fruitless. The Guildmaster's skills were like point and click abilities with infinite range – there was no avoiding them.
It was despair.
The only saving grace was that Effect and Cause needed Lucas's soul to be in touch with Lorn. Lorn could dodge or avoid being touched by it so what he was feeling didn't become reality.
It took Lorn's all to simply survive these fights but Lucas asked him to perform certain tasks during them.
At first, they were easy stuff. Hit a skill on Lucas, dodge Lucas's Spirit Burst pellets while suffering through pain, run from one place to the other as fast as possible, etc.
They then got more complicated. Fight while protecting a straw doll from Lucas's Spirit pellets, jump from one wall to the other using Gravitational Pushes while not touching the ground, fight while keeping a skill ready to blast off at any second only firing it when Lucas ordered him to… all sorts of scenarios.
Lorn's latest task was to make Graceful Cuts work somehow.
It wasn't going well.
In the first attempt, Lorn tried to use the skill five times before he ran out of spirit. The punishment for failing to complete the task was thirty seconds of raw pain all over his body.
Afterwards, Lorn received a few minutes of rest.
In these moments, Lucas would give small lectures.
Lorn loved these lessons. Wishing they would go on forever, he made the most expectant face and listened to them with all his attention.
The first one was about the clarity of your own role in the team. For the current Lorn, the ideal was a damage dealing support. He could dish out punishment if needed, but his strengths lied in his disruptive skills.
But for now, Lorn was something of a selfish support. He only used his disruptive skills so he could hit his own attacks. He never thought of using them to make the others' fights easier.
Lorn planned to talk to the rest about this. Naturally, Adrian and Sybil's attacks were much stronger than his. It would be more productive for him to work on making their attacks connect, instead of his measly spirit bullets.
Another lecture explained the importance of spirit management.
With the update to the Spirit stat, Lorn learned that his Spirit was an impressive 1680. With the effects of the Ring of Rhykan, it went up to 2352. This was huge for an E-rank. The average manipulator would only reach 1000 at this point, even with a Spirit boosting relic.
But naturally, with Lorn using eight skills, it still ran out at a considerable rate. In the first place, the three base skills: Strengthening, Hub of Consciousness and Point of Gravity drained his Spirit at by 5 per 10 seconds. One for Strengthening and two for the rest.
The rest took up a more considerable amount. The average Spirit Burst needed 40, Gravitational Push 50. The mental and fog skills required a bit more, all costing around 100; but Spirit Absorbing Fog stole 40 spirit per 10 seconds from each enemy affected so Lorn thrived against many weaker opponents.
The new skill he started using, Phylactery of Nature, passively restored 10 spirit every 10 seconds. His Phylactery was a small piece of hardwood tied to a necklace. It rested comfortably on his chest.
But regarding his skill costs, aside from Rejuvenation, that required more Spirit depending on the injury, Lorn's most mana demanding skill was Draconic Vitality, requiring 150 for its activation, and a whopping 10 every 5 seconds.
Though, with the addition the Tantou's new skills, it was replaced by Seizure of the Moment, which demanded 20% of his total mana. Graceful Cuts also required a large amount, 200 per try.
Because of these new additions and the task revolving around Graceful Cuts, Lorn quickly ran out of spirit each mock spar and that was the topic of Lucas' latest lecture. The importance of understanding frugality and timing.
Lorn grumbled inside, complaining that it was Lucas who wanted him to somehow make Graceful Cuts work despite it being nigh impossible against Lucas. Twenty seconds was a long time when Lucas only gave Lorn about 5 seconds of breaktime at best. Even if Lorn jumped away, it was impossible for him to outrange Lucas.
Lorn then tried to distract Lucas by constantly throwing skills at him, but it wasn't like Lucas couldn't spam skills.
Lorn wondered if Lucas wanted him to act brave, banking on the chance that Lucas wouldn't use Effect and Cause, but a burnt hand later, Lorn learned that was the wrong answer.
And each time Lucas broke Lorn's skill, he would scold him for not using his skills and spirit in the optimal way. Lorn wanted to complain, but held it in.
Part of him was afraid of Lucas, but because Lorn didn't want to admit that for whatever reason, he told himself that having Hunters who are willing to train you personally are quite a privilege.
This world wasn't like Earth where you could go online and take any class you want, you actually needed to struggle to be accepted as a student by Hunters. Lorn was lucky to just be able to learn under a Guildmaster like this.
And to be honest, his skill mastery and battle sense were improving faster than ever. He even managed to level up Graceful Cuts once, despite never successfully using it once.
Eventually, the day ended. For homework, Lucas told Lorn to think about how to best use Graceful Cuts against him.
He then wished Lorn luck in the arena matches and also the few excursions outside the city and left.