Samuel quickly pivoted backwards barely avoiding Alsian's wide sweep, but Alsian was quick on the advance and lunged forward making Samuel quickly sidestep left and then right only having his clothes grazed by the weapon.
It had been an entire week more of training with Alsian and the other children of mana. This was another of the dreaded sessions of sparring with Alsian, they were dreaded because Alsian was a dangerous killing machine once he started swinging his blade.
Worst of all was the part where Samuel always felt like Alsian held back, he was switching between three different styles of dueling that always threw Samuel off. His masterful way of switching his grip and stance in a split second would do that to any fighter.
If Samuel was to only fight using the dueling and weapon techniques he had trained with, he wouldn't even beat Faleah, but he felt like Alsian was a monster several levels above. Not even his adoptive mother would stand much of a chance against this creature.
He thought to himself as he jumped to the side and rolled quickly to avoid another slash. He quickly raised his blade and blocked a powerful overhead slash that left his muscles vibrating from the force of impact.
Which was another cause for calling him a monster, Alsian had a simillar build to Samuel as they were both lean but quite muscular. Clothing just had a tendency to hide the fact, "So why in the hell is he so much more stronger than me physically?" Samuel screamed inside his mind and he felt Night snickering through their link.
Samuel saw the glint of steel and leaned his head to the left and he felt the wind graze his cheek as the blade just barely missed his eye. It always felt like Alsian was seriously trying to kill him, but somehow he never ended up with more than bruises and simple cuts.
"Is running all you can do boy?" Alsian mocked him and Samuel couldn't help but scoff inwardly, it wasn't like he was given much of a choice. One of the most dangerous fighting styles Alsian was wielding was the Akazan duelist style.
Samuel had gotten knowledgeable enough about Alsian's past to know it was a very rare fighting style that was created by the Shard Family long ago, and they rarely shared it with outsiders. It was about overpowering ones enemy and giving them not a single quarter of respite.
But the moment Samuel tried to counterattack Alsian switched over to the Concor style, which was about redirecting energy and using the opponents own strenght against them. The fact that he could switch between such a perfect offense and defense made Samuel legitimately scared.
That was the type of past Alsian had suffered, that he needed to become this strong to survive. It made Samuel question just how prepared he was, and the lessons he had been enduring lately had come to question his preparedness all over.
He had a long way to go.
Samuel grit his teeth as he blocked another swing and he felt both his arms go numb from the impact. "How are you doing that?" Samuel shouted and Alsian couldn't help but grin as he jumped back.
"Simple! I am using your imbalance against you. Try finding your center of gravity and parrying more central to your body." Alsian laughed at him as Samuel tried doing what was instructed.
These kind of exchanges went back and forth for an entire day. With Samuel left feeling beaten and bruised and with a sense of annoyance and emptiness. No matter what he did, he couldn't seem to do much.
He ended the day with the usual, quickly grabbing a bite and then going to sleep right away. Night was also working hard to keep up with everything, Simul was teaching her everything about meditating and channeling her own mana properly.
Her bond with Samuel put her in a simillar position to Alsian and the children of mana bonded to him. So she also fell asleep happily exhausted that night. The two of them woke up in the morning, both of the groaning most of the time.
Samuel wanted to get a quick breakfast made so he opened the door and was met by the smell of coffee which made him instantly wake up and become slightly guarded as he walked down the staircase.
Sitting by the table reading a newspaper with a big mug of coffee was Vazmarx the child of mana that had introduced himself to Samuel weeks prior. He put down the mug and newspaper when he saw Samuel staring at him and raised his hand. "Mornin!"
Samuel just stood there dumbfounded and ignored his eyebrow twitching, "What are you doing in my house?" He growled. Vazmarx shrugged. "Door was unlocked! Thought I'd drop by and tell you that I got accepted into your faction." Vazmarx yawned while looking at Samuels tired face.
Night strolled down the staircase when she felt Samuels annoyance but instantly hid herself when she saw the new person. "Hi there little familliar!" Vazmarx waved at Night.
"Well thats good for you! Welcome I guess, now please leave me house!" Samuel grunted and Vazmarx chuckled. "I didn't want to tell anyone out of respect, so I kept it to myself. But my nose picked up your different scent, so I figured I would introduce myself in proper form!" Vazmarx stood up and stood tall as he stepped away from the table.
He slowly turned his head back and forth and grinned with fangs.... "Fangs?" Night suddenly retorted in his head and black smoked that started from the feet soon covered Vazmarx and dissipated almost as fast.
Standing tall was a humanoid still, but a fox humanoid with ten tails standing at least 2 meters tall he was quite a bit taller than his human appearance. Samuel instinctively took a step back, "A fox kin or were fox... No! Considering your shapeshifting was like magic rather than a physical transformation you are a fox kin, and a ten tailed one at that..."
Fox kin were one of the rarest races because you almost never saw them among civilization, another of the races that kept to themselves, living in faraway villages or mountains. But here was one of them... and a child of mana at that.
"Well... I can see why you would keep that hidden!" Samuel took a few steps forward and stood in front of the fox like humanoid that was about one or two heads taller than himself in his true form. "By the way! Smell you said?" Samuel wondered and the question was answered by Vazmarx who laughed. His voice was now a lot more rough and sounded a bit like a growl. "You smell a bit like a wolf sometimes, it is very faint and if I hadn't been seated right next to you I probably wouldn't have been able to smell you at all!"
"Whatever way you are using to hide yourself is friggen amazing! Didn't think there was such a way - except for us with shapeshifting abilities of course." Vazmarx took a step back and now Samuel could see his full shape better.
Completely black fur and a fox like head, with slightly red eyes. He blended really well into darkness, but Samuel also saw the weapons that Vazmarx had left on the counter now... two slightly curved blades.
He started rapidly going through his weapon memory and realized the weapons to be Akatars or more commonly known as Katanar type blades. From the northern weapon smiths whose home was in the Oligarchy of Norn, an ancient practice from a culture that barely survived the cataclysm.
"Impressive!" Samuel nodded and an idea sparked in his mind. "Say you wouldn't be able to teach me a bit of your swordsmanship? If you have any?" His question seemed to stump Vazmarx who took a step back.
But with a grin on his face he took a step forward, "From a blade magus to a blade caster, I am certain I can teach you a bit of my blade skills."
Samuel was surprised for a second or third time, A blade caster was someone that relied heavily on casting spells using their blades, but they were still mages through and through. Whereas a blade magus was someone combining the fine artistry of true blade skills with magic.
Their skillsets were extremely simillar, they both casted spells and used their weapons as focuses for their spells, both were equally rare types of fighting styles because they were so hard to pull off.
But a blade magus could trigger their spells to act as an aftereffect of their swordsmanship. Perhaps it was something Samuel could also learn. "Well, in that case! I will be in your care for a bit!" Samuel gave him a simple bow of the head.
Samuel was probably better at spells while Vazmarx was probably more skilled with a blade. A so called 60-40% vs a 40-60% direction of skills.
Samuel quickly whipped up some breakfast and got himself ready and for once he took a day to focus fully on his studies in the classrooms. It was much of the same, but at deeper levels of lore and knowledge.
To start understanding magic on a much much deeper version and seeing every version it could be. Wether it was good or bad or what layer you even classified something to be. Magic was shapeless but given shape and intention through their user after all.
Magic could be as beautiful as it could be devastating.