The day before they were sent on missions, Sam was called in by Kai to the Indoor Training Facility, across the field, on the opposite side to the dorms. The place wasn't used very often so it was quite dusty. The place was meant to be used for training hand-to-hand combat but every student was already proficient at it. So instead, they filled the room with magic tools and weapons. It became a warehouse, not officially.
"Alright, I want you to clean this place up first." Kai said with a big smile on his face, acting all innocent
Sam's jaw dropped, he was tricked, and he felt betrayed. He spent thirty minutes cleaning the dust off of everything.
"Did'ya really brought me here just to clean this place?"
"No, I didn't expect this place to be this dirty."
"Why didn't you help out?"
"Now to discuss why we're here..."
"He's not even gonna discuss it."
Kai walks to an empty big wall. He walks to the west corner of the room, places his palm on the wall, and pushes it lightly. The wall then lowered slowly, revealing a wall of weapons and tools.
"Wow." Sam was amazed.
Kai walks beside the wall, glancing at each weapon. One set of weapons caught his eye, a pair of blades. He picks up the two swords and hands them to Sam.
"What are these?"
"Core-users need a weapon to fight on equal footing with other sorcerers."
"Why?"
"I don't need to explain, do I?"
"I can't cast spells, right?"
"Yeah. But that's not something to be ashamed of. Just do what you can and improve."
"I guess."
"Now, you should test out the blades. Depending on your growth, most of the weapons here take at least a few months to master."
"They're just blades aren't they?"
"Nope, they're called magic weapons for a reason. These are called "Twin Blades", it's a lot cooler to see what they can do."
Sam and Kai left the facility and went to the field. On the field, Sam was flailing around both blades on each hand, they were light and flashy. Shiny gold color, with cloth binding wrapped around the handle.
"I want you to clash the one blade with the other from behind."
"Behind?"
Sam raised one blade to shoulder level and had it sideways and facing Kai. "Clash 'em?" he thought.
Sam raised his other blade and hits the former. A force of repelling was unleashed, and the repelling force ran through Kai's clothes and hair. It was just like wind passing by.
"What was that?" Sam ask
"That was the "Repel" force."
"Pretty straightforward."
"Yeah, the Twin Blades is one of the easiest dual-wield weapons, but they're as powerful as the wielder. Also, you can throw them as well."
"Throw them?"
Sam throws the blade in his right hand, it spins like an axe. It dropped about 30 meters away from him. Nothing happened after that. Sam stayed in silence.
"Yup, I can throw them."
"Now reach out, open your palm, and call the blade back to your hand."
He raised his hand to shoulder level, aimed towards the blade, opened his palm, and thinks about the blade returning to his hand. The blade started to levitate, a few centimeters off the ground, then the blade started to fly towards him at high speed. He closes his eyes with his hands still reaching out. Before he even knows it, the blade was in his hand again.
"That was "Recall". Pretty simple, right?"
"Yeah, I think I'll have these."
"It's good to have multiple weapons on you, it helps in different scenarios. Once you're a Mid-Ranking sorcerer, I'll hand you "Yugami No Rōpu", or the Rope Of Distortion."
"Is that Japanese? What does it do?"
"Yes, it's Japanese. It's basically a rope that's very stretchy, it can extend about thirty meters from its initial ten-meter size. Charge it with mana while whipping something, "distorts" space. It changes the structure of an object by disassembling it per molecule. Tearing it apart. And if you can there's another move called "Reality Snap", but that move is ancient and difficult to do, only someone from about four hundred years ago would be able to do it."
"Dan said "using whips are difficult"."
"Well, he's not wrong. I'd say there's a good amount of sorcerers that died trying to master this rope."
"Guess I'll have to practice using these before my first mission."
"That's good. I'll watch."
The size of the blades aren't long, it doesn't even reach one meter. The handle was twenty centimeters and the actual blade was twice that. Sam practiced swinging the blades for a good half an hour alone until Kai wanted to help out. Kai became a live target for Sam. The way Sam fights felt familiar to him.
It was similar to someone he fought before. However, Sam's moves weren't nearly as fast as the person he fought before, they were incredibly slowed down. Kai knew exactly whom Sam learned from. Nearly the same way of blade swinging, an erratic pattern of movements, dynamic wrist turning to every miss-hit.
"So, you're not dead, huh?" Kai thought to himself, grinning.
Sam didn't land a single hit for about 45 minutes, he was close a few times though. After that he just collapsed, he was tired.
"Why can't I land a hit?"
"You were close."
"Ugh..."
Kai stared at Sam. He chuckled.
"You're still inexperienced, Sam. Something you gain by actually doing it."
"How old are you, Kai?"
"38."
"Are you serious? You look like you're in your late 20s."
"I appreciate that."
"Can I ask you something, Kai?"
"You weren't afraid to earlier."
"Haha... What's the highest rank do you think I'd be?"
"That's a question no one's ever asked me."
Kai thought about it really hard, he remembered a certain student who had the same circumstance as Sam. He smiled.
"Probably High-Ranking."
"Not Supreme-rank?"
"Oof... Not even I'm a Supreme-rank. The difference between High-rank grade 4 and Supreme-rank is far. A rank I know only two sorcerers have, only one living one though."
"What happened to the dead sorcerer?"
"The Dark Kin? No clue. He was presumed dead. He hasn't done anything in 18 years."
"The Dark Kin's the one that destroyed that city in Bright?"
"Now it's called Shine-A. And yes."
"What about the other one?"
"His name's Shino."
"What's he like?"
"You'll probably meet him one day."
Kai then wanted to ask the question just for the hell of it, "where'd you learn how to fight?"
"Dan at first, then his mom."
"Oh, his mom."