Hariot kept his hands behind his back, standing infront of Seria in a clearing.
Seria held the worn sword Hariot had once used, slowly backing away with caution in her eyes.
"Okay, so I think you're misunderstanding something. First of all; You can't do shit if I want to kill you." Hariot informed, weirdly calm as always with that unnerving smile "Secondly; I gave you the sword, so that I could actually teach you how to use one."
Seria squinted her eyes, gleaming with suspicion, getting only a look to the side from Hariot. Who seemed bored in all honesty "End this farce, I've got things to do."
Seria again took a step back, that smile not giving her any confidence in his words. But then her mind inadvertantly snapped to him striking her in the gut, and holding her by the neck whole interrogating her, reinstating her distrust once more.
But then she thought about the clean floor she had been sleeping on for the last few days; Not enough for her to trust him.
But then she saw that light blue substance gather around Hariot's half-heartedly stretched out hand, as his face contorted slightly in annoyance "I-I'm sorry!"
Hariot once again returned to his smile with a shake of the head, seemingly casting aside the blue energy "It's good that you're sensible, if you weren't I'd have to teach you prudence first, and that'd... Neither of us wants that..."
And the sudden change of ambiance, and the mention of 'Teaching prudence', Seria once again tensed. But seeing that nothing had happened, she lowered her sword for a moment "...Teaching prudence?"
"Seria, Seria, Seria. I would rather not talk about things that could leave you scarred for life, so stop asking." Hariot answered, him somehow being able to both of-handedly and somewhat directly threaten her in one sentence.
"-But-"
"Stop asking." Hariot responded this time, more agressively at that, it seemed this 'Prudence training' was a sore spot.
Seria backed off again, this time in word form "I-I will?"
"Good," He nodded like usual "Now come here before I start achoring."
Seria didn't really know what 'Achoring' was, but she did know that was supposed to be a threat, and she was not confident at all in him to have the sympathy or kindness to not back it up.
When she neared, Hariot rapidly took her by the shoulders, making her face left
"The most fundemental thing when using a sword is how you hold it, and how you swing it." He said, putting his hands onto the hands holding onto the grip of her sword.
"Some people might say that the foundation is your body, your strength and all that. Others might say that it's your foot work that's foundational. But I say those things are more like secondary foundations, with your pure mastery being most fundemental."
He seemed to laugh honestly for a moment "You can't do swordsmanship if you can't even hold a sword- nonetheless swing it properly."
Without any warning, his hands shifted, forcing her hands along into the posistion he wished "Since you're still young and still have pretty small hands, you'll be using a two handed grip for this. You need to make sure that the hands are spaced apart, one close to the guard and the other to the pommel."
Strangely, it all seemed fitting, the words along with her new hand posistion snapping into Seria's mind. But Hariot's words did not stop, seemingly with no worry that she didn't understand "There are three grips I know of; the hammer grip, the handshake grip, and the thumb grip. I don't really know the specialties of each since I use one-handed swords, and not two-handers.
"I don't really have any stances to teach you, since I only learnt the basics of the basics of the Nortalve sword style for two-handed swords.
"I'd reccommend just getting a feel for it, maybe shift the way you use or hold the sword? I don't really know, the best way to level both {Sword mastery} and {Nortalve swordsmanship} are the same anyways; Fighting."
-----
'Five hours? Really? For {Sword mastery}?! Talentless! Absolutely talentless!' Hariot berated mentally while also half-wondering how he could finally get {Mana-packing} to initiate rank 'I got {Mana-manipulation} in less than an hour or two! And that's way harder to get too!'
Meanwhile, he patted Seria on the back "{Sword mastery} in five hours is pretty good kid, don't worry about not getting {Nortalve swordsmanship}; It's totally reasonable since I didn't teach you much about it."
Seria, on the other hand, was slightly confused due to somewhat frequent his tonal shifts.
'Now, time to test her; See if she runs away or tries to kill in the night after a bit of affection. It isn't that bad to be friendly anyways... Though it's a bit worrisome that she might get arrogant and think she can disobey commands and not get a broken apendage...' He thought for a moment; An idea coming to him.
After a 'hmmm', Hariot stated "We'll be staying out here for the night." No reason given.
"Okay." Seria accepted, no extra words said.
Hariot instantly paused "You're not going to ask why?"
"No, would you answer me anyways?" She said, questioning him.
He couldn't help but fake amazement and pride "They grow up so fast."
Somewhat befuddled, Seria sighed 'Shouldn't you at least act like you would?' She thought, stopping along with Hariot.
The pyromancer casually took a few sticks from a live tree, using the power of climbing to get some. He threw them in a pile; Then shot a fire-bolt at it.
...It wasn't actually set alight, it was burnt a bit though.
Seria took a moment to look at Hariot's face, surprised to see no sign of shame in the slightest, as if her presence didn't even matter.
He put his hand to the pile that was still somewhat hot, and pushed in a good amount of the light blue energy that she did not remember fondly.
"Can I ask something?" She asked, a redundant question presented; As she was already asking something.
"Depends on what you ask."
"W-What's that blue stuff you keep using?"
The world paused for a moment, as Seria could see honest pity shine through the cracks of his neutral smile "It's... Mana."
'Mana? So every time I saw that light blue stuff, I was seeing mana?!'
"Seeing from the fact that your pupils just dilated, it seems you know what mana is, which makes my life so much easier." Hariot said, his voice tinted with relief.
Then the next moment, it returned to it's usual tone of slight mockery and arrogance "It seems your upbringing wasn't a total shit show."
Seria processed the words, taking some time to just understand that Hariot could read her eyes to know her condition. And Hariot put no effort in stopping it, letting her just sit on it.
He continued to pour in mana, turning it orange; Then forcing it into a few of the sticks. And then, it was somehow set on fire.
He shrugged for a moment at her amazement, and sat down; Doing seemingly nothing.
-----
'I still have this gnawing feeling that I can make something better than mana rings; But I won't do that today. I need to stay at least a good bit vigilant, she has both a short sword and a dagger now.'
Hariot was keeping an eye on her from the corner of his eyes as he thought 'Though this is a test of her loyalty and or a test of my attempt at fear-tactics and the persona's quality, I for some reason don't feel that enthusiastic about this.'
He choose to start gather 3 mv of 1:8 mp in the form of a bolt of mana; It took only a few moments, 24 mp wasn't really beyond the storage of his mana rings, the only annoying thing was moving it all.
But after it was nestled within it's place in his right palm, he looked at Seria- Who was still energetic, and swinging her sword- a dark aura surrounding him for a moment 'If she does attack me; I'll make sure to stop her from seeing the sunrise.'
Seria momentarily shuddered once more, so used to the feeling that she quickly looked at him; Who had never even lost his neutral smile this time.
"It's good that you're hard working," He said casually while building up more and more mana in his mana-pool out of pure habit "If you keep at it, you might become an Apprentice or even a Journeyman."
Seria smiled at his encouragement, though Hariot could easily see the confusion hidden beneath the happiness of being praised 'This girl... She doesn't know what class titles are?!'
It was good that she seemed to be effected by praise- Or at least had the ability and sense to act like she did- But not knowing what class titles were was a bit too much even for him to just accept like nothing was wrong.
But with a deep breath, he closed his eyes- Leaving a small gap open to monitor Seria- He had the thought to to just tell her now, but he'd do it later.
Now was the time to test Seria, not to explain to her the most basic aspects of a class, as so; He silently sat there.
But just sitting there was not really his style, he needed some sort of progress; it being highly appreciated if he got an extra star on one of his current masteries.
He kept most of his spirit outside his mana pool, and let a little bit of enter said mana pool under his control.
Currently, when he was to compress mana for his mana pool; He first had to take it out, then condense it, and then put it back in.
This entire process was mostly bogged down by the first and third step, if he were able to compress the mana inside his mana pool, he would no longer be limited be the size of his mana conduit.
Then he'd mostly be limited by his mana regeneration- Which he didn't know how to increase 'Thinking about it, there's probably a lot of supplementary books in the mage's guild outside of the magic domonations.'
The next moment his mind snapped gaze snapped back to his eyesight, the sudden step of Seria being enough of an importance for him to stop his adventure into the arcane realm.
The gathering of mana hidden in his palm increased in density in exchange for its size at Hariot order, morphing into a bolt with one end directly pointed at Seria.
As she stepped closer- Her confused face not recognizeable to Hariot as his eyes were squinting to the point most might mistake him for a sleeping man.
After a moment of pause of her standing before the fake-sleeping, Seria's movements showed Hariot that she seemed to be hesitating in doing something; Quickly having him build up more mana in his mana bolt.
But it seemed that her choice wasn't related to killing him "H-Hello?"
Hariot took a deep breath as if annoyed, opened his eyes, tilted his head towards Seria and asked as if he had just been woken up "Yes?" Quickly setting up his neutral smile the moment after.
"C-Can I have the sword-wielder t-thing?" She asked, obviously nervous.
He took a moment to process; "The scabbard?"
"Yes?"
The question filled in her answer quickly made Hariot's face distort- Outside of his neutral smile of course "...You can have the scabbard, okay. That's not a problem, a scabbard without a sword is dead weight. Wait a moment, and I'll find it."
"T-Thank you?"
"Keep on heaping the praise." He said in a mix of deadpan tone and sarcasm as he took of his bag while maintaining his mana bolt all the while he rummage through a bundle of throwing knives, loose clothes and the like.
Finally taking out a scabbard, which he handed over to Seria casually after standing up; Before finally returning to his original position. Making some deep breaths before almost completely closing his eyes again.
And he went back to monitoring her while also trying to force the mana into a more compressed form, exchanging experimentation for a continual build up of mana.
=====
Back from my two-ish week break, yea; I don't really like the title, so suggestions?- Meh, I'll try to get back into the weekly schedule but I'm still a bit busy irl.