Before beginning the archery training, Ken's level Exp as a warrior was at 142/1250. But these two hours of rigid shooting exercise had boosted it up to 150 points. Had Ken spent this time performing uncoordinated physical labor, he would have received 5 points at most.
The difference between magical training and combat training lay here. Mages recieved a definite amount of experience points with every successful spell, and the growth thus was visible to the naked eye. But warriors progressed at a more subtle pace, and the changes taking place inside their body wasn't easy to analyze like mages. The increase of experience points was also not easy to predict during practice. Sometimes, one could earn more than 5 points in an hour. The other times the same set of exercise yielded far less benefits. And in rare cases, the world spirit gave recognition to the perseverance, spirit, or determination of the trainee and rewarded them with extra experience points.
But this disadvantage of uncertainty and slower pace of growth was balanced by the fact that warriors didn't experience spiritual burnouts during training, unlike mages. With proper guidelines and resources, a warrior could train twice as much as a mage every day.
Feeling invigorated by the rapidly growing scores, Ken washed himself and headed out. The training ground was right next to the Duke's towers. The older sentries guarding the vicinity looked half-tempted to stop him upon noticing his training uniform. But some subtle voices among their squad called them off.
During the recruitment process, many of them had witnessed how Ken had been shepherded into the selected team despite showing no remarkable performance. They might not know his background, but they could see it working like a charm, blatant and open.
Unrestricted, Ken reached his new home, a small building close to the walls of the core city. The property belonged to the Lacebark Elm Clan, one of the largest goblin clans in the Emeraldflame subcontinent. This was also the clan Duke Roshoka hailed from.
Inside the gated courtyard, Simm was busy with her combat training. Ken silently watched her throw a dagger at a target dummy using one of her combat spirit invocations. This invocation had the effect of controlling the dagger's trajectory in the air, making it fly like a boomerang and circle back to Simm's grip after leaving a quick cut on the dummy with each throw.
Combat spirit invocations were the unique weapons of the Warrior Class that put them on an equal footing with mages. In a broad outlook, the invocations could also be categorized as magic.
Certain styles of combat practice, when taken to the extreme using the enhanced physical attributes and the discipline of the practitioner, had the potential to give birth to a combat invocation. These invocations had specific, limited usage, usually centered around offensive or defensive moves. For example, the invocation Simm was using was the extension of her dagger throwing technique. It enhanced her accuracy, the speed of the dagger, and added the element of spiritual control over its trajectory that no ordinary combat technique could match.
Ken's knowledge of these invocations was extensive, but limited to the surface level. He knew the types and classifications of the invocations, had learned how to detect them and to counter them. And he knew that a practitioner could unlock the warrior class only after mastering one combat spirit invocation through extensive training.
Now that he had a genuine opportunity to conjure them himself, he was looking forward to the harsh training!
"You're back early! Was there an issue in the central tower?" Simm asked upon noticing his presence at the gateway.
"No, I just have less training than the rest." Ken walked up to her side and examined her new collection of equipments laid out on the ground.
"Are these all that they offer to a peak Mutant Rank investigation officer?" He said, feeling a trace of anger rising in his heart as he realized that the leather armor, the dagger set, and the silent whistle apparatus were all mid-quality items of the Common Grade. He had seen no-name sentries near the Duke's towers with better equipment.
"My guess is that they want to test my capabilities before handing me anything precious. The Duke is probably a little suspicious about my origins. Didn't you see the way he kept looking at our kids?" Simm said, appearing used to the discrimination.
She wasn't a native of Emeraldflame subcontinent. Roshoka would've recognized her face, otherwise. The number of Super Rank Goblins wasn't small, but most of these faces were famous. If Queen Emora hadn't tried to keep her animosity toward Simm a secret, images of her face would've been transmitted to every corner of the subcontinent. Still, Ken didn't want to take risks. Both of them had maintained a solid disguise outside the house since entering the city.
"At the speed these kids are growing, the Duke won't know who they are the next time he meets them." Ken wasn't worried. Surata had made some approximate calculations based on her observations of the children. They were going through almost a year's growth per week since breaking through to level 2. They had been born merely three weeks ago, and they were already speaking small sentences now.
"Who do you think is going to reach level 3 first?" Simm asked.
"Kenshi or Mishka. The other two aren't as lively. But level 3 is still quite far off. The world spirit won't keep rewarding them for screaming at the top of their lungs," Ken said with a laugh. Leaving Simm to her practice, he slipped inside the house silently. The kids were playing in the room adjacent to the courtyard, so Ken circled around it to sneak up on them from the back of the house.
"Buaaahahahaha!"
The cute roars of shock and endless laughs that followed him inside the room was Ken's favorite greeting in the world.