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356 - The Elder's Coaching [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2024-05-19 10:41:58 +0000 UTCA/N: I'm not dead. I just got sick. I'm better now. Not fully okay, but better.
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After giving it a few moments of thought, Zelsys nodded and held out her hand. Fulguris twisted into being from thin air, then transformed into Carnifex once the end of her tail was grasped in the elder’s hand. Zelsys gave form to a False Fang, dismissing the cleaver as she grasped the fang, elongating its shape until it vaguely resembled a curved sword. In effect, it was just a shorter Fang Spear with a curve added.
She could tell from the way Lucian looked at the Fang Sabre what he was thinking.
“It’s unfair, isn’t it? But this is the only way I can do what you ask.”
A glance to the side, towards Lucian’s quasi-official master.
“Lydia, toss me that sword over there. Yes, the cold-iron one,” she instructed, stabbing the Fang Sabre into the dirt in the meanwhile.
With a flash of pink lightning and a trail of crackling cherry petals, the silvery shortsword went flying towards Zel’s head at the speed of a bullet. She caught it in hand, and simply held it out, allowing herself to connect with it, but not pushing it in any way. Ten seconds passed. The metal began creaking and reverberating like a tuning fork. Visible cracks began to show. Just when it seemed like it would explode, she dropped it, and it shattered the moment it hit the ground.
“Carnifex Fulguris is the only blade allowed to Zelsys Newman. Such is the nature of Storm-soul Cultivation. I’ll make it fair,” she said, whirling the Fang Sabre. A layer of black scale fell from the blade, and as she pointed it at Lucian, it was clear that the weapon had become much duller. Its fuller narrowed at an aggressive, wedge-like angle as always, but rather than an impossibly sharp razor, it was merely as sharp as any well-maintained warknife.
Round four passed without any strikes being landed, despite countless holes in Lucian’s movements begging for correction. Zelsys abstained so as to enable whatever Lucian wanted out of fighting her with a sword. She had no specialist knowledge in sword techniques of any kind, working solely off of fundamentals and what understanding she had gleaned from encountering them and their users.
Even still, with each clash, she realized why Lucian had wanted this, and why he was clearly so frustrated. One by one, Lucian went down the list of conventional techniques, mixing in unconventional Bayonet-eater arts such as the Bearstopper Guard wherever was opportune. Even the small repertoire of Lucian’s unique cards was interesting and, in some ways, novel, but a sword arm could only be so different from a mantis-blade. He just couldn’t do anything sufficiently high-concept to exceed her existing reference library. By the end of the round, his self-transmutation had completely failed and he was left barely able to move from struggling so much.
“Do you… Do you truly not practice sword arts, elder?” Lucian struggled out.
She shook her head, calling forth a small bottle of Liquid Vigor, which she tossed over to him.
“No more Vitae for three days. I comprehend them, as any good cultivator should be able to do. But I am not a “Sword Cultivator”, even of the lowest order. A ravine separates those who merely understand a martial art of any sort, and those who are cultivators in that style, and the only way to cross that ravine is to dedicate oneself to the style in question to a spiritual degree. I believe I made this abundantly clear in Sturmblitz Kunst 0 — no matter your specialization, you must understand the arts of your allies and your enemy as well. As for you, Lucian, I wouldn’t consider you a “Sword Cultivator”, either. A Blade Cultivator, perhaps.”
Seeing the musclehead struggling to stay upright, Zel cut things short and sent him off: “Now go clean yourself up before you bleed out. If you have further questions, you may come to me directly after you have recovered.”
Lucian gave a shallow bow in acknowledgment, only to drop any sense of decorum the moment he had walked a ways away, biting the cork out of the bottle and swirling its contents down his throat all in one go.
“Alright, who else…” Zel mused, sweeping her gaze over the small crowd still gathered in the courtyard. It had thinned out over the past few hours, as very few of those who took up the offer of one-on-one coaching were left in a state for spectatorship afterwards.
There were seven more individuals she truly wished to go one-on-one with today. Among their number, five counted those who had entered the Illusory World of Fangs during her epiphany.
However, out of these seven, one had suffered severely, and was still recovering — it was an eagle-man who had lost most of his feathers and had broken many bones, named Sachual. Last Zel had checked on him, he was in good spirits, and his aura had noticeably taken on aspects of the Truth of Fangs, but he was nonetheless still out of commission for at least two more weeks.
Mata Gano had done the same, and though she had not suffered major injuries, she, too, was in no state to train — she was working with Sigmund to rework her martial arts.
Four others were young Ikesians, two boys and two girls, some fourteen or fifteen years each. They had somehow emerged with an eldritch bond vaguely similar to the Triplets she had fought back in Eberheim, able to act as one body while clearly remaining separate individuals. For this reason, she wanted to coach them all at once… But they weren’t here. In fact, they had spent nearly all their time in the forests, and even when they were at the sect, they were never anywhere near where she was. From what she’d heard, they were trying to tame wild beasts.
The last was Victor, but he had been in soft seclusion down in the leyline well since Eberheim. He apparently came to the surface every two to three days, but she hadn’t seen him even once since she had come out of seclusion. For this reason, she intended to check on him when she first got the opportunity.
“Nobody? Very well, we’ll wrap things up for now,” Zel said, turning on her heel and making her way to the baths. She tossed a handful of bronze pills into her mouth as she went. The sound of metal creaking and snapping echoed inside her skull.
