As Lalant lazily poked his soaked whole grain pancake he watched Borenger tiredly practice various stances that he generally knew but only for single sided swords. Though it was obvious he enjoyed it a lot, the nuanced differences between them despite their similarity intrigued him. “What a freak.” Lalant thought to himself as he slipped a bite into his mouth.

  Over a period of three days, Borenger had gotten used to the different movements. Before he had to keep relatively fluid and focus on the basics of footwork that could be translated between a multitude of weapons. Though Lalant recognized this could hurt his progress he also was not sure what weapon would be best for a vrilya with a unique case as him.

  The issue was that he was likely to never be able to exert pure energy outside of his body. A fatal flaw, though given Borenger’s natural talent toward fighting it could potentially be corrected with the adoption of multiple weapons but then a kyrene blade literally fell into him.

  Such weapons, let alone armor, were certainly in circulation in the black market. But if three hundred ureygols could buy one a large estate in Ibintil and still have leftovers to spend one hundred years without work then it would take millions of ureygols to obtain a sword like that. The Empire only has a few such pieces and anyone else carrying one is a target for kyreneans who would kill for the chance to gift a lost item to a member of their family or to a notable kyrenean.

  Of course, Borenger had risen in prowess to the point that he could be considered among the fifty deadliest warriors of Mafakas. Naturally at the bottom of that list but it shouldn’t take long for him to make such a thing meaningless, much like Lalant had long ago.

  “Master? With a weapon like this, there are more stab techniques correct?”

  “That is right. Go through the ones you have discovered already.”

  He demonstrated all of the basic ones anyone could intuit with some handling of weaponry in general. However he was pretty stiff and did not use the blade’s main advantage.

  “Borenger, how did that kyrenean fight? Was he stuck in mud like you are?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Recall how he swung that large blade.”

  Borenger focused, boosting the blood flow within his mind he could easily recall the large movements of the man he fought. “But isn’t that somewhat impractical?”

  “Did it not work on you?”

  “That’s right.” He had remembered how, even if it was on purpose he was pushed back and also that it was not as wild as it seemed. Since there was only one opponent he had no need to act as he might against several. Borenger could see the man in his mind as if he were being projected in front of him.

  He began to dance with the blade, adjusting any mistakes he saw. Lalant too would point out mistakes through transmission rather than speaking outloud due to eating more of his pancake. “You don’t need to use so much muscle behind you if you’re facing a single enemy in front of you.” and the like consisted of his advice.

  Later on through the day, they also ordered for a sheathe. Given that carrying an open blade, especially for a weapon like that, they could only cover it in towels to avoid trouble given such men with that kind of military authority could not simply cross the border.

  This was through an old friend of Lalant’s; Gar. Gar was a half-gigan, dwarf mother which was unusual. The man was burly and tall, standing at six feet and four inches. And old, hair greyed by the years. “Lalant? You damn fay don’t age a day!”

  “I may not look it, but I feel it.”

  “It’s been what? Twenty years? I see you’re only using a small blade.” Gar noted that Lalant’s blade wasn’t the kind most vrilya would wear into their adulthood, it was typically worn by child vrilya especially amongst the Vorinasche clan.

  “These days I prefer to get by without much work. Not to mention, armor dulls reactivity.”

  “I could never be as insane as you.” Gar sat down and sighed. “Who is this? Your bastard child?”

  Lalant snorted. “He may as well be. He’s my pupil.”

  At this Gar raised his eyebrow and looked at Borenger. “Unsheathe the sword.” He silenty placed it on the table and the towel fell as Gar raised it, shock widened his eyes but then his lips curled into a smile. “I’m forced to believe it now. Only a pupil of yours at this age could take a kyrene blade. Eh, doesn’t he beat you by about fourteen years?”

  “Tch. For such a large thing you talk a lot.” Lalant’s ears flapped, though he feigned annoyance he was secretly proud to hear of someone praising his student. “Fay just age slower.” This was a lie. “More importantly, you’ve surely discerned the reason for our coming here.”

  “As I don’t see any other weapon, I suppose you’d like something that would make it easily drawn.”

  “Yup. Hip drawn is ideal.”

  “I’ve been wanting to make something with a lock mechanism…” Gar mumbled to himself and rolled away on his chair with the sword in hand. “Got a replacement weapon?”

  “I have a dagger Master gave me, all will be well. Thank you sir.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Isn’t he a bit too polite?” Gar looked incredulously as if Lalant couldn’t have possibly raised him.

  After ordering a custom sheath, the two enjoyed the sights of Indigol. Though nothing all that special was going on they did hear something about a farmer’s market. Borenger spent most of his life in a Temple or in the wild - in fact Afeir was one of the first cities he had been to and besides the bar he didn’t look at much.

  “Master, what is a farmer’s market?”

  “They still do that here?” Lalant rubbed his chin. “It’s a simple thing, the street will be crowded and vendors will sell food, various assortments. Actually, there’s rarely any farm related products at all.”

  “Sounds stuffy.” Borenger frowned, not a fan of crowds.

  “It’s not so bad.” Lalant patted his back and they continued checking around town. Stopping for dinner where Lalant ordered meat for a strange beast that could only be described as smelly so Borenger plugged his senses with an excessive amount of hot sauce on his more civilized food. Bone chips in rice.

  The next day, Borenger got his scabbard. With a button, the blade would practically be dropped and Borenger could cut with it efficiently. “Just make sure to take care of the mechanism, the same oil that you’d use for folding blades would be used here…” Gar described the process of cleaning the dagger-like mechanism within the scabbard that held it together.

  Later on the farmer’s market started, the pair visited not expecting much more than the typical features of such a place. Music that danced on Lalant’s ears, games where Borenger felt engaged due to their vaguely martial nature but of the highest interest was a sporting event.

  “Hm, athletics? I didn’t expect that in little old Indigol.”

  “What’s that like? Running?”

  “Probably and a bunch of other things. Interested in watching?”

  “Not really…” Borenger dramatically slumped over and sighed, the image of unenthused.

  “What? Aren’t you basically an athletics freak?”

  “Well I do like training but isn’t it boring to watch someone train?”

  “So you were aware…” Lalant patted his back. “This is a bit different though. I wonder if vrilya are allowed to participate.” At this, Borenger lit up a bit.

  So they made their way over to the training grounds, unexpectedly it was all dwarfs. Some fay, gigans and even mer could be spotted in the crowd. “Well, things sure have changed since back in the day.” Lalant said as if Indigol wasn’t a dwarf majority city the last time he came.

  “How about you sign up?”

  “But isn’t it… cheating?”

  “Then don’t use vril. It should be more interesting that way for you.”

  “If you say so.” Borenger handed Lalant the sword and he went up to the first official looking guy he saw. This one wore a hat and decent clothes.

  The man greeted him before Borenger could say anything. “Hello there young sir.” He was sizing him up, which put Borenger a bit on edge. “Are you here for the field events or the track?”

  “Uhm… I guess both.”

  “B-both?” He was taken aback. “You sure?”

  “I guess.” Borenger was a bit worried it was unusual but he was too embarrassed to correct him. “I-I mean yeah I am here for both.”

  “How about you join the javelin event? They’re going first.”

  “Ok. Is that them?”

  “Yep, good eye.”

  Borenger joined up with the group, like him some of them were quite tall like himself. As he approached they looked at his physique, they could tell he was strong just from that alone. One approached him through the group, he was tall and blonde. “Hello, I am Luger, you?”

  “Borenger.”

  “Nice meet you.” He extended his hand and they shook.

  Not long after they began throwing javelins. Borenger had thrown things before so he felt pretty confident, he understood the objective but when the first guy; Luger, threw a javelin, it had a unique sense of finesse he wasn’t sure he could imitate on the spot.

  Even while he was the last of the group he still didn’t quite get it or at least he wasn’t sure if he could make it as far. At this point the distances being made were all decently above two hundred feet. Luger had made his throw reach just below three hundred feet. Then Borenger threw and he made three inches below luger for the first throw.

  With six throws in total, Borenger messed up a few times trying to imitate the method. Though the other throws were impressed that it was just pure strength. “Kid, you could become a galactic thrower y’know?”

  “Galactic?”

  “It’s held in the core… if you want-”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t enter this competition with those kinds of ambitions.”

  “Oh… that’s a shame.”

  The man gave up on introducing the young Borenger to a traditional coreling sport. In the end Borenger ended up with the bronze, under another man for silver and Luger who took gold. Of course, their physiques weren’t weak but they clearly never stimulated their muscles through vril control like Borenger was used to.

  The rest of the day’s activities were somewhat similar though he did the worst in long distance running and anything that took heavy weights. Granted, he was just under what was considered decently high leveled. This of course changed when it came to wrestling.

  The traditional cycle of these sporting events had two directly combat related events. Today was wrestling and the next day would apparently be punching of some kind. Thankfully for this in particular, there was no restriction in terms of pure grappling.

  Though most vrilya training traditionally focused on weaponry, Lalant was among the relatively common advocates for anti-armour techniques - one such technique was utilizing grappling. For Borenger, this was trained through many tumbles in grassy plains, forests and deserts of Mafakas.

  Unfortunately two things were true of the wrestling tournament. Borenger ached and his opponent was also some kind of warrior. Though he wasn’t scarred much, his stance, musculature and the set of his eyes told him that this man was a kyrenean. “Keep your energy in check Borenger.” Lalant transmitted into his head.

  Borenger sighed and stood before his opponent. “You’re strong.” He said and stretched his hand out to shake. Borenger let his hand slip into it and it was tightly gripped. This didn’t bother him too much but he thought it was sort of strange. “He has to be gauging my reaction, right?”

  Then when they got into their spots, the ring guard blew a whistle and before Borenger could properly gauge his opponent the man had rapidly crouch walked into his stomach, offsetting him and picking him up off the ground. “Borenger!” Lalant’s call loudly rung through his skull as he was tossed up into the air.

  He caught himself with a hand and swiftly put himself back on his feet, though the man kept pressuring for a fight. Borenger, caught him and they began plumbing for an advantageous position. Despite the man’s slightly smaller stature he was bulkier and extremely strong, he forcibly bear hugged and picked Borenger up again. This time slamming him into the ground on his back.

  Though Borenger would recover given his stamina, he was continuously thrown down several times. Leading to a loss.