Weylan woke up refreshed. All hurts and aches gone, as always. There needed to be actual damage left for him to feel anything upon waking. He remembered mentioning it to Darken, who seemed annoyed by that simple fact. Darken had told him that wasn't the case with revenants in their home world. There they tended to wake up aching and suffering from sore muscles after rigorous exercise or other exertion. Weylan tried to imagine that and failed.

He slipped out of the dorm quietly, as usual, heading to the small yard behind the building for morning stretches and drills. The air was crisp, smelling faintly of dew and the bread ovens warming up in the lower courtyards.

He had just finished his warm-up when soft footsteps approached.

To his surprise and mild annoyance, Aldrich strode into the yard. The insufferable noble normally woke up long after Weylan returned from training.

The two of them had an unspoken treaty: inside their shared room there would be no arguing, no insults, no childish pranks. Magical or otherwise. Outside the room? That was a different story.

Aldrich stopped short when he spotted Weylan already there, eyebrows pinched with displeasure. But the courtyard had more than enough space, so he simply sniffed and stalked to the opposite end without a word. He began stretching, then flowed into a complex sequence of sword figures. Silver arcs of his rapier cutting the morning air.

Weylan returned to his own exercises, eventually switching to practicing sword stances with his shortsword.

He had just settled into a familiar defensive posture when Aldrich's voice drifted across the yard, cool, precise, and disapproving.

"Your stance is uneven."

Weylan blinked. "What?"

Aldrich rolled his eyes in a way only a noble could. "It's perfectly adequate if you expect a right-handed attacker. Against someone striking from your left, or worse, a left-handed opponent, your retreating step would leave you unbalanced."

Weylan checked his footwork. Looked fine to him. "I've done it like this a lot. It's fine."

"Against untrained opponents, perhaps."

Aldrich stepped closer, switching his rapier to his left hand. A gesture no sane swordsman did unless they were showing off.

He nodded at Weylan. "Take your stance."

Weylan humored him. The first parry went smoothly.

Aldrich reset. His eyes glinted.

He attacked again. Almost with the same movement, but this time advancing at a sharper angle, weaving around the parry and forcing Weylan into a retreating step.

Weylan's foot slid back… and nearly stumbled.

He caught himself. Looked down. Looked again. "…You're right."

Aldrich gave the sort of shrug that universally translated to I told you so and returned to his drills.

Weylan exhaled and continued. He had to admit it: the noble brat was annoyingly competent. When Weylan used the variable range and leverage of the sword-staff, he could match Aldrich. But limiting himself to a normal sword? Then Aldrich outclassed him.

When both finished, Weylan wiped sweat from his brow and asked casually, "Did you already choose your Master-tier skill feat? I can't decide which one to take."

Aldrich paused mid-cleaning his blade. His eyes narrowed. "You claim to have reached Master tier?" He scoffed. "Imposturous." Then he seemed to reconsider, studying Weylan with reluctant irritation. "Though… after witnessing your ridiculous existence for some time now, I can almost believe it." He sheathed his rapier and straightened. "I myself am stuck at the bottleneck. Perhaps fighting a true master will help me cross it." He flourished the blade with a graceful snap. "How about a duel in the arena? It will be good to relieve some of the bad blood between us. By which I mean your blood, of course."

Weylan nodded, baring a grim little smile, and the two of them marched toward the arena. The outer doors creaked as they pushed inside, revealing a single, bleary-eyed senior student slumped over a lectern.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The student blinked at them in slow motion.

"The arena is still closed. Come back later… much later."

Aldrich immediately shifted into his most aggravating aristocratic pose.

"This is a duel of honor. According to academy regulations, such a matter cannot wait."

The student stared at him. Sighed heavily.

"Oh, great. One of those mornings… Fine. I'll power up the mana accumulators. Don't touch anything. And wait for my signal before doing anything lethal."

He shuffled off toward the control alcove.

Weylan and Aldrich stepped into the center of the empty arena, their footsteps echoing in the cold stone chamber. The supervisor seemed to wake up a fraction more as he raised his voice sharply: "Do not start until I activate the safety field! I'm serious!"

Aldrich drew his rapier with a crisp metallic whisper. "How about a fight without magic? Pure sword technique."

Weylan managed not to grimace outwardly. No shadow tricks. No movement enhancements. Just sword vs. sword… And Aldrich had clearly been training in forms since before he could spell his own name.

"Fine by me," Weylan said lightly.

He drew his sword-staff and flicked his thumb along the hilt. The weapon telescoped down with a soft hiss until it reached a balanced mid-length. Long enough to contest a rapier's reach, short enough not to slow him down.

Minutes later, the arena supervisor's voice boomed from the balcony, sounding far more awake than before: "Alright! Safety enchantment active. Ready down there?"

Both nodded.

"I'll count to three, then signal the start. One… two… three… Go!"

Weylan and Aldrich had already settled into ready stances.

At the signal…

…no one moved.

They simply stared, each waiting for the other to commit first.

Heartbeats stretched.

Finally, Weylan made a small flourish with his blade, rolled his shoulders, and began to advance.

Aldrich's eyes narrowed. The noble clearly expected a probing strike, not this relaxed, almost lazy approach.

The rapier flicked forward in a precise thrust.

Weylan stepped aside instead of parrying, letting the thin blade whistle past his ribs. He twisted his wrist and brought his own sword down in an unpredictable diagonal swipe. Something between a chopping cut and a staff-spinning maneuver.

Aldrich barely got his guard up in time.

Clang!

The noble retreated a step, annoyance flashing across his features. "Your form is barbaric."

Weylan grinned. "Thanks."

Aldrich attacked again, this time with textbook precision. His footwork was elegant, measured. Every angle perfect, every thrust economical. Weylan deflected the first two moves, but the third came in faster than he could fully react.

He twisted his blade into a parry that wasn't in any fencing manual. The sword-staff's odd weight distribution let him redirect the rapier just enough to slip sideways.

Aldrich scowled. "You fight like you're trying to break the rules of physics."

"Just adapting," Weylan said, breath steady.

Steel flashed. The duel intensified. Aldrich pressing forward with crisp, practiced lines, Weylan answering with improvised, flexible movements that no instructor could teach.

Aldrich swept his blade in a tight circle.

Weylan ducked and countered with a rising strike.

Aldrich vaulted sideways, reversing his grip flawlessly.

Weylan spun his shortened sword-staff and hooked it under Aldrich's guard.

The noble narrowly escaped being disarmed by using a countermovement he'd been drilled in for years. He drew in a sharp breath. "You are making this far more troublesome than it should be."

Then he lunged.

This time the rapier blurred with three rapid thrusts in a single breath. Weylan blocked the first, slipped past the second, but the third touched his left shoulder just as he stepped into an evasive pivot.

A clean hit. Without the flaring of the defensive enchantment, that would have gone right into his shoulder, drawing blood and maybe even severing muscles. Since he needed both arms almost equally for his technique, even losing his off-hand would have been catastrophic.

Aldrich didn't gloat. Mostly because he immediately had to defend himself. Weylan retaliated with a flurry of unpredictable angles, half-staff swings, and sudden close-range pressure that forced the noble into a retreat.

Clash. Slide.

Then the crack of steel against safety wards as the enchantment absorbed glancing blows.

Aldrich panted lightly. Not from exhaustion, but intense focus.

"You are wasting potential with this… improvised nonsense."

"It works," Weylan shot back.

"Not against a trained fencer."

Aldrich activated a footwork pattern Weylan had never seen. Sliding in a tight arc, he forced Weylan's blade up and out of position. For a moment, their weapons locked. Aldrich's technique was simply superior.

Weylan tried a trick by shifting his sword to a staff grip, angling for a sweep.

Aldrich predicted it.

He pivoted sharply, rapier rising in a perfectly timed disengage… free for only a heartbeat, but long enough to hit Weylan cleanly on the chest.

A decisive strike that would have gone straight into his heart, had it not been stopped by the red-flaring safety ward.

Weylan froze, blade halfway through another unorthodox maneuver. Aldrich held his rapier at Weylan's breast.

The arena supervisor leaned over the balcony. "That's a fatal strike! The duel is over."

Aldrich pulled back and immediately jerked his head as a system notice appeared, visible only to him.

His eyes widened at the skill upgrade he'd waited for quite a while. His mouth curled into a triumphant smile. "Well. It appears I have finally broken through."

He exhaled, posture straightening with unmistakable satisfaction.

"I have achieved Master-tier in Fencing."

He looked at Weylan. Not with mockery, but with unfamiliar, grudging respect. "That was… educational."

Weylan rubbed his chest where the rapier had struck. "Glad to help," he muttered, though his pride stung.

Aldrich sheathed his rapier with a flourishing snap.

"Perhaps next time, we try it with magic. I suspect that will be… illuminating as well."

Weylan wasn't sure if that was a threat or an invitation.

Maybe both.

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