Making his way back to the training field, he found an isolated spot to sit down. Adjusting his posture into a more meditative stance, he began to concentrate on his mana. If he could learn the Flame Blade today, he would be able to show it off to the other adventurers immediately, and begin enlisting students. Strong Arm would likely be more immediately useful in combat, but was not flashy enough for his current purposes; he could put off learning that skill for another time.

  His father’s manual called for forcing one's mana into their blade, igniting it and maintaining the fire through a continuous flow of mana. It also recommended maintaining the fire at lower temperatures so as to not burn oneself or weaken the blade. He knew that deeper in the manual there were methods for strengthening the body and weapon against the heat, which meant the extra notes were from his father knowing that the first thing Leon would try to learn would be the ignition.

  Indeed, the manual was full of little notes for him. Sometimes, they were reminders for training or nutrition; sometimes, they were small notes that might be more expected in a journal rather than a training manual. Occasionally, the writing would change and his mother would write some things, her notes on training and her memories were always much more orderly than his father’s.

  The memories of his parents brought a smile to his face. Their faces had become blurred over the years, he had spent more than half his life at this point without them. Sometimes, he worried they would not be happy with how his life had ended up, their family had only become nobles due to their actions, and to see that last not even one generation would undoubtedly sting their pride, and his own.

  Shaking his head, he dispelled the idea that he would not be able to rebuild their estate; it would be impossible to endure such shame. The only way such a thing could occur would be if he were to die trying. Even despite that resolution, he still hoped that they would be proud of his efforts so far. Once he was an accomplished adventurer, he could rebuild their house. He would hire those loyal to ensure that his own children were not robbed of their inheritance, and he certainly would not go off to die in some war.

  He twinged at the anger bubbling up inside of him. It was unfair to blame his parents for the failings of those under them, or for their own deaths. They were the ones who had hired his nanny, afterall, and she had stuck with him even after the fall of their house. She had ensured that he lived a life befitting a noble for as long as possible, and had taken care of the reimbursement the kingdom had provided for their lost lands and titles. It was her face more often than nought that he thought about when he thought of his parents; indeed, she was like his second-mother.

  A deep breath helped to calm the bundle in his stomach. The past was the past—he had to focus on his future if he wished to make recompense with them for their sacrifices. He refocused on connecting to his mana, and felt it slowly respond to him. Magic and skills were all about focusing the mana into fulfilling the desired results, or so the texts he had read seemed to conclude. It was difficult, however, to try and force a piece of his essence to envelop his greatsword, or to do anything for that matter.

  So focused was he on his mana, that he did not even notice the person approaching until they nudged him.

  His eyes snapped open instantly to take in his new student. They were a man with a thick head of curly, blond hair, and green eyes narrowed in annoyance. He was dressed in cheap chainmail and leather, with a shortsword strapped to one side and a metal heater shield to his arm. He did not look impressive, but that was fine. Better to grow an untalented sprout than nurture someone already set in their ways.

  “How may I help you?” Leon painted what he hoped was an inviting smile onto his face as the man before him scowled.

  “You can get off the field. If you’re just gonna sit there and sleep, find a tavern.”

  Leon blinked back his confusion. “You’re not here to learn under me?” he asked uncertainly.

  The man snorted, “As if. I came here to train. Which is why I need you to Get. Out. Of. The. Way.”

  Leon stood up nervously, and moved so that the man could swing at the training dummy. His sword sliced through the air and into the straw mannequin, the man stumbling forward a little as he pushed more strength into the attack

  “Your footing is wrong.”

  The man turned to glare at him as he offered his critique.

  “If the enemy dodged and counterattacked, you would be unable to properly block.”

  The glare morphed into a blank stare.

  “You would be uneven, you might even fall. I could teach you to stand proper—”

  “Does it look like I want your help, snake?” the man hissed, before promptly returning back to his poorly executed strikes.

  Leon looked around to see a few other adventurers eying him warily, but importantly, no one who seemed to wish to speak with him. No students today, it seemed, and he had made little progress on the Flame Blade so far. Seeing as he was not welcome to meditate in the training field, he walked back to the guildhall, and noticed that the sun was already setting. He must have spent a few hours trying to have his mana properly respond to him. It was lucky, he supposed, that no one had interrupted him before now, the training field must have started filling up with adventurers finishing their jobs for the day.

  With an annoyed expression, he made his way out of the guildhall and towards his bridge so that he could continue training. Being able to use the Flaming Blade would attract more people than the intense training he had tried, even if it were a weaker version of the skill than his parents had used.

  The walk helped calm his thoughts a little as his mind turned to matters of his training. Perhaps he might even have a guest again.

  Arriving at his bridge, he found it disappointingly devoid of people when he arrived, or person rather. He had perhaps naively hoped that Issa might return to talk with him for a second night. Alas, it seemed he would be alone. Likely for the best since the focus on his mana would be unconducive for conversation.

  It was not as if he wished for a conversation partner anyhow; it was only natural that he remained alone when surrounded by commoners. Once he reclaimed his titles, he could begin making friends with those deserving of his companionship. Regardless of the yearning he felt.

  Pushing such thoughts away, he got to work training. Recalling the instructions, he sat down in the meditative stance from earlier, and again called upon his mana. The speed at which he found it was faster than earlier in the day, even if not by much. Improvement was improvement, however, and he got to trying to cloak his blade in mana. He had always heard that mana was volatile, that without proper control, it would spiral out of control of whatever you wanted it to do.

  His seemed the opposite, almost lethargic in its reactions. He was unsure if that meant he was controlling it too heavily or if his mana was naturally reluctant. Whatever the case, he was entirely too nervous to loosen the control on his mana, as without proper supervision, it could prove fatal if his mana disobeyed him. Instead, he tightened it, keeping a firm leash on the latent energy as he began the process of using the skill.

  It was like trying to swing a sword with your feet because you had lost your hands. His grip never felt right; the way his legs could swing were all so wrong. It was not technically impossible, but any passerby would wonder why you did not simply abandon the sword. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated harder. Just as his handless swordsman would not give up, neither would he.

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  So it was that he was able to slowly coax his mana into his blade, withdrawing it at the slightest sense of resistance. Once his blade felt fully cloaked, he opened his eyes to see the results of his hard work.

  It was an anti-climactic sight that greeted him—his sword looked utterly normal. If he concentrated, he could feel his mana layered over the blade, and he could almost feel the coolness of the rhymesteel through his mana. The feeling was muted though, as if he were touching it through a thick gel with limbs made of a vapor. It all felt so ethereal, simultaneously a phantom sensation, but also so physical and real. Yet to his eyes, it was as if there was nothing there at all.

  Bringing himself out of his contemplation, he instead focused on igniting his mana, specifically his mana around the blade. Once again, the reluctance of his mana held him back. It refused any order to burn or ignite, and any small sparks he could manage were snuffed out from lack of fuel.

  Eventually, the mana covering his blade withdrew back into his person. Sweaty, and breathing heavily at this point, he was entirely too tired for the time. The sun had barely begun to set over the walls of Torid. If this had been his physical training, he would just be over halfway done.

  I suppose this is mana exhaustion.

  Falling back onto the mud, he stared up at the bridge arch. He had followed the manual almost to a tee, and yet had barely made any progress in the hours of trying. If Flame Blade was divided into steps, then there would be three of them: coat the blade in mana, strengthen the blade by imbuing it with mana, and finally ignite the mana into a fire.

  Leon had spent the better portion of his day skipping all else and focused on the skill, and had barely managed one third of the process. Closing his eyes, he determined to take a small break to recover his mana before training through the night.

  As a child, his father had boasted of how fast he had learnt the Flame Blade, and then promised his starry-eyed son how fast he could teach it once Leon was older. However, his father was now dead, which left him forced to learn the skill on its own.

  Not that that was supposed to be hard. Lower-tier skill manuals were expected to be learned in less than a day for experienced adventurers, and that was assuming that they took breaks to do other tasks. But it was proving more difficult than expected, and this stung his pride.

  Eyes closed, Leon rested, determined to get back on track once his mana recovered.

  ~

  When he awoke, it was to a similar light, the low cast light of the sun casting its rays over the walls of the city. The only indication of time having passed was the birdsongs, and the fact that the light had switched sides to where it had been the night prior.

  Leon’s body was stiff, his throat parched, and his armor caked with mud. He had slept the entire night under his bridge. Presumably, he was lucky to have survived the night, and a quick pat down revealed nothing was missing. Standing with a groan, he ignored the rumbles of his stomach and the dryness of his throat. His mana was replenished, and he had lost valuable training time.

  Hours blazed by. His ability to have his mana cover the blade had improved, but it was still a painfully slow process. Once he had fully covered the blade again, he got to work setting it aflame. The decision to skip the blade strengthening part would undoubtedly prove poor in battle, but for demonstration purposes, it would be fine. That was not to mention the extra days it may take to learn that aspect of the skill.

  As frustration and hunger mounted, he continued to concentrate on the skill. He was a noble! He would not be bested by a damn skill!

  Finally, after hours of attempts, before his eyes, his blade slowly began building sparks. It was a slow thing at first, barely some specks of yellow sporadically erupting and dying up and down his blade. As he focused harder on the success, the sparks slowly collated into a bright, red flame; the base of his blade began heating, the flame overtop turning a darker orange.

  In his excitement, he pictured his father’s blade, a brilliant yellow and orange flame lighting up the sword. It was in that moment of missed concentration that the heat of the flame escaped him, his torch turning very much a similar shade of his father’s even as the rhymesteel underneath began to glow. The heat of the blade burned his torso and face as he quickly stood up in alarm.

  With a yelp, he threw his sword into the river that he trained next to. The sudden cut off of mana helped cool the fire, but it was the water of the river which quenced the flames entirely with a large bout of steam.

  Catching himself, he hurriedly dived into the river to retrieve his blade lest it become caught in the current and wash up somewhere he would never find. Fortunately, it had sunk straight to the bottom where it now lay, half upright in the muck that coated the canal floor.

  Snagging his greatsword, he swam back to shore, and attempted to examine it, only to realize that it was entirely too dark to make out any specific flaws that his flames may have caused. Looking out from beneath his bridge, he realized that it was well past nighttime, the only lights provided being those from the street lights or the moon high up in the sky.

  He had been concentrating on his mana for hours. He had done it, though, albeit imperfectly. It would serve as a demonstration, however, something impressive to show potential students. Assuming he could do it a little faster of course. The success had also left an empty feeling in his body; his F-class mana felt almost halved from a few seconds of fire.

  Vowing to examine his blade in the morning, he made his way back home. Perhaps he would treat himself to a hearty meal, heavens knew how much he needed one.

  ~

  As Leon once again set up shop in the training field, he examined his blade for the third time that morning. He was unsure if it was luck, lack of power, or the quality of the steel, but his sword appeared fine, unwarped by the rapid heating and quenching he had put it through.

  Still, he had prepared several buckets full of water just in case, and he looked at them now as he began enveloping his blade in mana once more. It was a necessary precaution, but one he hoped no one would notice, and that would remain unnecessary. Should he fail here, there was a precious lack of suitable places to extinguish his blade. Not only that, but he would make a fool of himself in front of those he was hoping to draw in.

  It did not take long to envelop the blade this time, the work of a few minutes of concentration. Should he wish to use the skill in battle, he would need to cut even that down to an automatic reaction, but it would suit his purposes for now. Focusing on the blade, he slowly brought the fire to life, feeling the heat lick at his face and arms. There had been no time to learn the proper skills to strengthen his blade or body to ignore the heat, but if he kept the temperature low enough, and for a short period of time, it would pose little issue.

  He took a deep breath as he stared at his greatsword. The flame was frankly pitiful, his weapon more a large candle rather than the inferno he remembered his father producing in his youth.

  Still, it was a show of definitive progress, and likely one of the first skills the other bronze-tiers and unranked would really see. There were some more mundane skills that multiplied the strength of a specific attack or the speed of an arrow, but those were significantly less eye-catching than the fires of the Flame Blade.

  The notion that he must use the skill in such a way filled him with resentment. Being forced to resort to using the skill to draw in students had him feeling like a shifty merchant, employing cheap tricks and wearing gaudy fake jewelry in the hopes that their patrons would be mesmerized enough to purchase his wares.

  His skill was little more than a hollow imitation of the real skill, a fake advertisement of his strength. He was strong, though, and if a counterfeit skill was what it took to draw students, then he would oblige. He swung towards the mannequin with his flaming sword, one mighty swing that tore through the straw and armor with practiced ease, leaving tiny fires that burned upon the straw in its wake. He had performed similar feats yesterday with the same ease, but as tiny flames engulfed the edges of where his sword had struck, he felt it would give the illusion of power.

  Killing the mana being fed to the flames, he withdrew his blade, checking it over to ensure that there had been no distortion caused by his strike. Letting out a sigh of relief at not seeing any, he plastered a confident smile onto his face before turning to see his crowd.

  There were fewer watching him than there had been two days prior, and still no one seemed interested in approaching him. Trying not to openly scowl, he turned back to the mannequin. That one use of the Flame Blade had drained his mana by what felt like a full third; it was certainly not a skill he could show off all day, so he prepared to train normally. He would await a larger crowd, and use the skill to finish his routine and draw in students; all he had to do was wait. They would come, he was sure.

  They would come.

  ~

  No one approached him the next day, and his coin purse was once again depleting. On the fourth day, he took a mission instead of training. It would mean a day of being unable to welcome new students, but it was not like there were any either way. Defending lumberjacks from banivs was not exactly his definition of a good day, but perhaps a day away would do him some good, at least to calm him a little.

  So it was that he took another solo-mission for little coin, and left the guildhall. No one seemed disappointed that he was leaving.