Chapter 36: 32. Aether Academy (Part 8)

Tullian was more energetic than Rai or Sin expected. After finding out that they were mostly in the same next class, he practically cried tears of joy. He was somewhat sad that Amy and Lina had another class to go to. Their next class was something to do with alchemy, he vaguely remembered.

Tullian slammed Rai's shoulder, knocking him forward, “Hey! What clan are you from?”

Rai flew forward, but managed to stop himself from stumbling, “The Life clan. What about you?”

Tullian’s chest puffed out, and he beamed with pride. “I’m from the Great Plains! The Huntsman clan!”

Sin’s eyes widened slightly, “I haven’t heard anything of the Huntsman clan for ages. Apparently they lost a lot of good people in a beast siege. My condolences.” She bowed slightly as she walked, nearly tripping.

Tullian rubbed his head in an uncharacteristically gloomy way. “It wasn’t pretty. But we survived, and we will continue to survive.” His mood shifted when he changed the topic of conversation back to Rai. “How did you get so strong?”

Rai’s face turned to horror as he remembered all of the times he fought against Jin. Aside from the tests where Jin would only deflect or block, he would constantly beat Rai into shape, making sure Rai’s forms were perfect.

Rai was defeated. “I fought a monster for 7 years.”

Sin stared at him, holding back her laughter. “Pfft... BAHAHAHA!” She broke out into hysterical laughter. Through her laughs she managed to form a coherent sentence, “He’s... More than... A monster...” Each gap was filled by a slew of giggles.

Rai couldn’t understand what was so funny. Tullian didn’t understand either, but he caught Sin’s fit of giggles and started giggling himself.

There was still a little while until their lesson began, so Rai thought about the interaction with the celestial being while these two laughed their asses off.

He couldn’t make any sense of it. Rai very vividly felt the sensation of ripping Haldi’s arm off. But it all got reversed, just as easily as that. Was he the only one who could remember what happened? It felt like that was the case, since everyone was smiling and laughing afterwards. Such a weird day. And then there was that celestial person. They talked about Balance, and transcendence. What on Zenith do those two things have to do with each other? Zenith... This world is fake? How does that even make any sense when I'm standing right here.

His thoughts continued on their train. There was no real way to know the answer, except to follow the path that was in front of him. If he wanted to know, he’d find out on the way to his father. Today's events made him really want to read the second book now though, since the words from the old hobo seemed to be related to the sames ones spoken by the celestial.

“What a weird day.” He whispered under his breath.

After Sin and Tullian calmed down, Tullian turned to Sin, “I don’t know your name Princess. Do you happen to have one?”

He came across as a tad abrasive, but Sin welcomed the change of pace. “I’m Sindyl Raven, you can call me Sindyl!” She shot him a friendly smile.

Tullian grew a large smile of his own, “Nice to officially meet you, Princess Sindyl!”

Sin rolled her eyes, “Just Sindyl please.”

Tullian nodded, then saluted, “Yes ma’am!”

Sin facepalmed.

Tullian laughed, then asked an innocent question, “How did you and pretty boy here meet?”

Sin answered quickly, “He beat me.”

Tullian was shocked. He was no longer excited, but he bore a look of horror. “He beat you?!”

Sin didn’t understand the reason for his shock, until she thought about it for a moment. She frantically waved her hands in front of Tullian, “Wait. WAIT! NOT LIKE THAT!” She sighed, “We sparred when we were kids, and he won. I challenged him because I didn’t want to be friends with a farm boy who wouldn’t be useful to me. But he changed that part of me for the better.”

Tullian was still sceptical, “Ah. So you’ve been friends for years?”

Rai nodded, “Yep. Sin is my closest friend.” He noticed Tullian relax a bit after he answered.

Tullian shot a warm smile at Rai, “You’re lucky my friend. Very lucky.”

Rai happily received the compliment, but he felt like he somehow misunderstood what Tullian was talking about.

After a short while of walking, they arrived at the west end of the Academy. This was the same area with the training hall from the practical applications of mana lesson. That time, the hall was numbered 08 and was indoors. This time, the lesson was outdoors.

Rai took note of the large, arced gate that led to the west ground. It was large and open, without a door. The west ground itself felt very concentrated. There were many different things set up around the ground that made it feel more like a training area than the training hall. There was a large central ring with magical barriers set up, which could be tuned based on the settings set by whoever was using it. Off to the side of the ring was a rest area, where people could sit and watch the spars. On the other side of the ring was an array of equipment that people could use to train. The area already had some students training in their off time. Just beside the entrance to the ring were several racks of armaments. There were both wooden and metal weapons of all different kinds. Rai thought that it was the Academy's way of accommodating to the wide variety of students and their fighting styles.

On the far end of the outdoor ground was another doorway that was on a hillside. Rai didn’t realise just how big the Academy district was, but it managed to take up a huge amount of land. That doorway on the hill was unmarked, which meant that it wasn’t there for students to access. That didn’t stop Rai’s curiosity from going wild, thinking about what kind of whimsical wonders were hidden behind it.

When Rai looked back at the Academy building, he saw the upstairs classrooms had windows that looked out into the west ground. I hope we’re entertaining enough for them.

Rai wasn’t sure what to do, since they were a little early for their lesson.

Sin had an idea, “Rai. Shall we? It’ll be a good way to burn off our lunch” She pointed to the armaments. Sin was suggesting that they spar for a while.

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Rai’s eyes brightened, the blue in them lightening a touch. “Sounds like fun. No magic?”

Sin shook her head, “No magic.”

Tullian picked up on what was happening. Excitement hit him, and he got goosebumps. He was very interested in seeing where this would go. Tullian walked over to the rest area and took a seat. There were a couple other students that were here who looked like they were waiting for the lesson to start.

Rai and Sin walked over to the armaments and picked out weapons that would fit them best. Sin chose a pair of wooden daggers, while Rai chose a wooden longsword since there were no katanas. He, all of a sudden, wished that he'd previously stored a few sparring katanas from Jin for occasions like this.

Rai checked the weight of the sword, feeling how light it was. Sin wasn’t all that happy with her daggers either, since their build was far too straight compared to her elven daggers. But they both made the best of what they got.

They walked to the centre of the ring, and got into their opening stances.

Rai was defensive, as usual. Sin was looking for his openings, which she thought was probably futile since she couldn't ever find any openings in his stances.

In a complete change of pace, Rai opened with the first strike. He zig-zagged across the sandy ground, causing a cloud of sand dust to form behind him as a glided towards Sin.

Tullian's jaw dropped. He'd never expected such elegant movement from someone not even from his clan. The Huntsman clan prided themselves on being quick and nimble, but Rai was moving this well just like that. On sand, nonetheless. Some of the students sat around Tullian pivoted their attentions to the spar that just began.

Rai was constantly shifting his weight between his right and left side. Sin wasn’t sure which side the strike would come from, so she braced herself to try to block from both sides. She widened the gap between her feet to match her shoulder width, then firmed herself.

Rai flew into the air, with a trail of sand following his legs after he leapt. The strike came from above.

Sin only just managed to get both daggers up to block it, but she was being pushed down into the ground.

Rai shifted his weight again when he landed, and went for a cross strike, starting from the bottom left. He sliced in an X shape.

Sin deflected both swings, then found an opportunity to counter. Rai’s blade was in an awkward position, so she kicked the sand to obscure his vision. Quickly, she moved to the side where his sword was held. It's hard to swing if there’s no space to build up momentum. She used one dagger to clip Rai’s sword, keeping it faced down, while she aimed the other one at his neck. She stabbed.

And missed. Rai pulled his head back, narrowly avoiding the stab. He used his left hand to grab Sin’s arm that was now in front of him, then spun to fling her to his opposite side. He threw her to his left, but because it was only with one hand, he didn’t have the power to throw her very far.

Sin rolled on the ground after being thrown, then nimbly got back to her feet. The neutral was reset. Sin’s physical strength was only slightly worse than Rai’s, thanks to the training regimes from all of her tutors. That made it easier to avoid being overpowered. At the same time, it made it harder for either one of them to get a major advantage in a fight with no magic.

The air about Rai shifted. He wasn’t using a spell, but his stance was completely different.

Sin didn’t know exactly what changed, but she knew that she was now in a far more dangerous position.

Rai spoke with the utmost confidence, yet his words were tinged with regret, “Sorry Sin, I didn’t want to use the Dance, but I don’t have a choice against you.”

Sin's mind was racing as she tried to figure out what his words meant. Dance? Huh... Ah. Shit.

Rai’s movements were smooth, and he zoomed across the ground with a finesse that his previous movements couldn’t hold a candle to.

His sword seemed to curve in the air, putting Sin off balance. The sword’s path wasn’t predictable now, and Rai was shifting his weight much more efficiently than before. There were no openings. She blocked some of the strikes, but got nicked more than a few times by the edge of the wooden longsword.

The blade’s path was extravagant, beautiful even. She thought she saw multiple butterflies flocking towards her as she tried to survive Rai's onslaught. Sin couldn’t help but watch in awe as she slowly lost the spar against the Sword Dance.

The end of the battle came, Rai struck both of Sin’s wrists, causing her to drop her daggers. He shifted out of the Dance and swept Sin’s leg, then caught her with his left hand. In that instant, he pushed the edge of the longsword against her neck. He didn’t realise how close their faces were.

Silence. Except for their panting. They looked each other in the eyes, the sensation of their breaths hitting each other's face made the result sink in.

Before they could do anything else, there came an applause from the crowd that had gathered. Cheers and whoops, and a few wolf whistles, sounds of appreciation came from around the ring. There were some students in the windows upstairs that were watching, who were also clapping.

Rai and Sin looked around, wondering when there was time for a crowd to form.

They then looked back at each other, realising how close their faces were to one another, and both blushed. Rai gently raised Sin back up, “I win this one!” He smiled softly at her.

Sin returned the smile, “That Sword Dance is fucking crazy,” Her smile morphed into a slight frown, “I don’t know how to beat it.”

A firm voice from the crowd boomed, silencing everyone else. “It’s not meant to be beaten.”

Rai and Sin both turned to see the same cleanly shaven man from the day of the entrance exams.

He spoke again in a sarcastic tone, asking a rhetorical question, “Would it be okay with you two if we actually began our lesson?” The crowd that wasn’t part of the lesson dispersed, and the audience in the windows returned to their affairs.

Tullian laughed from his seat, while Rai and Sin audibly gulped.

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