Chapter 255: Fists and Fortune 17 – Improvisation

“Yo, Korith, you stay!”

The kobold let out a loud ‘eeep’, when she stopped in her tracks. The other Warrior trainees were continuing towards the changing rooms, to get out of their armours and leave behind their test equipment. Robotically, she turned around and faced Vulk.

The goliath towered over her. Bigger even than Apexus by two heads, he forced Korith to tilt her head all the way back to look at his face. His naked torso was muscular and covered in tattoos and scars. The canvas was a bit loose, aged skin covering muscles that still functioned perfectly. The hairless man did her the favour of dropping down into a squat. Dangerously, he mustered her.

‘Maybe I wasn’t ready for today,’ the shortstack thought, when she was suddenly grabbed by a horn. A rumble came from Vulk’s throat, as he hummed and turned her head in various directions. “C-could you stop?”

“Hrumph,” the old Warrior let out a bothered sound. “You’re still too well behaved. If you don’t want someone to touch you, shatter their kneecaps.”

“Well… that’s just not the first thing I go to…” Korith timidly responded, while eying the distance between the tip of her wooden hammer and his left leg. Another rumbling hum and a bit of a shake later, Vulk let go.

“It occurred to me that I never fucking told you why I wasn’t training you one-on-one, pipsqueak.”

‘By Hoard, please don’t start,’ Korith thought, uncomfortably shifting her weight from one leg to the other. “Well, I am learning what I need to learn, so…”

“Exactly!” Vulk gave her an enthusiastic slap on the shoulder. Stumbling two steps to the left, Korith only barely caught her balance. “You get it! Then we’re done here!”

“Uhm…” Korith was happy to see the aged goliath straighten up again. She was also not particularly sure she could just let him go. The problem was that she did not get it. Had it been a matter of pure comfort, she probably would have let him go. Anything she was taught could have been the most important lesson yet though. Resigning herself to more intimidating interactions, she asked, “I, actually, don’t get it?”

“Fuck me, okay,” Vulk kneeled back down.

“I… you’re kinda my type, but I’m… engaged? I don’t know, I have an interesting relationship…”

The goliath stared at her for a second, then broke out into roaring laughter. He slapped his leg a couple of times. That he hadn’t actually solicited her for sex dawned on her. She blushed intensely, shifted her weight back and forth, and just waited for the humiliation to be over.

“You’re too young for me anyway,” the teacher decided, after having had his fill of amusement. “Alright, listen up. The reason I haven’t pulled you aside for any solo training sessions is because Warriors need little in terms of training. Our Class Skills are reliable and really fucking simple. We don’t do fancy shit with our weapons, turning them into whirling saws or something like that. We aren’t going to influence the world around us or manipulate light or all of that mage bullshit. What we do is whatever the fuck we want.”

“Okay?” Korith was not completely sure where this was going.

“What I’m telling you is that I taught you nothing in solo sessions because there's nothing I can teach you. All I do here is give people the basic tools. After that, you just figure out what works for you. I gave you a bit of a guiding hand by telling you how Ironskin works, but you could’ve figured that out on your own. Not like it’s hard.”

The theory of Ironskin was, indeed, extraordinarily simple. To try and extend the hardening of bones to the skin was the intuitive first step for any Warrior that wanted to up their defensive game further. To master it was a different matter, but even that could be done on one’s own time.

“So… you’re telling me that Warriors are supposed to improvise…?” Korith asked.

“I’m telling you to figure it out,” Vulk told her. “Your fighting style. We don’t do all of that fancy shit other Classes do, because we’re too busy actually caving in the face of some motherfucking bear. Whether you’re a Priest, a Sorcerer, a Warlock, or some other spell-flinging asshat, when you cast a Bolt it’s a Bolt. There’s a best way to cast a Bolt. There’s no best way to swing a weapon.”

“Uhm… overhead to maximize force?”

“You’re being cheeky today. I like it!”

“No that was… oh Hoard why do I… nevermind… so, where exactly is this going?”

“LISTEN WHEN I TALK, PIPSQUEAK!”

“Please don’t yell…”

“NO!”

“aww….”

Vulk grabbed her by a horn again, shaking her as he continued to talk to her. “The spells you cast are not dependent on how big or small you are. That means that your spellcasting strategy doesn’t change depending on your body type. You follow that?”

“For the most part?” Korith said, her brain getting swirled around behind that pretty face of hers.

“The thing for Warriors is that we can’t afford to cast a spell perfectly or hold back our power until an opportune moment or do any of that fancy shit. We have to think on our feet, get in the way of enemies, and do that in a way that doesn’t end up with us getting our throat torn out by thirty-centimetre-long teeth from some fucking cave bear. That’s why we have simple and reliable Martial Arts – the kind that you could literally fucking make up yourself.” Vulk shoved her back a bit. “Monks say their bodies are their weapons. Our bodies are our shields. If you break, you break, so you better figure out how to best make use of what you have and that’s different for each Warrior. Your Warrior Control is good, you got the basics, so now put your mind to doing something entertaining. In short: I’m done with you.”

Korith blinked a couple of times. The jubilation of being out of the clutches of this terribly loud and oddly friendly brute wrestled with the dread of being without any guidance for the next one and a half months. Then there was another sensation. “Wait! I paid for full training?!”

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Vulk was taken slightly aback by her aggressive tone. “You can still use the facilities,” he told her. “And you have the right to spar with me or any of the other trainers if you want to test something.”

“Oh… okay,” Korith calmed down, knowing her money was still well invested. “Sooo… I guess I’ll just… go and do what I want…?”

“As is the Warrior’s way – you’ll figure it out.”

_______________________________________________________________________________

Korith, still in her full armour, was marching randomly through the forest. She had gone home first, but no one had been there. Not an unusual state of affairs. Reysha and Apexus were often gone for several days, while they were put through whatever gauntlet their teachers came up with. Aclysia saw to it that they got a good meal periodically. Right now, she was on a food run for the redhead, leaving the kobold alone to contemplate what to do next.

Currently, her Martial Arts were limited to a few techniques, in addition to the various strengthening Skills for bones and muscles. She had Scale Armour, which let her increase the durability of her scales. Ironskin, to increase her all around defences. Steadfast, a technique that locked her body up and let her weather a much greater impact than she usually could. Frog Leap, to let her move rapidly despite her minute size. Finally, she had Warrior Control, which was no specific Martial Art but rather the ability to employ strengthening subconsciously.

A good basic selection, yet she didn’t really know what to do with it. Figure it out? Her own fighting style? Bit much to be hit with all of a sudden.

‘Only one person to ask what to do next!’ Korith thought and leapt in a random direction. The air whistled between her horns. Jump for jump, she rapidly made her way through the forest to a place she and Apexus had found a little while ago.

It was a rock, about three metres tall, with a surprisingly flat top. Korith crouched down like a frog and catapulted up at maximum strength. It was a pinpoint landing. Crossing her partly scaled legs, Korith listened to the clutter of her armour. Then she listened to the quiet of the autumn forest. The night was the canvas for many covert activities.

Korith closed her eyes and reached out to the most trusted being out there. ‘Hey, Hoard… I was told to figure things out so I figured I should ask you. You have a wealth of knowledge. All of the knowledge, probably. You know what I should do, right?’

No answer. Nothing unusual, the Hoard gathered and distributed in mysterious ways. If she invested enough of her time in the prayer, it would eventually give her an answer. Eyes closed, legs crossed, Korith remained still and waited. Her pointy ears twitched and she waited. She sneezed when a fly buzzed around her lip. She stretched. She yawned.

Korith was bouncing through a craggy landscape. No, she was running through the landscape. Each movement of her legs caused a leap that let her skip, like a flat stone on a calm lake. At the end of the path was a big pile of gold. A truly massive hoard for Hoard to hoard.

There was just one issue: it was protected by a barrier of hard crystal. Korith smacked it with her warhammer, but it bounced off. Annoyed, she grabbed at it. She put all she had into her claws, and felt them puncture the material. Cracks rapidly spread. Like glass, the wall of crystal shattered. It collapsed on top of Korith. The kobold raised her arms. Her scales turned gold and effortlessly broke the crystal shards.

Grabbing her warhammer again, Korith advanced. She touched the massive pile of gold. “For the Hoard,” she whispered and it disappeared. In its place was left a warm feeling in the kobold’s heart and a golden glow around her weapon.

Suddenly raising her head, Korith shivered in that particular way only people who had almost fallen over forwards could. Groggy, she looked around, remembering where she was and why she was there. She wiped a bit of drool off her mouth and stretched. Her purpose was clear now.

‘Thank you, Hoard!’ she thought and jumped off the rock. ‘Clear vision: learn to jump better, make scales harder, turn claws into armour penetrating weapons to punch through what the hammer can’t smash. Truly, Hoard is the greatest teacher!’

With the inspiration firmly established, Korith leapt off the stone and landed in a crouch. This was the first thing she would need to figure out, an improved version of the Frog Leap. The Martial Art got its name from two factors. One, the fact that one was leaping a considerable distance and, two, the frog-like posture one took when wanting to maximize jump force.

The latter made it a suboptimal technique. Crouching down in the middle of combat was not exactly the greatest, plus she hated how goofy it made her look. Korith was overly self-aware at the best of times and embarrassment was not good in combat.

‘Alright, so how do I do it like I did in the vision?’ Korith thought. She had been skipping over a craggy landscape, launching herself from one slanted surface to the next. That was not all she had done though. Her movements had been a lot more like walking than jumping.

‘Figure out the best use of what you have!’ The words of Vulk echoed in her mind and she looked down at herself. What did she have?

She had a tail. That was useful, because it let her keep her centre of gravity lower than her boobs would have implied. She had scales. Maybe she could combine Ironskin and Scale Armour into something even more powerful? No reason to have two Martial Arts that almost did the same thing and not learn how to use them in tandem. She had claws, that was obviously the way to go about whatever she had done to break the crystal wall.

‘I have kind of big feet?’ she thought and inspected her clawed toes. A kobold’s feet were a mixture between human and reptile. Hers were covered in scales that wandered up almost up to her knees. She had never really thought about it much, but relatively speaking she did have larger and stronger feet than most humanoids. ‘Maybe…’

Ki spread through Korith’s legs, filling the bones in her thighs and the muscles around. Some of it continued further down into her lower legs. That was normal for the Frog Leap. Korith distributed the power more evenly, sending it even further to her ankles and feet. She took a careful stance and then jumped forwards.

The acceleration was expected, the direction, however, was unfamiliar. Rather than up and forwards, she was almost entirely catapulted in the direction she was facing. The jump was too shallow, her feet dragged over the floor, causing her to topple over forwards and painfully tumble over the forest floor. It would not have been that bad, had she had taken off her armour beforehand.

Dazed and aching, Korith laid on the floor, and got back on her legs, groaning. The good news was that her Warrior Control had reinforced her body while she had been rolling around, protecting her from any real harm.

Pain aside, the result was what she had wanted. Rather than leap like a frog, she had launched herself. The primary force had been in the ankle and knees, rather than her thighs. ‘Let’s try that again,’ she thought and found a smaller rock near the big boulder she had climbed to meditate. Carefully, she wiped off moss and slippery forest grime off it, before going for her second attempt.

The solid, slightly elevated platform did wonders for her control of the flight path. Crouching only slightly, she kicked off and flew at the boulder. Controlled, she impacted the side of the rock, her feet pressing against the craggy surface. It was a suitable launch pad for an immediate second jump. Korith tried to aim for the tree. If she could continue ricocheting off various slanted surfaces and walls, then her mobility would increase greatly.

A tree was a smaller target than a boulder, though. Her ability to measure the power needed to bridge certain distances was still off, as were her instincts when it came to proper feet placement. Several metres shy, she landed ass first on the forest floor. Another problem she needed to solve was aerial mobility. Her feet would always need to be in the correct position for the next skipping target.

Still, this was the kind of Martial Art she wanted. A simple adaptation of the Frog Leap, more appropriate for combat and for her body. ‘Time to change the name,’ Korith contemplated, taking every excuse so she would not have to think of herself as a frog anymore. ‘It’s a leap to get to the treasure, as Hoard has revealed, so it’s the Treasure Leap. Yup, makes perfect sense.’ Nodding intensely to herself, she got back to practice.

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