“I did it!” Syra exclaimed, holding both her swords in front of her. The twin blades both glowed a light brown, evidence that her mana was working upon them.

  “Nice!” Rayne called. Putting down his quill, he jumped up from the rock he was sitting on to stand beside her. “You’ve finally managed to use Keen Edge?”

  Rather than respond, Syra took a loose piece of parchment from the rock he had just vacated, and let it fall upon the edge of one of her swords. Rather than drape itself loosely over it, it was sliced cleanly in half, and she smiled. “Looks like it.”

  Sheathing her shortswords, she flopped on the ground, not caring about the dirt as she let out a pleased sounding exhale. From the side, Rayne watched a beetle attempt to climb her hair, searching for non-existent mites to eat. Her ears twitched at this, but Syra didn’t seem to notice, too absorbed in her delight to have finally mastered the skill that had stymied her for the past few days.

  They were in a small clearing in the woods, about fifteen minutes from Torid that they had been using as a base recently to practice skills and discuss the development of new ones away from prying eyes.

  It wasn’t much of a space. A bed of grass grew from the dirt, and a few fallen rocks on the north side made for decent chairs and desks to sit at, but it was a fairly modest place to study all things considered.

  “I’m not going to lie,” Syra muttered from the ground. “But I see why Leon struggles with weapon skills now. Shit’s hard.”

  “I still don’t get why you both have such a hard time with it,” Rayne observed, returning to his rock as he picked up his quill once more. “You send the mana into the object and affect it from there. It’s just like enhancement skills, except you’re modifying the object instead of yourself.”

  Syra shook her head, her hair tumbling against the grass. “Nuh-uh. Nope. Body stuff is way easier. I know my body. I know how each part reacts, and I know where to send mana in order to make it react how I want. It’s just an extra step to what I’m doing already.”

  To demonstrate, she lifted one arm in the air and flexed it, a slight brown glow flaring around her palm to indicate she was using the Strong Arm before disappearing. “See? Simple. Imbuem- Imbuetem- Imbue… Bah! Weapon skills are way harder. I don’t know how to make my arm sharp. So I don’t know how to use my mana to make my weapon sharp. If I hadn’t been using these swords for years now, I’d probably still be stuck trying to get Keen Edge to work.”

  All Rayne could do was offer her a shrug in reply. It had taken him no more than an afternoon to master Keen Edge, and Strong Arm had taken him even less time since he was already familiar with how to call his mana from learning Keen Edge. But both Syra and Leon had struggled to learn Keen Edge, even with Leon’s advantage of already knowing another imbuement skill in Flame Blade. Despite all his efforts to teach them, neither of them had managed to learn it in under a day, with Syra taking nearly four to finally use it. Hence her current state of relief.

  Above Syra, a blue pane suddenly appeared in the air, and Rayne watched on as she checked her stats. Whatever she saw, it made her sigh, and he raised an eyebrow.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Nope,” she responded, dismissing the stat panel. “Just wishing I had your Magic Power. Mine’s barely E-rank, and that’s after weeks of practicing with Dash and Strong Arm. If it was just a bit higher, I’m sure I wouldn’t be struggling like this. Let alone if I had yours.”

  Rayne wanted to reply, but instead, he first spread mana throughout his body and summoned his own stat panel. The glowing blue pane appeared in the air before him, and he examined it for a moment, having not done so in a few days. As expected, there had been some growth, though it was slower now, the regular monsters not doing as much for his stats as they had in his weaker days.

  [Rayne]

  Strength - E (32/50)

  Agility - E (37/50)

  Dexterity - E (43/50)

  Constitution - E (28/50)

  Magic Power - E (47/50)

  The biggest increase he had seen over the past few months was his Magic Power. What had begun as an unawakened stat had been twenty-four only an hour after his awakening, and now it was nearly double that. Only a single point shy in fact, and three points short of becoming his first D-rank stat. And since Syra’s was still just barely above E-rank, it was four times higher than hers.

  Of course, Syra’s Agility was much higher than his, and she also outclassed him in Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. It was only his magical abilities that vastly outpaced hers, and Rayne offered her a less sympathetic glance than usual as a result.

  “If you just keep practicing, I’m sure it will rise.”

  “Maybe.” she sighed.

  Still motionless in the grass, Syra twisted to look at him, cocking her head slightly as she did. “How’s your research coming?”

  “Fine?” Rayne replied. “It’s going fine, I think.”

  “You think?” Syra shook her head. “That doesn’t sound very fine.”

  Rayne snorted. “Turns out there’s a reason that skills are so expensive. It’s not exactly easy to simply develop one. I’ve been attempting to figure out a way to combine Strong Arm and Keen Edge for the past few days, but I’m at a loss. It doesn’t help that I don’t have any other skill guides to reference. So I’m doing it all from memory of what I saw at the guild.”

  “Have you considered asking Leon?” Syra attempted to shrug, though the attempt was stymied by her refusal to get up from the ground. Giving up, she made do with a plaintive face. “He’s got a skill manual for Flame Blade, right? That’s a weapon skill. Maybe he’ll let you study that to see how skill manuals are laid out.”

  Rayne felt his eyebrows rise. “That’s his family’s skill. You really think he’ll just let me study it like that? I know he shoved it in my face during the rescue mission, but that was only due to the circumstances. He hasn’t said a peep about it since.”

  “And you don’t think he’d let you study it you asked?”

  With a shake of his head, Rayne dispelled his desire to do just that. “There’s no way a noble would give up something that precious so easily.” He felt a shudder wash over him. “I can’t even imagine what he’d demand of me.”

  Rolling her eyes at this, Syra arched her back so that she was staring at him, except upside down, her slitted pupils narrow in derision. “Not sure what you have against nobles, but two things. First, Leon ain’t a noble. If he was, he’d have a last name. Second, even if he does demand stuff of you, you can just say no. And thirdly, we saved his life. I think someone as smart as you can figure out a way to use that to our advantage.”

  “That was three things,” Rayne commented.

  She waved him off. “Whatever. Point stands. You think you need an actual skill book to study? Leon’s got one. So ask him. He’s already helped with Strong Arm, and you taught him Keen Edge in return. No harm in roping him in further.”

  Rayne wanted to protest, but nothing Syra had said was wrong. It just rankled him to ask for help from a noble. Seeing that he had no retort, Syra untwisted herself, lying flat on the grass again as she luxuriated in the sun.

  ~

  Much as Rayne hated to admit it, Syra did have a point, and so the next day, he went to Leon with the goal of asking him to share the Flame Blade skill manual. Or rather, he went to his daily combat class with the plan to ask later. Of course, Leon being Leon, he immediately derailed this train of thought.

  “You said that you would find me more students,” Leon reminded him the moment he arrived. “That was part of the deal. I agreed to teach you for free, and in exchange, you were to act as advertising to show that my instruction works.”

  Rayne blinked. “Three different people have come to me in the last two weeks and asked if you’re really as good as you claim to be. I told them yes, as well as your prices, and they said they’d contact you. What happened to them?”

  Shifting uncomfortably, Leon shook his head. “They lacked the proper attitude.”

  “Surely, as the instructor, it is your job to provide discipline?” Rayne asked, one eyebrow raised.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Anyone else would have likely looked ashamed here, but Leon appeared unfazed. “I can only teach those with the mindset and ability needed to learn. They were too set in their ways to properly teach, which might not have been a problem if their bases had not been so lackluster.”

  Rayne snorted. It was incredible the way that he could spew such bullshit with such sincerity and unyielding belief, but that didn’t mean he was going to just let it happen.

  “Well, I got you students. What you did with them afterwards is on you, but if you really need money, then I’d suggest being a little less picky with who you teach. This is the adventurer’s guild, not the capital’s Knight College.”

  To his credit, despite Leon’s obvious annoyance, he merely gave a stiff nod at this, and then the matter was dropped as they returned to their training session. At least until Rayne remembered a few minutes later that he’d come here with a demand of his own.

  “Hey,” he said as he swung his blade in a crescent arc that was easily deflected by Leon’s greatsword.

  “Do not talk during the drill,” Leon instructed him. “Again.”

  Letting out a frustrated noise, Rayne executed the attack once more to the same result. Only when his sword tip touched the ground did Leon look at him.

  “You had something you wished to say?”

  “I did, yeah.” Blowing a strand of sweat-stained hair out of his eyes, Rayne looked at the greatsword in Leon’s hands. “As you know, we’ve been practicing our skills, Syra and I, in an effort to develop new ones.”

  They had invited Leon to train skills with them, but he had declined, though he had been willing to swap his knowledge of Strong Arm for Rayne’s Keen Edge. Apart from that swap, however, he had resisted any other attempts to bring him into the fold, a status quo that until today Rayne had been just fine maintaining. Syra’s words were correct, though. Leon was skilled, and there was no benefit to keeping up this cold war between them. Except for preserving his sanity, that was.

  Putting the thoughts aside, Rayne pushed on. “Unfortunately, with only Keen Edge and Strong Arm to go off, we’re not getting far, so I was wondering if you’d let us study your Flame Blade manual.”

  He did not phrase it as a question, but as a statement, a pointed remark to show his confidence in Leon’s answer being yes. It was all a sham. He was not confident, not in the slightest. But his parents had been merchants, and one thing they had always preached was confidence. Even if one had none, it was better to appear as if they had it all, because that made others think that their proposal would work.

  Leon was quiet for a long while before he finally spoke. “It is not my place to give out the manual.”

  “You offered it to us during the rescue mission,” Rayne countered.

  Leon pinched his nose. “That was a mistake. I was tired and frustrated at the time. But this skill is my family’s treasure, it is the legacy of my parents. It is not something to be ‘borrowed’.” His voice was calm on the surface, but beneath his practiced tone, there was an angry edge to it.

  He’s pissed, Rayne realized. He had seen Leon angry before. After the kobolds had killed their captive, Leon had been downright furious. But a lot of that had been at his own inability to change the situation. This was the first time he’d ever directed the entirety of his anger towards Rayne.

  I’ve got to tread carefully here. Clearing his throat, Rayne nodded. “I understand that. However, for us to get stronger, we need to develop new skills. Flame Blade obviously has great power, and if we could learn how—”

  “Nobility is not something that can be learned!” Leon said heatedly.

  Rayne disagreed, but now was not the time to get into a class argument. Instead, he shook his head. “I understand that’s how you feel, but I’m not asking you to throw away your nobility. Noble origins or not, Flame Blade is a skill, a power to be wielded, regardless of the circumstances of one’s birth. If you let me study it, we can use it as the blueprint for further techniques. Build upon your father’s legacy so to speak. Not to mention we can save more lives, just like with the rescue mission.”

  Leon scoffed. “It is not about your birth, Rayne. I have worked with you for weeks now, and you haven’t a shred of honor. Speak your honeyed words all you wish, but do not expect me to fall for your lies. You wish to grow stronger for the coin, not because it is your duty as it is mine.”

  Rayne bit back his retort. Leon was straight up insulting him here, but sinking to his level would only ensure he failed. Instead, he did his best to take the high road, doing his utmost to come up with a response to Leon’s argument.

  “If nobility means defending the weak, then should you not want to assist me in making new skills? You’re strong, but by closing yourself off to new avenues of power, you are shirking your responsibility as a noble. By your own logic, you should join us in creating new skills, and put aside your ego in order to grow more powerful so that you might save more people.”

  “Enough!” Leon shook his head violently. “Enough. Do not presume to educate me on what it means to be a noble…” He closed his eyes and took a breath before continuing. “We will end the training here today. I hope that the morrow will bring with it fresh wisdom to bestow upon you.”

  Well fuck you too, Rayne wanted to say, but he held his tongue. In all their weeks spent training together, Leon had not once ended a session early. Not even when Rayne was struggling on ‘the most basic of techniques that even a child could learn,’ as Leon had put it.

  For him to leave without bringing their session to a proper close meant that he was truly angry, and so Rayne simply watched him go, his sword hanging by his side as he wondered why the vestiges of nobility were so important to the prickly man.

  Did I go too far? Awkwardly scratching the back of his head, Rayne considered it. Leon had not been wrong when he’d accused him of wanting to study the manual to increase his earnings. The stronger he was, the more coin they’d bring in—that was completely correct. It was not the only reason, but it was one of them, and one he couldn’t ignore. And then there was the fact that the manual was clearly an important heirloom that Leon treasured. Had asking him to just give it to him been too much?

  Rayne frowned, then crossed his arms. At last, he exhaled, a long sigh that deflated his entire body.

  “Shit,” he said to no one in particular.

  ~

  Leon’s walk home was uneventful. The entire way home, he stewed, his anger building with each step. The audacity of Rayne to think he could just ask for the Flame Blade manual as if it were some sort of petty bauble to be traded back and forth! That manual was the only link to Leon’s family title, the only acknowledgment that he had ever been a noble, and Rayne wanted him to simply hand it over?

  Unlocking his door, he silently removed his gear. Angry as he might be, nobles did not rage. Instead, they acted in quiet fury. That was what his father had taught him.

  Be that as it may, he was still too annoyed to cook, so rather than grab dinner, he instead took his training manual and headed to bed.

  It had been awhile since he had properly read through the manual rather than just use it for reference. It was not a big book, perhaps thirty pages in all, but each one was filled with scribbles. Instructions on how to channel one’s mana into the blade and activate the vaunted Flame Blade, along with hundreds of little notes in the margins left by his parents to assist with his practice.

  It was these notes that he sought out now. A memory of one of his earlier training sessions under his mother. A warning from his father to not overdo strength training. A small story about how his parents had met.

  Mere annotations, one and all. Doubtless, had they suspected they might die in the war, they would have left him more, a diary perhaps, or simply a book of life advice. Instead, he was forced to sate himself with his manual, forced to absorb all the love of his parents in the space between the lines.

  One particular note caught his eye, near the very end of the manual in his father’s distinctly messy handwriting.

  Fight hard for your dreams, son. Fight to protect what is important, fight to defend your convictions, and fight to succeed.

  Just below his father's handwriting was a small x with the tops curved in to almost form a heart. Leon’s heart ached as he saw it. This had been his mother's symbol, which she used to sign letters to his father. He had asked her about it once, and she'd told him it meant 'I love you'. His mother was a warrior through and through, and yet she had still taken the time to sew it into little things. His handkerchiefs, the collar of his clothes, and the hem of his childhood cloak, all had carried a small and clumsily sewn ‘x’ in them.

  He traced the symbol with his fingertips. The clothes were long gone, and the cloak had been lost in the flight from their manor. But her feelings remained.

  Anger faded and was replaced with an all-too-familiar melancholy. He had failed his parents. While they had gone and built a noble house from nothing, he was struggling in the bronze rank of a backwater city.

  Rayne’s words had been true, however the man might have meant them. The purpose Leon was supposed to fight for was all a part of his duty, he was to grow strong to protect those under him. Could he withhold the very tool of this purpose because it was precious to him? Had he not already lost so much that he held precious.

  It had been ten years since his parents had died, nine years since his titles had been revoked. By all accounts, he had spent more of his actual life as a commoner than a noble.

  Everytime he held to his noble ideals, he failed. Showing chivalry to the goblins had gotten him betrayed. Arrogance of his status had gotten him alienated. Even his steadfast stubbornness to charge the kobolds alone had almost killed him and had saved no one.

  Sparing a glance for his greatsword, he considered how much damage breaking down the palisade had caused. The fact it had then went on to survive the abuse he had inflicted on it to defeat the kobolds was nothing short of life saving. Forty silver to fix it, and that had been the cheapest quote he had found. In the end, he had caved to a better blacksmith and spent fifty silver repairing his greatsword. The cost had been well worth it of course. His sword was an heirloom too precious to lose, but the fact was it had been damaged so severely because he had once again charged off impetuously.

  To consider abandoning the traits he had strived to emulate his entire life was nonsense, but maybe asking himself to consider shelving some of his pride was necessary. If discarding his stubbornness was the cost of strength, then the notion that he might place his pride above innocent lives already disqualified him as a noble.

  This training manual was precious to him, but it was still just a tool, a tool to achieve his ambition. Besides, it was not as if Rayne intended on destroying the manual, he merely wished to study it.

  “I wonder what you two might think of my companions. They lack all the ideals you both tried so hard to instill in me. They fight dishonorably, they are crass, sometimes I wonder if they care more about the rewards of a mission rather than the lives saved. And yet I catch myself wishing that you had met them. Despite their many flaws, they are my teammates, they have shown me kindness few others have shown since your deaths.”

  Leon stared at the words scrawled in the manual, hoping for some divine message from his parents to answer all his questions.

  No such message came, no such message existed. All this time, he had strived to encapsulate the noble ideal he had been taught, and yet he had failed time after time. There was no one to tell him how to achieve his goals, no one to help him. It was time he made the decision on how he wished to live, and he wished to fight.

  Tomorrow he would shelve his pride, he would allow Rayne the manual, and in return, he would join their little skill study group. But for tonight, Leon would enjoy the last vestige of nobility he held, and dream of better times.