Rayne was surprised when Leon showed up the next morning with skill book in hand, and flabbergasted when it was offered to him along with an apology.

  “I apologize,” Leon said simply. “It was wrong of me to question your intentions, especially when I am aware of your reason for adventuring. You were right when you said that we must grow stronger—it is the duty of adventurers. I was blinded by your personal ambition, and my pride refused to allow me to see that even improper means can be used to achieve my desired ends. I shall share the manual with you, and you shall share your skill experiments.”

  Is he apologizing or criticizing me? Rayne dispelled the thought. The fact was, Leon was willing to both bury the hatchet and acquiesce to his demands, and that was more than enough reason to meet the man halfway.

  “I’m sorry as well,” Rayne replied with a small bow. “I should have realized the importance of this book to your family.”

  With that, they were squared. Rayne received the manual, and Leon looked satisfied, as though he had just done a good deed. Both unsure of what to say next, they settled for an impromptu combat lesson, with Leon going over the manual to show Rayne just how to utilize the new skill he had been handed. Of course, they did not do this at the guild. With so many prying eyes and wandering fingers, there was a very good chance that the manual might go missing, and so Rayne took him to the spot in the woods just outside Torid where he and Syra had been practicing for the session.

  Flame Blade was a combination of Keen Edge and Strong Arm, plus a few other things that Rayne couldn’t quite place, but felt confident were what gave the blade its fiery properties. The basic effect was to strengthen the weapon and one’s arm, then conjure flames that burned hotly along its length. Simple, but effective.

  Is Strong Arm’s technique the basis for the fortification effect?

  In order for Flame Blade not to harm the weapon it was being used on, it used mana to fortify the materials below. This protection also extended to the user’s arm, preventing them from dropping their weapon due to the inferno that now raged along its length. From what Rayne could tell, this was accomplished by circulating one’s mana in a very similar way to Strong Arm. Only instead of increasing strength, here it was raising the durability.

  How interesting. Befitting of a high-tier skill, Flame Blade’s manual was several times as long as that which he had read for Keen Edge, and the techniques within were much more complex than either Keen Edge or Strong Arm. However, the similarities were there, and Rayne was no quitter. With Leon’s assistance, he first mastered the fortification aspect, then moved on to conjuring flames along the blade.

  This part was harder, as he had never used a skill that required conjuring. It reminded him of the skills Femari had displayed in the guildhall. Was Flame Blade a magic skill at its core?

  It took all of the morning, and by early afternoon, Rayne had still not managed to properly use Flame Blade. Much as he wanted to keep trying, they had agreed to meet up with Syra for a mission today, and neither of them were willing to give up a day’s commission just so Rayne could learn a new skill. Particularly since there was no guarantee on when he would master it anyways.

  And so they traipsed off, meeting up with Syra, taking a commission to deal with a band of kobolds that had been stealing livestock to the northeast, executing the commission as well as the kobolds, and returning.

  Like this, they settled into a routine. In the mornings, Rayne would meet with Leon for combat training, joined occasionally by Syra. Afterwards, they would take a commission, and head out as a party of three, sometimes joined by others for bigger missions that required more people.

  Leon always complained on such outings, but the rewards were good, and each time they went out with other parties, he gained new students. Rayne was no longer his only student, though he was the first, and the most talented, but others now vied for Leon’s attention during the lessons, much to the pleasure of their noble swordsman’s coin purse.

  Apart from their adventures and training, the three also joined every afternoon to devise new skills. Some days, their adventures took them too long, and Rayne had to beg his leave to pick up Issa, but most afternoons, they could be found in the small clearing where they practiced Keen Edge, Strong Arm, Flame Blade, and in Syra’s case, Dash.

  Unfortunately for the other two, Syra was completely incapable of explaining how she was able to use Dash, a shame in Rayne’s opinion, since it was quite an interesting movement skill, but that was fine. Between the three skills that he did have access to, he had more than enough on his plate for the time being. Adding a fourth would only complicate matters.

  On that front, there was some progress. After two full weeks of trying, Rayne managed to fuse Keen Edge and Strong Arm to produce a new skill. Just as he had suspected, the combination of the two yielded a fortification skill, one that Lili had identified as Fortify Armament when he’d shown her.

  “That’s a skill the guards use,” she’d said. “It’s pretty helpful when taking down criminals since you can strengthen your hands or armor to block weak blows. Like from a knife. How’d you learn it though?”

  Making some excuse about noble connections, Rayne had dodged the question. He had initially begun their skill devising sessions out of the hope that they could save money this way. Now that they’d been at it for a little while, though, he had learned just how difficult it was to create a new skill, and how rare skills were in general among bronze-tier adventurers. And so he’d lied to Lili. Better that as few as possible knew about their success than to attract unwanted eyes after all. Successful people without power were nothing more than targets for jealousy and hatred. He knew that better than anyone.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  And so they trained, and they fought, and occasionally gathered herbs much to Leon’s distaste, and they practiced skills. It was a lot of work, but Rayne found himself reveling in it all. Adventuring was not easy, but it was freeing. A career where one’s efforts were seen and rewarded with suitable coin and acclaim. A far cry from the dreary life of a clerk he had lived before.

  They were on their way back from one such mission now, a rather laidback job where they’d been hired to work as guards for a farmer sowing wild fields near Lake Titan. No monsters had charged from the woods to bother them, and the whole affair had been six hours spent standing around as a middle-aged man and his son-in-law worked the field. A fine way to earn six silver pieces, as far as Rayne was concerned, though Leon seemed to have different thoughts.

  “What a waste of a fine day,” he bemoaned. “Nary a hide nor scale to be seen. Our time would have been better spent counting the blades of grass in the Guild’s field.”

  “Shouldn’t you be happy that two commoners managed to make it through what promised to be a risky day’s work unscathed by the dangerous monsters that plague these lands?” Rayne asked.

  “I am— of course— I mean…” Leon faltered. “It is not that I want the commoners to be attacked. I was just saying that it would have been nice if we had earned our pay!” he managed at last. “Our jobs could have been done by a trio of well-crafted scarecrows. We practically robbed those farmers!”

  Rayne snorted. “Robbed? Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not even their coin that they’re spending. These fields are managed by the city. They pay farmers to plant wild crops so that if we experience a blight or a crop failure in the grain crop, the city doesn’t starve. So relax, Leon. We lazed around today on the Council’s copper, not Farmer Gren’s over there.”

  Sniffing loudly, Leon drew himself up to his full height. “Say what you will, but I feel that such jobs are a waste of our talents. We could have earned more coin slaying monsters, and certainly today did not assist us in our quest to grow stronger.”

  The sun-dappled path they were on followed the lake’s main tributary, the Titan river, an offshoot of which was the source of Torid’s own canal. The water flowed slow and clear, bubbling gently over rocks as it rushed past them. Scintillating waters reflected the sunlight, casting watery reflections over the nearby trees and foliage as bugs buzzed quietly above. The perfect picture of idle summer.

  It was Syra who broke the silence, glancing at Leon with a pensive look on her face. “That’s what it’s really about, isn’t it?” she asked insightfully. “You don’t think an adventurer should be doing the work of a guard. Right, Leon?”

  For a second, Leon began to shake his head in order to refute, but then he hung it low. “No— Actually, yes. Do not mistake me, guard work is an honorable profession. It is their duty as much as ours to protect the small folk. But we are adventurers, we would serve better by being proactive, hunting and culling the monster population while the guard defends the people. The difference between a noble calling and an honorable one is that the honorable man defends against the issue, the noble man eliminates it.”

  A wry smile crept across Rayne’s face. “I want to disagree with that last part, but I know of too many corrupt guards to dispute it. Though corrupt nobles are a copper a dozen as well.”

  Leon sputtered at this, but Rayne pressed on. “For adventuring, however, I think you’re mistaken. Adventuring is simply a means of risking one’s own life for reward. Those who don’t want to or aren’t willing to risk their hides pay us, and then we do the dirty work for them.”

  The look on Leon’s face was one of such bewilderment that one might have thought Rayne had just revealed himself as two banivs in a coat. “You just described thugs, not adventurers. Maybe the lower-tier adventurers must take on menial tasks, but higher-tiers take on essential missions too dangerous for commoners!"

  Now it was Rayne’s turn to bristle. “Thugs?” He shook his head. “We’re not lowlives, but neither are we nobles, Leon. We’re just adventurers, killing for coin. That’s what we do. It’s not righteousness that guides us, but basic economics.”

  “Nonsense. As adventurers, we must always strive to—”

  “Enough!” Syra shouted. Immediately, they both shut up and looked at her, who pointed back at them. “Mercenary,” she said, pointing to Rayne. “Knight,” she said, turning to Leon.

  Blinking rapidly, Rayne realized that in one moment, their companion had effectively reduced each of their arguments to a single word. Worse, he couldn’t find any fault in her argument. He was acting as a mercenary, taking whichever jobs offered the best pay at the highest odds of survival, and from a short glance at Leon, he could see that he was similarly impacted.

  Am I really nothing more than a common mercenary? The idea did not please Rayne. Although adventurers and mercenaries were similar occupations, they were perceived very differently by the people of Vanoth. Mercenaries were cutthroat opportunists liable to switch sides in an instant the moment a better offer came along. Adventurers were hardy fighters who could solve a problem for you, and in a mostly legal manner too. Even if he disagreed with Leon’s assessment of adventurers as nobles, it was seen as somewhat of a noble calling, and to be reduced to a mere mercenary rankled him a little. He was doing this for the sake of Issa’s future after all. Not to hoard wealth like a miser, his happiness measured only in the size of his gold pile.

  “What about you, Syra?” Rayne asked suddenly, turning to fix the Katiine in his sights as he attempted to turn the question back on her.

  With a shrug, Syra looked past him. “To me, you’re both wrong.” As both boys stared at her in confusion, she gazed at the river. “To me, adventuring is about freedom. Yes, there’s coin to be earned, and glory to be won, but it’s not about that. It’s about this.” She twirled as she said this, opening both arms to broadly indicate the nature all around them. “Mercenaries have to go where the conflict is at, and knights are sworn to their lord. But adventurers can go where they want, take the jobs they desire, work with who they like, and no one can stop them.” She grinned. “So that’s how I view adventurers. We’re free. And that’s what makes adventuring so great.”

  “Freedom, huh?” Rayne chewed on the word for a few seconds. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “As can I,” Leon added. “Though I still believe there to be an inherent nobility to it as well.”

  A happy smile graced Syra’s face, and she laughed at Leon’s insistence on sticking to his principles. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  With that, the discussion was over. Talk turned to more mundane matters, such as skills and the price of bread, and they talked merrily as they returned to Torid.