Chương 51: Book 2 Chapter 3 - Something Clicked

Dustin despised the methods his father had turned to, but he understood the value of having protection. They needed powerful house retainers, people that had made a name for themselves, and were well known enough to deter any unprovoked threats. People that made others say "it's best not to mess with House Yountal, because of so-and-so". The problem was, those kinds of people were already employed, or running powerful houses of their own. Finding a powerful, trustworthy house retainer was pretty much impossible.

Instead, you invested early in hiring talent with the potential to become a powerful house retainer. You built that relationship and trust while the person was still young and growing, so that when they developed into someone worth having around, they already had strong ties to your house, with no reason to look elsewhere. That type of growth took time. So if House Yountal wanted to grow into anything real, now was the time to start acquiring that kind of talent.

Shian had asked him about his thoughts on growing the house businesses, if it brought extra danger. She was still waiting for his response.

"It appeals to me, yes," he said with a nod.

"Here in Easton, the merchant families are all well protected for the scale they operate at. The guards we have are sufficient for now, but if we wish to grow we'll need to hire more guards, and more powerful ones too." He laid out his thought process for her, and she followed along easily enough. Then, he asked, "Portish, as the county seat, is probably the best place to find guards for hire. It will have a larger talent pool to choose from.

Do you want me to handle it, or would you like to come along to help pick out the new guards?" She thought for a moment before responding, and he could tell she was struggling with something internally. Finally, she said, "I think I'd like to come along, but we should let things settle around here a bit before we go. Maybe in a few weeks?" It was a good point. They had unresolved business with the city, and would likely need to appear before the city tribunal to discuss Lord Grivalt's death.

Shian's family and a few other servants still hadn't made up their minds about what they'd like to do, and there were plenty of things to get organized before leaving town for a week. He didn't want things falling apart while he was gone.

"Sounds great," he replied with a smile. * Monday, Kiara went to her sword class again. After the stress and excitement of the weekend, it was something she was really looking forward to. She didn't have any teaching assignments this week, so she decided to focus exclusively on her own progression. She had started learning the final three forms the week before, and wanted to master them as quickly as possible. She was curious what Handel would recommend for her to learn after that.

As she walked into class, she checked the leaderboard. She was ranked 29th of 31 students, with 50 points. Only two students were below her, one with 48 points and the other with 45. They weren't bad, they could have easily beaten most or all of the people from the beginner class, but they simply weren't as good as the other students in the intermediate class. Kiara wasn't sure what that said about her. Ron was ranked 22nd with 55 points.

The students in the middle of the leaderboard averaged around 62 points, while the students on the top end were in the high sixties and low seventies. She had her eye on three people specifically, and found their names on the board. Seltzer was ranked 13th with 65 points, Olga was 9th at 71 points, and Henry was tied for first at 81 points. If he hadn't missed class one day last week, he would have been the clear first place student.

His spars were always fun to watch, but as Kiara mastered more of the sword forms, she found herself slowly being less and less amazed at his technique. It was clear he had mastered all nine forms, as had a few of the other top students, and Kiara found herself slowly catching up to them in skill. Olga, it seemed, had focused on terrain management first. Her forms weren't bad: far from it, but Kiara now felt like she probably had a slightly better mastery of them than Olga did.

What Olga excelled at, however, was managing her environment, and moving the fight into an advantageous location. If Instructor Handel didn't give Kiara anything to work on next after mastering all nine forms, she decided to try and learn a bit from watching Olga navigate the field during her spars. Ron ended up being Kiara's sparring partner for the day, and she smiled in excitement as she lined up across from him. The last time they had sparred had been in the beginner's class.

Kiara had beat him, but it hadn't been a sure thing. Over multiple sparring sessions back then, he would have beat her the majority of the time. They bowed politely to each other before the moderator started the session. He smiled as he entered Mountain Stance. This had been a favorite of his back in the beginner's class, but she had seen enough of his spars over the past few weeks to know that he'd grown a lot since then.

The smaller class size and personalized instruction lent itself well to rapid improvement for the students that wanted it. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. She engaged with Fire Form, her own personal favorite, and quickly slipped past his outer guard, landing a hit on his leg as he tried to backpedal.

"Reset!" the moderator shouted.

"Two points to Shian." Ron cursed softly as the hit landed, but flashed her a smile afterward.

"Nice hit, Shian. Your Fire Form is impeccable now. I think I could have blocked that a month ago."

"Thanks!" she replied as they lined back up across from each other for the next round. Ron took up Air Stance this time, hoping to counter her Fire Form. She started in Fire Stance, but when the moderator announced the start of the round, she moved forward as she transitioned into River Form instead. Her wide, flowing swings sought purchase on Ron's sword, trying to disarm him as he defended. The initial barrage surprised him, but he recovered quickly, and managed transition seamlessly into Stone Defense instead.

"You're fast!" he said as they clashed, referring to her transition speed, rather than her movement speed. The dueling collars ensured they were both capped at the same movement speed and strength levels. He backpeddled quickly, keeping his blade close to his body, then moved into Wind Form just as she was switching back into Fire Form. He positioned to the side as she rushed in, keeping her at a distance.

One of his parries landed a hit on her leg before she could properly recover, and the moderator called another reset.

"Two points to Ron!" They were both breathing heavily and smiling. They felt fairly evenly matched now, which had Kiara mentally patting herself on the back for. He had improved a lot since they started the intermediate class, and had been better than her when they arrived. That spoke volumes about her own improvement. Her position on the leaderboard didn't necessarily reflect her skill level accurately, due to a number of factors.

For one, she hadn't been able to get as many teaching opportunities as some of the others. For another, a student that did poorly at the start of the semester could improve drastically throughout the semester, but still end with a low score due to the first weeks' points. Their third round began with her back in Fire Form, with Ron taking up Wind Form. She smiled at that. Wind Form was an offensive sword form, something that Ron had actively avoided in the beginner's class.

Rounding out that weakness was one of the main ways he had been improving, thanks to Handel's specific instructions that first day. While Wind Form was technically strong against Fire Form, Kiara closed the gap quickly once the moderator announced the start of the round. Once their blades touched, she decided to try something. She switched to Forest Form to throw Ron off, then after a couple of exchanges, began analyzing his foot placement.

Ron's Wind Form was weak against Forest Form, so he transitioned into River Form instead. He wasn't as versed in River Form, which she could tell immediately, but it was technically a counter to the form she was using. With Forest Form already engrained in her muscle memory, Kiara knew she wouldn't need to think about the movements that much.

With Ron using a form that was a technical counter, she doubted he would switch anytime soon, and since he didn't have it mastered, it gave her a chance to study his movements instead. She wasn't a master of River Form herself yet, but she knew the steps well enough to know what was coming next in his flurry of attacks. Analyzing his movements, she began to see the deficiencies. A step a few inches too far forward, a swing that went a little bit wide, a parry angled slightly too far downward.

These were all probably mistakes that she herself would be making with River Form too, especially in the heat of the moment during a sparring session, so she wasn't blaming him for the gaps in his skill, she was just simply learning to see them. Then something clicked in her mind. She started seeing openings that she could take advantage of. The small deficiencies in Ron's execution, combined with slight adjustments to her own movements, would provide her with openings to land strikes on his legs and arms.

She occasionally even saw an opening that would lead toward a strike at his torso. Thrilled with the discovery, she almost jumped in to immediately take advantage of them, but held herself back at the last second. The experience she was gaining right then was too valuable to throw away for a quick hit. With the attack now paying off, Ron switched out of River Form, and into Mountain Form instead.

While Mountain Form was a defensive form, it was also one that Ron was incredibly proficient at, and was still considered strong against Forest Form. As Ron transitioned into the more defensive stance, Kiara was left with the job of advancing the fight. He seemed content for the time to simply defend. Forest Form wasn't particularly aggressive, but she wanted Ron to maintain the same form for a bit so she could study it. As such, she kept with Forest Form for the time being.

Her rapid attacks were blocked by his powerful parries, but once again she let herself fall into the muscle memory of the form, paying more attention to Ron's movements, instead of her own. His execution of Mountain Form was impeccable, and the openings she had seen before disappeared. Instead, she noticed that her own execution of Forest form, while perfectly executed, played poorly into Mountain Form's defense, and she started noticing openings in her own defense that Ron could take advantage of.

He noticed one as well, and landed a hit on her arm after blocking one of her swings.

"Reset!" The moderator called out.

"One point to Ron." That particular round had lasted longer than usual, and some of the other students had begun paying more attention to their spar. Two students perfectly executing forms they were well versed in was not only fun to watch, but instructive as well.