The Whetstone Fist 3

by Brian K Declan

  “I’m aware of the risks,” said Lucas, “It will slow my mana regeneration rate.”

  “Not just slow,” warned Tempo, “It will stop. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but if you keep pushing past your limit, you will stop regenerating mana all together.”

  The warning was not the first time he’d heard it, almost every single teacher he ever had gave some sort of speech about how to properly use mana. Heck the whole point of calculating mana cost was to make sure you do not push past your limits. Speeches and warnings were great but walking inside the lines does not get you ahead. All you get by following the rules is the same thing as everyone else.

  Pushing boundaries was how he rose above; it was how he got results where his peers were fumbling around like children in the dark. Teacher after teacher had told him the same damn thing and time after time, he nodded like it was some sage wisdom. He always kept his mouth shut but for some reason this time he couldn’t.

  Maybe it was the headache, or the stress of this morning. Maybe it was because he felt like he could trust Tempo. Or maybe it was just because he didn’t want to hold it in one more time.

  “We got Val’n Dare to speak with us didn’t we,” said Lucas.

  “But at what cost,” said Tempo.

  “You didn’t pay it,” said Lucas, “so if you can’t humble yourself and say thank you then keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  As soon as he said it, he regretted it. Tempo was concerned for him and all Lucas did is yell at him in return. Tempo did not deserve that.

  What made it was that Tempo didn’t even get mad, all he did is put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder and look him in the eyes, “It was irresponsible of me to drag you into this. I never should have put you in that position, but you need to take care of yourself.”

  “I’m fine,” said Lucas then he brushed Tempo’s arm away.

  “Promise me you will not push past your mana limit again,” said Tempo.

  “Okay,” said Lucas, “I’ll be more careful.”

  Tempo didn’t look convinced but he backed off, “How’s your head?”

  “Better,” said Lucas.

  “Then let’s go, or we’ll be late,” said Tempo.

  Chapter 8:

  They were late but only by a few minutes, not enough to miss the first match. Still Lenard was already there with a couple of his friends and of course his retainer, Grant Rios. That did not bode well for Lucas. If Lenard was an annoying bit of unexpected rain, Grant was a hurricane. Not because of any words or pranks, most of them were much the same as Lenard. But Grant took pleasure in his suffering.

  Lenard liked to tease him but when he pushed it too far, he felt bad. On the other hand if Grant was in a bad mood; he’d hunt Lucas down and torture him for a little while to cheer himself up. Plus in some twisted way Lenard thought his bullying was going to make Lucas tougher. Grant only targeted Lucas because he was younger, smaller and weaker, as far as he knew anyway.

  “Hey Pukas, did you see the scores?” asked Lenard.

  Lucas ignored him as he walked to the opposite side of their family’s private box and took the farthest seat from Lenard and his friends. Sadly, distance wasn’t going to stop anything.

  Lenard said something to his friends then in unison they all acted like they were throwing up. After several seconds of that nonsense they all stopped and held up a single finger.

  “One point, Pukas,” said Lenard, “I must admit it you did pretty good. I did one point better, but you did good.”

  “Yeah it sucks,” said Lucas, “Full of shame and humiliation.”

  That was a lie, but it was what Len wanted to hear.

  “Seriously little brother,” said Lenard, “Congratulations.”

  Or maybe he was having one of those rare kind moments.

  “Don’t tease him Len,” said Grant, “The baby tried his best.”

  Lucas leaned over to get a better look at Grant then flashed him a smile. The look wasn’t meant to do anything besides get his attention for a few seconds. Grant was still looking at him when his sister whacked him in the back of the head, “Who you calling baby, baby brother?”

  Grant swatted away his sister’s hand, “What do you want Gwen? Don’t you have to do your makeup or something?”

  “Your knowledge about women blows my mind,” said Gwen then she pushed past Len, Grant, and his friends.

  Tempo was still crafting a spell when he saw Gwen coming. He took a few moments to finish the spell then stowed his spellrod and let the spell settle into his auraband, “Praxar Rios, as beautiful as always.”

  “Thank you, Magister,” said Gwen as she placed her hand over her heart, “I got your message.”

  “Then I’ll be brief. Lord Santi requests an audience,” said Tempo, “Don’t let his fears be your fears.”

  “Is that all?” asked Gwen, “You could have said this in your message.”

  The only answer Tempo gave was a confused look then he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. The snap echoed around the stadium and forced everyone into silence. Once he was satisfied Tempo started his commencement speech. It was almost identical to the one he gave last year so Lucas tuned out the majority of it and turned his mind back to this morning.

  Before his uncle diverted him and he got caught up in all of the mind-numbing politics; he was planning to help Lock. What to do, what to do. Checking the scores was a good start. They were posted outside the arena for the masses to see, and the official records were held at Waystar. But copies of those records were sent to every noble house in the country. That was how his uncle found out so fast, he was at the top of the list. The real question was how Lenard figured it out. Maybe he searched the boards before he got here but knowing him he found another way.

  Only one way to know for sure.

  Lucas went over to Grant and flicked his fingers for him to move so Lucas could sit next to his brother. Grant might not like it, but his family plead fealty to the Santi’s and Lucas was a Santi. His relationship with Lenard gave him some level of freedom but at the end of the day he had to obey Lucas and he knew it.

  “You have a copy of the scores?” asked Lucas.

  Lenard hesitated to answer, “Maybe.”

  “Can I see it?” asked Lucas.

  “Why?” asked Lenard, “You better not tell uncle.”

  “I won’t, just curious,” said Lucas.

  “Do better,” said Lenard.

  “Fine, I don’t have a retainer,” said Lucas, “It’s about time I change that.”

  Lenard crossed his hands then pulled a rolled sheet of parchment out of his sleeve and handed it to Lucas, “Anyone you choose will have to be approved by uncle William.”

  “I know,” said Lucas, “Thanks,” then he took the parchment and went back to his seat. Once alone he started scanning the pages. The first thing he noticed was their mother’s name at the top of the page. Next he realized the scores were organized from highest to lowest. That made it easy to find himself, second from the top. The only person who scored higher was Alexis Auditore with 1652. Well shit, both of the Auditore girls got the top spot in their year.

  No doubt their father had been pushing them to rebuild the family’s reputation after their uncle brought shame to their name. When Lucas’s father died much of the blame was put on his head retainer, Gregory Auditore. Not that he could have done a damn thing to stop it, but people are cruel and irrational. Regardless their hard work paid off, and it wouldn’t be much surprise if their younger brother got the top spot next year.

  He kept scanning down the page, but Lock’s name was nowhere to be seen. That didn’t make sense. Lucas did a rough calculation and Lock should have had at least 1600. Unless they didn’t add points for his time, then it should be between 1200 and 1300. But there was no Matlock Sharp listed in either spot.

  Shit. Unless the negative was not corrected. That would drop his score more than 1000 points lower than it should have been. Lucas skipped to the bottom of the list, Lock
wasn’t at the bottom but not far from it, with a score of 267.

  That was the biggest administrative failure he had ever seen. A guy who not only completed all of the challenges with no spellrod, but he did it better than ninety-five percent of initiates. And what was his reward, a score in the bottom five percent.

  Anger was too mild to describe what Lucas felt. Seething hatred and a determination to not only make this right for Lock but determination to fix the broken system that lead to such a grave oversight. The saddest part of it all was that Lucas had planned to present Lock as a candidate to be his retainer. With scores that low his uncle would never approve it.

  “Not happy about something?” asked Tempo. The sudden interruption snapped him back to reality.

  When he looked up from the parchment, Tempo was staring at him, “Yeah, life. Its full of injustice.”

  Chapter 9:

  He was supposed to be paying attention to the tournament but all he could think about was the butter knife in his bedroom. He was stupid to leave a loose end like that sitting out in the open. If anyone walked in it would be in plain sight. His mother wouldn’t have a clue what it was but if his uncle found it. The servants wouldn’t give a crap but if any of his uncle’s retainers found it, that would be a disaster.

  Not only would they learn the most powerful spell in their family’s arsenal, but whoever found it would know that Lucas hid it for years. The entire facade he’d built up as a lazy, unmotivated student, would be gone in an instant. He couldn’t even imagine what his uncle would do to him then. Punishment, torture, death, who knows. Maybe all of them.

  Whoa, take a breath. Calm down. Think about something else. There was nothing he could do about it now. He would deal with it after the tournament. Focus on something else. Waystar, classes, that was worth giving some mental energy. Good thing he memorized his classes in the handful of seconds he got to see his enrollment forms.

  Intro to spellwork, crafting and enchantment, and traits of the trade were going to be a breeze. None of them would teach anything that he didn’t know already. Even mana manipulation should not be a huge challenge. It wasn’t something he excelled at like spellwork but for the first year or two it wouldn’t require much effort. Similar with leveling up, that would stink, but it he could suffer through it.

  Dungeon survival was the most interesting course, as it was unfamiliar. Plus it gave real world experience, granted under supervision of one of the magisters and in well-traveled dungeons. But, it was more useful than any of the other courses.

  Now Competitive arts, that was going to be the most difficult class by far. He had always thought confrontation was best avoided. His uncle had other ideas, so he had to make a choice. Say screw it and accept failure, or he could prepare.

  He looked over at his brother, then at Grant and made up his mind. No more failure, he’d played the weakling act for long enough. But he didn’t have experience with dueling. If he was going to succeed, he needed a strategy. And who better to learn from than his oldest brother Liam.

  Too bad he’d slept through years’ worth of his duels. Oh well, there was no changing the past. He wouldn’t be able to learn everything, but there was enough time to formulate a strategy that played to his strength, spellwork.

  He missed the first match with his brother, but the rest of the first-round matches were educational to some degree. For the most part nobody used spells at all. They relied entirely on firing raw mana bolts or channeling mana through their blessing to give some sort of advantage. Lucas could do the same thing with spirit mana to add kinetic force to his attacks, but the effectiveness of such attacks was unclear. He could also use Transcend to have access to enriched mana but that didn’t seem like much of an advantage.

  In all the matches only one spell was used, and it resulted in the caster being defeated. Not because it was an ineffective spell or because he failed in his casting. It was just too slow. Spells took several seconds to cast then they required several seconds longer to trigger. That was more than enough time for the caster to be overwhelmed by mana bolts. The time delay could be avoided by enchanting an object, like an auraband to hold the spell and be instantly activated later.

  The problem was, enchanting before the start of the duel might be against the rules. Stupid rules but it would explain why nobody did it. He’d need a backup plan like finding a way to stall for time. Last he would need to become more proficient with firing mana bolts. That part was essential regardless of what strategy he employed. He could fire homing bolts or high-speed mana orbs but they cost more mana. Without those he was not very accurate, so he’d be wasting precious mana.

  Of course, he might be able to win the match if he was fast enough or his homing bolts were too difficult to dodge. But no his priority was spells. Because he knew he could dictate the flow of combat if not win the duel outright with a single spell.

  The whole problem was time. He needed more time.

  If he could channel life mana maybe that would allow him to increase his reaction time. That would not reduce cast time, but it might allow him to evade long enough to complete a spell. Yeah no, who was he kidding there was no way he was going to dodge shit. He was no Val’n Dare.

  Liam’s second round match was next, which should give him some insight. His opponent was an older gentleman, Stanwick’s retired retainer. He was now a merchant’s bodyguard if his memory was right. Age usually meant experience, and since he was facing off against a twenty-five-year-old noble, the crowd was going crazy. Who they were cheering for was not clear, but it didn’t matter. Liam was going to win, like it or not, he was going to win.

  Tempo stood up and announced the duel, “James Fenwick, vs Liam Santi.”

  James reacted lightning fast and dashed to the side. The only way someone reacted that fast, was a tier three or four life blessing. He might actually have a chance to win. James would not be an easy target to hit and if he got close, he’d be impossible to beat even for Liam.

  As James moved he fired mana bolt after mana bolt in a near constant stream. Liam was slower to react but the mana bolts he fired were stronger and deflected several of James’s bolts with a single attack. That was a good lesson. Once James realized his opening attack failed, he stopped wasting mana and rushed straight towards Liam.

  As soon as the onslaught of mana bolts stopped, Liam raised his free hand behind his head and began casting, “Ventus, parvus, habitus…”

  Mid way through the spell James realized his opportunity and fired another volley of mana bolts. James’s attack should have forced Liam to stop his casting or win the match outright, but it didn’t. Somehow Liam continued his spell and at the same time he fired a stream of defensive mana bolts.

  “Repente,” said Liam as he finished his casting he let go of his spellrod and caught it in his free hand. The instant his free hand clamped down on the spellrod, the spell activated and froze James in midair. Liam held the spell for a few seconds. James realized he’d been beat and closed his eyes to admit defeat.

  Tempo’s voice filled the stadium, “Liam Santi defeats Fenwick James.”

  The entire match lasted less than ten seconds. But in those ten seconds Lucas learned a lot. The obvious lesson was that he confirmed how powerful a spell was if he could complete the casting. The less obvious was that his brother’s ability to control his mana was on a level far above him. The second lesson he noticed was the way his brother used stronger mana bolts to deflect several weak attacks. Gwen did something similar, but her reserve of mana was enormous. Liam did it on a smaller scale but the lesson was the same. Use mana efficiently. The last lesson was that everything happen fast. Very fast. Altogether each lesson required skills that Lucas did not possess and he was not going to learn them in a week.

  So at the end of it all, the matches didn’t help much. Mana control was not something you learned, it took some sort nebulous discipline to master. For the immediate future he had to come up with a more practical strategy. Then a thought occ
urred to him, time was such a huge factor in these duels. So he pulled out the list of scores he got from Lenard and started to compare his own results on the Endless Hourglass to the rest of his class.

  Around half of the initiates did not even attempt the challenge. They weren’t competition. Of the remaining half, seventy-five percent of them had times over twenty seconds. Also, not anyone he needed to be worried about. That left about seventy students and those seventy were the ones he had to beat. To his surprise his time was the third fastest, not including Lock.

  Alexis Auditore had the fastest at 6.5, next was Kalum Reed with 7.0 then Lucas with 7.2 seconds. None of them were anywhere near Lock’s 0.6 seconds. That time was so fast that he could strike before most people knew the duel started.

  Lucas took a moment to think about that. Lock could teleport which made him fast but there must be more to it. He had teleported ten times in less than a second. Either his reflexes were extremely fast like Val’n Dare, or he had some other ability that gave him an advantage. Either way, Lucas was not going to beat him. Hell, Magister Keller might not beat him.

  That said he had a strategy for the rest of his competition; fire fast, fire accurate and look for an opportunity to cast.

  Chapter 10:

  Over the course of the next several rounds he saw much the same as earlier. In many ways it was boring and repetitive. Except for Val’n Dare. He was pushed to fight harder and display more of his skill in each fight. By the quarter finals it was clear this man was extremely dangerous. He was more athletic, more efficient with mana usage and he had the devastating ability to dispel almost any magic that was thrown at him. On top of that the handful of spells that he could not counter had both long cast times and high mana costs.

  Even his brother would be hard pressed to pull off a victory. Then again, his mastery of the repente trigger made his spells trigger much faster. Still cast time was a significant hinderance and Val’n beat everyone with ease.