When I opened my eyes, I was in a pale world shrouded with a dark sky. Purple plant-like things stemmed from the ground and climbed so far into the sky that I couldn't even see the top. I could see some of them had gross-looking blocks that resembled strange growths. Then, I turned around and saw the same warrior that I had trained with the night before. He had his sword and shield out, and was eyeing me, as if he was expecting something from me. I drew out my weapon, which was a wooden sword, and approached him slowly, sword ready, knowing what it was that he was expecting. I realized that this time he had his sword in his left hand, and his shield in his right, while last time he had it the other way around. I wondered if it was because I was left-handed, and he was switching his main hand and off-hand for me.
Once I was within striking distance, he raised his sword up, and then brought it down towards me. Immediately, I jumped to the left and went into a turning somersault for a second before kicking my legs off the ground and swinging my sword at his back. He was knocked forwards as the wooden blade struck him, but then turned around and bashed his shield against my body. I flew back from the force of the attack and landed against a purple stem, letting out a grunt from the force of the blow. I steadily got back up and looked at him.
"It is good that you managed to pull off the Circular-Slash..." the knight praised, "However, you failed to put your full strength into the attack, and therefore I was quickly able to recover from the strike and counterattack. You must continue to hone your strengths, and fully master the technique on your own." He continued to speak, "Your fight against that other child, I saw it. You managed to use the Circular-Slash appropriately in that situation." How did he see that?
"How come your armor didn't fall apart?" I asked him. "You said that it caused most armor to break away when done."
"As I said, your attack was not strong, therefore it did not manage to overpower my armor." he informed, "And even if it had, the armor that I don is specifically made to be used for combat. It is as tough as diamond and would not fall apart so easily. The Circular-Slash doesn't work on armor harder than iron unless the blade used against it is harder than iron." He then walked over to me as he stared into my eyes. "Today has been a dangerous day for you as well, you encountered a Wither and were nearly withered away by it..." he pointed out. "And now you are embarking on a journey that you very well know may threaten your lives, specifically with your young age." I looked down.
"I... I tried to talk Emma and Andy out of it, but they wouldn't listen." I explained. He looked down at me, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"You aren't going solely to watch over them, are you? You also want to try and find a way to stop the Wither?" he questioned, in a tone that suggested that he knew the answer.
"I... it almost destroyed my home... I watched as it killed my teacher and Bob. I can't just do nothing..." I admitted. I heard a sound from the spectral knight that might've been a grunt.
"Spoken like a courageous prodigy. Perhaps I did underestimate the potential that you have." he said, "However, you wouldn't last against a monster on your own, even with the Circular-Slash. Especially the Wither. And that is why I shall continue to teach you new techniques that are no longer taught by combat experts of today."
"Are there really that many techniques that were forgotten by knights?" I asked him. "My dad is a knight, and he-"
"I know who your father is, even more than you do. And the way combat is taught now is significantly more simplistic compared to how it was during the Great Desolation War. The techniques I plan to teach you are more complicated than rolling around the foe and striking from the air." he informed as he raised his sword, preparing to struck it into the ground.
"Wait, do you go by a name?" I asked.
"As I stated in our first encounter, in life, I was a hero who went by the name of Steve." he reminded.
"I know, but is there another name I can call you? It feels a bit weird calling a skeletal knight Steve when it's serious..." I pointed out nervously.
"You may call me as I am, a spectral hero." he answered. The Spectral Hero... not much better. "Or, you may simply call me Master..." There it was, that was better. He lowered his golden sword to his knee.
"Okay then, Master." I responded, feeling a little excited. I had read stories about warriors that came to become legendary heroes while training with a more experienced warrior or monk and how they called their teachers their masters. I had secretly always wanted to be a hero, but I was always too shy to actually believe I could ever become one. I always wanted to be more like Dad and less of a scared wimp.
"I have noticed that you have great difficulty when it comes to fighting off spiders." he pointed out. "There are various techniques useful for defending against the arachnids, though they are not abandoned techniques. You would have been taught this a couple months from now had you chosen to stay behind, but they will be very useful for you now." he said as he brought his sword down onto the pale surface with great force, shaking the ground. A bunch of giant spiders appeared all around him, effectively surrounding the ghostly knight.
"Should you find yourself in a dangerous position where there are spiders around you, ready to ambush, then you must watch carefully and find out where the first lunge comes from. Then, you need to duck beneath the first attack, and then plunge your weapon directly into its abdomen, like so-" Suddenly, a large spider lunged at him, and he managed to duck beneath it before stabbing his golden sword into the stomach of the spider. Then, he used the momentum from the spider's lunge to keep it in motion as he used his sword to swing the spider off and it slammed into another spider, both of them turned to black smoke immediately.
"If you are to be overwhelmed and taken down by a spider, it is important that you remain calm and focused. A monster is only as dangerous as you are willing to allow it to be. If you are taken down by one, you must stab at its abdomen as it tries to bite at you." Just then, a big spider pounced onto the spectral knight from behind, and he grappled with it for a moment before turning himself around and grabbing ahold of it with his shield arm, then plunging his blade straight into the belly of the monster. I could see the end of the golden sword erupting from the spider's back as the monster went limp and he cast it aside. The beast turned into smoke as it landed on the ground.
"And finally, when multiple of them surround you, sometimes, they all will pounce at you, with the intent to take you down much more easily and subdue you. In this situation, you must perform a well-timed spin attack." he explained as the spiders all raised their butts and wriggled them before jumping at him. He held his sword outwards from his side and then, letting out a ghostly howl as he swung it around in a massive circle. The blade bit into each and every spider that had jumped, knocking them back with red flashes as they exploded into smoke particles. When all the smoke was gone, there were no more spiders.
He turned to look back at me with his glowing eyes, "Now, you try it." he said as several more spiders appeared in a circle around me. I raised my sword, but seeing the giant spiders all glaring at me, I started to shake with fear.
"Do not panic. Heroes don't listen to what their minds want them to think. The only difference between a hero and a coward is that a hero's body acts before his mind, while a coward's mind acts before his body." he explained. I stared at the spiders around me and tried to compose myself. Then, one spider lunged from behind, and I noticed at the last moment and ducked. When I swung my sword up, it missed the spider.
I looked over at the spider that had tried to attack me and watched as it turned around to jump again, and I quickly ducked below and sent my wooden sword directly into the body of the monster, using all my strength to stop its motion and slammed it onto the ground. The spider erupted in a burst of smoke particles with a last hiss. Suddenly, a large spider charged at me from ahead and slammed against me, knocking me to the ground. I grunted from the shock of the impact and struggled to keep the spider from biting my neck.
"Remember to attack while it is upon you." the Spectral Hero reminded, "It may seem like it has the upper hand, but it is still vulnerable while on you." Desperately, I gripped my sword and, as I held the giant monster up with one hand, I thrust my sword directly into its belly, causing it to shriek in pain as it struggled even more to overpower me. I continued to plunge the weapon deeper, and after a moment it fell sideways and landed on its back, its legs crossed as it exploded into more smoke.
"Remember what comes next." the knight warned. My eyes widened as the rest of the spiders began hissing and raising their back ends in the air, getting ready to pounce. I held my sword, feeling my grip shake, when I felt a mystical energy fill my body, replacing my fear with courage. As they all jumped at me, I let out a yell and swung my sword all around me in a circle, feeling the blade strike against each monster as they flew back and disappeared into smoke.
I managed to stop my spinning without falling over and turned to look at the ghostly knight. He had a look on his face that I couldn't understand.
"Excellent work, you managed to learn to fight off spiders for the most part. However, it seems that while performing the spin attack against the rest of the spiders, you managed to channel an unusual energy." he said. "When was the first time you managed to call it?" he questioned.
"Um... a few days ago, I think..." I told him. He stared at me for a moment before responding.
"That energy, I have not seen a person capable of channeling it since life. We call that the Spirit of Hope." he revealed.
"The... Spirit of Hope?" I repeated, confused.
"Yes, it is the final thing the Creator gave to the people before he left this world. It is a strength that rewards those with incredibly strong willpower with the courage and power they need to stand against enemies far stronger than themselves. Normally, one does not have the willpower to call forth this courage until he has aged many years. The fact that you are able to call upon it this early in your life, it is unusual, but it can benefit you greatly." he explained. "However, we shall not begin to train you on harnessing the strength of your heart until you have learned the many abandoned techniques of past."
"Wait, so all heroes have this... Spirit of Hope in them, right?" I asked. He shook his head.
"Heroes can have this gift, but not all of them do. The ones that do not are the true brave heroes, able to make themselves fight for what's right without the Creator's gift and with their own courage. But most heroes do have the Spirit of Hope within their programs." he revealed. "However, there was a great amount of time between the last hero with this power and yourself. And between that time, the Spirit of Hope appeared to have vanished from the coding of humanity. I had feared that the hope had died out. But because you are born with it, it means that despite it all, the Creator's final gift has not left."
"Wait, so, having this thing makes me a hero?"
"Having this strength does not make you a hero." he responded. "There have been false heroes who have had it, and they exploited it to become famous. Some heroes became the very legends they weren't worthy of leaving. Some of them became villains. Some became anti-villains who sought to change the world for selfless reasons, going about it the wrong way. Most of them live their lives neither as a hero nor villain, completely unaware of the potential that they have. The only difference is that you are the first who discovered the strength of his will before he aged into a teenager." he explained.
"I think I understand now, Master." I replied. Just because I had this power didn't mean I was guaranteed to be heroic. I still had to work for it.
"Remember the advice that you were given here." the Spectral Hero said. "Keep training your Circular-Slash during the day. At night, I will test you. Understand?" I nodded and he lowered his sword to his knees.
"Young one, this journey that you have begun will be dangerous. You will be fighting not only for yourself, but for your friends as well. And with that Wither on the loose, the stakes are nothing less than the survival of the human race. I myself have fought against one of them, and it ended with my demise. Your destiny has now begun." he revealed. "Legacy, it is all that anyone truly has that can persist even through time. And it will be up to you to carry on the torch of heroism in the darkness. So, steady yourself, and when the time has come, we shall meet again." He put his sword away, and with that, the dreamscape faded away.
Hey guys, so I wanted to let you know that I'm planning to take a couple days off for now. I've been writing a lot, and it's getting a bit overwhelming to sit at the computer typing all day. That's not to say I won't work on pushing out more chapters during that time, just that I won't be uploading them everyday anymore. The schedule is probably gonna be once every two or three days, that way I don't get burned out. Just wanted to give you guys a heads up, so you aren't confused as to why it's taking much longer. Don't forget to leave a review on what you thought about this chapter! I tried hard not to let this newfound ability David has seem like some cliched hidden super power that has no reason being in a game like Minecraft, and I wanna hear what you guys think.