Chapter 10
"The next week I began knife training. For the first couple weeks all I was taught was the effects of different blades and different attacks until my arm healed, then practice started. Steven told me that a normal blade, like a tanto or something like that, is a good overall knife. A blade that curves forward, shaped like a talon, is almost no good for stabbing but had excellent cutting power. A curving zig-zag blade, like Steven's naga kris, causes nasty wounds that are hard to heal and often get infected. Slashing attacks sever whatever the blade touches but usually don't go deep unless much power is behind it so it is good for disabling muscles or causing bleed out. A stabbing attack will go as deep as you push so it is good for taking out vital organs like the heart or lungs. He also taught me lots of other stuff you likely don't care to hear about like people's reactions to being cut or stabbed in different places.
"When training started, Steven and I carved wooden fake training knives and practiced striking the vital parts of a human body. Heart stabs, femoral artery slashing, throat slitting, the works.
"I also found a trader who sold a thing called a 'blow-dart'. I bought one and took to it naturally, it would seem, being able to hit targets from farther away than even Albert who had one at some point earlier in his life. Albert told me that a blow-dart was good for poisoning people if I ever needed to.
"My pick pocket training continued along with the knife and stealth training. After two years of this I expanded to asking for armor training from Sticks and Stones who happily obliged saying I was never going to get close enough to use my butter knives in a fight without some protection. Oddly, my left arm only took well to Stones' heavy metal armor and the rest of me to the lightweight leather armor. Of course, I didn't use their armor, we bought some cheap armor at the nearest town and practiced with that. Steven and Oddball feared I was going to turn into a 'lumbering tin can', like other boys my age wanted to do, and not be quiet enough to sneak up on people. But, wearing mostly quiet leather armor and having the heavy metal armor on my left arm adjusted to silent, I stayed just as silent as before, putting their worries to rest. The silencing of the metal was done by wearing a long sleeve, reaching all the way down to my fingers, under the chain mail which was tightened by removing some links along the inside to reduce the space inside. Then the plates were attached tight on top so as not to move around and make noise, just like Stone's armor which was also amazingly quiet for being as durable as it was.
"In addition to all that, I was also being taught to make poisons and how to use them by Albert.
"The Five were still going around to villages and taking money for the 'disappearances' of particularly rough Bullies bothering townsfolk while training me."