Author's Note: Sorry for posting a little bit late, got hit with a snow storm last night and we needed the shovels to fly. Please, Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and Please stay safe!


Chapter 34: The Sword Hero's Training

Ikki was in the courtyard of the magicians guild practicing his magic casting. He was a little surprised to learn that he had a affinity for water magic, don't get him wrong his sister had a affinity for the stuff so it made sense in it's own way, but he was never able to do so much as make a single drop of water move beyond the use of a tap back in his own world.

"I, the Hero of the Sword, Call upon the origin of all power! Summon a stream of water to strike at my target! First Aqua Slash!" The resulting burst of water erupted out of Ikki's sword and tore into the target across the field from him, resulting in claps from the rest of the group of magicians that were watching him. "I don't need your sycophancy. I know this is only basic magic." Ikki stated looking at the slash against the wooden target. "The thing that we were talking about earlier?"

"Your Ittou Shura is, put bluntly, nothing we have ever seen before. Something we should expect since you come from another world and all that, but not the point." A nerdy looking magician stated as he looked down at the results of their studies.

"I need magic control if I want to improve upon my ability to use Ittou Shura." Ikki stated as he cracked his neck.

"It's a x10 buff that lasts for five hours though. How powerful do you want it to be exactly?" The look on the magicians face was someone who had found a untapped gold mine and who was upset at the surveyor who was unhappy because it wasn't platinum.

"It's not a technique that is without flaws." Ikki stated as he drank down a sports drink like concoction. "Once I turn it on I can't turn it off. The reason why it lasts so long is because it constantly drains magical power. And while the five hours that it lasts will be enough to deal with the waves for now, that won't always be the case especially if that other worlder or her associates show up again. I'd much more prefer the buffing magic of this world, something that lasts only a few minuets at a time without sucking me dry, enough to be deployed tactically in order to eliminate a few groups of enemies at a time. Then there's Ittou Rasetsu, which theoretically gives me a X100 buff for five minuets, but destroys my body about two in. Both of these are seriously flawed techniques that my legendary weapon and this levelling you people speak of has only moderately improved upon these issues. I need to be the one to make up the difference. Now solutions?" The various mages looked between each other and ultimately shrugged their shoulders. "Do you have the items I asked for?" Ikki realised that he would not be making any ground breaking leaps any time soon.

"Ah yes sir. They're waiting for you in your quarters." Ikki walked back to his room in the guild, switching out one sword for another figuring that he might as well unlock weapons while he was sitting around watching movies. There was a basket waiting for him in on the table in the humble little room, overflowing with those video crystals that managed to screw over Malty's attempts to kill them a little while ago. Ikki sat in the air-chair position and played the first of the video crystals, the Kingdom regularly holds annual martial arts tournaments in hand to hand, swordsmanship, Spear-man ship and archery. With the exception of the Archery division, these were all things that he could use, their techniques stolen, refined, combined together, and turned against the waves in a deadly storm of blades.

"These matches are so obviously rigged it's not even funny." This woman in the hand to hand division seemed to fly in face of the logic of every battle he's ever been in, the more armour that they had the easier it was to knock them down, the stronger their weapons the easier time she had to blocking their attacks. Either the matches she was playing in were rigged or there was something about stats going on here that he didn't know about, regardless Ikki found himself investigating.


"This one. Eirasla Grisaloc correct?" The magician stated pointing at the woman in the footage that Ikki had brought to him.

"What Can you tell me about her?" If her matches weren't rigged then it meant that she had something he wanted.

"She is a master of the Hengen Musou style." The apprentice stated though the looking on Ikki's face indicated he wanted more information. "I'm sorry to tell you this but that's all I know. She was the daughter of a poor farmer's family, a veteran of the wars with Siltvelt and Shieldfreeden, and retired from society about 20 years ago."

Retired? She was already a old woman in the footage he saw, if that was twenty years ago...

"Is she dead?" Ikki asked looking at the apprentice suspiciously.

"If she isn't, she'd be a hundred years old this year." A hundred? Taking into the effects of levelling into account she might still be alive if she had hit the eighties. If she was a veteran of the wars then that was quite likely.

"Do you know where this farm is located?" Ikki asked cocking a suspicious brow at the apprentice. "I will have to look it up. Is there anything else that you'll need?" The apprentice asked looking at Ikki suspiciously.

"Health recovery items." Ikki stated having found his solution to the Ittou Rasetsu problem that he had been struggling with for some time now.

The solution he reached was weapons with built in health recovery abilities, which he would unlock by using healing items, in theory.

'Conditions Met. Ointment Sword. Equip bonus 10% Health Recovery per minute, Hours9 Minutes50 Proficiency 0/100'

"Hmm. Should I test how effective this healing effect is? Or should I cash in some unused weapon proficiency?" After a minute to think about it Ikki maximised the proficiency on the Ointment Sword, but to his disappointment it only went up as far as 20% health per minute. It was that per minute thing that really worried him, there's no 'Per minute' when it comes to Ittou Rasetsu, by the time the healing had kicked in he would already be long since dead, he'd need a plan B.

"Hmm. Healing magic." Ikki took a look at the books on buffing and water magic that he received earlier in the day, he wished he got a convenient ability like what Naofumi got during the wave that could convert magical power into health, it's not like he even got to use all of the power from Ittou Rasetsu before his body self destructed on him. "Hmm." This healing magic could retract all of his sprayed blood back into his body, knit his flesh back together, and took up so much of his concentration he doubted he'd be able to fight while using it. "Huu..." While reading through the books on magic Ikki was eventually contacted by the apprentice mage and soon his party alongside their draconic mount were on their way.

"We're off to train in the Hengen Musou style!?" Ake had a weird look of excitement on his face as Ikki explained to him what they were doing.

"I take it you've heard of it. And based on that look of excitement you have that also means that you're going to give me a better explanation than what the magicians guild gave me?" Ikki guessed/asked/demanded.

"It was a fighting style that was based on the Heroes abilities, whatever you guys do to yourselves to make yourself stronger, whatever you use to create your skills, the Hengen Musou style has something that should do something similar." An Intriguing concept. If this was similar to Ittou Shura then some time spent with this old woman could just be what he was looking for. "It's a shame how the style got wiped out twenty years ago." And the mysteries just kept coming.

"After the difficulty that your country went through trying to bring us here I find it hard to believe that this world would discard a method of mass producing people like us." Ikki commented looking suspicious.

"If I understand the story correctly: shortly before most of us were born there was a prodigy with the style, apparently someone who took to it like he was born for it and who thus declared that his talent meant he was destined to rule the world. He killed everyone who tried to stop him leaving only one person who knew the style left alive who then killed him. That person then swore off the style altogether." Ake explained the story leaving him with a wierdly mystified look on his face.

"Eirasla Grisaloc?" Ikki asked prompting Ake to nod his head. "Here's hoping she's still alive. By the sounds of things we are very close to losing a very valuable war asset."

It was then that Ikki got a bad premonition, a old looking man desperately running along the side of the road who noticing they were going in the same direction as him hailed them down.

"You have to give me a ride in your carriage please!" The Old man stated a desperate look in his eyes. "My grandmother is very sick if she doesn't get this medicine in her soon then shes going to die!"

"Ah damn it." This was a mountain path, it only leads to one place, if he was taking it that meant he was going in the same direction they were, which meant he was going to see the same old woman that they were. "I can take you faster on foot." Ikki didn't leave any room for argument as he picked the old man up and slung him over his shoulders like a potato sack. "If I come back in less than twenty minutes, then it means we've wasted our time." On that note Ikki closed his eyes, he always wondered exactly how fast he could really get going if he wanted to, and supposed that this situation was a perfect as any to find out. "Ittou Shura!" Ikki's heavily buffed stats shot him off like a rocket, concentrating magic in his feet and propelling him forward in small bursts just like they taught him back in school.

"WWWAAAHHHOOO!" The man that Ikki was ostentatiously helping screamed all the way home. When Ikki did get there he left the man on the patch of ground next to the door and opened it soon spotting the person he had been looking for bed ridden and breathing shallowly. Ikki looked down at the medicine he got from the young man, his interface told him it was something called Yggdrasil, here's hoping it works. Uncorking the bottle with his thumb Ikki pored the liquid into the old woman's mouth as his sword notified him of several potion enhancing skills going off at once.

"So that applies to other people too? I was wondering about that." Ikki noted as the old woman's body glowed with magic and she regained consciousness seemingly in perfect health. "Eirasla Grisaloc?" Ikki asked prompting the woman to give a suspicious and slow nod.

"Good. There are things that need talking about." After Ikki explained himself the old woman had taken to pacing outside of her field with her chin in her hands.

"I would think this would be the kind of thing that you would have a easier time learning back in your world." The Old woman explained suspicion clear in her eyes.

"I am not in my old world. And if I was I doubt I would either be able or find someone willing to train me." The Old woman cocked a brow curiously prompting Ikki to continue. "In this world you have these things called status and levels which make it stupidly easily to increase your base stats the most important of which being magic capacity and production. Not to mention that I specifically have this sword which for reasons I either don't entirely know or don't fully appreciate has chosen to attach itself to me." Ikki explained gesturing to the sword in question. "In my world magic is something that is fixed at birth, and I had so little of it that as far as my teachers and family were concerned I shouldn't have even bothered to begin with." The Old lady was tapping her foot now suspicion clear on her face.

"Stand up Arms out." The woman ordered bluntly. Over the course of the next few moments the old lady prodded Ikki's body and felt him up before eventually finishing her assessment. "Your teachers and family have a very strange eye for talent."

"Some of my classmates have said the same thing." Ikki commented letting out a sigh. "But they have a bad habit of mistaking skill for talent."

"Hmph." The woman let out a snort of derision at Ikki's words. "Very well, sir Hero. A test then to see the depths of your resolve. Just so you know I've no intention to give up half way through unlike those mentors of your world that you will come to be so fond of when you return."

"I sincerely..." The punch to Ikki's face sent him flying over the fields until a tree was kind enough to halt Ikki's momentum. "...Then again, none of my old teachers hit quite that hard." Ikki had his swords out by the time the old lady had caught up to him. The fight between them was initially going in Ikki's favour, even if every hit the old lady landed on him felt like her knuckles were needles filled with pain being injected directly into his body. Still something felt oddly familiar about the way she was fighting, defensive and evasive almost like-ah damn it!

"Huh. I guess the fighting style of another world isn't all that half bad after all." On that note the old woman disappeared from Ikki's sight, trackless step. Dozen's of other moves that were vaguely familiar to Ikki followed out of the old woman as she one after the other copied Ikki's fighting styles and used them to outmanoeuvre him, that together with the annoyingly potent Hengen Musou style and Ikki was starting to figure out how other people feel when he steals their fighting styles in the middle of a spar and beat them into submission with a better version of it. After two hours and at least three fighting styles stolen the old woman finally saw fit to give Ikki a break. "All that time living it easy out here has left me flabbier then I thought I would be." The Old Woman stated cracking her neck.

"If that was what you call flabby I cannot comprehend what you were like in your prime." Ikki commented idly while stretching his body out and taking a swig from the canteen that was in his sword's storage space.

"No I suppose you can't." The woman stated as she went on to explain to Ikki the information he came there for. "The manipulation of Ki that the Hengen Musou style revolves around is not something that I can simply demonstrate and you copy. For one thing you have to be able to see me doing it first."

"That makes sense." Ikki commented still unable to see what she had been doing as she pounded the living crap out of him for the past three hours.

"After that you'd need practice. By my estimate it would take me beating you up for about a month straight before you reach the point in time that you can even see what you're trying to do. That is to speak nothing about the wasteful way you're using magic."

"Until a month ago I didn't have enough to not use it wasteful..." Ikki suddenly collapsed, the effects of Ittou Shura having finally worn out.

"See? This is exactly what I was talking about!"

Ikki was left in a pile of Hay until he woke up, at which point in time he accepted the old woman's mentor ship. For training in the use of the Hengen Musou style, Ikki was made to spar with the old woman continuously taking in her 'point' technique as it bounced around his insides while trying to grab hold of the little pinball with his magical and spiritual power, his Ki, and trying to expel it. For Magical training Ikki was brought out to the mountains, had his blade lodged in it's peak, and was made to balance his finger on top of the mountain, using bursts of magical power to maintain his balance in that exact position for hours at a time. One of the consequences of this is that Ikki wouldn't be grinding for XP or materials until such a time that the old woman let him go. Luckily though Ikki had his party to go out and hunt monsters for him and bring back materials, it did make for some interesting sparring matches anyway. That was how Ikki spent his month.


Tatsuya in the mean time had his own work to do with his C.A.D. R&D. Explaining to people how to build the damned things turned out to be the easy part, just do a analysis of a Silver Horn explaining where it's individual components went and what they were made out of before writing the overly detailed blue prints down and giving them to Erhard to work with. Well Erhard and about twenty different specialists. After that came Tatsuya's part, programming them, Melromarc had 'computers' though Tatsuya wasn't sure that was the right term. Composed of stone and powered by magic, based on a design from Faubrey, who in turn model the technology based on scraps of information from hero's of the past and whatever electronics they had on them that they allowed them to take apart and duplicate with, at most, a couple hundred years to develop. A knockoff, of a copy based on half baked information. Tatsuya would have to correct that if he wants to get anything done with these people. So he took one look at their code, proceeded to eliminate the junk, streamlined the important parts, increased overall efficiency over by at least four times. Then the first of the three C.A.D. weapons were completed, A spear.

"I hope you appreciate how much work it took to make this thing!" Erhard stated as he handed Tatsuya the spear that the Bow Hero had inadvertently worked him and some good friends of his to the bone trying to build.

"Thank you for your work, I will see to it that the crown compensates you appropriately for a job well done." Tatsuya took the spear in hand as Erhard muttered about compensation and took it outside.

Tatsuya had a idea of what kind of magic would be useful for Setsuna, a heavily modified version of one of his original magics air mine, or in this case Plasma Mine. The Spear would manifest eight balls of flaming hot plasma in fixed positions outlining the corners of a cube. The Spear head and butt would connect the two farthest spheres leaving a ball on the top, bottom, left, right, front and back positions, each ball of plasma would have three modes. Standby would simply hold the balls of hot plasma in place, Pulse would fire off a offensive burst of fire in a straight line from the spear, jet would unleash the heat in a focused jet stream that would send the spear, along with potentially whoever it was attached to, flying.

"Alright. It's all set up. Now I need someone who can use fire magic in order to test it out for me." Tatsuya stated to wit end one of the apprentices from the guild quickly raised his hand.

"EEEIIIIEEEE!" The spear was very much a wild horse that needed to be tamed, difficult to fly around on, near impossible to wield in a fight unless you have a great deal of magic power to spare. It would seem that he'd have to raise his own test subjects.

"Send for a messenger when you have the other two ready." Tatsuya ultimately decided after figuring that this wasn't going to help any.

"What are you going to be doing?" Erhard looked down at Tatsuya his features filled with blatant suspicion.

"Even though I can't use them myself, I have the spell programs for both Ikki and Naofumi worked out, provided that you make their weapons to my standard that is." Erhard Nodded though it didn't answer his question. "I in the mean time will be hunting the three heroes church. Another of their followers have left themselves open to be justifiably eliminated."


Review Section:

Amatsumi: Considering the fact that said national stomp would draw resources away that should be put to work fighting the waves? Yes, they do care enough to stop him, and any other country for that matter, from doing that. After they go home on the other hand? That's a different matter. Well Yes, I don't know what your point is.

RonaldM40196867: True. A mixture of Inuyasha's and Seshomaru's personalities.

MarauderPrime12: Thank you for saying so.

samuelcaldeira76: Your welcome. Believe me, I'm working on it.

superpierce: Thank you for saying so.