Path of Dragons

Book 7: Chapter 51: Master

Elijah let Shape of Thorn fall away, and he stood statue-still in the center of the circle. Even the blood – of which there was quite a lot – had disappeared, leaving the tiles entirely pristine.

The old man stepped into the circle.

When he was ten feet away, he stopped and studied Elijah. His eyes settled on the Feral Spire, and he nodded. A second later, an unadorned quarterstaff appeared in his hands. It was as long as the old man was tall, which Elijah put at a little more than five and a half feet. In that respect, Elijah and his foe were almost identical, though he knew that he was a bit heavier than the old man.

“What is your name?”

“Elijah Hart. You?”

“I have no name. I gave it up to join my order.”

Elijah wasn’t certain if that had any basis in reality or if the system had simply chosen an easy excuse for it not to come up with a backstory. Whatever the case, it supported the air of mystery hanging over the shrine as well as its occupants.

While Elijah pondered that, the old man asked, “Are you sufficiently prepared?”

Elijah cocked his head to the side, then said, “One moment.”

“I’m ready,” he spoke, somewhat surprised at how deep his voice had become. It crackled like a campfire with every word, and tendrils of smoke drifted up from the corners of his wide mouth.

The old man bowed, and Elijah felt compelled to do the same. A heartbeat after they’d both completed the respectful gesture, the old master sprang forward. He moved so quickly that Elijah knew that if his reaction speeds hadn’t been so enhanced – by his current form, the Sash of the Whirlwind, and Lupine Reflexes – he never would’ve even seen the staff screaming toward his head.

As it was, he managed to throw his own staff up in a block.

However, what he had not expected was for that speed to translate into power. The Feral Spire was knocked aside, and Elijah skidded sideways across the smooth tile. He let himself tuck into a roll that dissipated his momentum before he leaped to his feet, ready for a follow-up attack.

None came.

The old man remained in place, looking slightly perplexed that his attack hadn’t landed. His staff – which looked to be a mundane piece of cylindrical wood – arced with blue-and-white energy.

“You are more than you appear, shapeshifter,” the master stated.

“As are you,” Elijah countered, his voice crackling. With the block, Evasion had failed to activate, which meant that Heart of Fire had not ignited. He recalled the spell’s description:

Clearly, he would need to actually avoid contact if he was meant to ignite Heart of Fire. However, he did recognize that the fight against the old man was the perfect opportunity to truly test the limits of his newest form. He’d used it against the abomination in the metro, but that creature had been far enough below him that it had never been an even match.

The old man was. He might even be stronger than Elijah. Certainly, he was faster. The only reason he felt confident about his chances was his enhanced reaction speeds. But even then, the outcome of the fight was no sure thing.

And that excited Elijah.

With his competitive juices flowing, he stepped forward, his staff at the ready. The old man didn’t speak before he launched another attack – this one, a blistering combination that alternated between high and low and ended with an overhand strike that should have crushed Elijah’s skull. The man moved like water, his every motion flowing into the next without a hint of hesitation.

Elijah dodged them all, leaping over the low sweep, then throwing himself backward to avoid the follow-up swing. Then, he danced to the side, dodging the overhand attack. The old man’s staff clacked against the white tiles, echoing through the chamber. Even as the sound bounced from one wall to the next, Elijah felt his Heart of Fire ignite. It was barely a spark, but the warmth in his chest was incredibly comforting.

However, aside from winning the fight and obtaining the Blessing of War, Elijah had another goal. So, when the next series of attacks came, Elijah raised his staff to block. The chamber was filled with the sound of clacking staves as the old man rattled off a half-dozen attacks in the space of a second.

Elijah blocked them all, then sprang backward to take stock of his situation.

And what he found was encouraging. Heart of Fire had grown no hotter, but he also hadn’t lost any of the spark. The implications were clear. Blocking attacks didn’t build charges, but doing so didn’t hurt him, either.

The next thing he wanted to check wasn’t something he was looking forward to. Still, he steeled himself against his misgivings, then stepped forward. The fight resumed, with Elijah weaving blocks and dodges into the mix. However, this time, he also managed to attack a few times. The old man proved as adept at avoiding attacks as he was at dishing them out, and Elijah never even came close to hitting him.

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Then, the opportunity Elijah was waiting on presented itself.

It came in the form of a short jab – just a measuring attack that was meant to establish distance. Elijah seized upon the chance, letting the butt of the man’s quarterstaff clip in him in the shoulder. Even that blow – barely more than a graze – sent Elijah spinning sideways.

The old man was obviously surprised to have connected, and for the first time, he hesitated. That was all it took for Elijah to recover and regain his defensive posture.

“Do you tire, shapeshifter?” asked the man.

Elijah answered, “Not even close.”

However, as he spoke, he cast his attention inward, and he was unsurprised to see that his Heart of Fire had gone dark. The implications were clear. If he was hit, then he’d have to start over. It was a powerful, but unforgiving ability. More, it cast the name of the spell in a new light. Shape of the Master did not, as he’d previously thought, grant him mastery. Instead, the name was aspirational. Mastery was a requirement if he wanted to get the most out of it.

To that end, Elijah tightened his grip and stepped forward. This time, the only thing on his mind was pushing himself to the limits of his fighting prowess. He was no master with the staff – or really, as a fighter at all – and it quickly became apparent that the old man was his superior in nearly every way. As he’d first suspected, without his improved reaction times, Elijah wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Yet, he didn’t let himself grow frustrated. Instead, he forced himself to adjust. He needed to adapt if he wanted to be more than just his abilities. So far, Elijah had mostly used them as a crutch. Sure – there was always some strategy involved. The timely application of his spells was a skill in and of itself. However, he’d mostly gotten by via superior attributes, the ability to heal himself from most injuries, and, at times, luck.

That trend needed to end.

Never was that more obvious than as the fight against the old man progressed. At first, Elijah struggled to build even ten charges of Heart of Fire before his efforts were ruined by a landed attack. Fortunately, he was able to avoid any real damage, but that wasn’t the point. Even a glancing blow was a failure.

Slowly, though, Elijah began to use the additional facets of his Jade Mind to keep track of multiple things at once. The primary facet drove his body, but the others focused on various aspects of combat. Like looking for indicators that the old man was about to attack. Slight shifts of weight. A blink. Tightening his grip on his staff. The subtle bunching of his muscles that indicated that he was about to swing his weapon.

At first, it was difficult to interpret so much information.

Yet, Elijah had developed some degree of skill in that arena. He used his hard-won expertise to anticipate the man’s every movement, and over the stretch – it lasted somewhere close to an hour – his results were obvious. Attacks that should have surprised him were now telegraphed, and he went from topping out at around ten charges of Heart of Fire to closer to twenty-five. Still not enough to unleash Incinerate and expect to end the fight, but the progress was encouraging.

Unfortunately, the old man was a veteran combatant and a master in his own right, and he suddenly switched his attack patterns.

That nearly got Elijah killed.

The staff came out of nowhere, and Elijah narrowly managed to throw himself to the side in an effort to dodge. He was unsuccessful, and the butt of the weapon smashed him across the side of the head. Fortunately, the force was somewhat mitigated by his preemptive movement, but even then, he went staggering across the circle, his mind spinning.@@novelbin@@

He managed to push the disorientation into its own facet, and just in time to see another attack coming. Elijah threw his staff up, blocking the blow that would have broken his bones. It drove him into the floor, cracking tiles from the sheer force of the attack.

Elijah held, though barely. He shifted his own staff into an attack that forced the old man back.

“You adjust well,” the old man said, circling Elijah. “If only my students were so talented.”

“I’m not talented. Just persistent.”

“One and the same, young one.”

After that, the battle resumed. Elijah didn’t let his concentration slip, but it felt like he was back to square one. He took a few hits here and there, but none were as effective as the last major blow. Yet, as the hours passed, he continued to learn. No person was infallible. Everyone made mistakes. And every fighter – no matter how skilled – fell into patterns. Elijah only had to find the old man’s.

However, it was almost ten hours into the fight when Elijah realized that he was following the wrong path. Focusing outward was all well and good – necessary even – but it was only a piece of the puzzle. He also needed to look inward, to control himself as precisely as he monitored his opponent.

With that in mind, he delegated that task to one facet, and he immediately found a thousand flaws. Movements that he had taken for granted – like a simple jab with his staff – were now obviously inefficient. Correcting each one individually would only result in a slight improvement, but taken all together, they could make the difference he needed.

Elijah shifted another facet of his mind to that endeavor.

Retraining muscle memory was always difficult, largely because of just how much focus it required. However, with Elijah’s Jade mind on the task, it became easier. Only slightly, but that was enough that he could enact real change in a relatively short amount of time.

Hour after hour, he focused on the inefficiencies of his fighting style, and in doing so, he began to land more blows. It would take quite a lot of time and practice to cement the changes into new muscle memory. Weeks of focused training, at the very least. Perhaps months or years. But at the moment, he didn’t need to go that far.

He just needed enough to finish the old master.

After a particularly furious exchange that resulted in Elijah landing three successive hits, the old man broke away. Between gasping breaths, he said, “You learn much more quickly than I expected. The time for sparring is finished, though. I hoped to spare you from this fate, but my mission is clear. I am sorry.”

Then, the old man slammed his staff into the floor, shattering the tiles. A second later, he thrust his weapon into the air. Ethera swirled, gathering around the staff, then snaking down its shaft and into the old man. Glowing blue veins bulged on his forehead as energy raced through his body. He opened his mouth to say something.

But by that point, Elijah had had enough.

He only had a few over forty charges banked in his Heart of Fire, but he hoped that would be enough to at least disrupt the man’s spell. He opened his mouth and used Incinerate.

The old man’s eyes widened as a column of dense flames engulfed him.

Elijah immediately knew it wouldn’t be enough to kill his opponent outright – which was a testament to how powerful the old man really was. However, when the flames died down, he was surprised to see that the old man had not survived intact. His skin was broken and blistered, and his staff had turned to ash. One of his arms was missing from the elbow down, and his clothing had been entirely incinerated. The skin beneath was so charred that Elijah wondered how the man was still alive.

But he was.

Albeit only barely.

Elijah stepped forward, intent on putting the man out of his misery. Yet, when he drew within a few feet, he saw a slight twitch that triggered one facet of his mind. He dove to the side just as a beam of blue-and-white energy erupted from the old man’s chest. It hit the wall on the other side of the chamber, but it didn’t stop there. Instead, everywhere it touched simply disappeared.

It was obviously a similar power to what Elijah had seen from the white dragon in his core vision. Not as powerful – he could tell that much – but it clearly had a similar origin.

When Elijah looked back at his foe, he saw that the old man had collapsed. He was still alive, though each breath was labored. He shuddered in obvious agony.

“I’m sorry,” Elijah said, standing over him.

“Don’t be, young one. There is no shame in defeat.”

Elijah disagreed, but he couldn’t quite articulate why he felt that way. Nor was he inclined to explain himself. Instead, he raised his staff, half expecting the old man to lash out again. He did not, and when Elijah’s staff fell, it found no resistance.

The old man’s misery ended with a crushed skull, and Elijah received a notification saying that he had received the Blessing of War.

He barely read it. Instead, he just turned, shifting back into his human form as he strode toward the exit.