Desecration Chapter96: A Pleasant Smoke With Pleasant Company

My recovery ended up being a week shorter than Ken estimated, which didn't leave peeved at all. No sir. I was happy as could be that I could finally use the droplets.

Except I couldn't!

Xae lowered her practice blade to give a curious look. "You gonna share why you're so pissy? I thought getting back to training would've made you sothing other than a grump for once."

"It's this stupid magic crap," I grumbled. "I finally got sothing to work, but now I can't do it for anything else! It's infuriating."

"Gonna give any details?"

I glared. "Just swing your sword, sword girl."

"Your wish is my command," Xae chuckled.

Not a second later I found myself needing to parry a swing aid for my neck. I didn't grunt, that'd be a waste of precious energy. Instead I changed my posture slightly to better deflect the attack and hopefully grant an opening.

Which didn't end up happening.

It wasn't that I was stagnating. Xae just got drastically better now that I barely posed challenge. It was weird how fast the switch was. Like she could command herself to enter so kind of trance. It tickled sothing in my senses, barely. I attributed it to my mind playing tricks on because I was fairly certain Xae was a normal crazy bitch, not a mystical one.

Hells, I'd say I could've probably beaten the Xae of six months ago without whatever she was doing now. As much as I hated to admit it, the girl was a bona fide prodigy.

Depending on where she was when the apocalypse happened and how long we had to prepare, she might actually survive. Convincing her to co to Ortium with was a mixed bag though. She clearly preferred fighting shit that could kill her with ease rather than mowing down a bunch of scrubs for essence.

A problem for a later ti. That later ti being a month or two from now with the coming of spring.

I tried not to think about it.

Xae put on the defensive most of the ti now. Like how our first bouts used to go. More so because she didn't present many openings that I could find rather than being afraid of giving her my own.

It sharpened my judgnt, which was sorely needed when fighting Adaman. The battle maniac was ecstatic when I went to the temple after a month of recovery and promptly beat my ass as he tended to do. He tried to put himself on a level where I could still improve from our fights, but his main focused seed to be reminding that I wasn't hot shit.

Which I begrudgingly appreciated. False confidence would've just gotten killed.

So Adaman for impossible odds, and Xae for barely possible ones. I wanted to expand my pool of training partners for varieties sake. Unfortunately there weren't many in the guild that'd be worth fighting in terms of skill.

I could beat Aira with relative ease in a duel and she was the best slasher in the guild. Anyone who could present a challenge did so by leaning entirely on essence rather than skill.

The Yorokrom priests were firm in not interfering with Adaman's teachings too, which was a pain.

Which left with just two, though both were insanely beneficial to my training. I was being greedy, wanting more challenges to help grow.

Which was why the droplets were so frustrating.

Everything grew the more I trained. Mana, skill, control. All of it. But to use the droplets I essentially had to beco a zealot for whatever it was I wanted it to do.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Maybe if I was so sort of inverse monk that could put myself in that mindset on command, then I wouldn't have to deal with this. I wasn't that, so here I was. ant I started to do proper ditations, rather than the magic practice masquerading as the art.

Was it working? No idea!

The shift from inert mana to making it useful wasn't gradual, it was one or the other. Couldn't asure anything at all. Combine that with how irritating it was to be cock blocked after finally managing? I had plenty of distractions to pull away from making use of the concentrated pieces of shit.

In my frustration, I made a mistake, pulling back from my faint too quickly and giving Xae ample ti to execute a beautiful parry before stabbing my throat.

I staggered back and hacked out plenty of coughs.

"Your focus is shot," Xae humd, tapping her sword on her shoulder. "Kinda impressed you're a challenge at all when you're so distracted. Maybe you lean more on instinctual combat? That wouldn't be good."

I rubbed my throat and glared at her. "I'm not interested in sword theory. Only sword fighting. Spare from making it complicated. Sword swings, sword cuts. Easy."

Xae's face morphed into one of genuine offence. "No wonder why you suck."

"I'm the second best swordfighter in the whole guild, dipshit."

"That's not impressive," she said. "Especially if you're acting without thinking. That's a hard habit to break the more you do it, and is very easy to exploit when your opponent notices."

"Just fight . We can go over all this after."

Xae tilted her head. "No."

"The fuck you an, 'no'?" I said.

"You want to get better right?"

"Obviously."

"Well, getting into bad habits isn't the way to do it. As your senior, I have no intention of ingraining said habits deeper," she said.

"Which ans what exactly?"

"Nothing much!" Xae chirped. "We're just going to play a fun little ga my master devised to sort out the all the kinks before getting back to it."

I groaned.

The ga was real life turned based combat. I shit you not.

One of us would attack, and the other could only defend. Wait half-a-second between strikes and we switched roles, repeat until insanity ripped apart my brain. It was humiliating with how many spectators we ended up getting, for at least. Xae didn't give a shit.

Had to get so fresh air with how many hunters teased about the ga, but we were going to do it again. And again. Until the girl was satisfied.

Which could've ant anything since she had no way to actually asure whether I was relying on instinct or not. She waved off that concern like it was trivial. Now I was grumbling in gang territory, making people either concerned or amused. I ignored them. My complaints were more important than social awareness.

"You know, keeping your head in the fight isn't exactly a bad thing?"

I stopped and turned to glare at a man wearing a slight smirk and smoking a pipe. "I'm not in the mood for chit-chat, or the input of strangers. Kindly fuck off to your own business."

The man chuckled and lifted a finger.

For a mont, I felt sothing solid radiate from him. Just a hint. Then a pebble manifested over his finger.

"Does being a mage change that?"

I stared at him.

"Oh, don't be so surprised. We're much more common in places like Florain. Or past the mountain range, but they don't count."

"Referencing a city run by gangs isn't reassuring," I said. "Who are you and what do you want?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. Just saw you grumbling and thought I'd give so expert advice."

"I'm sure."

"Oh, don't be dramatic. Breaking your knees won't be fun for either of us. Just relax. Have a little smoke and tell old Kogan what's troubling that simple mind of yours."

I stared at him as he took another pull of his pipe in the silence. Silence? I looked around and found the street mostly baren. Any civilians that could be found were a decent distance away. All the close people were terrified shopkeepers and amused gangsters.

Too many gangsters to be comfortable.

I took a deep breath and walked over, holding out a hand. Kogan perked up and handed his pipe. I rubbed the breathing bit on my toga before bringing it to my lips and taking a pull.

I was hacking out the smoke almost instantly, the sound accompanied by Kogan's cackles.

"You don't go diving right in when you're new, girlie! Small pulls first. Then build up to doing it proper."

"Couldn't—" a cough. "—have ntioned that before?"

"Nah. It's funnier to see green horns stumble," he chuckled.

I glared and tried again, less ambitious this ti. I stopped when the world started to expand. "Did I just smoke drugs?"

"Technically no?" He said. "Alchemical concoction. Much cheaper than elixirs. This one is a mix of Moon Leaf and monster blood. Take it daily for long enough and the boost in perception will start being permanent."

I looked at him with wide eyes. He was...much more vibrant, everything was. It wasn't a dramatic difference in reality, but slightly better vision was srizing. And the whispers, they were increntally clearer.

"Want to refer you?" he chuckled. "Promise they're trustworthy. Doubt he'd risk pissing off after what happened to the last idiot that laced my shit."

I nodded. He smiled

"Now, let's get to what's got you all grumpy, little elf."