“Ti out!” I shout, lowering my hamr to my side and dropping my stance. I couldn’t have tid my shout any better because Tabitha’s sword pauses right against the surface of my chest piece.
“During a battle, there are no 'ti outs,' as you call it," Tabitha frowns in annoyance.
"I'll keep that in mind when I'm in a real battle," I tiredly reply, letting myself fall backward onto my butt. Mana Skin absorbs almost all of the impact, but even if my skill wasn't activated, my stats are high enough I wouldn't feel much from the slight drop, even with my armor and weapon weighing down.
"We should continue; you're stunting your growth, stopping like this," Tabitha motions for to get up.
"Give a few minutes, and I will." Tabitha and I lock eyes with one another. A silent battle of wills takes place between us, and I make sure not to back down.
“Fine,” Tabitha finally huffs, sheathing her sword. “You have five minutes.”
"Ten," I imdiately counter, using my rchant skills for good asure.
Tabitha's face contorts, feeling the effect of my negotiating skills, but instead of agreeing to my terms, she walks away before she's forced to agree with and seal the deal verbally. If I'm lucky, that will buy eight minutes.
My lips curl up into a smile as I watch Tabitha head over to a particular bolder that she favors as a chair during my little breaks. Though she looks angry, I know Tabitha won’t hold this against .
We’ve been sparring for a while now, and I only recently realized I could get Tabitha to pause our sessions as I did. Tabitha may seem like a rabid animal when we fight, but I’ve co to learn she has strict standards that she always follows. A fine example of this is how she stopped her attack as soon as I dropped all pretense of defending myself and called for a ti out.
If I lose focus during our bout, she has no qualms of dicing up my armor like a butcher does a dead animal. But if I give up entirely, Tabitha won't strike , even if her blade is just about to touch . She refuses to attack soone who won’t defend themselves.
Now I briefly thought about using this bit of knowledge to get one over on Tabitha, but we both know that trick will only work once. And once I take advantage of that tactic, she’ll never let rest again. And Aaliyah needs her breaks.
It’s been almost three weeks since Tabitha upped the difficulty of my training, and though I know I'm improving, it feels like I've started to stagnate a bit. Sure, I score a hit on Tabitha every so often, but not as regularly as I would like to. I think she may be scaling her training to my rate of improvent, but if I ask Tabitha and she denies it, then that ans I am stagnating. And if that's true, it will be all that more disappointing since everything else in my life has been going swimmingly.
From working on my enchanting with Sandra to crafting the dellinium arrows for Kervin when he arrives in a few days, I've felt unstoppable the last two weeks. It started with that little scare about not having the suitable types of engraving ink, only for Sandra and I to find out we didn't have that much to worry about.
The day after I finished the rough work on the arrow shafts, I finally tried enchanting sothing I didn't want to disintegrate in my hands. Sandra was so excited it felt like she was levitating over my shoulder the entire ti. If I didn't have more Strength than her, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to get her off . Of course, I was gentile while having her give so space to work, let alone hurting my best friend; I would sooner kill myself than harm my unborn niece or nephew.
Sandra was still quite adamant in wanting to watch closely, and I guess I should count myself lucky I was at least given enough elbow room to draw out the runes.
I rember the both of us let out a collective sigh of relief when I successfully enchanted and activated that first dagger. Our first test wasn’t astounding by any ans, but it was an important milestone all the sa. I grabbed a half-ford knife out of Master’s scrap bin and copied the simple sharpening enchantnt on it, slightly tweaking the design, so the mana absorbing rune is on the handle.
The enchantnt worked as it was supposed to and gave a slight cutting edge to the dull piece of steel that otherwise might have had trouble cutting a stick of butter. After that initial success, we took a step back and thought about where we should go from there.
Sandra suggested that though the enchantnt was working now, we should test to see if keeping it activated for extended periods might affect the rune work in the long run. While I proceeded with our next test, Sandra supplied a steady stream of mana to the newly enchanted knife to see if we declared our success a little too early. But to my knowledge, Sandra is still regularly activating the dagger, and it hasn't broken, so I don't think we have much to fear in that regard.
Sandra and I spent so ti bouncing a few ideas off of one another, and we eventually decided we needed to test to see if our engraving ink could work with runes that were obviously not of the earth elent.
Once again, I fished so scrap steel out of the dud pile that resembled an abstract wand and enchanted it to produce a ball of light out of its tip. After finishing and five minutes of pretending to be in the Harry Potter universe, I was willing to call my work a success.
I had to grab Master’s mining helt to compare the two light spells, but they were almost identical. Master’s helt was more mana efficient than my light wand, but only by about 4%, and that could stem from any number of discrepancies.
I was willing to accept my results as irrefutable proof that our engraving ink was fine to work with; however, I wasn't the only one who needed convincing. Sandra suggested we try one more experint, sighting how light magic is closest to fire magic and how our engraving ink might not match up to it perfectly; earth mana isn't exactly fire's opposite.
Being a good friend, I agreed to do another experint to placate Sandra’s worries. It also helped that all these different experints were getting a lot more comfortable carving the different runes. I even got a handful of experience points for each successful enchantnt.
Sandra recomnded I try enchanting sothing with a wind attribute rune; sadly, I didn’t have anything like that in my small repertoire. Enchantnts are ant to empower everyday items, and few of them demand a need for a stronger breeze or whatever wind elental runes do. However, there’s always a plan B.
I suggested I try replicating the water purifier I bought from Kervin. The enchantnt might not be geared towards wind mana, but it should've at least shown us so tiny flaws with using the wrong ink, which it ended up doing. Though, crafting the structure for the rune was a lot more complicated than I expected.
First, I quickly crafted a rough replica of the water purify that did not go as planned. My runes must have been bad, seeing how I was working on multiple surfaces. That's how we saw the destruction of an hours' worth of work, accompanied by the shrieking noise proving I failed to draw at least one or more of my runes correctly. At least I learned steel disintegrates like wood when the enchantnt fails; you always learn sothing from your mistakes and all that.
My second attempt saw dumbing down the design thanks to so ideas from Sandra. Instead of recreating the water purifier's shape, my second attempt had making an open box with a small hole at the bottom. Simply put, you fill the tal container with water, add mana, and your water is cleaned as it trickles through the small opening.
I took my ti carving the runes again, and after another hour of hard work, I had the ugliest magic tool in the history of the world. I don’t think Kervin would even buy it, and he buys everything I make.
Looks aside, the water purifying box did show us that clashing engraving ink does put unnecessary stress on the enchantnt. I had to use a noticeable amount of extra mana to get the enchantnt to function correctly, and I had to pause a few tis to essentially keep the enchantnt from overheating from the mana I was sending through it.
It was a bit of a bumr knowing we would have to be careful with what runes we work with going forward, at least until we figure out how to adjust our engraving ink recipe, but I wasn't going to let that get down. I still ended up proving our ink can work for most of the enchantnts I've deciphered, and that's a good enough place to start.
I was happy with the results, but Sandra took longer to see the bright side of things.
Looking back, I was riding the highs of success, while Sandra was forced to stand off to the side, watching do everything. That's probably why she was so critical of everything. It’s never fun to be told you can’t play with sothing new, especially when it’s dangled right in front of you.
Sandra has devoted her life to three things, magic, family, and my brother; I try not to grimace at that last part. Ever since I first t her, Sandra's passion for magic was plain for anyone to see, and I wholeheartedly believe that if Brother didn't want to go to Drey with her, Sandra would've left him behind at that point in their relationship.
So, for Sandra to be reduced to a spectator while I was having fun experinting with a new form of magic must be incredibly frustrating for her.
Why can I only seem to have these breakthroughs after the situation? Casting a glance up to the ridge of the quarry, I let out a sigh seeing the lack of a few familiar figures. It’s no wonder Sandra cut back so of the ti she was spending with . When she told she wanted to do so extra magic practice, I took Sandra's words at face value, never considering how frustrated she might be. Knowing her, Sandra's probably ho right now trying to unlock Inject Mana, so she doesn't have to wait for Kervin to arrive. But at least I was able to give her so good news about getting ahold of a mana gem.
A couple of days ago after I spent most of the day experinting with Sandra, I took a trip into the woods and got a hold of Giovanni. The first half of our conversation was much like my previous talks with the man, mostly business and whatnot. But because my day ended early on account of using up my allocated mana during the enchanting experints, I wasn’t in a rush to get ho like I usually am when I contact him.
I, of course, had budgeted out enough mana to keep Mana skin activated for my little trek, plus a little extra to power the communication device, all while not falling below my safety threshold. Neither task cost much mana, giving a rare chance to have an actual conversation with the head of Silver Herd.
After I asked Giovanni for the supplies Master needed to craft Sandra an engraving pen, we talked about what was happening outside the village. Living in such a remote place, you can sotis forget there's a whole world out there, and apparently, a lot has happened since I was last in Drey, like the war that's currently at a stalemate.
Pacore had only ever sent a single update to Tabitha, and that was a while ago back when he took the Earl’s fort. While I’ve been practicing my skills and training with Tabitha, Pacore has been defending his newly concurred lands from an army anxious to retake what was lost. Olebert's second army had made its way around Red Dust Mountain, hoping to bolster the defenses of Yleles only to arrive to a city already under Pacore's control.
Giovanni said Olebert's army would've never made it in ti; they arrived three days after Pacore had taken the city, and by that point, he had already dug himself in like a tick. And from what Giovanni told , Pacore is apparently better at defending than he is at attacking, though I’m sure he prefers the latter over the forr.
With General Pitz and her other high-leveled subordinates still held captive by Scholl, the recently arrived army was left with few options. The only thing the Olebert general leading the forces could do was set up a makeshift camp outside of Yleles to make sure Pacore's conquest stops where it was. Giovanni said a few brief scuffles broke out between the two forces, but word has spread that Pacore has yet to lose a single man in any of the altercations.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringent.
With an army outside Yleles and an even greater force stationed around Teeburn, our little corner of the world has officially been sealed off from our once rulers.
To , it sounds like it's only a matter of ti until Olebert is forced to turn over these lands to Scholl publicly. That, or Olebert forsakes General Pitz and moves to retake their lands, which doesn't sound like it will happen any ti soon. You could almost say the fighting has essentially stopped with both sides waiting to see what the other does before committing to doing anything further.
That’s good news for everyone afraid of the fighting spreading across the lands, but the ceasefire and barricade are still causing so significant problems for everyone, especially Giovanni. Silver Herd is a rchant company and depends on the movent of goods to make its money, and a trade embargo doesn’t help with that.
Sure, Giovanni is working with Pacore to ship food to Fort North Ridge, where it's passed on to caravans heading into Scholl. Still, most, if not all, of the specialty goods Silver Herd sold ca from Giovanni's contacts deeper in Olebert. With both routes cut off and all trade between forces seen as a traitorous offense, Giovanni is forced to rely on smugglers to get the goods that he needs.
When I asked him to find a neutral or air elental magic gem, thinking he should still have a few on hand, he regretfully told his stock was entirely out. As soon as people fully realized the implications of being cut off from Olebert, those who could afford it bought everything they could. tals, magic gems, magicite, types of yarn, and anything that our region doesn't produce itself were bought up over a period of three days.
Thankfully, kaglese ore wasn’t high on people’s priority list due to its difficulty to slt, so Giovanni was able to set the rest of his stock aside for along with a bit of mithril. However, the sa couldn’t be said about the magic gem. Giovanni promised he would get the magic gem Sandra needed, but he would need to go through his darker channels to do so. That ans Sandra will get her magic gem but at a substantial mark up.
Giovanni warned that even if Kervin sells the gem to Sandra or at cost, we would need to be prepared to spend multiple gold coins, even for a small specin.
I complained, but Giovanni took the ti to explain to how rapidly the prices for gems and ores are on the rise. Our little corner of the world was once known for its iron mines in Red Dust Mountain, but since those dried up, we’ve been forced to import iron from other areas, areas past the blockade. There are a few small mines here and there like the one Master has dug out, but nothing on a grand scale like there once was.
The price for iron and steel has essentially tripled and has probably risen even higher since I last spoke with Giovanni. I was practically begged to sell as many ingots as I could spare when Kervin arrives in a few days. It took all of a second to agree with the prices Giovanni was throwing at . I can still rember Giovanni’s ecstatic voice when I ntioned I might be able to part with so magicite as well.
Giovanni said he would send extra gold with Kervin along with an additional bodyguard for good asure.
I asked if all this inflation ans I'll get more for the weapons I've already completed, to which Giovanni said yes and no. I will be paid 80% of the original market value instead of the quoted 70%, but unfortunately, Giovanni couldn't guarantee any more than that.
I was about to threaten to sell to sobody else, but anticipating my reaction, Giovanni quickly told how he's already sold the weapons to my new Master, as Tabitha predicted. Now, I could've been an asshole and demanded more money and likely would've gotten it too, but it would've put a considerable strain on my relationship with Silver Herd, a relationship I want to keep amicable.
I know Giovanni wants to maintain a good relationship with in hopes of expanding his business to Scholl, and I want soone reliable to keep an eye on the village after I leave. It would be stupid for either of us to throw that all away over so short-term gains. Rightfully I wanted to tell Giovanni it was okay, but I had to wait for him to finish overly apologizing for the situation like any good rchant trying to maintain their contact would.
Even without getting more for my weapons, I’ll still make so good money when I sell the extra steel and magicite to Kervin. I asked Master to help , and while I’ve been working on finishing up my arrows, Master has been working the slter for the last week and a half. Even right now, instead of watching practice with Tabitha, Master is down in the mine getting more magicite and iron ore.
I can't wait to see the look on Kervin's face when he sees the couple hundred ingots we have prepared for him. Our stuff is quality steel, too, not like most of the impure stuff I saw in Grey's office. I'm so happy he's dead.
That was another critical thing Giovanni told about. Apparently, he sent Reel and another one of his agents to track down Grey, and the two assassins found what remained of his body in a goblin camp in the middle of the mountains. The bones were picked clean, they were only able to confirm the body was Grey after they found the shredded remains of his cloak. The fabric perfectly matched what Grey was spotted wearing by the gate guards the day he fled the city.
Sandra's skepticism must have rubbed off on because I felt the need to question if Giovanni was sure the remains were indeed Grey. I was then told Reel and his partner scoured the area and even found where Grey was ambushed. All signs pointed to two people traveling together up until that point before the trail reduced to only a single set of tracks.
In theory, it could've been an elaborate hoax set up by Grey, but based on how Reel couldn't find any of the valuables Grey had stolen, it only makes sense Grey died, and Max took everything with him. If Max had died and Grey survived, Reel and his partner would've caught up to him by now.
Giovanni said his n searched the area for any traces of Max, but he was long gone by the ti they located where Grey fell to the goblins. Silver Herd is keeping an eye on the path Grey and Max took into the mountains should Max try to return, but Giovanni said he wasn't holding his breath. He believes there has to be so hidden route through the mountain; that's the only reason Giovanni could see Grey trying to flee that way. Giovanni sounded adamant about eventually uncovering the route, but sadly he was too busy at the mont re-establishing his hold on the surrounding cities to justify dedicating his n to the project.
"Man, Giovanni sure was chatty," I remark to myself as I stretch out my limbs, shaking away the dull pain from my previous sparring session. "Three or so minutes until Tabitha walks back over, ready to continue our sparring session."
I get up and move over to the spot I have my waterskin stashed. Can’t forget to hydrate, I chuckle to myself. My body has gotten to the point where I can go quite a while without needing water, sure it would affect my performance, but it isn’t a dical concern like it would be back on Earth.
Back on Earth, if I pushed my old body a fraction of what I do against Tabitha, I would sweat enough to fill up a bathtub. Wiping at my forehead, I sar the few drops of sweat across my skin. I'll work up a good sheen by the end of the day, but nothing that would make soone suspect I'd been sparring all day.
A few weeks ago, I sweated more during our fights, but I think my body is getting used to this new level of activity much like it has when I’m blacksmithing.
I don't sweat that much; I only eat once a day and rarely use the bathroom. I doubt I'd be called human anymore back on Earth, which is fine. Knowledge from my ti on Earth is valuable, but I can't let myself be bogged down by the standards of a world I’m no longer a part of.
I'm strong, but there are stronger people in this world.
Stronger everything.
I pull up my status page to see my growth over the last few weeks.
LV: 74 Experience: 189,317/ 1,004,619
Health: 2,288.62/2,450
Stamina 1,489.77/1,666
Mana: 808.34/1,030
Vitality: 245.02
Endurance: 100.12
Strength: 155.04
Dexterity: 155.08
Senses: 62.52
Mind: 65.39
Magic: 103.11
Clarity: 79.07
Status Points: 0
Skills:
Tier 1:
ditation (LV79), Running (LV78), Blacksmithing (LV74), Hamr Skills (LV66), Axe Skills (LV60), Cleaning (LV53), Chanting (LV50), Mining (LV50), Drawing (LV47), Trading (LV45), Cooking (LV41), Sword Skills (LV40), Dagger Skills (LV34), Acting (LV33), Wood Carving (LV31), Sewing (LV31), Dancing (LV19), Alchemy (LV15), Pugilist Skills (LV8), Spear Skills (LV2)
Tier 2:
Sense Mana (LV79), Double Step (LV64), Charm (LV50), asurent (LV47), Hamr Arts (LV46), Axe Arts (LV39), Writing (LV32), Intimidating Shout (LV31), Mathematics (LV31), Steady Hands (LV29), Increase Price (LV21), Lower Price (LV20), Sword Arts (LV17), Dagger Arts (LV13), Gourt (LV7), Marching (LV5), Shout of Valor (LV3),
Tier 3:
Expel Mana (LV63), Mana Manipulation (LV63), Weighted Strike (LV42), Precise Strike (LV41), Double Strike (LV40), Flash Step (LV31), Contract (LV21), Enchanting (LV6)
Tier 4:
ntal Resistance (LV59), Mana Skin (LV57), Inject Mana (LV54), Extract Mana (LV37), Magic Blacksmithing (LV33), Magic Threads (LV19), Air Walk (LV18), Empowered Spell (LV14), Ironclad Agreent (LV8), Appealing Deal (LV3)
Tier 5:
Sense Soul (LV40), Soul Manipulation (LV16)
Tier 6:
Soul Devourer (LV4)
Increased Skill Levels
Blacksmithing (LV74) 3,700exp
Hamr Skills (LV64-66) 9,750exp
Drawing (LV47) 2,350exp
Alchemy (LV15) 750exp
Dancing (LV14-19) 4,950exp
Hamr Arts (LV45-46) 9,100exp
Steady Hands (LV27-29) 8,400exp
Mana Manipulation (LV63) 9,450exp
Weighted Strike (LV42) 6,300exp
Precise Strike (LV41) 6,150exp
Flash Step (LV30-31) 9,150exp
Enchanting (LV1-6) 3,150exp
Mana Skin (LV57) 14,250exp
Extract Mana (LV37) 9,250exp
Magic Blacksmithing (LV32-33) 16,250exp
Air Walk (LV16-18) 12,750exp
Magic Threads (LV16-19) 17,500exp
Skill Experience: 143,200exp
Crafting Experience: 9,071exp
Fighting Experience: 2,816exp
Total-experience Gained: 154,087exp
"Solid growth across the board," I smile to myself. Working hard every day and getting beaten up by Tabitha has its benefits.
Thanks to all my sparring and working on the arrows, Hamr Skills leveled up three tis. Now I’ll only need nine more levels in the skill until Tabitha lets pick up another weapon again. However, I am getting quite used to only using my war hamr. Using Magic Threads, I anchor myself to the quarry floor and twirl my hamr around.
Satisfied with my weapon control, I decide to put it away for a few minutes until Tabitha approaches again. Angling the hamr's head over my shoulder, I slowly release my grip, letting my hamr slid down the back of my armor. When the hamr’s head reaches the top of my ass crack, I tighten my grip and keep the hamr from slipping any lower. With my weapon in place, I weave magic threads around my weapon and secure it to my armor.
I ca up with this nifty trick last week, and now I can keep my hamr with while freeing up my hands when I need to; plus, there's no sheaths or any awkward straps in my way. It takes a bit of mana to thoroughly secure my weapon this way, but maintaining it isn’t that intensive, and I can just reabsorb most of my mana when I need to wield it again.
When Sandra saw use this technique for the first ti, she was excited to see use raw mana in such a way while Tabitha just stared at with a blank face and said, 'interesting.' I can use this technique with other items too.
If I want to look intimidating, I could place a bunch of daggers all over my armor. Nothing says 'don't fuck with ' than a bunch of daggers everywhere. I smile at the absurdity of the idea, I’m not like Reel and trained with daggers in that way, and I would probably just drop them everywhere by accident.
Magic Threads and Hamr Skills aren't the only skills that saw a sizable improvent. A few days ago, while I was putting the various arrow pieces together, Precise Strike finally passed its bottleneck at level 40, and that's not all, Blacksmithing reached level 74, and I can feel that it's close to reaching level 75.
I'm sure my skill will level again after I finish the arrows tomorrow. I've been putting a lot of effort into my crafting, and since I haven't considered them complete yet, I haven't received any experience for what I've done. All the crafting experience I've earned has been from practicing engraving and helping my mom fix my armor on a regular basis.
But if the experience from the last ti I made a dellinium arrow is anything to go off of, I expect to see a lot of experience for my troubles. When I made that first arrow, I had to ask Master for quite a bit of help. In fact, if mory serves, he's the one who actually had to shape the arrowheads because I couldn't work the dellinium with my Strength stat at the ti.
It's a good thing I've grown a lot since then; if I didn't gain so many levels from killing the soul eater, I would've had to ask for Master's help again.
It took a lot of effort, but my Strength was just high enough for to shape the arrowheads. I had to use my skills with every other swing, but that got the job done. The arrows are 95% completed, and tomorrow I'll be spending the whole day doing nothing but going over every milliter of the arrows working out any flaws no matter how small they are.
I’m pretty sure Pacore is buying the arrows along with my weapons, but I have no idea where they’re going from there. I just hope whoever ends up getting them appreciates my work.
I briefly considered trying to enchant the arrows but quickly dismissed the idea. I'm still a beginner when it cos to enchanting, and the number of runes at my disposal is too limiting. I'd undoubtedly just end up lowering the value of the arrows rather than increasing them.
I hear the shuffling of armor, and when I turn my head, I see Tabitha walking over to with a happy expression. Almost nine minutes, longer than I expected. “Ready to go again?” She asks with a smile that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Sure am,” I feign confidence, grabbing my hamr’s handle and reabsorbing my Magic Threads. Taking up my stance, I brandish my war hamr, squashing any feelings of doubt or fear. You don’t let your emotions dictate how you fight. You give your all, that’s it.
With a gracefulness hard to describe, Tabitha unsheathes her sword and brandishes her shield in a single motion. There are no verbal or bodily cues for us to start fighting; we both simply move at the sa ti.
Tabitha starts with an overhead slash while I swing my hamr at her ignoring her rapidly approaching blade.
Tabitha raises her shield to guard herself, and I feel the reverberations of the strike through my arms as my hamr connects with her shield. She tries to fully deflect my attack, but I'm not the sa person I was a month ago. As Tabitha adjusts her shield to try and make my hamr slide off it, I do the sa and make sure my hamr stays connected with her shield, so she feels at least so of the weight of my attack. I don't send Tabitha flying, but I do get her to take two steps back, and with the new distance between us, I dance out of the way of her sword.
Stepping forward, I do what I was too afraid to do during my earlier sparring sessions; I press the attack.
My style of fighting has evolved as my skills have grown. I use a heavy weapon, and though I can move relatively freely thanks to my Dexterity, it's my Strength where my true advantage lies.
I used to think Tabitha was a berserker when I first started training with her because I wasn't used to fighting against soone at her level. But now that I can put up more of a fight, I've realized how similar her style is to Pacore. Tabitha doesn't dance out of the way exactly as the old man did, but her fighting style is still centered around countering like his is. Tabitha just uses a shield rather than relying on a freakishly high defense. I started to spot other similarities, too, like how Tabitha moves about.
I swing my hamr at Tabitha and watch as she twirls away from my strike with a few rapid steps. Ti doesn't move in slow motion like in the movies, and I can only make out the rough steps that she takes; Tabitha almost mirrored a maneuver Pacore used when Master and I were fighting him. However, while Pacore evaded us by sheer skill, Tabitha has so speed behind her steps because she has a more even build.
I only have a split second to pull back my hamr before Tabitha moves in for her counterattack. She tries to throw off guard by slamming her shield into , but I've already anchored myself to the ground with Magic Threads and hit her shield with the butt of my hamr to reduce the force of her attack.
Tabitha still slams into , but I'm able to withstand the attack. She doesn't let the failure of her first strike get to her, and Tabitha quickly switches to attacking with her sword, sending a stab at my midsection.
I step back with my left foot in ti to dodge the brunt of her attack, but her sword's edge still leaves a cut across the front of my armor. She didn't draw blood that ti, I smirk. Tabitha shares my enthusiasm as we continue to go back and forth.
After half an hour of attacking one another, there's no denying Tabitha is still winning. While I manage to hit her twice, for every ti I scored a solid hit on her, she's cut over a dozen tis. Most of her attacks failed to make bleed, but while my armor is partially stained red, Tabitha doesn't look injured at all from my two successful taps.
She hasn’t let look closely at her armor yet, but I’m starting to think it’s enchanted to reduce blunt force damage. That, or one of Tabitha’s other magic items might explain why I can’t seem to injure her.
“Don’t tell you’re going to ask for another ‘ti out’ again?” Tabitha taunts when I pause for a mont.
“Why, do you need a break?” I spit back, dodging Tabitha’s strike. She didn’t hesitate to try and get when she thought I was slowing down.
“I could keep this up all day!” Tabitha proudly proclaims.
I don't doubt that. Stay strong, Aaliyah, I think to myself. If you want to get over this slump and truly hit her, you need to push harder.
I won’t be happy until I see Tabitha grimace in pain. Who cares if she’s still going easy on , I just need to improve until she doesn’t, then I’ll get Tabitha.
“Always improve,” I mutter under my breath.
Tabitha must have read my lips because her smile blossoms further.
First, let’s see if I can knock that look off her face.
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