While Karl was in history class, Dana was working hard to master the new skills that she had learned.
[Disruption Blade] was a simple one, as it operated the same way that she had seen Karl extend his barriers over his sword, except that it didn’t need a blade to begin with. All she had to do was focus on the shape of the weapon that she wanted, and the spell would create one out of shimmering purple and silver energy.
It was as beautiful as it was deadly, and it seemed to just cause anything that it hit to fall into separate pieces with no real resistance.
Only when it hit a magical barrier did it provide resistance, acting as a solid blade in her hand.
But the movements of the [Windwalker Combat Style] were a much different story. She knew exactly how they were supposed to be performed, but her body had never moved that way before. She hadn’t taken martial arts, done any sort of strength training, or even self-defence courses. The closest she had come to being in a fistfight was playing with the neighbourhood kids when she was little.
She had done dance classes, far too many of them, since she had entered the Academy, but at the moment she was wishing that they had included gymnastics in those courses.
The Combat style wasn’t just a sword fighting style, there were movement skills and even kicks involved, and after half an hour, her whole body ached in muscles she didn’t know that she had.
“Perhaps I can get Thor to cast [Refreshing Lightning] on me?” She suggested as she slumped down to take a breather with the Magical Knights.
“Save that for when you are in combat. You need to train all your muscles to fight the way you want without external assistance, so that if your group changes, or you have to fight separately, you are not reliant upon a skill that isn’t available.” The lone female among the Knights, whose name she had come to know was Ruth, informed her.
“How long did you train to learn to fight like that?” Dana asked, hoping that the answer wouldn’t be too long.
Ruth smiled, and Dana heard the other Knights laugh under their helmets.
“The Magical Knights are chosen from among the students who are picked for advanced training from early childhood in the orphanages. The ones who like to train, to fight, or who show a natural aptitude for magic without the Divine Injection awakening them.
We all came from the Red Dragon Orphanages, and we’ve all been training to be soldiers since before we started school.
It was only a twist of fate that we all ended up as mages, and then proved ourselves worthy to join the Magical Knights.” She explained.
“Did you all grow up together, then?” Dana asked. Ruth shook her head. “No, we all came from different locations. Those two are war orphans from the south, near the coast. That one lost his parents in a workplace accident, while this idiot and I were both turned in by our parents when they decided they couldn’t afford us.”
Dana nodded. She had often seen it as a possibility that her own family would abandon her, if they one day decided that it wouldn’t hurt their public image too badly. It was hard enough for her father to hold down a job as it was, he didn’t need a worse reputation that might put his access to charity in danger.
“Why don’t you use your names?” She asked hesitantly.
“It’s a tradition of the Magical Knights. We are supposed to be anonymous, as we often enforce penalties and hunt criminals. Giving out our names or routinely showing our faces defeats the purpose. But you’re working with us for a while, and it would just be too awkward not to have one person among us that you could properly talk to, so I chose to give up that anonymity.”
Dana nodded. “That won’t come back to harm you, will it?”
The Knights laughed. “Only if you end up on the wanted criminals list. You already know who I am, so I won’t be among the ones to hunt you. The Church would never allow the possibility that I might go easy on you or let you escape justice.”
“Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I thought that you were more elite soldier sorts, I didn’t realize that you did law enforcement as well. It’s not really something that gets described in detail for most of us. We hear the horror stories of someone committing a crime so bad that the Inquisition has to come and take them away, but I had only seen the Inquisitors a few times in my life, and the Clerics at our local church didn’t really go into details.” Dana explained.
“That’s understandable. Nobody wants to think too hard about how the Inquisition or Church Law Enforcement works. I would guess that a lot of the lay priests who do the day-to-day work of the church don’t even know the details. It’s not part of the curriculum, as it doesn’t really matter what division of Inquisitors comes for the criminals, or what their specialty is. Most of the time, when we show up, we just flash our identification and no more questions are asked.
It’s only the Elites who need to know our skills when they’re going to be fighting alongside us as allies.” Ruth explained.
The other knights got to their feet, and Ruth helped Dana up before giving her a warning.
“Stretch after you rest. Your muscles aren’t used to proper training yet, and if you let them stiffen and cramp, you’re likely to injure yourself and undo weeks or months of muscle memory training.”
Dana didn’t have weeks or months worth of training to undo, but she got the point. If you injured yourself during training, or tried to learn new skills while you had cramps, you would be learning it wrong, and your muscles would remember how to do it as if you always had a cramp or an injury.
“The next exercise is one that I think you will like. As a practice of our movement skills, we will be playing tag. Only, if you touch the ground, you’re out. I will go first, you all have a three-second head start.” Ruth announced.
Dana activated the [Wind Walk] core skill of her new combat style to move up and away from the Magical Knight.
Out of mercy, Ruth didn’t come after her first, and Dana managed to get a bit of distance beyond the three seconds. But she quickly realized that the delay was a trap. She didn’t have all the practice that they did in maintaining the skill, and after fifteen seconds, she began to stumble and nearly fell out of the sky as Ruth drove one of her companions to the ground, eliminating him by ground contact as he tried to dodge.
Then one of the others moved so she was between him and Ruth, and Dana focused on her movement to get out of the way again as the Knight charged in her direction.
She made it three steps, just enough to get out of the way, but then lost her focus and went tumbling to the ground. Her shield flared as she hit the grass and the wind was knocked from her lungs.
Dana knew she wouldn’t have any injuries, as the barrier would protect her, but being winded by the rapid stop was never fun. It was also far from the first or last time that day when she would experience it.