Humanity's Hero Of Despair

I tighten my grip on my longsword's hilt.

Both my hands are shaking slightly as I eye Captain Daelon.

I focus my mind and wait for his attack. I am dealing with a really good swordsman here. He notices my cautiousness and nods in approval. He places his longsword back in its sheath and walks over to me.

"Before we spar, let me make sure you have the basic maneuvers down. Otherwise, it would be pointless," he says to me as he fixes my fighting stance with the longsword.

He instructs me on basic footwork, stance, and grip. The Captain keeps telling me how important the foundations are. Once he seems satisfied enough with my techniques, he draws his longsword.

He waits until I am in the proper stance before saying with a smile, "Let's see how much my teaching is worth."

Captain Daelon slashes at me, and I just barely manage to block it. Without my magic to enhance my power, it is a bit of a struggle to block his powerful attacks. I need to work out more, I tell myself as his attacks become more pressuring. His slashes are becoming more precise as I seem to block each one head-on, but not well.

This goes on for a few minutes. He then lunges at me, and I barely manage to dodge it. A piece of my uniform is sliced off. The Captain says "hmm" while placing his longsword back in its sheath.

He turns to look at me.

"Not bad, Duke Lotus. You have gotten the bare basics down pretty well. However, you have been barely parrying or countering my attacks, which are crucial to being well-rounded. Here, let me show you."

We then train for another half hour, with a break in between, focusing on countering, parrying, and redirecting weight. It is very tiring, but my body seems to be adapting to it fairly quickly. I even start to enjoy it, which Captain Daelon seems to notice.

My magic knights cheer me on as they see my progress in swordsmanship.

This. This is something I can become good at through hard work—not something I was born with, such as my ability to dual wield the most powerful forms of magic.

Even though I have improved so much in wielding those kinds of magic, it feels good to become good at something I wasn't naturally born with.

After one more break, Captain Daelon and I spar one more time without magic. This time, I manage to land a solid hit on the side of his armor. I finally manage to break through his defenses, even if it's just once. We lower our swords, and the Captain grins at me.

"Good job, Duke Lotus. You work very hard and managed to land a hit on me, while others can take months to do so. You have a natural talent for swordsmanship. Now, I will show you slowly how to incorporate magic into it to make it more powerful."

Captain Daelon shows me a trick where you cast a spell with your wand and then immediately swing it around, having it transform into a magic sword mid-air. He demonstrates it several times so I understand it.

He shows how the technique allows one to quickly chant several magic spells while also allowing the ability to attack at close range.

Once I seem to get that technique fairly down, he shows that once I have the magic sword transformed, depending on what element I am imagining, I can control the intensity of it.

The Captain summons a fire magic sword from his wand mid-air and increases the intensity of the flames on his sword while striking at a training dummy.

"For any element, make sure you think of a time that made you feel the emotion related to the element. For example, with fire, it's passion or anger. Fuel those feelings into your mana, and it will increase the intensity of the element."

"However, if you let it devour you, then you will lose hold over your elemental sword, and your wand will transform back into its original form."

I nod and practice swinging my magic sword by transforming it into different elements and concentrating on alternating between controlled emotions. The Captain whistles at me as he notices how well I manage to do it.

"Let's fight for real now. Just using our swords and the magic our elemental swords provide. Learn to use your elements to make you more agile as well, and feel the battlefield with all your senses. Show me what you got, Duke Lotus."

We stand across from each other and both summon our wands into our magic swords. I summon my sword into a light sword beaming with golden power. I am feeling pretty hopeful and happy today, so I thought it was fitting.

The Captain transforms his wand into a fire sword, as he is very passionate about being able to fight someone like this. We both launch ourselves at each other. I use the Feather Step wind magic spell to speed up my lunging attack at him.

He barely parries it with his flames on his sword and quickly counters with a slash.

I manage to duck under his slash, the heat of his sword making me realize how close I came to my clothes being burnt to a crisp. I counter with an upward strike while increasing the intensity of the light magic in an attempt to blind him.

It doesn't work, as he closes his eyes but manages to instinctively back away in time, his flames keeping me at bay from approaching too quickly.

My magic knights all cheer for me as they watch our magic sword fight in awe. We continue to duke it out, flashes of red, orange, and gold lighting up the Imperial Training Grounds.

Eventually, I manage to land one hit on him by jumping into the air, propelling myself with wind magic at a crucial moment, and slamming my sword into his armor before he could parry it.

Captain Daelon falls to the ground. My sword transforms back into a wand as I fall to my knees. The Emperor gestures for the healing mages to take care of us, and in no time at all, we are back to feeling alright. Both of us grin at each other, knowing we enjoyed the fight.

My friends come join me on the Imperial Training Grounds as the party in the Imperial Courtroom is over now.

"Come on, Nico! We know what you are doing is important, but it's getting late. Join us with the rest of the gang on the balcony before we head to bed," Ivy says to me smiling as she reaches out her hand.

I smile and grab it as I turn to look back at the Captain, the Emperor, and my knights.

"Thank you all for everything. See you in the morning!"