Reflections on the Warpath - [An Isekai Progression Fantasy]

"Your strikes need to reflect your Harmony. Each step you take should echo the essence of rain, Selena. Defend against my attack this time. Watch how I channel the storm with every movement."

For what felt like the hundredth time, Jay watched the storm sage attack Selena. He made sure to focus on the sage's punches, which were supposed to be echoing the essence of lightning.

After a thoroughly one-sided beatdown, Jay listened to the sage's explanation. He'd heard it all before of course, but the sage liked to speak in layers. There was always a chance he'd missed something the past ninety-nine times.

"Have you ever sat before a thunderstorm and simply watched?" the sage asked his pupil.

"No," she replied. The cat-eyed woman rarely gave her teacher answers longer than a sentence unless he prompted her. It visibly annoyed the sage and Jay wondered if that was the reason she did it.

"You should. You'll learn a lot… but anyway, think about the lightning in a storm. My punches echo the essence of lightning, but what does that mean?

"First, we must look at what the lightning is within a storm. Of course, if you ask another harmoniser, their interpretation will differ, but since we are focusing on my punches, I'll give you my interpretation.

"The storm is slow. It may not feel that way when you're inside it, but a storm can take days to reach its endpoint and die out. It looms over the horizon, inevitably drawing closer. The storm doesn't need to rush. Lightning however, is sudden. Not just fast, but sudden. When I envision lightning, I think of a narrower concept than pure speed. Why? When Jay channels lightning, he focuses on speed. Why don't I do that?"

There was a decent chance the storm sage knew Jay would watch this training session, and Jay wondered whether the sage was intent on training him when he gave this lesson to Selena.

Selena thought in silence before eventually responding.

"Narrower concepts are generally stronger because of their specificity. You need a more intimate knowledge of an essence to form a link between your personal essence and the specific essence. The same logic applies to aspects of an essence. By focusing on the lightning's suddenness, rather than its speed, you can apply more suddenness to your punches than you could ever apply speed because your greater knowledge of the external essence grants you greater control over it and thus greater power."

"Excellent answer. So why does Jay only focus on lightning's speed rather than its suddenness?"

"Because you're a stronger harmoniser than him?"

The sage's lips curled.

Yep, he definitely knew I would watch this…

"You're most certainly not wrong, Selena. But there are other reasons too. For one, he focuses on electricity, not lightning. Perhaps he doesn't believe electricity has suddenness, only speed. It also may be because he wants to be more open-ended, focusing on electricity as a whole rather than just an aspect of it. I would advise against this, but as you know Harmony is unique to each user. I can say from experience what works, but I can never say with certainty what doesn't."

Selena nodded to the sage's conclusions. "Rain is part of the storm too. Which concepts within rain do you think I should channel in physical combat?"

Jay tuned out of their conversation. The rest of the memory was somewhat interesting but not particularly useful.

Plus, Jay had a sparring partner waiting for him. Even if time flowed differently within the crystal, it was still rude to leave him alone.

Since the Full Moon Sanctuary was entirely underground, the island of Waistline was covered in lush, unspoiled forests. While Jay couldn't do anything too flashy topside, he and the rest of the gladiators stationed there were free to travel within the island on their off days, as long as they kept below the treetops and stayed away from the coast. The island wasn't under enemy watch, but all it took was an errant pair of Directorate eyes to arouse suspicion.

As the rays of sunlight caressed the tree trunk Jay leant on, Marko watched his slowly opening eyes and smiled.

"Finished your tactics session?"

"Yep," Jay replied, "You don't stand a chance anymore, mate."

"The last five rounds tell me otherwise, Jay."

Jay grumbled before raising his fists. For someone who had only just reached D grade, he thought he was faring quite well against the more established fighter. Sure, he'd never outright beaten Marko in any of their spars so far, but they were far from the one-sided beatdowns that occurred whenever Jay had trained with Cyrus before the advancement tournament.

Marko raised a pair of blunted daggers as liquid metal wrapped around Jay's fists. Although Marko was a good training partner, Jay wished he had more time to practice with Cyrus, Yagao, or any of the other higher tier fighters in Limitless Ascent. He understood that they were on missions and had their own priorities, but the opportunity to learn from stronger fighters was one of the reasons he allied with Limitless Ascent, so it was unfortunate that they rarely crossed paths.

But high tier fighter or not, Jay couldn't relax while fighting his Kestrel teammate.

Jay lunged forward, simultaneously stepping in while throwing a jab. The storm sage focused on lightning's suddenness, so Jay reckoned it was a good place to start. Simply trying to fight 'like electricity' hadn't really worked on his last mission, so Jay retraced the sage's footsteps to hopefully give himself some inspiration.

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Jay's attack might have been fast, but Marko had him thoroughly beat in terms of suddenness.

The lithe gladiator teleported less than a foot to the side, narrowly dodging Jay's attack and instantly responding with his own. Jay let the dagger draw closer, knowing his undershirt could handle the impact. He brought his left down to Marko's elbow, locking it in place before throwing a right straight.

Marko smiled.

Then he vanished.

He reappeared behind Jay, but this was one of Marko's go-to moves and Jay already had several counters for it. He twisted his base foot and dipped his torso forward, counterbalancing as he fired a push kick back at Marko. The further, more complex teleport meant Marko couldn't react as quickly as before. He stumbled while regaining his bearings, giving Jay's kick an easy target.

Marko staggered back, reeling from Jay's blow. Ping flew forward to attack while Marko was distracted, but he slipped aside and she flew straight past him. Safe for now, Marko began twirling his dagger across his knuckles.

In their previous spars, Jay thought it was just a meaningless flourish. After Marko described how the motion helped him concentrate, Jay knew it was a sign that an illusion was coming.

Jay advanced, but Marko simply teleported backwards. The extra distance gave him time to complete his technique.

Marko's outline grew fuzzy and distorted. Muscles bled into each other, turning the gladiator's arms into a hazy smear. Somehow, even after Jay activated Eye of the Storm, he still couldn't accurately discern where Marko's limbs really were.

Marko didn't let Jay get acclimatised. He teleported closer, surprising Jay and swinging his blunt dagger forward.

Jay kept his left arm raised, deflecting the oncoming blow with the clockwork bracer. The dagger clanged off its metal surface, far closer to Jay's wrist than he'd anticipated. Jay lunged in closer.

Even if Marko's illusions deceived Jay's eyes, they only obscured the gladiator's position, and didn't change where his arms actually were. Once Jay was within grappling range, he didn't need his eyes to visualise his opponent.

Jay wrapped his arms around Marko's torso, foregoing technique to launch a more sudden attack. He began to grapple with Marko, but switched plans. A tackle would be far too slow, and Marko would simply teleport out of it.

He needed something more sudden.

Electricity rushed to Jay's fingertips as they pressed into Marko's skin. Jay gripped harder, even if his sparring partner blinked away, Jay could claim an advantage if his electricity got throu-

Marko disappeared.

The stink of scorched oak and a face full of blackened bark met Jay instead. His electricity had ravaged one of the surrounding trees, completely whiffing Marko's torso.

Jay flicked his head aside. Marko crouched where they'd just been fighting, limbs still hazy as he twirled both his daggers. Meanwhile Jay stood several metres away, clutching the singed char coating the tree trunk that had bore the brunt of his electrical assault.

"You can teleport other people too?" Jay said incredulously.

Marko shrugged, his false humility failing to hide the smug grin on his face.

It's gonna be a long day…

Jay picked a disk shaped stone from the pebbly lakeside beach and held it up to Marko.

"Oh yeah, that's a good one, Jay. It could do at least twenty!"

"Bullshit," Jay replied.

After a morning full of sparring, Marko had insisted they take the afternoon off and wander across Waistline. The near-uninhabited island truly was unspoiled, and Jay probably would've found the hike relaxing if he hadn't been constantly replaying their sparring in his head the whole time.

Marko found unwinding far easier than Jay. When he spotted a shimmering lake in the near distance after ten minutes of walking, he practically sprinted towards it.

They weren't supposed to leave the treeline but, considering how often Jay wanted to ignore Samira's orders, he didn't bring it up. Once he reached the shore, Marko immediately began skimming stones across the lake.

Although he'd seen it happen before, Jay still smiled at how multiversal so many simple pleasures were.

Marko was shockingly good at skimming stones, or at least he appeared to be. Jay caught a faint smirk after every throw that made him wonder if all his throws were simply illusions. Marko took the rock Jay offered him. Sure enough, it bounced across the water twenty-one times.

After a few minutes spent throwing stones with nothing but grunts of approval shared between them, Marko turned to Jay. He was fresh off a streak of three failed skims and seemed to be looking for inspiration.

"So, what do you think you'll do as soon as the battle's over?"

"As in whether or not I'll stay with Limitless Ascent?"

"Well, I meant something more like 'what's the first thing you're gonna eat' but feel free to answer both."

Jay watched Marko scrutinise a medium-sized rock before dumping it on the beach and searching for another. He seemed genuinely curious.

"I actually don't know what I'll eat first," Jay replied. "Do you think there's anywhere on Arenara Fortunis that serves steak from giant flying eagles? That roc almost knocked me off the mountain and it doesn't look like I'll be able to get any revenge."

"Petty…I like it. I wonder if you learn how to fly if you eat enough roc? They're way too big to fly naturally so there's got to be something strange going on."

"You'd probably have to eat a ton," said Jay, speaking completely out of his arse.

Learning how to fly sounded great, although Jay reckoned it would take him weeks to eat a roc. After which he'd probably be too heavy to fly as well.

"And what about the other question?"

Jay had been silently avoiding Marko's more serious probe, but it seemed the gladiator was insistent.

"I'm debating it," he said, somewhat truthful albeit looking past several downsides of alliance life. "I'm not sure how well I do as part of a team, Marko. I mean, you saw me in the Ugly Duck right? Even when I'm not looking for them, fights end up finding me."

Jay's quip distracted Marko as he released a stone. It bounced just once before sinking to the lake bed.

"You've got a point there. The whole reason I joined an alliance was to get away from all the fighting. It seems you're after something quite different."

"Get away from the fighting? We're gladiators, Marko. Isn't fighting our whole thing?"

"Well I didn't choose to be a gladiator. It was either that or death. I'm happy to be alive, of course, and I'm glad I'm not in E grade anymore, but it would be nice not to have to fight every month or so."

A pensive sadness washed over Marko's face as he flung another stone into the lake, this one bouncing seven times before disappearing with a splash.

"Then why don't you try and leave the coliseum? You're released from your contract if you make three C grade defences right?"

Marko snorted while searching for his next stone.

"And what, fight more? I couldn't put a finger on even the coliseum's weakest C grader. If for any reason I take a lethal fight against anyone in D grade's top five hundred I'm as good as dead."

Then train until you're strong enough not to end up dead…

Jay didn't voice his disapproval. Marko's mentality wasn't alien to Jay—he'd heard it from the droves of people that attended one boxing session never to be seen again—but he was surprised to hear it from a gladiator.

Shaped by a world where his body never matched up to his willpower. Jay didn't think skill was a good enough reason not to strive for greatness within the coliseum.

He didn't chastise Marko for his lack of drive, however. After all, having people like him around made his own path to the top far easier.