Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

The healer, for all that I hated to admit it, was right.

I'd sat down last night to merge Grassi's Greater Swordplay, but before I could—before I'd even started—fatigue hit me.

So had Jessie. Not literally this time, but close. In the time it took me to explain my set of injuries and what had happened in the icy portal world, she'd made me promise that I'd vet the groups I worked with more closely. Not in exactly those terms; the words 'trust,' 'stupid older brother,' and 'going to get yourself killed' flew like missiles.

And at the end, I was tired.

So, the next morning, once Jessie was safely on the way to school, I sat in the center of our room, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. It was 7:23 in the morning, and I had work to do.

Meditation had been hard for me. I wanted to be doing something, and sitting on the floor, focusing on my breathing, and emptying my mind wasn't something. I'd only figured it out in the last year—and not because I wanted to.

It had been for Jessie.

My little sister couldn't exercise hard. She had a permanent pass on every Physical Education course at her high school; we didn't even have to enroll her in them. The school's secretary had protested until Dad and Jessie's team of doctors and lawyers descended upon them, armed with threats of a lawsuit. After that, she'd been free to sign up for other classes.

But if she couldn't exercise her body, Dad was determined that my sister would exercise her mind as a refuge from her pain and a way to deal with it. And some of that meant emptying it, letting it stretch and flow freely, and simply being. He'd join her, sitting cross-legged on the floor and letting his thoughts empty alongside hers.

And after he died, my sister insisted I take his place.

I'd had to learn how to do nothing after that. It wasn't as simple as letting go—not for me. It was more bringing my mind to bear on the task of doing nothing. A painful, stressful process, not a cleansing and calming one. I only did it because Jessie insisted I try every new breathing technique, every silly way of connecting to my inner peace, that she found online. None of them worked for me—not the way they worked for her.

But I still did it. And today, for the first time but not the last, I'd be doing it for myself, not for her.

As my focus bore down on the nothing, I honed it in on a single thought. The Stormsteel Core. It appeared in front of me, a ball of storm-colored metal.

With Stormsteel Core at E-10, every fight I used it would tax my mind more and more. I'd felt it in the fight against the Ice Troll; the skill was ready to rank up, and there were two ways to do it. I could ignore it, continue using it, and have a mid-battle revelation. Or I could force the issue, try to figure out what it was trying to teach me, and learn it safely.

I pondered the orb.

And then I was back on the mountain. The storm raged around me. Thunder rolled, lightning crashed, and the wind tore at my hair. I sat in a lotus stance and let the monsoon break around me. Rain slicked the black rocks and ran in tiny waterfalls from the summit.

Water soaked me to the bone in an instant. I shivered on the mountaintop as lightning crashed around me. Fear—a primal fear—pushed to leave. To climb down, away from the storm, and find a cave or a rock or a palo verde tree to shelter below.

But I had something to learn here. And until I learned it, I couldn't leave. So I closed my eyes and let the wind and the rain and the pounding drumbeat of a midsummer monsoon rage on.

And bit by bit…slowly…I started to understand. The lightning was a weapon. I'd forged it early—at E-Rank—but now, I had the opportunity to create something else. Something more.

The wind…or the rain?

Which truth should I pursue? That was the question. Which rule to learn? My instincts screamed for the wind. The truth of speed, of aggression, of unyielding movement.

But the half-healed wounds on my back and neck begged for something else, and so did the shredded Stoneworm Leather Breastplate. It had served its purpose, but I needed real armor. Something to protect myself with, that couldn't be destroyed.

The rain covered my bare skin, sapping my heat and freezing my joints. It was an enemy. But Mana flowed through it; if I worked hard enough to understand and shape it, it could be an ally.

The storm could be protection, not just destruction.

I got to work. Forging the biting rain as it came down. Spreading it across my shoulders. It flowed into place, but I couldn't hold it there. No matter how hard I willed it, it wouldn't form into armor—not the way I wanted it to. It simply collapsed and ran down my shivering body in streams.

But I couldn't give up. Not until I understood. Not until I'd succeeded at forcing a rank-up. I buckled down and forced my will upon the deluge pouring down around me. If I couldn't build armor with the rain alone, I'd blend it with something else. With the wind. And if it wouldn't stay in place, I'd hammer it with the thunder until it did.

I held out my off-hand. It would be the testing ground on which I'd learn this rule of the storm.

A stormsteel framework—gunmetal gray edges the color of angry thunderheads. A howling wind ripping a hair's breadth from my skin, threatening to strip flesh from bone and carrying the rain in sheets of glass so quickly I couldn't imagine touching it without losing a finger to the tide. It swirled within the stormsteel walls and frame, a maelstrom, a hurricane, imprisoned by the first piece of Stormsteel armor I'd created.

Then I let it collapse and rebuilt it. Over and over, my Mana drained to nothing as I perfected the storm armor. For hours, I forged and sculpted and let the wind and rain rip at me, ignoring the lightning that touched the mountains all around my peak.

I'd been wrong. A storm could bring many things, but not protection. I couldn't seek to hide behind an immovable wall. Instead, my armor would rend, rip, and destroy anything that sought to attack it. My armor was the storm, and the storm brought destruction.

Or had I? Was destruction not protection in another form? Did the deluge not stop my enemies from breaking me? Was I not trying to carry out my promise to my stepfather by destroying anything that could hurt Jessie? No, the truth—the law—of the storm was that destruction and protection were two sides of the same coin, two faces of the same monster.

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Destruction was protection.

I opened my eyes, breathing heavily. A notification hung in the air, but I ignored it for the moment. Instead, I checked the time: 7:23. I'd done it, and it had taken no time at all. That was a weapon I could use in the future; I filed it away as a trick for later.

Then, and only then, did I read my notification.

Law Learned: First Law of Stormsteel
Stormsteel Core: Rank E to Rank D

The storm that rages inside of you is one that will only break you if you let it. It seeks only conflict and threatens only destruction. But in your struggle to harness it, you have learned that the deluge is not one of simple devastation. It can be shaped into many useful forms—not all of them offensive. By forging the storm into something it resists being, Kade Noelstra, you have taken a step down the Stormsteel Path: destruction is protection.

The Law had been learned. Stormsteel Core had ranked up to D-Rank. I'd done it. And the Law was simple, if contradictory. I wanted nothing more than to stand up and begin forging a new piece of Stormsteel, but not a gauntlet. My second piece—and my first defensive one—had to be better than that.

But I had so much more to do before I could play with my new powers. I'd learned this Law as a test—could I weaponize the process of learning a Law? The answer, so far, appeared to be that I could.

I'd had other goals, though. And my next objective was at hand. There was no putting off my second merge now; I had to finish it today so I could start learning the third. The egg had continued growing, and if it hatched before I was ready…

The only solution to that would be to destroy whatever came out—and to lose an opportunity I couldn't afford to miss out on.

I placed the D-Rank core on the floor in front of me.

It was a touch smaller than a baseball, perfectly round and the color of copper left outside for too long. When I squeezed the light green ball, I felt neither spark nor give, just a warmth that was different than the weird core's heat. But it was a boss core, just like the ones I'd seen pictures of in books at the GC library.

And that meant it was time.

I melted the D-Rank core without trouble, the liquid metal turning from green to a rich caramel color as it spread across the floor. This time, I was ready, and got to work quickly.

Footwork was the key to swordplay for a simple reason: without movement, there could be no fight. Distance was time and safety. Closeness was danger and power. With proper footwork, a duelist could have both, when he wanted them—perfectly-spaced lines, the beats of the fight, moments of anger, determination…and contemplation.

The frame for Grassi's Greater Swordplay, on which every attack, defense, and maneuver leaned. I placed those lines over the core puddle in a long, rectangular grid, like a fencing strip.

Next was Light Blade Mastery. After Dad taught me the steps and how to maintain distance, he'd handed me the practice foil. My first match with him was an ugly, uncontrolled thing; I'd hacked and slashed with a weapon that wasn't designed for it and a grip that felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable. But, gradually, my stepfather had walked me through the forms, the eight blocks, the thrusts and feints and lunges. He'd beaten them into me at the tip of his own blade, forged them into my muscles and mind.

The fencing strip accepted the duelist—a stick figure man with a sword that was little more than two crossed lines. He didn't strike yet, though. Instead, he slowly moved through the forms and blocks, like a swordfighter moving through syrup.

I added Parry and Riposte together, mixing them into a single motion—the block and counter turning into a graceful redirection-and-stab. The duelist seemed to slow even more as his repertoire of moves grew, and the coppery puddle began reaching up to try to touch the Footwork grid. I willed it back down; it wasn't time yet.

Parry and Riposte weren't just components of Grassi's Greater Swordplay. They were the crux of the merge, and the point at which things typically went wrong. They wanted to be merged—but together, as a single skill. If that happened, I'd be stuck with a C-Rank merge, and the rest of my components would be useless unless I found an oddball skill to build with them.

The two skills had to be added together, though. So, from here on out, I'd have to hold them in my head both separately and as one unit at the same time. The dissonance in that contradiction was what, apparently, caused most Grassi's Greater Swordplay merges to fail. Two motions, as one. One unit, as two.

I gritted my teeth, let myself sweat and shake as my Stamina fought against the paired skills, and focused on adding the final one: Vital Lunge. The stick figure surged with power and, for the first time, moved. His legs churned like pistons as he threw himself, sword first, across the fencing pitch. His blade glinted in the air as the liquid portal metal surged upward and wrapped the fencing strip, miniatore duelist, and blade in shining copper.

Then his sword thrust forward. It punched through the far side of the structure. He withdrew it with a tiny flourish that left beads of portal metal hovering mid-air. Then he dropped into a salute, a fully-formed figure around the stick-man, and waited.

The time had come to begin shaping the skill. The components were there, and it was time to produce Grass's Greater Swordplay.

Thunder boomed.

The Stormsteel Core awakens. Prepare yourself.

One moment, I sat in the center of my studio apartment with the tiny fencer saluting me.

The next, I stood on the fencing pitch. My skin was copper. The suit I wore, a long coat and tie cut in a style two hundred years old or more, was copper. Even the blade in my hand was copper.

And across from me, standing in an identical salute, was a fencer made of lightning. His blade crackled like the Stormsteel rapier as he dropped into a high guard, and his coat flowed behind him like a stormcloud.

The Stormsteel Core.

I fell into a middle guard, the most flexible position, and waited.

The core nodded. And we both lunged. I pulled left. He pulled left at the same moment, and our blades missed each other's chests by inches. Electricity arced across the narrow gap, popping and hissing. I whirled in a cut to his back. He dropped his body and raised his blade. We made contact, and thunder boomed. When I stepped back, my blade was blackened and pitted.

I nodded. Then I launched myself into a series of thrusts and cuts and parries as my opponent did the same. Thunder rolled like a drumbeat, and the strobe of lightning lit the sky. But for every cut I made, the core had a parry, for every block, a redoubled attack.

The battle trance screamed in my head. All there was, all there could be, was the dance. Two feet and a blade against two feet and a blade, moving perfectly together. The perfect test, two fighters perfectly matched and balanced. It was all I could do to keep up, to place my weapon in front of my opponent's and launch my attacks before he could.

We stepped back, breathing hard. His sword came up in a salute; mine matched his. Then another pair of lunges, another flurry of parries and thrusts. My blade looked like it would shatter at the slightest touch, the pits and gouges in it giving it a jagged edge that would have left agonizing cuts in an enemy, if I'd been able to hit. But blow after blow, deflection after parry after desperate block, the copper rapier held.

Then, after another vicious exchange that left my head spinning and the battle trance begging for more, I saw it. An opportunity. This time, I saluted first, then dropped the sword into a lunge. My opponent's blade came down to parry, and I pulled the hit. My muscles screamed from the strain. For all I know, I screamed.

But the copper rapier changed direction.

It had been aiming for the core's face, but when it made contact, it was between the ribs under his chest, on the right side. Instead of blood, lightning erupted from the wound. It traveled up the copper blade. Up my copper arm. And it touched my chest.

Skill Merged: Thunderbolt Forms

The Stormsteel Core has altered this skill from Grassi's Greater Swordplay.

Lightning-quick strikes. The clash of steel like thunder. Feet as fast as the wind itself, and as smooth as rain on a window. While Grassi and Thibault were masters of swordplay, they could not carry the storm in their blades. You can, and you will. Using these offensive-minded forms to strike your opponent builds Lightning Charges.

Stormsteel Effects:
1. Rain-Slicked Blade: Consume Rainfall Charges to pierce an enemy's strongest defenses.
2. Howling Gale: Consume Wind Charges to add cleaving damage to melee attacks.
3. Flareflourish: Consume Lightning Charges to dazzle an enemy.

Upgrade Effects:
1. Each rank increases the speed at which you reposition and parry attacks.
2. Each rank increases the damage and durability of light blades.
3. Each rank increases your Mana pool.