“Sounds like a plan to me!” They spent the next five minutes attaching straps to various locations on her body as she figured out where she wanted to keep her knives. She ended up deciding on two knives that followed the outer lining of her boots, one on her right thigh, and a small pack of throwing blades that could double as her archery brace on her right forearm. She had considered one on her left outer bicep but decided that she probably didn’t need to arm herself to the teeth. She had magic, after all. Her arsenal would grow, and she didn’t need to fill every slot with a knife.
She had thought he might start her with some of the wooden blades she saw in boxes nearby, but his decision had surprised her. “No, we’ll start you with real blades. You’re a healer, and you’ll learn more from your mistakes if they actually hurt.” She had grumped a little bit, then conceded that he was probably right. Pain was a powerful motivator. Not a fun one, but powerful nonetheless.
Still, she did pretty decently and attributed at least part of it to the fact that she had her autocorrect skills in place. She still managed to cut her arm twice, but like he said, she was a healer, so it didn’t matter much other than the sting of pain before she healed herself. It was less pain than she got from siphoning people and barely lasted twenty seconds, so she decided it wasn’t worth complaining about.
After she could properly draw her weapons without hurting herself, he taught her the correct way to grip each one. What followed was a series of demonstrations on how to stab and slash, what to avoid, how to make your movements unpredictable and predict the moves of your opponents… It was like he was trying to shove all his close combat knowledge into her brain. She kept up, barely, but it was something she was going to need to review a lot until it was second nature to her.
In the last twenty minutes, he’d sparred with her, which was the most painful part. He’d scored a series of small nicks across her body, always holding his strength back and not cutting too deeply, but making sure it hurt. Her only consolation was that she had managed to score one hit on him as well, shallow as it was. After healing them both up, she laughed as she looked at her clothing. It was clean, but she still had a bunch of cuts showing the white skin on her legs, shoulders, back, and stomach. He hadn’t shown a whole lot of mercy, but she was grateful. No monster would show mercy, and it had helped her figure out her weaknesses in an extremely clear manner.
Panting with exhaustion, she sat next to him as they both gulped down water. He may have been scoring the most hits, but she’d made him work for it. Her movements were still jerky at times, but that also made them more unpredictable. He laughed, staring at the bright blue sky. “I’m honestly amazed. You made huge progress in just one lesson.”
She grinned, poking his arm. “If I didn’t, you’d have bled me to death! You have no mercy!” In an hour of personal tutoring and cutting each other up, the lines had bled, and he no longer felt like a teacher but an older friend, albeit one who was intent on pounding as much as he could into her brain and body.
He grinned. “You’re not like most of the students I see come through here. Everyone else would have complained if I put them through what I just did with you.”
She feigned outrage. “Wait, I was allowed to say no!?” She met his eyes with a straight face, and then both of them burst into laughter. She plucked at her clothes, saying cheerfully, “You owe me new clothes. Camille is going to have a fit if she sees that I’ve already torn up one of the outfits she got me.” She’d only nicked his arm, so his clothes were fine.
He laughed, saying innocently, “What, I thought all the young girls were trying to show more skin these days?” She punched him softly in the arm.
“What do you take me for, some tramp?” They laughed and stood up, where he offered her his arm.
“Well, little tramp, shall we go get food?” She grumbled and nodded. It was kinda nice that he wasn’t as freaked out about her skin as some of the other people had been, like Raphael. Granted, it didn’t hurt that he was more than twice her age and more interested in raising her up to be a knife prodigy.
“You’re paying for it.”
He laughed. “You don’t pay for food here.” She grumbled again as they began walking towards a large building she’d been told was the cafeteria. With five floors, it had a pretty strict hierarchy. As a first year, she was supposed to go the fifth floor for her food. The only exception was that once a week, each student could invite someone from a lower grade to eat on their floor, and the food got better the closer you were to the ground. The first floor obviously belonged to the professors.
Grinning as he led her to the counter to place their order on the first floor, she said happily, “At least I’ll get the good food with you! It’s worth being cut up for that.” He laughed. The rule was almost the same for the professors, but they could bring one student a day to their level. The small blades training grounds were fairly close to the cafeteria, so they were some of the earlier ones there.
“So, what’re the best options?” She was studying the menu—they had a real menu! Well, sort of. It was more like those fast food restaurants that had boards behind the counter that listed what was available, but close enough. Since everyone here could read, it made more sense that this was where something like that would show up.
Brady looked thoughtful before shrugging. “Everything on this floor is good. It won’t be the case with the other floors, but here you can’t really go wrong unless there’s something you dislike.” Jade nodded and he looked at the counter lady. “Estelle, I’ll have the steak, medium rare, baked potato, and cooked veggies.”
“Very well, Viscount. We’ll have that right out for you. And what will you have, miss?”
Jade grinned, still looking at the menu before she finally decided. “Alright. I’ll have the steak medium rare as well, and then the battered chicken, the ribs, the chicken salad, and the sausage chili. For sides, I’ll take a baked potato, the cooked veggies, the fresh fruit, mushroom soup, three rolls, and the meat pie.” She looked at the menu, then thought for a moment. “Oh right, and two glasses of juice, one of milk, and two of water.”
Estelle raised her blond eyebrows at her. “Are you trying to feed an army?”
Jade laughed and shook her head. “Army of one, at your service! No, honestly it’s all for me. I did a bunch of healing this morning and I’m going into four hours of magic classes, so I promise I’ll eat it all.” Both Estelle and Brady looked dubious, but finally Estelle nodded when Brady gave her a shrug with the ‘just do it’ look.
“Alright. We’ll get that out to you, miss…?”
“Jade. It’s lovely to meet you, Estelle. You’ll probably be seeing a lot of me.”
Estelle laughed. “You’ve got guts, that’s for sure. What makes you think the professors will use their passes on you?”
Jade shrugged and spoke honestly, “I’m in fourteen magic classes and I’m a traveler. Brady and Carter are both basically giving me private lessons. I’m good friends with Camille and Will, and I’m pretty sure they get to eat on this floor too. Between all of them, I’m pretty sure I can coerce someone to get me meals on this floor. I’m too much of a foodie to want to eat on the fifth floor.”