Chapter 73: [Blade Sense] (Patreon)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x7YVYI_5ky5i7aaO-QdD-DFcMg5p8Uc96pEQsR4vJWA/edit?usp=sharing

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What made something a ‘blade’?

That was the question Cayden had asked himself before accepting his newly offered skill, [Blade Sense].

Blade Sense (passive): Gain an intuitive understanding of the position, trajectory, and intent of all bladed weapons in a small radius.

Now that he had accepted the skill, replacing [Claw Mastery] for what felt like the hundredth time…he still didn’t have a clear answer to that question.

Some things obviously weren’t ‘bladed weapons’. A club, no matter how you might look at or think about it, could never be described as a blade. Yet some weapons which Cayden had assumed wouldn’t be covered by the skill were included – weapons such as his claws.

He would never call his claws ‘blades’, but he supposed it made sense that they would be included, as they had sharp cutting edges – the most technical definition of a blade. Yet not everything with a sharp edge was recognized as a ‘blade’ by his new skill. Most notably, spears and arrows were excluded. The edges of many of the spearheads were longer than the edges on his claws, yet, for some reason, he got no feedback from his skill for them.

It took about thirty minutes of testing, most of that with Cayden awkwardly standing next to the weapons racks in the training arena, but eventually he thought he had come up with a viable theory on how the skill functioned: [Blade Sense] worked on all weapons which primarily slashed.

He’d already known from his [Physical Resistance] subskills that physical damage could be divided into one of three categories: slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning. But he hadn’t thought weapons could be so cleanly divided into the same three categories. The tier-two [Blade Mastery] skill his old teacher Deidrich from Avernon had possessed aligned with that theory, but some of the other tier-two weapon skills, such as [Ranged Weapons Mastery], obviously didn’t fit into the same categorical separations.

And so many of the weapons that were unquestionably blades could be used for different purposes. Swords could slash, stab, or even bludgeon, though the type of swords that were popular among adventurers was mostly used for slashing. Spears could likewise do all three, but primarily stabbed. And Cayden knew firsthand that his claws could pierce almost as well as they could slash. Yet for some reason the skill seemed to place arbitrary designations on which weapons qualified for different kinds of attacks.

Either way, it wasn’t something he could change, so he wouldn’t be worrying about it aside from being aware of and on the lookout for any weapons which his skill couldn’t detect. At least until he managed to upgrade it to a tier-two catch-all [Weapon Sense] skill.

He shook his head and refocused on his training – he was getting ahead of himself. He was already feeling the pinch of his remaining skill slots; there was no need to worry about a tier-two version of the skill when he hadn’t yet confirmed the usefulness of the tier-one version. Although, from his initial tests, he was feeling optimistic.

At level one, [Blade Sense] extended about three feet from Cayden’s body. Which wasn’t particularly far, but Cayden believed that would increase as it leveled. For now, though, he was thankful for the shorter range. Because the biggest limiting factor wasn’t its range or how quickly he was able to react to incoming blades – it was his mind, in processing all the data that was being shoved into his head.

It likely wouldn’t have been as bad for most others with the skill. But most others didn’t have ten blades attached to the ends of their fingers, always within range of the skill and feeding them ten constant streams of data.

It helped somewhat that his claws were attached to his body and completely in his control. The information he got from a single claw was easier to process than what he got when he was holding a sword, which was in turn easier than a sword someone else carried and manipulated. But still, [Blade Sense] was pushing the limits of what his mind stat could handle, especially since he’d never be able to turn it off or carry less than ten blades.

He had enough free stats saved up from his last few level-ups that he could raise his mind high enough to comfortably use the skill, but he saw that as a waste. Investing in a stat for a skill that he might drop in a week was foolish, especially when, at his current amount of mind, the skill would be a great way to train the stat organically.

In the meantime, though, he would have to suffer the effects of a constant, low-level migraine. So, with renewed determination, he pulled the sheaths off of his claws and turned to the training dummies.

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Cayden kept his eyelids pressed tightly closed as he lashed out in a quick one-two-three combo of strikes against the training dummy, ducking to dodge the retaliatory swing of the blade that clipped the ends of his hair and leaning back to dodge the blade that spun out at him at chest-level. The different sections of the dummy were still spinning from his initial strikes, the blades attached to its arms rotating around the sections, but Cayden didn’t hesitate. He stepped closer and struck again with two more slashing attacks, dodging another swinging blade before following up with a punch with his closed fist.

His last attack caught a smaller rotating section of the dummy he hadn’t previously hit, and a blade spun around towards his neck at an unexpected angle. [Blade Sense] ‘saw’ it, of course, but between his ten claws and two other blades on the dummy finishing their rotation out of [Blade Sense’s] range, Cayden wasn’t prepared to react to the new blade’s sudden appearance. He tried to duck but was too slow.

The bladed arm of the training dummy impacted the side of Cayden’s neck with a small plink, and Cayden wrinkled his nose in frustration as he took a step back and opened his eyes.

He was training on one of the ‘specialized’ training dummies. This one was still level-one in terms of its durability, but where most dummies sported wooden arms attached to rotating sections, this one had blades, made ‘safe’ in the same way as the assailants. Of course, the blades were on a training dummy that spent hours each day in the sun on the sands of the arena, which meant they were dulled into near-uselessness. Coupled with the relatively-slow speeds of rotation from Cayden’s strikes, there was absolutely zero chance of the dummy physically harming him.

Though that didn’t prevent the damage to Cayden’s pride each time he was bested in a one-versus-one by a tree with metal limbs.

After the rotating arms slowed to a stop, Cayden closed his eyes and stepped forward, ready once again for a rematch with his nemesis. But after only a second, he released a sigh and stepped away from the dummy, reopening his eyes.

He’d already spent two hours working on [Blade Sense], first with figuring out exactly how the skill worked, then with getting a feel for how to interpret the feedback given on his claws, and finally in training against the dummy. What had started as a faint pain in his temples from his overloaded mind had progressed to a splitting headache, and he needed to take a break. [Resistance] helped him to ignore the pain, and he felt the new skill might already be close to leveling, but there was no need to push himself. [Blade Sense] was interesting and no doubt useful, but he couldn’t just ignore the rest of his skills like a kid on Christmas with a new toy. In all likelihood, he’d be losing the skill in a few weeks.

He stepped away from the dummy and claimed a section of sand far from any other students or weapons, bending over to touch his toes in an extended stretch. [The Moment] had leveled up the previous day in his personal training, which meant [Enhanced Flexibility] was the last of his class skills stuck at level eight. And once it leveled up, he’d only need one last push in each of his class skills to get to level ten and qualify for his class upgrade.

For the next hour, he stretched and exercised, slowly moving through various clawed combat forms and then holding the positions for slow counts to fifteen, increasing and decreasing his [Inertia] with each movement. His muscles alternatively loosened and then flexed as he stretched and then held each new position, his headache fading back into a dull throb as he completed a workout routine closer to yoga than it was to anything else. It wasn’t the most popular type of exercise among adventurers; the only stat it significantly trained was dexterity, a stat which was notoriously slow to improve through training. And he looked ridiculous, moving at a snail’s pace through awkward positions while the dozens of students around him flitted from training equipment to sparring circle, weapons and magic flashing in the sun.

But Cayden didn’t care about that. Even if his status page didn’t reflect it, even if it was so small as to be virtually unnoticeable, he knew he was improving, slowly stacking the blocks that were, by the smallest amount, building a better version of himself. He still felt the pressure from his time with Tiana, the urge to grasp at greater levels of power than what he was slowly gaining. And he hadn’t given up on that new route, nor had he regretted his commitment to Elise to pursue a different avenue of power. Yet neither would he forfeit the slow, daily progression that he had pursued for the past year.

They weren’t mutually exclusive. And if his attempts to leap forward failed? He wouldn’t be stuck, having fallen back to where he was when he’d started. He could always rely on his slow crawl forward – just the slightest bit ahead of where he was the day prior.

It was an exercise routine that Cayden followed religiously. Even on the days he trained with Ignar or came back injured from frontline combat, he made sure to set aside a few hours for his personal training. It wasn’t always the same – today, he’d forgone some of his dexterity and strength training in lieu of getting a hang of [Blade Sense]. But it was never something he skipped entirely.

Training in this arena, however, was unusual.

Typically, he chose a smaller training arena in a distant corner of the campus, found only due to his map of campus and his own explorations. Other students trained there, too, but they were all similar to him: quiet and content to train individually without the distractions of others. More focused on their own exercises than they were on each other.

This arena was different. There was a constant low hum of conversation between students, and it seemed they spent just as much time preparing to train and watching others train as they spent training. Cayden could feel the dozens of eyes following him as he continued to work through his strange-looking routine, but he didn’t pay them any mind. There was only one set of eyes he had any interest in.

And, just as he was finishing his last set of forms, he saw them: blue like the sky on a clear day, surrounded by a beautifully pale, if dispassionate, face, lightly dusted with freckles and framed by curly locks of fiery red hair.

Cayden shook himself from his trance, frowning. Thankfully, no one else had noticed Cayden's fawning over the girl leading the troupe that had just entered the arena; they were all just as focused on the same thing.

[Mind is a Temple] didn't ping him, but there had to be some sort of manipulation behind the princess's presence...right? There wasn't even a hint of a smile or glance directed toward her numerous admirers, yet she had no trouble holding the arena's complete attention as she marched toward a line of unoccupied training dummies, Marrianne and the rest of the posse of followers trailing dutifully behind. Once they got to the training dummies, they spread out into a line. The last of the followers didn't have an opponent, but one of those who'd been watching the group’s approach gave up his spot in exchange for a cute smile and a pat on the arm.

The princess, however, seemed oblivious to all of this. She had produced a short sword from nowhere – Cayden presumed from her spacial storage – and was attacking the dummy with textbook-perfect form. Her strikes didn't have any strength or speed behind them, not beyond what a human on Earth could have done. But as time passed, her speed slowly increased until she was on pace with Marianne, and then surpassing her, each of her attacks retaining their perfect form.

Slowly, the attention of the rest of the arena wavered, until it was back as it had been prior to the princess' arrival. Many still gawked at the princess and her companions, but no longer did they command the complete and total focus of the others 'training'. And Cayden wondered – was this the effect of charisma?

If Elise's theory on Valeria's [Sacrifice Charisma] skill was correct, the increased agility Valeria was displaying against the training dummy came at the cost of charisma. And while she looked no different from how she had a minute prior – a radiantly beautiful young girl – and Cayden didn't feel anything different when he looked at her, she obviously held less power over the mass of observers than she had earlier.

It was a theory Cayden had been betting on when he'd chosen to visit this arena, the arena the princess was known for frequenting. Because over the last several days, he'd been looking for an opportunity to speak to her alone, only to find that she was never alone. Never did he see her without a string of other girls trailing after her, and never was she not the focal point of whatever room she entered. And while the conversation Cayden wanted to have didn't necessarily need to be kept secret, neither did he think Valeria would appreciate him bringing it up in front of a crowd of eager listeners.

Now was the least amount of attention Cayden had ever seen focused on the princess, and he was ready to take advantage of it.

He walked over to the line of dummies and waited a few steps behind Valeria until there was a lull in her strikes before speaking up.

"Excuse me, Valeria? Can I speak with you for a moment?"

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If you're wondering what the training dummies look like, I'm imagining them as like the ones in kung fu panda.