Instead of resting Randidly raised his spear and began to practice waiting for the next exercise to begin
Daniel yawned sitting up Although sleeping wasn’t necessary for him any longer he still enjoyed the leisure time So every day at sundown he would lie down for a 3 hour nap to clear his head and lounge on some cushions and pillows he had squirreled away
Setting aside the pile of paperwork having to do with the trading convoy Donnyton was sending south to Franksburg in the next few days Daniel ambled towards his door scratching his butt After all the fact that the person at the door hadn’t yelled meant it wasn’t someone who could truly threaten him
At the same time the fact they dared come to the door was a bit
Daniel opened the door only to find a woman standing in the darkness her eyes blazing with a strange light the Classer that guarded Daniel during the night standing to the side fearfully
Inwardly Daniel made a mental note to go among the NCCs and to start training someone to be his full time body guard This guy randomly assigned to him was apparently intimidated by a
The woman turned to him giving him a face full of anger blast Daniel gasped in spite of himself
Where The woman growled reaching up and grabbing Daniel by his collar Are my CHILDREN
Randidly lay panting on the ground reexamining the day’s training It was rough Beyond rough He could feel the slowly growing ache of sore muscles something that he hadn’t felt in a long time Not since the system had come to this world At no point even under Shal had he pushed his physical limits to this degree
Part of it was the methods with Shal he held on as long as he could and then was knocked senseless by Shal’s brutal spear giving him a chance to rest Here he continued with the back breaking exercises with only small breaks in between Time and time again his focus and patience were tested and he was tempted to give in allowing his body a break
But Mrs Hamilton’s small smile made him hold on Lyra’s scrunched up face as she tried to catch him with her birds of mana made him hold on The image of that group of Classers from Donnyton battered but ready to fight him to the death made him hold on
This was his path And even if it was hard Randidly refused to stop walking it Not for pain not for respite not for even Judgement from the system That was how he wanted to live
Frowning Randidly leaned forward Although he was definitely improving physically it was slow he could barely feel any differences in how he was able to handle the difficulty When training changed
But perhaps there was another solution If he could create an armor of roots with root manipulation
Randidly laughed aloud amused at the image Then he shook his head ruefully Even though he was better and his control was monstrous for his level there were likely even more monstrous mages out there in the Nexus Perhaps one day he would get to that level but for now
Focusing his will Randidly poured his energy into the ground and the roots there responded They pulsed and moved curving up out of the ground inflating with his will twisting into 3x their original size Then Randidly shaped them moving the roots smoothly together forming a hand That hand clenched itself into a fist then flexed itself opening
Randidly pressed harder with his will and a second hand sprang into existence Grunting Randidly pushed even further conjuring a long thin trunk of roots that spiraled upwards raising the hands to chest height splitting and forming two arms
Sweat dripping off of his brow Randidly pressed a little forward and two roots sprang from the ground and spiraled upwards ever so slowly They rotated around each other closely bound winding even tighter Randidly breathed carefully afraid to spoil the spell Maintaining the hands the torso and this new object of roots all at once
To say nothing of the mana expenditure which was quite significant his attention divided between so many different roots in so many different shapes was quite stretched maintaining it all
But finally the spiral had reached a height of 7 feet and the two hands reached forward grasping the spear of roots hefting it raising it Eyes glowing Randidly felt the connection between himself and the strange root avatar more than just the fact that he was maintaining it with his mana
So he closed his eyes focusing on it and he realized that it was feeding him a small bit of information a small fraction of tactile sensation Although it was faint he could feel the root spear in his hands So he gripped it
Then he thrust it forward instinctively aiming for a Phantom Thrust The spear cut quickly through the air but it felt oddly clumsy Frowning Randidly opened his eyes All at once the strain of maintaining the avatar overwhelmed him and the roots started to bulge and twist straying from the desired shape
Snorting Randidly crushed the resistance forcing the roots back into line and then drank a mana potion He would need more mana to maintain this Then he produced his small training spear and closed his eyes
The root avatar gripped the spear with him and Randidly had the extremely odd sensation of controlling two bodies at once But in a way it was simple because he wanted them to perform the same action he used Phantom Thrust
His main body unleashed a thrust that ripped forward through the air with audible speed But once more the root avatar felt clumsy But this time Randidly caught why he felt so strange when he used the avatar
System assist huh Randidly muttered to himself It was small and slight but minor differences in stance posture and source of force that were instinctual for his actual body didn’t occur in the avatar Or perhaps they couldn’t because he was using roots Of course Randidly shouldn’t have any instincts of the sort He had never handled anything remotely like a spear before the system and his training after the system was still quite short and rather haphazard
The only explanation was that the skill levels were giving him training wheels’ that let him succeed more easily He obviously could still improve a lot in his actual technique but these training wheels were also areas that he could improve on because he could observe them in the differences between his normal form and the movements of the root avatar
Randidly wasn’t sure whether it would actually help but then smothered that thought Image was important Of course it would help He would more fully understand the skill increasing the skill level
Which would in turn probably increase the amount of system assistance which would give him more areas to focus on during his training The corner of Randidly’s mouth curled upward
Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead the root avatar falling to pieces Another benefit of training like this at night would be that he would train Root Manipulation at the same time but it was also extremely tiring mentally He would take a break for now then continue later
Chuckling Randidly gathered his things and began walking back towards Donnyton It wasn’t quite a break but Sam was quite insistent that he continue to learn to Engrave His skill wasn’t even to the point where he could control the leaking mana well enough to form an entire rune but it was nearing that point And it was excellent practice in detail orientation even if it was only marginally less mentally draining than the root avatar
Randidly supposed he would need an actual hobby soon But preferably one that would take no time so he could keep up this training speed
Karen mother of Kiersty and Nathan glared daggers at Regina and Daniel What do you mean you don’t know
The two exchanged helpless glances and were about to speak when another figure appeared
Karen I have to take responsibility for this one In all of the recent excitement I lost count of the days It completely slipped my mind Mrs Hamilton said stepping forward with a smile Behind her Decklan’s full squad stood grimly outfitted in leather and steel rubbed in charcoal to dull its reflective properties Annie and a few of the more skilled archers stood with them serious expressions on their faces