“What weakness do you mean? I won the fight. I didn’t even take damage.”
“You have the same flaw that Tenara had. You go into the fight only thinking about how you will survive. You only look at the one goblin in front of you and don’t even notice that one of them is missing. To only focus on how to survive is to fear your opponent. You go into battle only thinking about how to live. This leaves your enemies out there, waiting to kill you another day. Go into battle ready to kill those who want to kill you. This world is life or death and letting your enemies live only gives them an opportunity to kill you later.”
“The greatest victory is the battle not fought.”
“Don’t give me that crap that Tenara used to say. We are not out here asking the goblins to kindly leave. We are out here to kill them. Why give them an opportunity to kill you? Why did you step out first? Why not kill them before they know you are here? Tenara’s mindset is weak because out here someone is going to die. The only way it isn’t you is if it is them.”
He sounded like a cold-blooded killer, but he had a point. The world out here is kill or be killed and in order to survive I will need to become a killer. Cassian let the conversation end there and walked deeper into the forest toward the south. After a few seconds of reflection, I followed in silence until Cassian stopped. He pointed ahead of us where with mana sense I could tell there were two more goblins looking out of the forest toward the farms. Cassian then stood in silence waiting for me to make the next move.
I now had a decision to make. Since the outcome is determined for one of us to die there is no need to wait for them to strike first. I moved to what looked like a blind spot and circulated mana through my sword. I charged from behind the trees at the goblins. They turned and looked at me, but did not react in time. My sword passed through its neck and ended its life. As it burst into motes of light the other goblin charged before I could get into a defensive stance. I tried to dodge, but I had to block with my left arm to stop to blow from hitting a vital place on my body. My hand went numb while my arm seared in pain. I switched to a single sword defensive stance to face the remaining enemy. It took a swing at my outstretched sword. I offered no resistance and moved my sword out of the way, circled it overhead, and stepped into a downward strike that removed the goblins arm at the elbow. It shrieked in pain and dropped its sword. This left it open for a follow up strike that ended its life.
My arm looked dark with bruises, but it did not bend in any strange ways so it is not broken. I circulated mana into my arm in order to speed up the healing process. Cassian approached me now that the fight was over. “You have the potential to become much stronger. Your biggest weakness right now is that you narrow your focus to only one enemy. This is common when all your training has been one on one practice fights. We will go slower on the next fights. Stick to your usually defensive stance and try to be able to watch my fight while defending yourself.”
This was how the rest of the trip went. Cassian led me toward his commission job and every time we found a group of goblins, he would have me engage one of them while he killed the rest. Afterward he would ask me questions about his fight to see if I was paying attention. In the latter part of the day while taking a short break Cassian said to me. “We are close now. After I kill the goblin knight we will head back to the city. I will show you where you can get a party and a place to sleep that is cheap enough to keep a profit with just this level of fighting. Then I don’t want to see you again.”
“Why are you so adamant about being alone? You seem like a good teacher.”
“I don’t like the liability. When I let loose, other people will just get in my way.” I thought about how people could get in the way during a fight. Seeing the puzzled look on my face Cassian continued. “When we find the goblin knight just sit back with mana sense and watch. I will show you what I mean.”
We only fought one more group of goblins before we found the goblin knight. It was coming into the forest from the pastureland with a group of 8 goblins. The knight stood a foot higher than his other goblin companions. It had much bigger arms and carried a crude sword instead of a club. I stood back and watched as Cassian went to fight. I could sense his mana circulate and rise just like I would do before a fight. However, as his mana growth began to slow, mana began to flood his body from his head and circulated through his whole body.
With a shout Cassian charged the goblins. The mana surge moved to his axe and was released in a slash that sliced five of the goblins in half and still made the knight move to block. Cassian swung his dual axes wildly while charging into the middle of the fight. Cassian ignored the small goblins and stuck repeatedly at the knight, not giving it a moment to collect itself. Any goblin that approached Cassian’s back would quickly lose its life as Cassian would nonchalantly remove its head on a violent backswing. The knight soon lowering its arms unable to continue blocking the wild strikes. Cassian kept hitting at the ground where the knight fell after it had already dissolved into lights. The last remaining goblin turned to flee, but that only drew Cassian’s attention. He then threw one of his axes ending its life.
Cassian stood there with heavy breathing as the mana that surged through his body slowly dissipated into the environment around him. Once his breathing began to regulate, he came back over to me. “This is why having allies would get in my way. I don’t need people watching my back and if they stood too close, they would end up hurt as well.”
“What kind of power was that? Once you reached the peak of your mana, it surged way past higher. How did you do that?”
“You are not ready to know how that works. You still have a lot of work to do with basic fight skills, control over your mana circulation, and just increasing your mana pool size. Ask again in a couple years and I may let you know.”
“Still, wouldn’t you need party members to take on bigger quests? The strength increase was incredible, but I could think of ways that party members could help.”
“I am retired from bigger quests. This pays for my lifestyle and I am quite comfortable with it. I don’t want to deal with people anymore. I am only helping you to repay a favor to my old friend. Let’s head back. We will go through the pasture and farmlands to avoid any further fights today.”
Cassian seemed to have a sad look on his face, but it quickly passed and he walked out of the forest toward the city. I thought for a second longer about how he accessed that kind of power from nowhere. I soon followed after Cassian to end my first day as an adventurer.