John’s enthusiasm was curbed by that announcement and what it entailed. Whether Lydia could actually meditate in the martial arts sense was a thing she did not actually know yet. She had less than forty minutes to train between him leaving to do the solo dungeon and him returning with the Magryph situation. First she had to practice the basic thing, get skilled enough at it to keep it up at the necessary level and only then could they actually put that power levelling plan into motion.

That’s what she meant when she said she wasn’t him. There was no convenient way to just unlock a Skill for her and be immediately knowledgeable about the subject. Instead, she would have to take some time, at least a few of the eight remaining days, to practice this. If she even had the ability to learn it, that was still in question.

For the sake of efficiency, those questions were temporarily pushed back. Instead, they focused on John acquiring the Fencing Skill. Once he had it, he could go out and level it in Instant Dungeons and she could concentrate on her meditation attempts.

“You will be wielding the estoc the majority of the time, correct?” Lydia asked, while they took their stances across from each other. John nodded, and she continued. “Excellent, I must admit that my experience with slashing weapons is much diminished, so I have less to teach in the field. As it is, in the field of lunging, I can be of greater assistance.”

Lydia pulled her rapier from its sheath. It had the light grey colour of refined steel, but John knew that the material its blade consisted of was much different. It was a metal called Ferforitum, something easily moldable by a metal mage. As long as Lydia kept it in her zone of absolute control, the area where her magic was the most effective, its inherent softness would be countered by her constant control over it. It was a much more energy draining usage and there was a very limited amount of this artificially created, otherwise useless metal.

The rapier was mostly a thing of convenience and ceremonial value. In combat, it served as a last-ditch melee option. For training, it was formidable, as Lydia could simply dull the edge. Not that this was necessary towards someone who regenerated immediately from practically every wound.

“Should I use some practice weapon or…?” John asked.

“No, if you have access to the same weapon at all times, its weight is what you should ingrain into your memory,” Lydia responded. “I do, however, request that you hold back on your full power. I may be technically more skilled than you are, but that only matters so much. A great bowman will seldom be more deadly than someone with a submachine gun.”

“I won’t hurt you on purpose, you have my word on that,” John promised without hesitation, while Purgatory spread over his arm.

“Equip your new claw as well,” Lydia advised him. “You want to be used to the entirety of your weight distribution.”

“Alright.” John just went ahead and threw on his entire battle equipment at that point. Undine infused herself into Purgatory, and he summoned the ice estoc. “So, what’s step one? Do I put one arm behind my back?”

“That wouldn’t serve you very well, this is practical fencing, learnt for combat, not aesthetics or tournament.” Lydia raised her weapon, stretching her left hand out to the side for extra balance. “Strike at me.”

John did as requested and lunged at her. Since he wasn’t completely green in the regards of melee combat, he got the basics right. His backfoot was firmly planted, pushing him forwards, his arm came from the side, gaining extra force from the longer motion. Lydia knocked the estoc aside without much of an issue.

“Stay,” she commanded, and he obeyed. Circling around him, she observed him from the side, clicking her tongue in a disapproving fashion. “Your kickboxing training has gotten you good and bad habits, it appears.” She sheathed her rapier, once she was behind him, and put one hand on his left shoulder, pressing onto his upper back with the other. “You attack with force in mind first,” she explained. “This works to your advantage in a fistfight, but you’re not working with a dull object. In fencing, the question is whether an attack connects. Force is only useful to break a guard. If you’re thrusting, this isn’t your primary concern. Stand at ease, keep your back straight.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have drawn my arm back at all, then?” John asked, quick on the uptake. “If my only concern is to land a hit, then telegraphing my attack is not worth the extra power.”

“Indeed.” With her own rapier, Lydia demonstrated. “If you are sure to land a hit or if your attack is already telegraphed for whatever reason, drawing your arm back for the extra force might be worth it.” She mimicked the motion John had made just now. “Keep in mind, however, that an attack that goes completely straight is also easier to block with a shield or the like. For a normal lunge, you are best advised to stand like this.” She planted one foot back, the other slightly in front, kept her back straight and her rapier raised to chest level, the arm half folded. “The lunge has three basic components. The last two of which you executed well enough. You extend the arm, you take a shallow step forwards, don’t raise your foot too far from the ground, and then you use your backfoot to propel all of you forwards. Your back remains straight.” She held each posture for a moment while she spoke, then dropped into a relaxed stance. “You achieve the highest amount of range this way. Optimally, you break skin in the first two steps and the last one is driving the blade into the body. This is also why you do these things in sequence, rather than all at once.”

“I guess this is why they say fencing is more artful than boxing,” John said, only half joking. There were more involved strikes in boxing as well, but that art was mostly about generating force. Once lethality was guaranteed by the nature of the tool, accuracy and depth of the strike became more of a focus. Having understood that difference, John took his initial stance again, and they faced each other again.

“Although the path for fencing may be different from boxing, the starting conundrum and final goal are the same,” Lydia continued her lecture. “You need to overcome the defences of your enemy and be so successful in it that you can land the winning blow. Although a lunge may be a fast way to finish a fight, where the tip of your sword is aimed will inform your enemy where you want to strike.”

That was a rather basic reminder, but John took it without complaining. First he was guided through the correct way to execute lunges at different heights, then how to react to the common parries, how to best parry himself, and so on. Eventually, they moved away from only going estoc against rapier and instead Lydia brought magic into things. This was still practical fencing, after all, just learning how to fight other fencers was pretty useless in that regard.

When he landed his first hit through Lydia’s manoeuvrable shield, he finally got the pop-up.

“Alright, that did it,” he announced, and Lydia lowered the metal pieces. He had struck through her layer of metal plates, but only hit a second layer behind that. Lydia hadn’t been out to make herself the practice dummy, understandably.

“Superb,” Lydia rolled her neck, “then I suppose you should now resume your regular grinding, while I resume my meditation attempts.”

“Well, you can do that if you want to,” John answered, “but I was going to call it quits for today.” The sun had barely moved, still standing in the middle of the sky and frying everything with its rays. Regardless, he had been awake for sixteen consecutive hours now. In terms of levelling progress, the day had been a complete failure. Aside from that, he had gotten a whole slew of things done or discovered today. The coming days promised to be more eventful.

Lydia yawned, as if him saying that suddenly made her realize that she had been up for the same time. “Perhaps I will follow your lead on this occasion,” she conceded.

_____________________________________________________________________

Three days passed, with the only notable event during them being that John finished the third part of the Augusta Questline.

And had been promptly presented with Part 4

The Quest popped up after Lydia had shown first successes on the meditation front. Since Gaia wouldn’t have given him a Quest he had absolutely no chance of clearing (at least he believed she wouldn’t), he was now 99% certain that the strategy they had come up with to power level Lydia was going to be a success. The remaining 1% were the usual paranoid doubts that he rarely managed to shake off.

Aside from levelling Fencing, he had concentrated on running five to six hour Assaults. This had brought him another four levels. The difference in efficiency was clearly evident, but there were things that not even John was willing to grind out. He was still a human that needed breaks.

On the morning of the sixth day, he stepped down the stairs and into the living room. He was greeted by the sweet smell of carpet cleaner and Beatrice rubbing a sponge over a particular segment of the floor. The couch had been moved to the side in order for her to clean the entire affected area. Next to her, Aclysia was holding Velka by the scruff of her neck, the Magryph’s feet dangling in the air.

The chimeric species related to cats had excess skin and fat on the back of their neck. Since feather’s in that area were also extremely short, grabbing it was much like grabbing a kitten by the neck. Ears perked and legs dangling, Velka was looking at her Mithril pebble, currently removed from her possession. Unlike three days ago, she didn’t break out into cacophonic complaints. The Magryph was quickly learning that they took the pebble from her whenever she did something bad. She would get it back quicker if she just let them tell her what it was.

“Relieve yourself in your box,” Aclysia said, emphasizing every word, while gesturing from Velka, to the stain, over to the plastic box filled with kitty litter. This wasn’t a berating that would have worked for a dog or a cat, but a Magryph was considerably more intelligent. “Do you understand?” Aclysia asked and got a short-warbled song in response. “You will get this back,” she held up the pebble, “after you prove that.” The tiny material piece wandered into Aclysia’s inventory.

Velka was placed on the floor and let out a number of complaining sounds after all. One warning glare by Aclysia, and the Magryph went quiet, however. After an incident involving the chick stealing a fork from the kitchen, the pet had understood that the woman with the long, silver-white hair was scary.

“Did she go number one or number two on our carpet?” John asked. That Velka had the lower body of a cat meant she did not possess a single cloaca. Whether that was better or worse, he had no opinion on. Conversely, Magryphs still laid eggs though.

“Number one,” Beatrice supplied the wanted information, while moving from scrubbing with a sponge to drying the foam off with a towel. At the same time, Velka tapped up to John and sat down at his feet. Placing her right talon on his foot, she gently scratched, waited two seconds, then repeated the gesture. All the while, she was presenting her open beak and letting out high-pitched cries.

Another thing that Velka understood by now was that John was the only one who fed her. A deliberate decision, in service of fulfilling the Quest. Being the person who gave her nourishment was going to forge some kind of bond.

It was decided they would keep her now. Sure, she had soiled the carpet on numerous occasions now and she could be a bit annoying in her search for shiny things, but neither was something he didn’t expect from a child. Since she was so quick on the uptake, she had already learned to stay out of the kitchen; John expected that these things would smooth over the coming weeks.

Taking the Magryph, he scratched her fluffy belly, while walking over to the table. The entire time, theblack and white beak of the bird-cat nibbled at whatever finger was closest to her head. “Wait here,” John instructed, once he had placed her on the table. At first, she tried to follow when he walked towards the kitchen. Gently pushing her away from the edge of the table, he repeated, “Wait.” This time, Velka obeyed, walking around on the table but making no sign to jump off it.

John opened the fridge and took out a bowl. It contained cat food pellets that had been left soaking in water overnight. Of course, he couldn’t just feed her cold food, so he had to move it into the microwave first. Once it had reached body temperature, he used a spoon to make the transformation of the cat food into a light brown sludge complete. Afterwards he sucked as much as he could into a feeding syringe and returned to the table.

Velka chirped excitedly, jumping left and right, then sprinting towards John when he picked a chair to sit down on. “Alright, alright.” John couldn’t help but smile, the childish enthusiasm was contagious. “Calm down.” She didn’t, Velka hadn’t learned the meaning of those words or his tone yet. Instead, he had to grab her so she remained still. Her tail feathers fluttered happily while he pushed the syringe into her mouth like the beak of a mother bird and pushed the liquid food into her. It was a pretty close replacement to the natural experience.

After two repeats of this, John had emptied the entire bowl and Velka no longer opened her beak as a demand for food. In the morning, she was always extremely hungry. John scratched her between the cat ears; Velka purred from deep within her throat.

“And she is going to be as big as Sylph one day?” Salamander asked, suddenly appearing next to John. While the Gamer was unfazed by this, Velka jumped up and ran to the other side of the table. Suddenly appearing humanoids were probably pretty scary, at her size. Didn’t help that the fire spirit’s skin and hair were all red, nature’s premiere warning colour.

“Yeah, although I have no idea how quick she will grow,” John answered, trying to get Velka to come back to his hand by wiggling his fingers. “Judith said Magryphs take about a year to mature and another year to reach their physical peak. Problem is, I have no idea how my Gamer powers will interact with that. For all I know, the Tamer class could have mechanics that make her grow at an accelerated rate. Doesn’t help that Velka didn’t even hatch in the first place.” His new pet didn’t react to his invitation, only staring at Salamander.

Wings spread out as far as possible, Velka had feathers and fur puffed up, all to make herself seem as big and scary as possible. John honestly found her more adorable that way, she looked like a very angry fuzzball. A hissing sound escaped her beak.

“Salamander, could you sit down?” John asked and gestured at the chair next to him.

“Sure thing, boss,” the endflame elemental responded. Once she was on her cushion of a butt, the Gamer put a hand into her neck and pulled her into a kiss. She tasted delicious and smoky, even a bit spicy. Her tongue was hot inside his mouth, as he ran a hand over the soft stubbles of her buzzcut. He didn’t push it too far, it would have felt awkward with the young pet watching.

Aside from the pure indulgence of the moment and the joy of kissing his hottest elemental, there was a practical reason for this kiss as well. By making Salamander appear less large and showing that she was one of his lovers, he hoped to take the nervousness out of Velka. It worked well, the Magryph’s hairs settled down, and when John invited her again, she slowly tapped closer. After some chin scratches, she completely calmed down.

Salamander tried to pet her as well. Only after Velka had inspected her hand by smelling and nibbling on it was the endflame elemental allowed to do the same. “Alright, that’s enough attention for this moment,” the Gamer finally decided, as Aclysia started bringing in the breakfast. Once more, he picked up the chick and put her on the floor.

Stirwin was already waiting for her, and the two engaged in some play fighting. Sylph soon joined them as well, at least until breakfast was prepared.