Chapter 11

A Masterful Combination

Now was his chance, Silent had his rope dart wrapped around his arm,his shield was in both hands as if he were going to use it to stab the lion. At this same instance he used magic on it to make it larger and sharper.

To no avail though, the mountain lion had seen him and moved. When he landed Sai already pulled his shield up ready for an attack. The lion was going to give it to him.

Sai smacked away a claw, leaving the lion’s rib cage open but also exposing himself. This was a lesson he would soon regret. The lion was much faster than him. It recovered in a moment. Sai however was still very exposed.

Four massive claws tore deep into Silent’s chest. He would soon lose a lot of blood. Sai was scared, he chose the shield because he knew that it would help protect him and those he cared about. This time though he learned that speed was also extremely important, and that a shield only works when it is facing an attacker.

Sai had heard of a spell however that was meant to heal small wounds, but he couldn't remember it. He did remember however that if you pack dirt into a wound it would stop the bleeding. So at that moment, adrenaline pumping into his veins he willed the earth magic to create a small and tightly packed clot of mud to be shoved into his chest.

The lion brought his paw up once more to strike. This time Silent knew what to do, he let the claws get just in range of the shield and twisted. The edge of the shield cut at the beats foot pad and caused it to be more weary.

It got into a low stance, and swiped arty Silent’s ankle. This time Sai shoved the shield deep into the ground, slicing directly into the lion’s claws and making it impossible to move. Sai then thought of a way, the best way to defeat this lion. He drew back and whipped his rope dart around in an arking fashion. Right at the point where it hit the lion’s spine there was an explosion.

Sai theorized that he could instead of merely throwing the blade with due on it and just cauterizing the wound as it entered, he could detonate the point of impact.

A large and deep hole appeared in the overgrown cat's back, nearly removing it's shoulder in the leg that wasn't stuck. The lion roared painfully, sounding similar to a woman’s scream when it lost use of both of its front legs, one trapped, one nearly removed. The lion was almost literally on its last leg.

Sai didn't stop there though, after he destroyed his own weapon in this fight to the death, he reached into his bag and pulled out a throwing knife. He flicked his wrist and at the same time extended the knife with earth magic, it didn't have time to even turn when it embedded deep into the lion’s eye. Splitting it's retina in two and cutting into the lion’s cerebellum.

The lion was inches from death when Sai yanked his most powerful weapon out from the ground and used wind magic to push the back of the shield, allowing it to move faster than he could with merely his own strength. He bashed the butt of the knife as hard as possible into the skull of the lion. Sai had won his fight by severing the right hemisphere of the Lions brain into a top and bottom.

This life and death experience had never been known before by Sai. He had never been in a true fight besides the sparring session the day prior with his father. He ripped his throwing knife out of the mountain lion’s limp face. There was plenty of brain matter and blood on the knife, but as it was mostly magically created Sai shrink the knife down to normal size and flung the bits of tissue away.

Sai had experienced a grand battle already today and the sun had not even reached an apex. The second moon was nearly finished falling in the corner of the sky and Sai had just started a fire in the woods behind his house. He created a small grill to sit over the fire and began to skin the lion. While doing the tedious job of skinning and quartering his kill he reminisced on his battle.

Though he lost his second favorite weapon, Sai had learned several lessons and a new way of using weapons in order to win fights. Spontaneous explosions on contact. He just needed a way to use this without going through a new weapon every single time he hit an opponent.

He finally placed the hind quarter of the beast on the grill and had begun to use his throwing knives again for practice while his very stringy and gamey breakfast cooked.

Sai first threw one of his knives and used wind magic to make it faster, this had little effect other than helping with accuracy though by removing crosswinds. He then threw his knife with earth magic, expanding it as soon as it left his hand. This again showed to be very heavy and off balance, but he had compensated for that, so he still struck his target.

Finally he threw a knife that he made through earth magic, as soon as its tip scratched the tree, it exploded with the same power that destroyed the lion’s leg. A swift whoosh went right by Silent’s ear and a thud could be heard behind him.

The knife exploded off of the tree and shot back at Sai, narrowly missing him. Sai had one final idea seeing that. He grabbed a new blade and used all of his magic at once.

His first time using a combination spell, Sai was unsure how much energy it would take. He prepared to throw his knife and used a wind magic on it to perfect its accuracy, a earth spell on it for when it left his fingertip, and an explosive spell for when it just left his touch it would explode out with extreme shouted and energy.

The result was beautiful. The knife that originally weighed no more than two pounds grew to the size of a javelin and weighed nearly ten pounds. It also struck faster than Silent could blink. Directly where Silent was aiming there was a hole in a medium sized tree. This hole was still smoking when Sai went up to check his handiwork.

Sai had noticed that he not only put a perfect hole through this tree, but embedded his massive knife into the tree behind it. He walked the short way to the blade and inspected it. There was nearly no damage on it since he had used earth magic to protect the blade. If he had known about this great combination he would have been able to kill the lion with just a flick of his wrist. Sai had to try one last thing before he ate his roasted mountain lion.

Sai lifted up his shield and swung it with the help of wind magic into the tree, at the end of his swing the shield had grown far heavier and larger. He used his fire magic once more at the end of his swing. The shield exploded right at the edge. There was no damage to the shield itself, there was even very little damage to the earth magic, but the tree had a gaping hole in the side. It looked as if a giant took a bite out of it. Sai moved slightly away from the tree as it fell down. He was happy. In under a single day he had begun to master combination spells and shield arts together. Though he was not too happy about having to look for another rope dart, he was excited.

After choking down his terribly crafted breakfast Sai went back to the place he had promised the Quartermaster he would go. After a long walk he opened blade filled satchel, Sai added a new rope dart to his arsenal as well as a spear. The spear was to appease his father, but the rope dart was something he needed to find a good combination of magic and might with still.

Sai entered the training room, headed to the spot he was at the previous day and began training. The quartermaster watched as Sai began to throw his throwing knife from further and further away until he couldn't actually put enough force behind it to hit the target. Sai had discovered that not only could he hit the target without missing, but he could do it from twice the distance as before without missing, and at three times the distance with only missing once. Sai was a natural at throwing a blade.

“Stop,” the Quartermaster said, not reprimanding Sai nor praising him. “Now use your rope dart.” Sai did as he was asked, he was able to do the same as before, not miss any target for most of the length of the rope dart. “Good, now it is time to learn something new.”

Sai watched as the Quartermaster took out his own rope dart and flung it towards a target, after sinking into it he pulled the rope hard and the knife flew out towards the dummy behind him as well. “Woah,” Sai exclaimed after seeing his second favorite weapon used in a way he had never imagined.

This helped me theorize a great way to use my weapon, a way that would allow it to use magic at the same time as Sai used it. Silent grabbed his new rope dart that looked the exact same as his old one and threw it. He used earth magic at the same time and it expanded. At the point where it was nearly going to hit, a small explosion occurred under the magically crafted stone. A small spear ejected from the original blade and glided through the dummy leaving a large and gaping cut in it. Meanwhile the blade itself flew backwards, no damage could be seen on it. As it raced toward the exact place Sai had planned for it to be embedded it grew once. It stuck itself firmly into the dummy.

Silent yanked quickly on the rope and while it was gliding back he spun his arm in a small circle, wrapping the rope dart around his arm. A large grin covered his face while a big “O” could be seen on the Quartermaster’s. Silent’s rate of improvement was unbelievable. In under a day he made a weapon he couldn't even use do something that the Quartermaster of his tribe didn't expect was possible.

Sai spent the majority of the next few hours with the Quartermaster learning new techniques and then improving on them with magic. The sun had reached and passed its apex during Sai’s training. Sai had one final thing to do before he would go home today though, so after bidding farewell to the village's Quartermaster, he went to the topmost floor and knocked.