In the half-hour since entering the dungeon, a bunch had happened. He had gained almost fifteen percent experience; this growth compared to the first apparition was no doubt due to the fact that the monsters grew stronger as he trained against them. He had also, and that was the most surprising thing, leveled up Mosquito. Just once, but the intense focus on using knives only must have had a certain effect on previously known stances and combat forms.

At least that was Kent’s understanding of how katas worked.

It had also become more apparent how his Daggers kata was supposed to be used. It didn’t teach combat forms that were good against monsters – well it did – but they really came to show their cards when fighting against other weapon wielders. Mosquito turned out to be a combat style that was concentrated on redirecting other weapons with few actual offensive movements. With those insides he would certainly have to reevaluate what he had learned thus far and re-familiarize himself with the old and new ideas the kata was throwing at the back of his mind.

Agatha, who mostly stood back and juggled with her daggers, explained purely focusing on working with a single weapon and using taught movements in new ways were the two most common ways of advancing a kata. Learning new combat forms that were unlocked with each rank gave you a certain amount of experience in that skill. But compared to using them, executing them well, and trying out new things with them it was a poor way of advancing skills. It also meant that katas could advance faster the higher their rank was as you had more areas to improve in.

The interesting aspect of fighting here however wasn’t that. Instead, Kent was forced to reduce the count of movement patterns he was willing to show the apparitions. Furthermore, and most likely the most significant advantage was that he was seeing them use maneuvers he had thought to be purely offensive as defensive stances. He was also able to evaluate his movements from the outside more effectively than when he was doing them himself.

Agatha’s had hinted at such benefits a few times and Kent concurred. He himself hadn’t known much about katas, given that his family had always been fairly involved with pure nature magic there wasn’t much that would require a kata – at least not in the foundational and core tiers. He had also never thought to seek anyone out about more knowledge given that he didn’t plan on ever taking one.

As time went on it turned out that Kent in fact wasn’t able to level in here. He gained experience but the speed of that reduced drastically with each encounter. That the monsters were a higher level than him was only a small problem initially. While it seemed that since the monsters didn’t gain much physical might nor abilities as time went on, the gap in strength and speed between them was non-existant after about five encounters and after about eight they had eclipsed him. Even worse was that different apparaitions seemed to remember fights and and were prepared for previously used attack patterns. Kent suspected that it was a sort of collective memory through which they were able to anticipate him more and more as they fought. At the tenth encounter he was just barely winning. At the twelfth, he had to give up and ask for Estes's help.

That had been a bit embarrassing. While the apparition hadn’t been able to harm him, he hadn’t been able to harm it in return. But apparent to all that was only a matter of time.

With each new dodge and counter, the monster gained on him.

“That wasn’t shabby whatsoever,” Estes clapped after rescuing Kent. “I’m certain that you’d have even been able to clear even the Lady Consilium’s test. Usually, it is required to pass eight apparitions without being injured to be considered a potential member. Ten to certainly be considered as a future apprentice when the other stuff checks out. Though with Consilium you never know.”

“Yes,” Agatha agreed. “The rest remains of course training but with better pacing, I can see you getting to potentially fifteen. I myself am able to get to about twenty-five apparitions and I think much the same holds true for Estes. At some point it also becomes about how much variation you can offer, and you are certainly at a disadvantage here.”

She paused scratching her head. Neither of the men interrupted her, Kent simply because he didn’t know what to say. He was frankly a bit surprised by the praise but also knew how he had been able to get this far. It was purely because Mosquito had helped him in unexpected ways. Showing him certain unexplored options at opportune moments based on observation of his enemy’s movements previously. The advance in rank had played a minor role as well.

Agatha took one last deep breath and continued.

“I’m willing to train you a bit, today and in a couple of days. My style doesn’t mash well with others and my trait lends itself to using concoctions on my blades. My kata is thus focused on delivering those so you might not get much from that. But honestly, I’m bored out of my mind.”

“But,” she turned to Estes. “That’ll get rid of the small favor, alright?”

“I wouldn’t say no,” Estes shrugged his shoulders, “but you’d have to ask my aunt about it.”

“You think Stephanie would agree?”

And then something clicked in Kent’s head. Was the receptionist Stephanie Estes’ aunt?

Kent had been frequently worried about how much Estes was paying for the crawling ever since the receptionist had mentioned the mana prices, though if they were related, Estes might have been unintentionally pulling Kent’s leg.

“Pretty sure, I can ask her if you want to,” Estes asked. Kent thought this a perfect opportunity to interrupt the conversation and satiate his curiosity.

“Estes, how much are you paying for me to be able to train here?”

“Well,” he grinned mischievously. “So, you did catch that. Here I was going to have this whole speech how you are in my debt. Can’t really lie to you now that you are asking,” he grinned mischievously. “I gotta make dinner for my aunt once.”

Kent looked at the other man unamused. Regardless of how much the man was helping him, he could have at least informed Kent about that, though he could have also asked. Maybe he should work on his communication skills a bit.

“Yeah, yeah fine,” Estes raised his hands defensively, a completely needless gesture because there wasn’t anything Kent could do to the other man. “Honestly, I’m mainly helping you out because I’m bored now that many of my friends aren’t here. And I thought maybe not knowing how little was at stake here would motivate you a bit.”

Kent really didn’t need another source of motivation or pressure, so he was fairly relieved to not be too much in depth to Estes.

“But I’m counting on you to stick with the work crew for at least a week so I can get wasted a few times in the evenings. Showing up to the pubs at two in the morning after a turrl bite is just no fun.”

Which resulted in a collective sigh from the other two.

“Alright,” Agatha changed the topic, visibly exasperated. “Estes silliness aside, try to copy what I’m doing. We will start slowly and once I think you have a feel for a few of my movements we will face off against each other.”

She took another pause. Squared herself off against Kent and motioned him to copy her.

His heartbeat had just barely calmed down again when he began copying her position. She looked contemplative so he didn’t dare interrupt here. After some observation it wasn’t clear to him, whether he should copy her style and posture, or use combine it with his own Mosquito. Her’s looked a lot nimbler than his in any case, even her slow movements were occasionally fast than what he could manage. She stood more like a runner ready to bolt rather than him who was mimicking the style of a dual wielding swordsman, bracing himself for the charge of his opponents.

“Let me show you how a bee stings.”

At first Kent wanted to laugh at the awkwardness of the phrase Agatha had used until he realized that her kata name might really be called something of the sort.

Estes laughter in the background confirmed as much. “I didn’t know you had a stinger, Agatha.”

They ignored him. Kent because he was genuinely worried that Agatha might stab him based on her facial expression. Agatha because she clearly wasn’t amused.

After several exchanges Kent would describe bee stings as fast and painful. Clearly on another level to what Estes could deliver. The man was fast and powerful, there was little question about it, but when you compared the two, Agatha clearly won out. In fact, Kent would go as far as saying that Estes would loose one hundred out of one hundred fights against the woman simply due to her ridiculous advantage in speed.

It wasn’t quite double, but close.

That meant as soon as Kent didn’t completely pay attention to her, he had basically zero chances of actually following her with his eyes. Which – given that it was the goal – made the entire exercise a bit of a tiring chore. After some time – hours it felt like –, Agatha claimed he should have been able to follow her motions enough to replicate some of her moves.

That didn’t work out very well. At least initially. She performed some of the base stances and moves again for him and this time he had much better chances of reproducing the new movements.

If he would use Accelerate Metal he though there might be a chance of him copying the one way attacks rather well if at a slower speed. But then he would have to work with the dagger being accelerated away from him for the remainder of the second.

And oddly enough, training and fusing their kata’s brought his own kata another hefty amount of experience.

But Kent could also fairly early on tell that this style was even less made for him. He just wasn’t able to gather the same amount of speed Agatha did. If he were to bet, her trait worked was heavily built upon agility, and with zero stat gain there we wouldn’t be able to replicate her.

They stopped eventually, Kent’s stamina was approaching a point which he’d rather not be at and they decided the leave the dungeon. Supposedly it wouldn’t hold much longer anyway.

Outside Agatha reached back and pulled a knife from somewhere, handed it to Kent and walked out of the room. She turned around gave a lazy wave before speaking one last time.

“See you here in two days.”

And she was off.

Which apparently raised Estes mood by a few notches as he slapped Kent on the back, motioned him to walk, and began talking.

“You made a good impression, kid. Eleven apparitions defeated is pretty good. You’ve got a long way to go though. We had a level twenty kid a couple years ago join that managed to get to twenty apparitions without using her trait. So, you’ve still got a bit to go, don’t get overconfident.”

Don’t I know it. He sighed.

Paying only superfluous attention to Estes he considered his next steps in regards to the conquerors. He really wanted to stay further away, especially after some of the comments Agatha and Estes had made about joining the organization. Screening and evaluation were supposedly a huge part to determine someone was not a foreign agent.

Though on the other hand he would basically have to join the conquerors now, didn’t he? He needed to figure out how other skills worked in scenarios that resembled the Crawling. Maybe that wouldn’t be ideal in the long run if they gained a record of his capabilities, but it was an excellent training opportunity to boot.

“Don’t look so glum, didn’t you have fun?” Estes elbowed him in his side a bit too strongly. “And hey, with a new knife you might just make a better job tomorrow. Don’t worry, we’ll see about a smith still being open and see what you might want to work towards. Oh right, I almost forgot. You wanted to see the institute, right? We can make a detour to check it out.”

They left the room, hall, and building. Just pausing to bid goodbye to the receptionist – Estes aunt – and they were on their way further throughout the second district.

Kent was, to be honest still quite shock by some of the more impressive architectural decisions made all around him. Some of the houses had small towers protruding out towards the sky, but Kent couldn’t imagine their usage or even how people got up there. They looked rather pointless. One thing he was sure of though. They had previously walked through some of the less wealthy parts of the second district.

What he could appreciate though were small gardens all throughout the district. Some obviously belonging to houses, yet still showing off to passersby through wrought iron fencing. Others were of a more public nature with people wandering within, exchanging pleasantries, or enjoying each other’s company.

He saw several trees that looked like a mirror image of Blueleaf’s zone of civilization and if he had time in the near future, he would certainly check those out in greater detail. Some of the trees and shrubbery he saw where completely foreign but that wasn’t what confused him. There was no, not even a small bushel, plants that grew edible fruits he was familiar with. Maybe there were some he wasn’t familiar with, but it felt wrong. Plants weren’t supposed to be ornamental but nourishing.

Most people they came across barely paid them any attention, the odd kid out was apparently deeply impressed by Estes, who had not yet washed himself and still dressed in garment stained with monster blood. Their wide eyes left the man with a chuckle but barely phased him.

A common occurrence then.

Kent knew he saw the Royal institute when half a dozen spires rose behind a passed building. The yellow-white blocks of stone gave the old appearing building a more than just imposing look. It had an air of knowledge around him that was difficult to put in words, only dwarfed by the majesty of the building itself. He felt if he were to usher a single word of knowledge it would never get forgotten.

That was dangerous, because there was a lot of knowledge about him that he would rather not have anyone remember.

Treat carefully, he reminded himself as he walked up to the gate.