Chapter 1185: First Formal Classes
The morning had begun before sunrise, as most of Lucavion’s mornings did. He had spent the first hours conditioning, reviewing his footwork and repeating the basic movements that kept his body prepared for more demanding work. By the time the Academy’s preparatory bell sounded, the practice yard had filled with students beginning their own routines, and Lucavion had already reached the final sequence of his session.
—SWOOSH!
He shifted off the centre line as his estoc returned from a shallow cut, allowing the blade’s narrow point to pass beside an imaginary guard before his wrist turned and guided it forward again. Early sunlight crossed the reinforced practice yard in pale bands, glinting along the steel while distant impacts answered from the larger courts. Several students had begun their own routines nearby, and the grounds carried the scrape of boots, the dull collision of training weapons and the uneven breathing of bodies still adjusting to the morning.
Sweat darkened Lucavion’s training clothes and traced the side of his face, but his breathing remained controlled. He had already completed the conditioning and footwork that occupied most of his morning routine. His final sequence demanded precision rather than strain, so he moved through it without chasing speed or forcing tired muscles to prove something they had demonstrated often enough.
His front foot advanced.
The estoc followed through the opening in a thin, unwavering line. Lucavion allowed his weight to support the thrust without pouring the rest of his body behind it; his rear heel remained grounded, his hips retained room to turn, and the hand holding the weapon could still withdraw, redirect or drive forward if the imagined opponent changed.
The point stopped.
Lucavion drew the blade back along the same narrow path, straightened and released a measured breath. He could have continued, but the morning session had already prepared his body for the day. Additional effort would only make him attend his first lecture with tired legs and the questionable satisfaction of having defeated no one.
His Academy card pulsed against the edge of the yard as the preparatory bell sounded across the western grounds. Lucavion wiped the blade, sheathed it and returned to his residence while the students around him began ending their own routines.
Water and steam removed the sweat and dust in short order. The room’s proximity to the practice grounds allowed Lucavion to finish training, bathe and stand before his wardrobe without spending half the morning crossing the Academy. His uniform replaced the damp training clothes, and he fastened each piece before gathering the introductory text, writing materials and Academy card listed for the course.
Vitaliara watched from the window ledge while he secured his estoc at his waist.
[You are going to be taught how to use a sword.]
Lucavion placed the Academy card atop his materials. ’Apparently.’
[Try not to correct the instructor.]
He gathered everything into one hand and opened the door. ’I would never be so discourteous.’
Vitaliara’s stare followed him into the corridor with complete disbelief.
Armed students already filled the passage outside, their uniforms fresh and their course materials carried with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Lucavion joined the flow moving through the Martial residence, leaving his private training behind as the first formal bell drew them toward their lectures.
The stream divided as soon as Lucavion reached the western instructional grounds. Route markers shifted above each junction, displaying course assignments while students broke away toward separate buildings, and instructors crossed between the moving groups with attendance plates tucked beneath their arms. The Martial sector had spent the previous two days accommodating its residents; Thursday morning required it to sort them.
Lucavion’s route ended before a broad lecture hall whose reinforced doors and widened aisles allowed armed students to enter without turning every scabbard into an obstacle. Caeden waited near the threshold, studying the assortment of weapons passing inside.
"They placed all of these disciplines together," he said as Lucavion joined him.
"The Academy apparently wants us to understand one another before allowing us to disagree properly."
Caeden considered the explanation, found no immediate flaw worth pursuing and entered beside him.
The chamber combined tiered seating with an open demonstration floor below. Reinforced stone covered the lower section, while secured racks beside each row allowed students to keep larger weapons within reach without blocking the aisles. The students had already created their own order inside that arrangement. Spear users gathered near one side, several swordsmen occupied the central rows, and archers preferred seats that gave their weapons room. Household acquaintances formed smaller clusters within those divisions, proving that social familiarity could compete successfully with practical convenience.
Lucavion sat beside Caeden and secured his estoc near his leg. Familiar faces had distributed themselves throughout the chamber according to weapon and acquaintance. Jesse occupied one of the central rows beside Varen, their heavier swords secured within the same rack, while Rowen had chosen a position closer to the aisle.
Valeria sat nearer the demonstration floor. Her gaze found Lucavion while he was taking his seat, remained upon him for the briefest moment and then dropped to the introductory text she had already arranged squarely before her. She adjusted its position despite there being nothing visibly wrong with it.
Lucavion decided not to touch his cheek.
𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
The first bell spared both of them from testing whether that restraint would survive another conversation.
Arcten Valebran entered at the first bell.
Lucavion recognized him before the conversations around the chamber had fully faded.
The last time they had faced one another, Arcten had carried a weapon rather than an attendance plate. Lucavion remembered the measured pressure of that exchange more clearly than most of the weaponship examination: the instructor’s refusal to overcommit, the economy with which he closed openings and the speed with which he adjusted whenever Lucavion changed the terms of their engagement.
Evidently, the Academy had decided that the man who examined their weaponship should also explain what it was called.
Lucavion found the choice difficult to criticize. Skill did not necessarily make someone capable of teaching it, but Arcten had understood every movement occurring between them. Whether he could place that understanding into words remained to be seen.
The former battalion commander then crossed the demonstration floor without hurry, placed an attendance plate upon the lectern and faced the students with his shoulders squared and his weight evenly distributed. Arcten neither raised his voice nor released mana to demand attention. The students quieted because his timing and posture belonged to a man accustomed to speaking once.
After handling the required introduction in a few concise sentences, Arcten named the course Foundations of Martial Doctrine and turned toward the mixed collection of weapons before him.
"Every household, regiment and master has names for what they teach," he said. "Some of those names are useful. Others exist because an ancestor wanted his descendants to remember who invented them."
Several noble students shifted in their seats, and one swordsman’s fingers tightened around the crest fastened to his scabbard. Arcten allowed the restrained displeasure to pass without granting it further attention.
Students trained under incompatible traditions often understood the same movement through different language, while identical terms could describe actions that shared little beyond the name. The Academy could not compare those methods, assign mixed units or correct technical failures until its students possessed words whose meanings remained stable outside their own households.
Arcten gestured toward the demonstration floor. "Here, you will learn to describe what the body, weapon and mana are doing. Once you can do that, you may return to arguing over whose name deserves to be attached."
Lucavion rested one arm against the desk and focused fully upon the instructor. The course appeared less elementary than Vitaliara had predicted.
Arcten activated the projection behind him. Three translucent figures appeared across the floor, each poised to deliver an attack that looked almost identical.
"Tell me what separates them."
The three figures moved together.
Each advanced behind a straight thrust, and each finished with the weapon extended, the forward knee bent and the torso inclined just enough to carry force through the point. Viewed only at the end of the sequence, the attacks differed so little that an inexperienced observer might have treated them as imperfect copies of the same technique.
A student near Valeria identified two regional schools that favoured similar entries, then attributed the third movement to a household method whose name drew several murmurs of agreement.
Arcten accepted the answer with a slight inclination of his head. "You have identified who teaches movements resembling these. I asked what separates the movements themselves."
He reset the projections and reduced their speed.
The first figure advanced with its hips beneath the torso and its rear foot supporting the line of attack. The second drove harder from the ground, sending its weight across the forward leg as mana reinforced the thrust from shoulder to point. The third appeared to follow that deeper commitment: its upper body lengthened, its weapon accelerated and its front knee received the advance. Beneath the waist, however, mana remained wound through the rear leg, preserving force that the posture pretended to have spent.
"The second places more weight over the forward leg," Caeden said.
"It does." Arcten paused the figures at full extension. "What has it purchased with that weight?"
"Greater force and penetration."
"And what has it spent?"
Caeden studied the fixed posture before answering that the figure would require more effort to withdraw. Arcten accepted the consequence, then shifted his attention toward Lucavion.
During the weaponship examination, Arcten had hidden similar choices inside simpler movements, changing the danger without changing much of their outward shape. His gaze now rested upon Lucavion with the same measured expectation he had shown across their weapons.
"What has the third retained?"
Lucavion looked from the forward lean to the rear leg. He could feel the distinction without borrowing words for it. The first attacker could abandon the thrust as soon as resistance changed. The second had entrusted the attack with enough of its body that interruption would become costly. The third displayed the second attacker’s apparent vulnerability while preserving the means to turn, withdraw or strike again.
"The first can still leave," Lucavion said. "The second has chosen to arrive. The third wants its opponent to mistake one for the other."
Arcten released the projections and allowed all three figures to complete their movements. "The line remains similar. Their foundations, commitment and recovery do not."
He placed the four terms across the board, connecting each one to the corresponding distribution of weight and mana. Different masters might call the first movement restrained, cautious or incomplete; others might decorate the third with the name of an ancestor. The Academy’s vocabulary concerned the functions beneath those judgments.
Lucavion opened his introductory text and recorded the terms.
What could the Academy teach someone who had handled a blade across two lives?