The next couple of days went by in a blur for Alchred, as he continued training with Herbeorht. Every morning he would meet with Herbeorht and he would begin training. Training consisted of running laps, toning his muscles, learning new stances/slashes and the most painful of them all sparring with Herbeorht.
No matter how much Alchred improved, the martial prowess and overwhelming speed and strength difference that Herbeorht possessed over Alchred made it impossible for him to even land a hit on his teacher. Ever since Herbeorht saved Alchred's life and showed him a glimpse of his powers, Alchred saw his teacher in a new light. He respected Herbeohrt and saw what strength was really like.
Although Alchred grew up in a town like Cawic where skirmishes vs monsters were common, he would usually pay it no attention. The most magic he ever really saw was the ember tier villagers use magic to make their daily tasks easier. But after seeing Herbeorht use his magic and eliminate an iron tier monster in one strike, he understood how powerful magic really was.
Right now, Alchred was fighting an enchanted dummy that attempted to block his attack and would counterattack. Alchred was going through his routine of attacking it and parrying its attack. Sometimes when he saw the opportunity after dodging a particularly heavy attack, he was able to hit the dummy twice. He would do this until his arms could not keep up with his mind anymore and take a short break and receive feedback. Although this training dummy was better than the inanimate one, it was not as useful as sparring Herbeohrt. Swordsmanship had a lot to do with movement and the feet. Your stance was key, but also how you positioned yourself relative to the opponent. Fighting a dummy did not allow that aspect of combat to be explored.
However, Alchred's body could not keep up with sparring with Herbeohrt constantly, so that was saved until the last part of the day.
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After 2 weeks of training, only swordsmanship, Herbeohrt started teaching him other skills. It started with basic information about monsters and common weaknesses. For example, the large wolf creature that was common in the copper forest has a kink in its skull which allows blades to penetrate through more easily. That weakness was exploited by Herbeohrt, and therefore he was easily able to dispatch the monster.
But learning only about monsters was not the only thing that Alchred had to learn. Herbeohrt was teaching him how to forage and make camps, all things that Herbeohrt learnt in the military to survive.
Eventually, Alchred started feeling like he was going through the militaries standardized training with the way that Herbeohrt droned on about how to make different shelters for different environments. What to look out for depending on the region. And as Alchred grew bored he would start zoning out and not hearing a thing Herbeohrt would say, and when Herbeohrt caught on he would make Alchred run laps. But Alchred no longer hated running laps, he found them much easier to do as his strength and stamina increased due to the intense training.
One thing that Alchred found interesting though was the craftsmanship of weapons such as swords and bows. Although Herbeohrt wasn't very knowledgeable in this field, he still imparted some knowledge on Alchred. Alchred found weapon-smithing very interesting, as there were so many different aspects one can change to receive a varying range of results. Depending on the task and person, the perfect weapon differed. Having the power to always have the perfect weapon seemed so fascinating to Alchred. So when Herbeohrt talked about weapon-smithing which was not often Alchred would give him his undivided attention.
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After another week of training, Alchred started feeling more comfortable with the classic shortsword that his wooden sword was modeled after. This prompted Herbeohrt to start teaching him how to use different styles of blades such as longswords, jians and sabers. Alchred took a liking towards the Jian due to it being almost a middle ground between a long sword and a short sword. Allowing him to reach his enemies while not putting his body in too much risk, but still having the agility to swing freely.
He also started learning how to fight from range using bows, however this was a very weak aspect of his combat so far. Herbeohrt had set up a target for him to hit, however Alchred had yet to manage to hit the target using his bow. Something about archery didn't click in his head, no matter how much he adjusted to try and get it too work, he could not grasp the core of archery. But he would keep practicing, as archery was the most effective way of taking down an enemy without putting one's own body at risk.
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A couple of days later a soldier from the garrison came running to Herbeohrt's hut where Alchred was practicing some simple slashes against the training dummy.
"Alchred your father returned from his trip, he has asked me to come bring you to him." said the soldier Alchred recognized as Holiam a shieldbearer of the ember tier. He often worked as an enforcer within the village, ensuring that there is no crime, rather than actually being at the garrison fighting monsters.
Finally, Alchred's dad had come back from Minas Tula, Alchred excused himself from his lesson and walked with Holiam back towards the village.