Shattered Sanity

A couple of days before the Moon Goddess Festival, Garron finally decided it was time to take the recruits’ training up another level, as after weeks spent strengthening their bodies, circulating Aether, and learning how to replenish their reserves, he felt that most of them had developed enough control to begin learning the basics of practical combat.

"Alright, gather around. Today we’re going to learn something new."

He began as he clapped his hands and garnered the attention of all recruits.

"For the past several weeks I’ve been teaching you how to strengthen your bodies and control your Aether.

However, strength by itself is useless.

A strong man who doesn’t know how to fight is still just a corpse waiting for the right moment to die.

So today, I’m going to demonstrate the basics of practical combat, so that should any of you ever find yourselves facing a dangerous beast, a raider, or some other fool who wants to put a blade through your chest, you’ll at least have a chance of protecting yourselves."

Garron explained, as the recruits immediately gathered around him while exchanging excited looks, because for children who had spent weeks punching wooden dummies and running endless laps, the prospect of finally learning real combat sounded far more exciting than another lecture on meditation.

Meanwhile, Garron casually approached one of the practice dummies before picking up a short wooden sword resting nearby, as instead of immediately demonstrating some impressive technique, he slowly placed the tip of the weapon against the dummy and began tracing shallow lines across its surface.

"At its core, using a weapon is simple.

You keep the pointy end pointed away from yourself and toward your enemy.

Once you’ve got that figured out, the next step is to learn your range.

You learn exactly how far you can extend your body without overcommitting, because too little reach and you miss your target, while too much reach and you’ve just invited someone to split your skull open."

He explained, as the recruits gulped nervously at those words.

"Once you’ve figured out your range, the final step is Aether.

You draw it from your Soul Vessel, guide it through your body, through your arm, and finally into the weapon itself, in a way where your thrust aligns perfectly with the pulse of Aether shooting out of your body.... Because, if the Aether reaches the weapon too early, you’ve wasted energy.... while if it arrives too late, you’ve wasted the strike, as the goal is to make both happen at exactly the same moment."

Garron continued, as while most of the recruits understood the words individually, very few could truly picture what he meant.

Fortunately, Garron had no intention of leaving them to imagine it.

As after settling into a proper stance, he slowly lowered his center of gravity before starting to gather Aether in his core.

Then, without any warning whatsoever, he thrust.

The movement happened so quickly that many recruits barely saw it.

One moment the sword was in Garron’s hand.

The next it had already pierced through the center of the practice dummy.

And then—

BOOM!

The entire dummy exploded apart.

Wooden fragments scattered across the training grounds while splinters flew through the air in every direction, causing several recruits to instinctively stumble backward as shocked gasps spread throughout the crowd.

Even those who had already witnessed Garron’s strength during training found themselves staring in disbelief at the destruction.

After all, that had not been a steel spear or a warhammer.

It had not even been a real sword, yet the dummy looked as though it had been struck by a charging beast.

"You lot won’t have enough Aether to replicate something like that for a very long time," Garron said, as he casually pulled the wooden sword free from the remains of the shattered dummy.

"However, the first half of what I demonstrated is something every single one of you can learn.

With enough control and enough repetition, all of you can eventually drive a wooden sword through one of these dummies.

However, whether that takes weeks, months, or years for you to learn is another matter entirely."

He added, as he turned around and dragged forward a large sack that had been resting nearby before dumping its contents onto the ground.

Dozens of wooden swords spilled out immediately, with the effect that they had on the recruits being instantaneous, as excitement immediately swept through the training grounds as children surged forward to collect a weapon for themselves, with even some of the quieter recruits struggling to hide their enthusiasm while wrapping their fingers around a sword for the first time.

For many of them, this was the closest they had ever come to holding a real weapon, which was why they grinned like fools while holding it.

"You can calm yourselves down, these swords are yours to care for and take home.

I won’t take them back from you ever again."

Garron muttered, as he watched several children immediately starting to swing their swords through the air like idiots.

"Today we won’t be practicing meditation either.

So your only objective is to learn how to pierce one of these dummies cleanly."

He added, as he assured the recruits that this was their only task for today and that they could focus on it fully.

As with that, the children quickly dispersed throughout the training grounds and began practicing on the nearby dummies, eager to replicate the feat Garron had demonstrated moments earlier.

However, they soon discovered that coordinating their stance, weapon, timing, and Aether simultaneously was far more difficult than it appeared, as throughout the remainder of the day, the training grounds became filled with the sounds of failed thrusts, frustrated grunts, and repeated attempts.

And as Garron observed their struggles from a distance, he found himself entirely unsurprised.

After all, he estimated that even the most talented recruits would require weeks before successfully reproducing the first stage of what he had demonstrated today, while for the average child, reaching that level before attaining Ember Rank would already be considered a respectable achievement.