Ludger exhaled slowly as another match ended with one of the finalists being thrown into the snow hard enough to make the people near him wince in approval.
Still, while he watched the tournament unfold, Ludger’s gaze kept drifting through the crowd.
He had expected someone. Actually, two someones.
His Auramancer and Monk masters should have been there by now. Valk and Herack.
If nothing else, they should have appeared at least once after hearing that he had turned weekly northern challenges into a regular event with prize money attached. It was exactly the kind of reckless, body-breaking nonsense that tended to attract their attention, especially if it produced results.
The Auramancer master would probably mock him first and then start commenting on how his presence, pressure, and body rhythm were changing under sustained combat strain.
The Monk master, on the other hand, would likely pretend to be disappointed while secretly approving of the discipline hidden beneath the stupidity.
Or maybe openly call it stupid and approve anyway. Either way, Ludger had expected them to show up. But they hadn’t. Not the first week. Not the second. Not now either. He frowned slightly. That was strange.
Those two rarely stayed away from useful training for long, especially when it involved him bludgeoning himself into growth. They were the sort of people who appeared whenever progress was being made, either to guide it, criticize it, or somehow do both at the same time.
Yet neither of them was around. No distant stare from the shadows. No sarcastic comment. No sudden correction aimed at his stance. Nothing. Ludger glanced once more across the gathered crowd, over fur cloaks, broad shoulders, raised mugs, and blood-warmed snow.
Still nothing.
His frown deepened by a fraction. That absence annoyed him more than he expected. Not because he needed them there. He didn’t. But because both of them disappearing at the same time usually meant one of two things. Either they were busy with something genuinely important… Or they were doing something that would become his problem later. Given his life so far, Ludger was not optimistic about which option it would be.
A roar from the ring pulled his attention back in time to see the finalists square off, both of them breathing hard, faces bruised, and eyes sharp with the ugly kind of excitement men got when money, pride, and violence all pointed in the same direction.
Ludger’s mouth curved faintly. Whatever his absent masters were doing, that could wait for a bit. For now, he had a fight to get through.
And somewhere in front of him, one unlucky northerner was about to win the right to try taking one hundred diamond coins from his pocket, and fail.
After the third week of turning the northerners into a weekly problem, Ludger returned home with sore arms and a mood that sat somewhere between satisfied and irritated.
Satisfied, because the event was working. Irritated, because it was working for both sides. The northerners were getting better.
That was the point, obviously. He had wanted to sharpen them. He had wanted stronger challengers, better pressure, less sloppy aggression and more actual thought behind what they were doing.
Apparently, they had taken that personally.
At first, most of them had fought him the same way they fought everything else, like angry avalanches with fists. Hard to stop, easy to respect, and not particularly complicated once the initial impact passed.
Now, though? Now they were thinking. Not elegantly. Not like tacticians around a polished table with maps and little carved pieces. No, this was something worse. It was like watching sharks discover strategy. Simple minds, direct intentions, and absolutely no shame in using the most efficient path toward tearing into their prey.
They baited reactions now. They tested his guard before committing.
Some of them deliberately burned stamina early in the tournament matches just to lull him into expecting a worse pace in the main challenge. Others began switching rhythms in the middle of exchanges, turning what used to be straightforward brawls into ugly, sharp little puzzles full of feints, shoulder pressure, dirty angle shifts, and coordinated crowd advice shouted from the edges.
One bastard had even started sacrificing his left side during the early part of the fight because he knew Ludger preferred punishing predictable habits. Then, once Ludger committed to exploiting it, the man had used that expectation to force a brutal clinch and nearly taken his balance cleanly.
Ludger had won anyway. Obviously. But the fact that it had worked at all was enough to annoy him into remembering the man’s face. His arms ached as he walked through Lionfang.
Not badly.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Just enough to remind him that trading bare-handed violence with oversized northerners for hours on end was, in fact, not ideal recovery practice.
The soreness rolled through his shoulders and forearms in slow pulses. His knuckles were fine this time, mostly. His breathing had stabilized before he even left the camp. A few of the northerners had yelled after him as usual, making threats, demanding rematches, or boasting that next week they would finally take his coin.
Ludger had insulted three of them on the way out just to keep morale high. Then he stepped into the guild grounds and forgot about all of that almost immediately. Something was off. His eyes shifted toward the training grounds.
Tali was there. Alone. That by itself was strange enough to catch his attention. Usually, she was surrounded by people.
Either stuck dealing with the other Viola fanatics, idiots who somehow managed to combine worship, competitiveness, and stupidity into a single personality trait, or teaching fundamentals to the trainees. She had a way of drilling basics into people that was much more patient than Ludger’s, which meant the guild used her for that often.
But today the grounds were mostly empty.
The trainees must have finished early.
The late afternoon light spread across the yard in pale bands, reflecting softly off scuffed practice weapons, footprints, and the packed dirt worn down by months of training. Tali stood near the center of it, moving through a pattern with her halberd.
Ludger slowed. Then stopped. At first, he simply watched. Her footwork was good. Better than good, actually.
It had improved a lot over the past few months. Cleaner transitions. Less wasted motion in her hips and shoulders. Better control over distance. Her spins were tighter too, not the flashy sort beginners used when they wanted to look impressive, but sharp rotational movements meant to carry force efficiently into the next strike.
The halberd swept in a broad arc.
She stepped through, pivoted, dragged the rear end of the shaft low, and then reversed the motion into an upward cut that would have opened a man from hip to shoulder.
Smooth. Fast. Controlled. That alone would have been enough for Ludger to pause and reassess her progress. But that was not what made him frown.
It was the wind.
A short burst of air snapped outward as the blade cut through space. Not natural displacement. Not just the movement of the weapon. An actual burst. Small, but real.
The next swing came faster, and a sharper ripple of wind peeled off the edge of the halberd and carved across the yard before fading.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed. Tali planted her rear foot, turned her waist, and thrust.
Air compressed around the weaponhead for the briefest instant, then discharged forward in a tight blast that kicked dust and grit several meters away.
That wasn’t a trick of speed. That wasn’t accidental. And it definitely wasn’t something Ludger had taught her. He said nothing. Just watched as she continued.
Another spin.
Another slash.
Wind curled around the halberd’s edge in uneven but increasingly deliberate streaks, sometimes wrapping around her movement, other times firing outward through the path of the blade like a half-formed attack looking for a real shape. It lacked polish. The control wasn’t complete. A few bursts scattered too early, while others bled away before reaching meaningful distance.
But it was there.
And more importantly, it was integrated into her technique badly enough to suggest she was still figuring it out, but well enough to prove this was not the first day.
Ludger’s frown deepened. No one in the guild could do that. Not like this. They had people who could manipulate mana. People who could reinforce the body. People who knew enough runes, affinities, and class-based tricks to build useful combinations.
This was something else.
This looked like a weapon skill merging with wind-attuned output in a way none of their normal instruction paths covered. Which meant one of three things. She had awakened it naturally. Someone in the guild had taught her. Or she had stumbled into a method she herself didn’t fully understand yet.
Tali spun once more, the butt of the halberd striking the ground lightly as she killed the momentum and shifted into another stance. Her breathing was heavier now, but controlled. A loose strand of hair clung to her cheek. The air around the blade gave one more low hiss as the last thread of gathered wind unraveled and vanished.
Then she noticed him. Her body stiffened almost imperceptibly. Not enough for most people to see. More than enough for Ludger. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Ludger’s gaze stayed on the halberd.
Then on the space in front of it where the last burst had faded. Finally, he looked at her face.
“That,” he said evenly, “isn’t from our training.”
Tali tightened her grip on the shaft. The movement was small, but it said enough. The weapon settled in her grip as she exhaled, chest rising and falling a little faster from the effort. Sweat glistened along her forehead and near her neck. She lifted one arm and brushed it away with the back of her wrist before finally noticing Ludger properly.
Her eyes lit up a little. Then a proud smile spread across her face. Not smug. Just openly pleased at having been seen. Ludger glanced once more at the halberd, then at the stretch of disturbed dust where the last burst of wind had passed.
“Did Renvar teach you how to move like that?” he asked.
Tali’s smile widened. “Yeah.”
She shifted the halberd onto one shoulder, still breathing lightly from training.
“Him, and my sister too,” she said. “Kaela’s always been good with wind magic, so she helped me with a few things.”
Ludger gave a small nod and brought a hand to his chin, thinking. That explained some of it.
Renvar could absolutely have shaped the movement side of things. The man had enough control and combat understanding to turn footwork into something irritatingly elegant. And if Kaela had helped with the wind magic part, then this strange mix made a lot more sense.
He watched her stance again. Not the exact posture this time, but the intention behind it.
Then he asked, “Are you trying to develop your own fighting style, or have those two just been bothering you until something useful happened?”
Tali let out a short laugh.
“They just gave me some points,” she said. “Mostly they kept correcting me whenever I did something stupid.”
“That sounds like bothering you.”
“It kind of was.”
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