Training in the Eldritch Path.

"He did what now? Let me see the token of the fool who thinks he can teach you better than your own father." Charles roared in rage after I told him about my registration and explained why I didn't come back on time.

The patriarch had remained quite throughout but he looked just as offended as my father. Our clan name is Kovar after all which means Smith. It can be seen as an insult for an outsider to try to teach our members about the art of blacksmithing.

Passing the token to my father his face immediately became white as a piece of paper before passing it quickly to the patriarch. "Is that the emblem I think it is?" asked Charles

Seeing my father's reaction the patriarch looked closely at the token in his hand before moving so fast I couldn't see him. The next moment he was in front of me asking how tall was the man who gave me the token was. Finding the question strange I still responded, "He was over nine feet tall possible nine and a half." Hearing that the clan patriarch grinned ear to ear before saying "That is Gronx the giant, the only tier 6 blacksmith in the whole marquisdom. From now on he will be your blacksmith master. As for inscriptions, you can still learn them from your father as he is a low level tier 5 inscriptionist his blacksmithing skills are only at tier 3 though so he could not become a higher tier runemaster."

I looked to my father to see if he agreed to which he quickly nodded.

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It has been two years know and I have become a tier one runemaster. I'm nearly breaking through but I cannot right more than one rune without running out of mana.

I have begun to walk the path of the eldritch knight. I am a 7th level neophyte and a 8th level apprentice knight. I have finished my training in both the saber and the staff. The patriarch said his friend Sam will be here later today to begin my training in the glaive. He also warned me that he was a barbarian and was a little eccentric in his training methods. He only had one other disciple who was an elf but she wouldn't be coming this time as she was participating in a war against one of the minor rifts.

I was told this would be a very painful training but that it would be up to me how much I gained from it.

All of a sudden i hear a roar from behind me. turning around I see a mountain of a man charging at me with a huge glaive in his hand. I quickly cast lightning steps on my feet and cover my glaive in flames. I haven't been trained in the glaive yet but most staff techniques and saber techniques can be executed with the glaive using a little ingenuity.

Rushing to face him head on as I'm confident in my strength and my magic, I also noticed no energy movements from him so he just used freshly power. I swing my glaive in a horizontal slash aimed to drop him so i can knock him out.

Seeing me attack back the man roared again and swing his weapon at mine. I had time for one thought as soon as our weapons touched, "OH SHIT!" , before I got blasted into the wall behind me. I heard a few bones crack as I hit but I stilled crawled up to try to defend myself or look for an opportunity to run.

All of a sudden I heard a deep belly laugh and looking over I saw my "enemy" on the ground rolling from laughter. The next second I felt a breeze beside me before hearing, " Sigh.... well I did warn you he was eccentric he loves to fight more than most barbarians even . I would have warned you about his plained greeting but he only agreed to teach if I let him surprise you. "

" Hey Old Partidge, how you been, lets fight." The barbarian jumped up with an excited grin.

"IT IS PATRIARCH NOT PARTRIDGE YOU F*CKING IDIOT" shouted Patriarch Michael.

" Hehe, who cares a ruler should just be called chief not all those bird names. Anyway let us fight. "said the mountain of a man with a bashful face.

I look at my patriarch and he looks somewhat scared so I try to comfort him a little, " It will be ok, even if you lose it won't hurt to bad". Hearing me the patriarch looked at me like I was a fool before saying," Lose? I am two tiers higher than this buffon I will definitely win. The problem is i can't directly knock him out so he will go berserk when he gets angry then injure me right before fainting. And worse still I will have to go through this everyday he is here as he loves fighting against people he cannot beat." Patriarch Michael looks like he is about to cry by the end of this, so i wisely remain silent.

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The next morning I woke up and went to the traing yard. Apparently the patriarch was right and the barbarian fought until he fainted.

Seeing me walk unto the field my new master barked out, "Remove your shoes and discard that trash glaive. You will use this glaive here for practice and later you will make a weapon of your own fusing a small piece of your life essence into it."

" But I can only make tier one weapons and this is a tier two? Also as I progress as an eldritch knight I will need a stronger weapon won't I?" I asked as respectfully as I could.

"Fool who thinks he is smart. every time you advance you don't need at more powerful weapon only at the 3rd and 6th and the following tiers must your weopon tier increase. Also Your blacksmith tier will advance as well. And yes each time you forge a new weapon you need to use the body of the old one as part of the fuel to forge the next. But the most important piece is that for an eldritch knight their weopon must perfectly match them, be it weight, balance, length, or shape. No other smith can make it as perfect, this is why all eldritch knights are smiths or mana forgers, mana forgers literally condense mana into a weapon form which makes maba skills far more easy but they are weaker in a frontal clash against same tier weapons. "

"Now enough talk. I know you have a fighting style you have started to form so come. Use all you skill to attack me. Use me as a wetsone to shape you and guide you onto your path."

At first I attacked with a little rage as no man, even if I'm stuck in the body of a five year old, likes to be called a fool. But after the first few exchanges I began to calm down and use him as the wetstone he intended himself to be. Every time I swung madly I would be swatted away like a fly a so I learned to control were I aimed and I continued to be more precise.

"I will be attacking now and you need to defend. Do not worry I will lower my strength and speed to eighty percent of yours. " Sam took a step back before saying.

The next five hours were complete hell. He didn't lie but I still could only block two attacks for everyone fifteen, admittedly at the beginning it was from luck but towards the end it is because I started to gain the skill. I was one big bruise and had countless cuts even though both of our glaive were dulled practice ones.

"So after the first day have you noticed anything about your glaive? Or you glaive style?" asked Sam

Pausing to clear my head and trying to remember I realized a few things, "I need a far heavier glaive and I realized for attacking I prefer to lean towards saber techniques but for defense I more closely follow staff ones. Most importantly I realize I want to be faster"

"Hmmm, I noticed that you have an unuasually strong body so I would say focus on power instead of speed. As for your fighting techniques they seem the right path for you but you need far more practice. We will wait until your are at least six before we try to combine your magic into your fighting, before that while it might cool it in reality reduces your power to only thirty percent when an eldritch knights power should increase by at least three hundred percent when using both knight and mage paths."

"Master my power will increase with the increase of the weight of my weaopon, but I feel like my path needs me to pursue speed in my techniques."

Staring at me for a while Sam finally speaks, "That is ok, just remember if you do increase the weight to increase the power and still choose to pursue speed in your techniques your progress will slow and your path will become ten times as hard to walk."

"That is fine, if its ten times as hard I will put in twenty times the effort, if that is still not enough I will put in a hundred times." I declared, when has my path ever been easy? I shall still conquer all challenges in my path.