Arthurian Cultivation

The next morning began with control exercises for Bors and combat exercises for me. The control exercises were at his request. He might not have much in the way of techniques but he could still shape the earth around him with the raw power of his glamour.

So began a combat where the ground was my foe. Bors struggled at first, in part so as not to destroy me. His smallest attacks were the size of barrels. His other struggle was even when we were playing what was essentially cultivator tag and he refused to move. This was a problem as my goal today was to practice my Levity techniques.

Training the last few days had shown me there was a lot to be said for cavorting, rolling and otherwise bouncing around a battlefield. Not only was it unlike how most Knights fought, being similar to Witch combat styles, but it leant well into my Levity techniques. Levity was the broad name for the glamour technique that all cultivators could access and was responsible for the extreme speeds they moved.

Levity techniques were a trick mostly honed at high Bronze. They had a common base, where glamour 'lifted' the body and helped it move. It was how higher-level cultivators could manage to fly. The actual execution and mental images which made Levity work though were developed by the cultivator.

My Levity consisted of two images, the first focused on visualising whisps of smoke dancing around, dodging attempts to swat them, rising and falling as ash. I was but a coating of ash waiting to be sent whirling, a being made only of grey infinitesimally small feathers ready to be sent whirling at a moment’s notice.

The other half was something I recalled being genuinely impressed by my captors for pushing on me. They took as many of us as they could to see a volcano explode in the balmy south, at the edge of the Thousand City Sea. I was an afterthought, of course, this being a last-ditch attempt to get me to break through. It was a rare fond memory.

It was there I watched a curtain of ash demolish a town. Burying it and burning it in seconds.

It was at that moment my Levity technique came to me. Ash was levity personified, till it wasn't. There it had been a dense wall, each piece of ash trapped by the other. It was like a sandstorm compressed and baked in a volcano.

I'd had a mini-break through there and then, which had been terrifying. I'd come dangerously close to breaking through to bronze.

I had been refining the image in my head for the last year, only able to use it for a few seconds at most before consuming weeks of cultivation. Now? I could use it for minutes and refilling my glamour took only a few hours.

I was still shocked to be actually cultivating! My bellows breath method was shockingly efficient, it’d been the work of the unseelie to learn. I’d originally learned of it because it allowed one to suck up huge amounts of glamour in a sharp burst, even if only a shred of that got through it still was something. It was perfect for my ruined pathways.

Following the huge inhalation, the method required you to squeeze the bellows, pushing the glamour across your hearth in a controlled stream. That had always been for me a sharp press, I got so little glamour in each breath that I just slammed the bellows closed and then began the next breath.

Just learning the bellows breath was considered hard, modifying it as I had done was madness. But it was that or be stuck without glamour. Now that work was paying a dividend I never anticipated. I was gathering glamour at a pace that was far beyond the norm. I cursed that we didn't have any runic tools. I didn't know much rune work but I did know the basics of glamour focusing spells.

All that said, what it meant for our practice was it was as laughably one-sided as the earlier duels with weapons had been. Even if I stopped myself from just soaring over the battlefield I could get within reach of Bors in a span of seconds.

We paused after the third match, and as I opened my mouth Bors held up a hand. The giant was looking frustrated. The marble patterns were creeping up the dark tan stone that his skin had been transfigured into, rivers of pale lines creeping up his neck like a blush.

“Look you heard it last night, I'm Immovable until I'm unstoppable. I don't really do running away.”

“But you do positioning in battle? You're always on about my positioning needing work.”

“That's different though. It's retreating. Look when you get an Intent you'll understand it rewards you for some actions and restricts others. It's like the fae can't act against their nature.”

“Alright, and this restriction is because of how it feels to you right?" He nodded.

I pondered how to help my friend. Words weren't enough, Bors was a very visual thinker, "Grab a staff."

Bors grinned, that's why I like Bors. He didn't debate that I was trying to help. He didn't ask why he just went along with it. With a flick and a burst of glamour, the warhammer with its massive head was back in his storage ring. A moment later he held a staff

I couldn't help but feel intimidated as he did some test manoeuvres, armed with polearm the Knight's reach was truly extraordinary. Compared to the hammer it was clumsy in his hands though. Which worked well for my plan. I undid the silk binding from my hair.

"Right, I'm tying this bit of silk around this end. I'm going to attack you, I'm going to try and touch you, you have to hit me with the silk to score a point. Hitting me with the staff, or your body earns you nothing. Equally, I only score a point if I touch you, not the staff. I'm only going to use Levity and you're only using that staff. Oh and don't just beat me into the ground with it and tap me with the silk that won't count." He frowned, he was thinking. I didn't want that.

"Isn't this..." His half-form question was silenced as I pushed glamour through me. Pushing off from the ground, I came in low rushing at his legs. He thrust the staff in my way. He still had it grasped in the middle, to allow for maximum control. I rapped his knuckles.

"Point Taliesin." I was already out of his reach as the silk end came scything after me. He would've caught me if he was using a different grip.

"You didn't say go." He yelled but didn't stop. Recognizing how much faster I was, he shifted the grip to one like he was holding a spear to maximise his ability to deny me.

I went on the offensive again, ducking and weaving towards him. My technique meant my body of ash floated with me, I thanked my body refinement, I was moving so rapidly that my old reflexes and senses would've been overwhelmed. It gave me the confidence to attempt my next move.

Bors might be able to move that spear point very quickly, the tiniest shift in his hands causing it to swing into my path. But he was too used to his hammer. To his overwhelming power.

The staff tracked me, and Bors struck. The silk tip heading straight for my chest. And I just batted it away. My leverage and speed outstripped even Bors' immense strength.

I rushed down the spear and vaulted over him, using his head as a stepping stone. "Another point to Taliesin."

"Damnation!" Bors spun and charged. His grip shifted again, a balance to keep more control. I had to focus on avoiding the frenzy of attacks that followed me. I was able to dodge or deflect them all. And I found a third way to avoid them that annoyed Bors to no end.

"Stay still will you!" Bors roared as he caught me with the side of the staff and I floated with the blow. My Levity left me as substantial as a whisp of smoke. It didn't win him a point, but did nudge my course enough that I could clip his shoulder.

"One more point and I win!" I called. I'd been watching Bors' footwork this whole time and felt we were near something.

"Faeries take you, Bard." He replied. He took a stance preparing for an attack when I made my move. Running up I darted close, his staff moved to block and there almost imperceptible his foot shifted back at a touch to give the staff the space to block me.

I harried him, I was the fox before the bear. I was underfoot always out of the way of the clumsy paws. Then this little play came to its climax. Bors was blocking me, but he couldn't score the point. As I took a step back to avoid a sweep of the butt of the weapon, he took a full step back to get the silk at just the right spacing to hit me. The blow launched me across our arena.

"POINT BORS! Oh shit." His bellow of triumph was interrupted as I struggled to escape the nest of broken branches I'd carved for myself out of an innocent tree.

"All is forgiven if you tell me what you just did to get that strike on me?"

"You mean the step? That's just positioning."

"I take it back I don't forgive you, I have branches in places that would make you blush, and the best you can do is 'just positioning'. You moved backwards to attack." Working my way free and dropped to the ground, Levity slowed my fall.

"I, wait. Hmmm." Bors stroked his chin, the clink of his skin on skin sounding glassy. Matching the glassy smoothness of his jaw, I'd never seen so much as a dot of stubble upon it, but then again who'd heard of stubbly marble?

“Look think of your glamour control attacks as the spear, you wouldn't want me within your reach, right?”

He nodded and held up a hand for a pause, clearly thinking something through. “Let's go again. Not the spear, techniques”

Bors leaned into the learning, I could sense the earth's glamour working, redefining the way the earth worked around his feet. I ran closer, dodging boulders and short walls of stone that sought to trip me. Still, I closed the distance. As I got a few sword lengths from him, one foot pushed out and his whole body skated left.

Earth Stride, an iconic earth cultivator technique, and not one I'd ever seen him use before. It totally redefined our battle. Bors moved serenely around the battlefield, as I dashed to chase him. Something about using the technique refined his attacks. No longer was it entire boulders but blunt spires of stone, the walls were thinner but rose higher and quicker.

We both wore grins, the battle was finally even, and I kept getting close, but he was always able to skate away, somehow using his retreat to fuel his attacks.

The round stopped when I took a rock spire to the codpiece. Bors came over laughing and helped me up off the floor where I'd been lying wheezing. I had to thank my glamour-reinforced clothes for saving me from the life of a eunuch.

“I'm sorry my friend, that was a harsh blow, especially for one who has inspired me so. To think I've only ever used that to get up close and personal! What a waste!” Bors was grinning like a fool, and I would be sure to join him once I felt certain I could keep down breakfast.

Being called a friend made it all worth it. Maybe.

“It's incredible, I'd always felt my unstoppable nature came during an attack, but the idea of just being on the move, like a landslide gaining momentum! I have so many ideas. If I master this I can even keep up with Fen.” Fen was the name of his steed, and even mortally bruised as I was I couldn't help but notice that Bors implied he was running after his mount.

"Is it normal for you to run alongside your steed?"

"Oh, don't worry about it." I saw lines of marbling spread up his neck and even to his cheeks. A flush of embarrassment! I decided to probe further.

“I still find it odd I've never seen your steed.”

“Look he's my bonded spirit, kind of an accident really. We don't really work well together, not least because…Well, you'll see I'm sure.” He waved it off. “Look let's do another round.”

“My plums are bruised, I don't want them mashed thank you.” I waved him off, cycling energy through my hearth to help the healing along. I really needed to get my hands on some alchemy gear. A brew would be a great aid right about now.

As I sat resting and cultivating I had a little time to reflect. My levity was coming along nicely. I still had more to think about and there was my death gift which I'd not touched. I knew I needed to understand it better. I mean right now I could feel it thrumming in my hearth. Why was it doing that?

I felt my smoke gift twitching. I caught the whiff of glamour on the wind, if I was honest it had been there for some time but we'd been too busy. My head jerked to look down the road. The sense built and with it so did my confidence in what I was sensing. Smoke and Death carried on the wind.

“Bors, there's smoke, oily smoke, something down the road.” I was expecting questions, but Bors's face went serious at once. He grabbed the rest of his gear and gone was the laughing earth cultivator, now there stood a Knight arming himself.

“You stay here. I'll check it out.”