Accidental Merlin

Chapter 9: My Best Friend Is a Cat

I started meditating; I was rotating the energy around my meridians. I had noticed that my new meridians were a lot easier to flow the energy around in and with the better flow I was able to circulate the energy around myself a lot more times. I had cracked into the nineties the day after I got my new meridians and my rate of improvement was increasing, just as John had predicted.

I had noticed that every 30 rotations my abilities would spike: after the first 30, I had reached the peak of the human physique. After 60 rotations my body had been broken down and born anew, I was now beyond the human limits of physical attributes, supernaturally strong, supernaturally fast. 90 quite honestly was a disappointment, sure my physical attributes increased, but not by much the main thing that happened was I was able to form a thin projection of void particles outside my body temporarily sealing of myself from the outside world.

After 90 I could hold the void sphere for around 10 seconds. In these last 2 weeks I had reached to 99 rotations this allowed me to hold the invisible barrier up for about 90 seconds. I was about to break into the 100s and become a true mage. There was a bottleneck between 99 and 100. At the moment I was a mage disciple but after breaking through into the 100s I would become a true mage. Finally taking a step into what John called the true world.

It was after midnight that I woke up from my meditation, not having made any progress beyond 99 rotations. I was woken up by a loud ripping noise. I opened my eyes to see a sword blade ripping my tent apart, slashing towards me. I hurriedly dodged out of the way. I rolled out of the tent from the front, without grabbing my sword or any weapon. I ducked and rolled to the left out of some kind of instinct. I felt something cold whiz past me as I rolled away, I turned around and looked up to see my assailant's face, but it was too dark. There was enough moonlight to see the shiny sword but not enough for me to clearly make out the attackers face.

I scrambled to my feet and moved left avoiding a thrust, I tilted my body avoiding an upward slash, and I ducked underneath a decapitating strike. I kept dodging and retreating moving away from the tents moving myself to a more open ground.

Then I heard his cackling laughter, I instantly knew who he was. "I heard you've been actin' like some kind of genius swordsman, fighting multiple opponents on your own, showin' off your fancy sabre techniques. Teaching MY RECRUITS! You lowly, filthy pleb, reaching above your station" he raved "you beat me by cheating and then used MY reputation to cheat your way into becoming the best swordsman here. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST! YOU RUINED MY PLANS!!!"

I avoid a thrust at my shoulder, he was ranting and raving, but he was also swinging the sword. He didn't do the villain thing and stop to monologue. The raving lunatic was multi-tasking. "Hello David" I said back, narrowly avoiding another slash. "nice to see you out and about, haven't seen you for this past fortnight, where have you been pal?" a thought went through my head of {why am I antagonising the crazy man with the sword?} But that thought was interrupted by a vertical slash, which I avoided by side stepping to the right. He swung backhand with a horizontal slash, I had predicted this move and already moved out of his range.

"You dirty rat! Stop dodging and fight me!" he shouted, people were waking up and starting to get out of their tents by this point. Hopefully someone would come and subdue him.

"No thanks" I said ducking underneath another wild swing, I wanted no parts of him. I was hoping that he would make enough noise that some of the other soldiers would notice and come deal with it.

He swung back, I dodged backwards. I fell into his trap. The backswing was a feint and he changed his swing midway and turned it into a thrust. The sword should have pierced me through, but I was saved by my new void infused skin. The sword barely left a scratch as it slid past my waist ripping my tunic. A light gleamed in David's eye; he now knew that I was more than human. He had felt the contact with my skin and instead of gutting me all he had managed to do was ruin my night shirt.