Continuing from Chapter 1
Road to South StormCove - Hope and Ashford were walking along the path to reach their destination to the city of South SC, as they were walking Ashford talked to Hope about who he was and what he could do to help train him. "I have been trained by my father to master any weapon invented by man to protect myself in case the Ancient Prophecy would come true". Hope said "so you know how to wield any weapon? that's kinda cool". "yeah, I guess it is kinda cool but learning all of it took me years to really master how to use them". Hope said "I'm a fast learner so that won't be a problem".
As Hope and Ashford were walking through a forest, 8 bandits came out from hiding and threatened to kill the both of them if they don't hand over their money and supplies. Ashford said calmly " let's not do this right now gentlemen, we are in a hurry for the sake of the world " , the bandits all laughed and pulled out daggers and swords. Bandit Leader spoke " let's relax a bit and have some fun eh? " . The bandits lunged at Hope with sharp swords but Ashford quickly stepped in and blocked all of the bandits attacks with a stick, all 8 bandits looked as if they're having a hard time with just a mere guy holding a stick. Ashford said " if you want trouble, I guess I can give you some " . Ashford attacked in one fell swoop and took out 7 bandits not including the leader. Bandit Leader uttered " w-w-what are you? ". Ashford said " I'm just a humble man trying to help my friend here, please get lost ". The Bandit Leader ran away screaming and left his subordinates. Hope looked amazed at what Ashford did to save them and he said " wow, you weren't kidding when you said you were trained to master weapons, even wielding a stick you took out all of them ". The two continued walking out of the forest and saw South StormCove just a hill away.
Hope and Ashford walked into the front gates and they were immediately bumped into by a girl running from someone, the girl was in a hurry and apologized for bumping into them and kept running towards a building and scaled it from the walls. Two guards were chasing the girl and asked both of them if they knew her, Ashford said " we don't know who she was because her hood hid her face " . The guards said that she was a thief in the city and had been commiting crimes all over the place since last week, then they continued to chase after the thieving girl. Hope then said " this city sure is big " then he realized that his pouch was missing, " my pouch, where is my pouch? " Ashford immediately suggested that maybe when the thief bumped into them that she took his pouch. Hope felt stupid for not noticing earlier and then wanted to chase after the girl, Ashford then said " don't worry Hope, we will see her again soon enough but for now we must focus on your training, let's head to the training fields here ".
Both of them headed towards the South SC training fields - there Ashford was famous for being a weapons expert and was welcomed by all the people who were openly training, Hope was surely amazed at how famous his new friend is. Upon entering the training fields, Ashford immediately asked Hope what weapon he wanted to master first of all. Hope said anything would be fine since he's a fast learner so Ashford handed him a rock. Ashford said " let's start with this then, look at how I'm gonna use this rock " , Ashford threw the rock at a nearby tree and after 3 seconds, the tree imploded as if the rock was a bomb. Hope was astounded how Ashford did it and asked " how did the tree blow up?" Ashford said " it's the basic power of elemental control, I simply placed a simple fire spell on the rock with my magic and concentrated enough energy for an explosion ". Hope was eager to learn how to use magic first before anything else and because of his skill of learning anything he sees while being focused, he asked for Ashford to do it one more time. After Ashford did it again, Hope was focused and saw how he channelled magic energy into the rock and tried it himself. " I hope I did it properly" Hope said, and threw the rock to the tree... after 3 seconds the tree also imploded but with a higher level of Magic Energy, Ashford was impressed at how much Magic Hope had inside of him and then the both of them trained vigorously with Magic.
- After a few days of Magic training, Hope had already mastered how to concentrate Magic Energy into objects and started training on Weapons -
Ashford properly taught Hope on how to use Weapons --
- Day 1 = Swords ( mastered by Hope in 9 hours )
- Day 2 = Daggers ( mastered in 7 hours and 30 minutes )
- Day 3 = Bows & Crossbows ( mastered in 17 hours and 25 minutes )
- Day 4 = Axes ( mastered in 5 hours )
- Day 5-7 = sparring with Ashford ... won 12 batles, lost 17 battles.