New Toys and Training

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Arthas had spent most of the day down in the enchanting department's forge so far as he researched various methods that were currently used to enchant and place enchanted objects and stones in other objects. He had poured over the books a while ago and had taken the time to learn from the currently employed enchanters at the Arch. So this last week had been used mainly to hone his own skills and see how he could meld the skills he had from his world with the methods of this world. He actually was doing decently well with setting enchanted stones into weapons that weren't already designed to have them installed in them.

He was debating what to try working on next and was standing there in a sleeveless leather tunic, his normal leather pants and boots, with the smithing gloves laid on the anvil next to him. He looked over the various weapons that were arrayed before him and most of it really didn't seem all that challenging. His arms crossed over his chest as most of his weight was on his right leg, his eyes seemed to be rather focused but yet somewhat distant. His coat and sword were both hanging on a peg near the doors to the workshop he was using as his works pace for today. The room was lit with a series of light gem powered tubes that stretched over the anvil and the table to allow for optimal lighting of his work spaces.

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Aqua was wandering around the the school campus in search of Arthas . After asking some other students if they had seen him, they had directed her towards the enchanting department. She decided to wear a new outfit she had bought during her time in the market, The dress came with a  long piece of black cloth ontop of a simple yellow dress with a blue bow adorning the area of her bosom, and to match she had black high knee socks and a matching pair of shoes with a simple design on the front of a cross. "Professor Arthas? are you here?" She called out towards one of the rooms. She knocked before entering "Professor?" She looked around the room until her eyes fell upon her new mentor. "There you are, I've been looking for you." she said as she closed the door behind her. "Working on some enchanting and or some blacksmithing?" She said as her deep blue eyes scanned the room before stopping on him.

Dress refence

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While standing there he could hear a semi familiar voice calling out and sighed a little bit, if she was looking for someone specific she should use a name not just a title. He wasn't the only professor down here nor was he going to answer her since it wouldn't be that hard to find him. He moved to be able to see the door into his work space just in case it wasn't her who came through the door, old paranoia was hard to get rid of after all.

As the door opened and she stepped into the room he looked at her, "Can I help you with something Miss Aingeru?" His tone was its normal flat and mostly emotionless as he spoke to her and at her second question he turned to look at the items in the room, "A bit of both."

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"Actually there is" She looked through her bag and pulled out a gem in each hand. "I bought these gems from the market and heard they can be used to Enhance items with the elements they correlate to." She held them out for him to observe should he want to. "I was wondering if you could help me with that process?" she then placed them down on a table nearby and pulled out her spear in its pocket size form and activated it so that it would grow to full size. "This is a weapon i brought with me from home and i was hoping i could enchant it since it doesn't seem there is a spear like mine on the market as i was hoping."  

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At least she caught him at a good time, he wasn't in the middle of any projects or orders right now so why not. But first he had to test a few things out with the spear she had provided for him to alter. He picked up the spear with his right hand and moved over to the testing area where some test dummies were set up as targets.

The spear was spun in a full circle by his right hand to have it end up with the tip pointed at the ground. Settling into a balanced stance he sighted the distance between him and the dummies and picked out his movements and attacks carefully. He needed to test the spear's ability to slash, strike, and pierce in one go. Unlike many newly trained soldiers his muscles relaxed a little bit just before there was a slight dip in his height. Taking two steps toward the dummy on his right he pivoted on his left foot and transferred his weight to gain momentum on the turn. The spear was gripped by both hands as he brought the spear in a downward angle across the chest of the dummy leaving a four inch deep gash from the shoulder to the opposite hip.

Next was the dummy that had started out on his left, carrying the momentum from the attack he turned and used the blunt end of the spear's haft to strike the dummy in the side toppling it over and breaking a chunk off of its side. Last he turned yet again and held the spear as one would a javelin throwing it at the last dummy and embedded the spear into the dummy half way up the blade. Just for some added flare he drove the spear through the dummy by kicking the blunt end of the spear.

Standing up and calming himself he took a couple slow and deep breaths before he picked up the spear to examine any damage that might have been done to it as he walked back to her. It appeared it hadn't been dulled or chipped beyond anything that basic maintenance wouldn't fix.

Setting the spear on the table and taking the ice gem from her putting it near the tip of the spear he looked at her, "I'm not surprised you couldn't find a spear like it in the markets, it segments as well correct? As for the quality of the spear it is on the high end. I will have to alter the blade a little bit to allow for the gem to be placed inside of it and I'll be adding some runes to it as well to increase the sharpness and strength of the spear."

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"Wow your pretty strong arent you?" She clapped for the performance. When asked if it segmented she looked at him "Quite perceptive arent you?" She smiled "Yes it does, but only i can activate it" She picked up the spear and channeled some of her manna into the spear allowing the chains to reveal themselves. "it responds to only my manna signature and its long enough to bind someone so i can finish my target off. When Arthas then offered to add more enhancements to the spear than she asked for she looked shocked "That would be extremely helpful." She smiled brightly at her new favorite teacher. "I dont have much money so im afraid i cant compensate you properly.." She began to go into deep thought "How about i make some food for you? It wouldn't be any trouble especially since im asking so much from you. Whats your favorite meal?"

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The applause seemed a little patronizing to him but then again it was odd for him to be praise for anything other than killing a mark. So he let the emotion pass over him and used his aura filter to watch her as she triggered the spear's segments. He wondered if he could mimic her manna signature or not and well he had an issue with letting his curiosity get the better of him most of the time. He decided he would experiment with it later since he had something else to do right now.

While she offered to make him food he was getting out tools he would need for this process as well as building the heat in the forge to get it ready. The fun part was that he was using fire gems to heat the forge which meant he didn't really need to add fuel other than the manna needed to activate them. There were some quite useful tools in this world and he was grateful to those who thought them up. "Can you please return it to its spear form so I can start working on it." He asked this in that semi emotionless tone again and waited until she had done so before he took hold of the spear and put the blade of it into the forge. While the blade heated he got a few tools ready to use. Mainly the ones needed to remove some of the metal in the blade, well really he would be reshaping part of it to hold the gem in place.

Pulling the spear from the furnace he placed it on the anvil and used a wedged hammer to start splitting the center of the blade. Being careful that he was only doing as much as was needed to make sure the gem fit into place. Every so often he would place it back in the forge to heat it back up and the slow work progressed little by little until the opening was big enough to fit the gem into the blade with a little room around it. Now the fun part would begin he placed the gem inside the blade and made for brackets to hold it in place. For now it would look like it was a rather crude piece of work but he wasn't done yet. He removed the excess metal that was curled up from where he had hammered the hole into the blade and started a second part of the project. Working that bit of metal he took the time to make a pair of snowflakes that he then secured into place over the snow gem to allow for it to have some protection and used the gem to carefully cool the metal and allow it to harden properly to make sure it stayed in place.

Once this was done he picked up a small hammer and an even smaller chisel and started to carve the runes into the spear to apply the durability and sharpness enchantments. The runes went faster as he knew how to carve them with ease and accuracy. He did a little bit of fancy line work to connect the runes that had been placed above and below the gem he had just placed in the spear. It had taken him hours to complete this piece of work but he handed the spear once he finished polishing it to Aqua and let her try it out. The weight would be a little off for her at first but adjusting to it shouldn't be too big of an issue.

"How do you like it Aqua. And the reason I'm doing this is because I know it is hard to be dumped in a new world with no warning or explanation as to why and find a place to fit into it. The right tools will make it easier to do so."

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Aqua  returned the spear to its original form and  handed it to Arthas. "Take good care of it please" she said smiling placing her trust in him. She then watched closely as Arthas was performing the upgrades on her spear, its not that she didn't trust him or anything but she was just always excited to learn new things. As the rune placing was being perform she scribbled the characters into her book as to memorize them as well. Once he finished and handed the spear to aqua she studied it closely, beaming with joy. After taking note of its weight changing she assumed her usual position.. "I can definitely tell of the weight change from the runes, its a lot easier to move around then previously." After that her entire demeanor changed, She went from her usual bubbly personality to one of emotionless and calculating. She lunged forward, turning her spear into chain mode and with one fell swoop decapitates the heads off of all three dummies. After that one swing was complete she swung the spear around herself to wrap the body of a dummy in chains and rip it from the ground and slam it into another dummy. she then called out "ice!" and the spear of the tip flew into the pile of dummies she created and froze them. the tip retracted from its striking position, causing the ice to break. She returned the spear to its normal form with the blunt end on the floor.
She turned to Arthas and smiled and returned to her bubbly personalty "Its perfect! Everything is an overall improvement from its previous state." After responding to how she liked the new state of her spear Arthas then mentioned to her why he was doing the upgrades . "Well even if what you said is true id still like to compensate you in some way also in that case i was wondering if the gems can only be placed in weapons? i was thinking of placing me water gem in something besides my spear so that i can summon water in locations that would otherwise be lacking in the element." 

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He had to laugh at her last comments after watching her test out the spear, "First learn to accept a gift child, second you may want to hold off on that gratitude until after the martial training is done." But while he was speaking to her he picked up the bracelet and took the water gem as well. He was going to have to convert it into a bangle to make sure it fit properly but that wasn't a huge issue.

Heating up the bracelet he started to flatten it out first getting the proper shape done first before setting up the socket for the gem which was placed in the center of the front of the bangle. He used hardened steel to craft a set of waves to hold the gem in place. Taking the time to make sure it was all set properly and wasn't loose and that there was ample room for the element to manifest after attaching a solid back to the gem to keep it from pouring over her wrist too much until she was used to using it. Taking her wrist he slipped the bangle in place to make sure the fit was right and that it wouldn't slip off her wrist during combat.

With that done he shooed her out of the workshop and told her to pick on of the practice fields and he would join her once he had cleaned up the work space. Once she was out the door he placed all the tools where they belonged and cleaned the ones that needed it and turned the forge down to its lowest running setting just in case someone else wanted to use the room. With all that done he took a moment to get his coat on to follow Aqua out to the field she had chosen and told her to place her spear and bracelet on one of the empty weapon racks and tossed her one of the metal sparring staves. He had left his sword on one of the other empty racks and spun his sparring stave a couple times to get used to the weight and it's momentum, "Your goal is to get me to move out side this circle," he informed her as he drew a circle on the ground with the staff leaving a golden ring of light made from his manna and the enchantments on the training area's ground.

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As Arthas slide the bangle on her wrist her eyes lit up again, she loved getting new toys. "Well I could say the same to you on accepting a gift" She sneered in an attempt to make a joke. As instructed she picked a training area and was practicing with her new spear until Arthas soon came after her. 

Without even flinching she caught the stave and moved it around a bit to test the weight and how quickly she could move it. As Arthas set the markings on the floor and it began to glow. "Perchance are your abilities rune based?" she asked curiously, after all the runes on her spear didn't seem like a novice's work so she got curious and she hadn't seem him use other types of magics so logic would tell her that its natural for him to use runes as his form of magic but where were the runes he was using? His clothes? she had no idea yet so she had to treat this as if they were already on.

"force you to move out of the circle... hmmm" She assumed a new stance. She lowered her body and put her food far forward assuming a slanted position. She then used her front leg to launch her forward very fast and attempts to swing the staff to slam his right rib.

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"We can discuss magic after combat training is done." His tone was cold as if there were no emotions in it at all as he watched her take her stance and attack him. While she was attacking him and seemed to be aiming for his ribs he planted his staff in the ground blocking the swing and bringing his knee towards her chest fully intending to hit her. Even if she evaded he was prepared for it as he picked up the staff from the ground and arched it over his head and took a two handed grip on it to increase the power of his swing aiming to slam it into her and drive her into the ground.

After finishing the attack he backed off to the center of his circle again keeping an eye on her. Her healing magic made it easier for him to hammer on her like this and if needed he could compliment her healing with some of his runes. His weight shifted from time to time from one foot to the other while he watched her, he was trained like this where your life could be on the line during the session. He obviously wasn't going to take it that far since this wasn't his world where it was literally kill or be killed for mages.

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Expecting such an obvious move to miss someone who seemed to be well trained like Arthas she was preparing to dodge an attack from any side as soon as the attack failed. She saw his knee coming for her chest she pivoted her body out of the way but  it left her wide open for Arthas to counter. Something from this felt familiar to her but she couldn't tell what

 She hit the floor with a thud and let out a gasp of air from getting the wind knocked out of her. The magic circle used for aqua to heal began to appear where Arthas struck. as she laid on the floor for a moment "Ow...fuck." the circle vanished and aqua was still on the floor writhing in pain.

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Arthas watched her dodge the knee which would have been the smarter blow to take compared to the one she took from the staff. He stood there and watched her as she almost auto healed herself, at least she has the sense to use it on a instinctual level. It would have been smarter to have it started before she took the hit and he hadn't specified what type of magic she couldn't use so her first mistake was not clarifying that information before starting the match.

He looked her over and hadn't felt anything break under the strike, "Is that all you've got in you? Come now you will need to do better than that if you want to make it in this world. You're relying on your weapon to do too much of the work for you." He stood there rather relaxed but in all honesty he was ready for her to try anything and was curious to see how she would react to his way of training her.

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"Damn, your smarter then you look." while she stood herself up appearing unfazed by the hit as she dusts some of the dirt off as she kept "You saw right through my bluff." She focused her eyes onto Arthas meeting his gaze. "Fine, get ready im gonna come at you full strength." She said taking the same stance as before. However when she began to run at him she stopped at the edge of the circle and began to launch a flurry of jabs with the stave after all her speed was what made her a fearsome warrior so she wanted to see if he could handle her at top speed. "I need to see what my opponent is capable of..." She thought to herself. she was watching him very carefully as she attacked to catch any counter attack he would try to make once more.

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He didn't respond to her and just waited for her next attack which didn't take long at all. She kept herself outside the circle that he had set up and started to uses a rapid series of jabs. Thanks to the way he drew the circle she couldn't reach all the way to the other side of it so he just moved as needed to avoid the jabs she tried to hit him with. Every now and again he would make it look like he was barely avoiding them to see if she would get over zealous and try to advance.

Finally he decided to counter attack and stepped under the jabs and swung his staff in a short arc aimed for her knee just to use a posture correction to turn the tip up at her chest. Even as he was doing this he was moving back to where he was before as the point of this training exercise was to see just how well she handled a frustrating opponent. What she didn't know was he had his dexterity rune along with speed active and was repressing the glow in his eyes. It may be cheating but on the battlefield people were not going to be honorable and fight be rules that were put in place by a challenger.