Limitless Path

"Well damn, that's not terrible, actually. Let me look a moment," he said. As he looked at her page, Beth heard his voice again, but sounding slightly strange. "Don't go showing that to anyone else. You having Lordly Reconstruction would send enough eyebrows through the ceiling, let alone knowing you were Liveria's first living successor," Beth's eyes widened hearing what he said, particularly that he at least knew of Liveria, but she contained herself. Given how he spoke and how his voice sounded, Beth assumed that he was using a technique like the assassin had used earlier to speak to someone without being overheard.

"Yeah, ya should put some focus into INT and WIS for a little. Yer physical stats are fine, and I assume Brawler gets points in them every level. I don't remember all the details of every class out there, there's millions of 'em, but ya probably get three or four points in yer physical stats per level now. Let that do the work for ya for a few levels and get yer mental stats up some. Ya probably want to get to fifty of each before ya do yer first rebirth," he continued.

"I can sort of understand, but why shouldn't I pump more physical stats? Also, yeah, I get 2 STR, 1 DEX, and 1 END a level."

"It's all a balance, girlie. Stats are important, skill levels are important, overall level is important. Later on, ya have to worry about rebirth levels and the strength of someone's Mana Physique, but we'll leave it for now. The thing ya really wanna avoid is to never touch any of yer stats, ya see. If ya neglect yer mental stats, it would hamper yer magic and magic regen down the line. This can also affect yer Mana Physique, but if ya drop a couple points in yer mental stats, ya’ll do more than fine. If ya just pumped everything into physical, ya'd hamstring yourself; nothin’ ya couldn’t recover from, but it’d take a helluva effort that ya wouldn’t need to go through if ya invested a few points early."

"OK, that's actually kinda what I thought. One of my sisters is a mage type and she has really high mental stats already but her physical stats suck. I told her to at least get her physical stats to ten, especially since she gets both INT and WIS every level," Beth nodded.

"Yeah, exactly what I'm talkin' about. Yer sister would be in deep shit if she was alone and a speed-based beast jumped her outta nowhere. If she has STR and DEX she can at least leap away; if she has END, she could survive a few hits, enough to blast whatever is on 'er," Baelvyr agreed, tapping a thick forefinger against the table to emphasize his points.

"One of the things we're gonna need to do with ya is work on your skills, and by skills, I mean weapon skills. There're all kinds of rare and powerful skills out there, but good ol' weapon skills are still some of the best. They provide big boosts, especially later, to yer overall fighting prowess. Ya need to meet certain requirements of understanding to advance the skills, but getting to that understanding means you've become extremely skilled with the weapon. Extremely skilled with a weapon type means extremely dangerous."

"Right, I understand. At least, I think so. Uh, so, how much is this training going to cost, exactly?" Beth asked.

"Relax kid, I'm not gonna bankrupt ya. I'll leave that to Jaq. I'll give ya at least a couple months of training without charge, though if ya want something from the others then ya will have to pay," Baelvyr answered with a rumbling chuckle.

"Uh, who's Jaq?"

"The commissar. Greedy little bastard will drain ya dry, just beware. Alright, let's go through some simple basics in one of the training areas," Baelvyr finished, getting up from the table and heading to the nearby door; exiting on the far side of the lounge from where Beth had initially entered.

Beth now understood why the doors in the CRA Hall were bigger than what she was used to, watching the eight-foot-tall mountain of muscle walk out the door before scurrying after him. As they started heading down the hallway Beth asked, "Can we stop at the shop first? If I'm gonna buy new gear, I want to train in that. Unless you think I can't afford it?"

"We'll get to that later. Ya need some more silver before ya could even get some decent cheap stuff. We have training weapons and armor in the rooms that are good replicas of various gear people usually use. We can also adjust 'em to make 'em more like yer preferred style," the instructor rumbled back as he led her into the section of the building under the dome.

They came out of a doorway into a massive arena, again reminding Beth of the giant sports stadiums on Earth, only somehow grander. Maybe it was that the place thrummed with mana and magic potential, or maybe it was the whole thing being carved of high-quality stone with all the ornamentation of embossed metals. Whatever else it was, it was a truly impressive sight. Even what Beth would normally think of as the "cheap" seats were individual seats made of quality carved stone and padded with thick, luxurious looking cushions.

"This is so cool," she commented in an awed tone, ogling everything in the stadium.

"Right, so this is the main arena. We can break 'er up into different rooms or configurations depending on what event or battle is happenin'. It can also be used, though it takes a lot of energy, to live view an event in a distant Hall, even on another world. There are a buncha ready rooms and breakrooms of various designs 'round the first floor under the stands. There are also a few trainin' rooms there, but that's the cheap shit. Follow me; we're going down," Baelvyr explained before waving Beth and Blood to continue on.

They walked partway around the circumference of the arena before entering another doorway below the lowest tier of stands. They walked a short way down the hallway before coming to a cross-connecting hallway, where Baelvyr turned right and walked for a short distance. They passed a few doors that he ignored before coming to a set of large doors somewhat close together.

Beth had to do a double take on seeing the buttons in between the doors, but her first instinct was proven right when Baelvyr tapped a button with an impressive digit and there was a dinging noise as one of the doors opened. They were, indeed, elevators that would allow one to either go to a landing at the top of the arena to get to the higher seats quickly or, Beth saw as they got in, to go down into the basement complex.

The numbers on the panel were not in the standard Arabic-derived format that she recognized, but it looked like Baelvyr pressed the button for basement level three of five, assuming the lit button with an extra symbol was the ground floor, where they currently were. The elevator closed with a soft ding and started moving downward so smoothly Beth basically couldn't detect it, and it was only a heartbeat later it dinged again and opened on a slightly different corridor. This hallway was also made of polished, cut stone, but the floor was of a dark tile. The lamps, while still quite bright, didn't have the gilding of elsewhere in the building. It was obviously an area meant to be a little more utilitarian, for the staff and fighters to train and do some real work in.

They made a left out of the elevator and headed down the hall for a short way, passing another handful of doors with signs that Beth couldn't read. They made a left when they came to another cross-corridor, walking past three doors on either side before stopping at one on the left. Baelvyr pulled out an emblem that looked to be made of some type of magical metal and pressed it to a small panel on the door itself. There was a chiming noise and the door slid open smoothly with barely a whisper of sound.

Following the ogre into the room, Beth was surprised by the inside. It was brightly lit, with racks upon racks of weapons and armor around the outside. There were also several benches and a handful of chairs and tables scattered around. On the far-left wall, amidst more weapon racks, was a giant display screen, currently turned off. The room was rectangular and laid out in the center of the floor was a platform that took up a little more than half the area of the room. The platform was made of some kind of odd metal or metals, and had tons of intricate runes carved into it, as well as what looked like circuitry on the side.

There was also a large structure on the ceiling over the center of the ring, or what Beth assumed was a ring, that looked like a half sphere of crystal surrounded by three rings of complex runes. On the two layers in between the runes was what looked like more circuitry, interconnecting the rings together. There was nothing in the ring between the innermost runes and the half-sphere, just smoothly polished marble.

As Beth and Blood both gawked at everything in the room, Baelvyr walked over to the TV screen and tapped it, waking it up. A menu appeared when the screen lit up, and Baelvyr paged through it using touch until he found what he wanted. When he tapped the screen, a figure appeared in the "ring", and he turned back to Beth, clapping his hands to get her attention.

It was certainly effective, as it sounded like someone had just fired a cannon in the room. "Holy fuck!" Beth yelled, jumping straight up in the air from where she was still standing by the door.

"Warn someone first, huh?" she snapped at the ogre, holding a hand over her chest, pressing against where her furiously beating heart resided.

"Gotta pay a little better attention, kid. Need to work on those reflexes too, huh? Shouldn't get so startled from somethin' like that; it's bad form. Won't do if someone makes a loud noise in combat and ya get scared and they skewer ya," he grumbled to her. "Now, let's get some armor first. Whaddaya interested in?" He started moving around the room, grabbing a few pieces off the racks as he did so.

"I'd probably like something with a leather base, I guess? I punch and kick stuff, so I'm making contact with the enemies even if I'm dodging their attacks, so I need something that's kinda strong," Beth started tapping her chin while thinking out loud to answer her new mentor's question. "Maybe something like studded leather? Or something like some kind of scale mail if it's flexible enough. I need to be able to move easily but still have a good amount of defense."

"Right. This is just trainin' gear, but give 'er a try. Let's get you fitted," he handed her a number of pieces of gear, starting with a set of pants made from a thin but tough leather with small scales covering the outside. "Just put 'em on over yer clothes like what else yer wearin'."

Beth dropped her boots and gloves on a bench, having taken them off when Baelvyr brought the gear over. She grabbed the pants and wormed into them, sitting down to slide them up to her knees before standing up and hopping twice to get them on. Baelvyr handed her a shirt of the same kind of leather, scaled as well, one large eyebrow raised. Beth pulled on the large, armored shirt, grabbing at the neck and tugging to adjust it once it was on. Baelvyr dropped a pair of boots made of a thicker leather on the floor, Beth sitting on the bench to tug them on. They came up to her knees and had large, thin metal wedges coating the shins. Lastly, he handed her a set of gloves made of a thinner leather with overlapping metal plates on the back.

Once she was decked out, she stood back up from where she had sat to pull the boots on and looked herself over, tugging at the armored gloves to settle them properly. She had to admit, it both looked and felt good on her. "No helmet?" she asked Baelvyr, looking up at him as he examined her with a critical eye.

"Nah, we can work on that later. Better to get ya used to that gear first. Now let's see 'bout a weapon," he started walking the room looking at the racks. Beth followed along behind him, stopping at a rack that had several large swords on it. She grabbed one made of what looked like sturdy steel, a greatsword of about four feet in length, the blade tapering from eight inches at the base to around six inches wide near the tip before it narrowed into a sharp point. Beth noted that the edges weren't dulled and swung it around a little to get a feel for the weight.

"Nine Bloods help me iffin' that's what ya think a sword swing is," Baelvyr muttered, giving her a very critical eye. "Well, it'll do for now. Hop up on the trainin' stage and get ready," he continued, motioning to the platform in the middle of the room.

Beth nodded and hopped up onto the platform, standing about twenty feet away from the figure her mentor had summoned earlier. It was a humanoid doll which had a general facial shape including the protrusion of a nose, but no eyes or mouth. It wore a simple chainmail shirt and armored pants, with a set of heavy boots on its feet. It had a longsword in its right hand and a circular shield in its left. The figure's skin was a dull grey and it lacked any hair on its head, while its armor looked like standard steel.

"This combat dummy is set to basic spar. You're gonna fight with him when I start the round, and ya stop either when I interrupt or when ya lose," Baelvyr explained.

"That's a little hurtful," she replied and Blood, who was sitting beside Baelvyr on her haunches, agreeing with a whine.

"Truth hurts sometimes, kid. I'm startin' it now," he replied with a snicker.