My Servant System

"Whew~! That's some excellent strength this thing has already~! I was not expecting it to live up to my expectations like this!"

I grinned as I stared down at the pile of rocks, watching as the Demon slowly began to reform and recuperate, the rocks moulding together once more after having been beaten down for the third time.

Nakith gave me a small smile as she cast a healing spell on me despite the lack of injuries, while Luci nodded from the side as she watched on from just outside of the ring, observing from afar and appraising my skills, the craftiness of her bloodline making itself known in the gleam in her eyes.

However, I didn't particularly care, since there was a good chance that she would see me in action anyways on this mission over to Nogart; perhaps they would want to go and check out the Dungeons and get a first hand appraisal of what needed to be done to secure their southern borders, or perhaps they would just want to stretch after traveling all day.

That... and I had a feeling that this wouldn't just be a simple excursion into the countryside; there was a nagging suspicion that the Kingdom that had already housed some interesting events during the Crusade would be a hotspot once again for weird things to happen.

It was an itch that refused to go away in my mind... I just felt like there was something significant about that location that we were missing, something that made me thing there was something that would happen there again.

That was why I wanted to keep myself sharp, and why I was happy that the Crucible was proving its worth.

So I lifted the heavy training blade and gave the rock Demon a moment to recollect itself before blocking its swing, the chipped pillar of stone that slammed into my sword rattling my arm momentarily as the rock Demon grew in strength, each moment empowering it further.

It was - technically speaking - a golem, and as such it had slightly clunky movements as it began to warm up, the rock Demon's joints and limbs becoming more and more flooded with mana as it reacted to my techniques, slowly analyzing and copying me to provide a good training dummy.

Pulling my blade back, I lunged forwards and stabbed at its shoulder, the metal smacking against the flat surface of its pillar like sword and cracking it, only for the golem to stagger backwards as I lowered my own shoulder and rammed into its chest, pushing it back and freeing up some space for me to swiftly slash across its torso.

Two shallow scores crisscrossed on its chest, and the golem grumbled as it brought its weapon to bear, swinging it overhead and slamming the stone into the earth, missing me as I rolled to the side.

Sand showered over me as the force of the swing impacted the ground, and I growled softly as some of those fine grains found themselves in my eyes, blinding me for just a moment.

Even with the temporary blindness I continued to roll and evade, washing my eyes out with mana and ridding myself of the sand even as the golem continued to hammer the ground, spraying more everywhere.

Bunching up the muscles in my legs, I launched myself upwards and slashed the blade down across its chest again, this time having it bite deep into the golem's natural armor as I cleaved it in two, killing it once more.

Standing up, I nodded to myself and rested the blade on my shoulder, muttering "Again." as I watched it begin to heal once more, signaling yet another round.

One round turned into a dozen, and eventually I stood in the middle of the sand pit covered in sweat, a triumphant grin on my face as I stamped my boot straight through its 'skull', having finally succeeded in defeating this equal match of mine after nearly ten minutes of grueling combat, during which...

Groaning, I rolled out the agony that coursed through my arm as I felt the fractured radius and splintered ulna, my left forearm completely destroyed thanks to a lucky swing by my sparring partner.

Though, as I stepped back and out of the circle, Nakith gently took my arm and focused on healing the wound, my blue flesh steadily returning as the purple bruising faded, the yellow skinned Demoness treating me while Luci just stared at me with awe from the side, the Beliali Demoness seemingly impressed with my performance.

"What's the chances on me being able to buy the enchantments from these golems off of the Clans? These seem rather... well, incredibly and impressively useful for training. Sparring against yourself to iron out the kinks in your techniques is..."

Luci's awe turned into guarded skepticism as she pushed herself off the wall and said "I... don't think so, but the best bet would be talking to Lady Hathor about it, Lady Jahi. She is the one who would need to authorize such a thing... For a myriad of reasons."

Cleaning myself off with a flash of golden mana after Nakith finished healing me, I handed Luci the training blade and did some stretches to ease out of the training before saying "Well then... let's go meet her. I was planning on going to the library anyways, since I wanted to talk with her some before we departed tomorrow."

Nakith was the one who spoke this time, the yellow skinned Demoness giving me a tight smile as she said "Well, we should get going soon then; it is rather late... but also, as a warning, Lady Jahi, there is a good chance that most of the library is off limits for you, so please don't be offended if when we enter it, you aren't allowed to browse..."

"That's fine, Nakith. I am more then understanding of wanting to maintain your Clan's knowledge from an outsider; if anything, I would be more surprised if I was allowed to peruse freely... and slightly distrusting of the library's contents if that was the case."