"you...you....you...." turning around and facing Aker, Fenton couldn"t get anything other than you out of his mouth."Senior Brother I understand what your trying to say and I don"t really want to go either. I was really enjoying my time learning with Senior Brother but I"ll be back tomorrow and you can give me the test. I will look forward to it." Aker told Fenton as he walked by him on his way to Vance"s side. Aker completely ignored the twisted face that Fenton was making and developed his own narrative of what Fenton"s "you"s" meant.
Had Vance understood the complete scene that he was watching he would have certainly asked himself how someone who could gobble up all of the information in both of those books as well as understand all of it could fail to understand that his Senior Brother was extremely agitated. It wasn"t even a small case of agitation but a humongous giant cant miss case of irritation.
"Did you enjoy learning medicine?" Vance asked Aker in all seriousness. At the end of the day even if its a great opportunity to learn from a highly respected doctor Aker is after still after all just a boy.
"It was great! Who would have known that that human anatomy could be so amazing. I went through the basic human anatomy book as well as the combat first aid book. Tomorrow Senior Brother is going to test me on what I learned and then I will get to move on to the next topic. I"m so excited to see what I can learn tomorrow." The excitement was oozing out of Akers mouth so thick as his words came out as if though being fired from a machine gun.
"Hoho.....don"t you think you should spend a little more time studying up on those books? Not that I would consider my self at the level of the Dr. but I have also read through those books as they are the basics for someone who is first learning medical care especially in combat roles." Vance stopped and looked at Aker his eyes narrowing.
"No, I think I should be ok in tomorrows test. I already gave it some thought and I had perfectly memorized the anatomy book, but that book is just theory. In regards to the first aid I should be able to perform more than 90% of the procedures in the book at an adequate level right now and 100% of the procedures at a minimal level. In think if I had to do it to save a life I could probably complete the procedure well enough."
Vance hearing Akers words started shaking his head internally. When he was first learning field medic care and started his training he had spent over a three months to fully learn the anatomy and first aid books. It was another one to two months before he could say that he was capable of completing most of the procedures to save life. Even still he was never able to learn even to a basic level the last 30% of the book as it involved some pretty complicated surgical procedures.
In battles and war the number of different types of injuries that a person can sustain is countless. Due to that reason field medics had to be able to adapt to some pretty out of the box scenarios to sustain life. In some scenarios on the battle field he had seen Senior field medics performing surgeries to stop internal bleeding to significant damage that occurred on internal organs such as heart and kidney"s.
How long had Aker been in the medic area? Had he been there four hours? Probably not even that long. For him to walk away not only saying that he completed the two books but could complete 100% of the combat first aid and had a full mastery of the anatomy book, was that possible?
Learning medical skills would benefit Aker for his entire life, there was no doubt. There was never a shortage of demand for doctors and those that could save lives. For the most part in this universe when you saved a life that person would maintain a level of gratefulness that would last a lifetime. Essentially saving lives equaled increasing your power. However, that wasn"t the biggest reason that Vance wants Aker to learn and master medical skills.
Learning medical skills allows Aker to better learn different ways he can incapacitate his enemies. By understanding human physiology he can choose to slightly hurt and incapacitate to severely injure and more accurately plan his attacks with the least amount of effort. This gives him the opportunity to create more plans with a higher chance of success.
"That"s great news, continue to learn from Dr. Life & Death everything you can. As far as non-magical doctors are concerned he is one of the finer Dr."s in this portion of the galaxy. There are thousands of Dr."s who would brave The Pits for the opportunity to learn under him."
Vance"s spoke with his expression still reflecting his solemn and serious att.i.tude. After hearing from Aker he just decided to glaze over it and just accept Aker for whatever he is without making a big deal out of it. In fact his intention is to relay to the Dr. and Mavis as well. No matter how outstanding Aker was he didn"t want them to let Aker know.
There are countless examples of geniuses getting full of themselves due to their extraordinary talents and turning into arrogant idiots who offend for no reason at all. In fact the more genius they are the harder it is to keep them alive until they mature. As geniuses they will indubitably be exposed to other geniuses and it is just a matter of time before they offend someone they shouldn"t.
It was vital to Vance that while training Aker he made sure he had the confidence and demeanor of the Emperor"s Candidate that he is while maintaining an air of humility. Right now Aker is just one hair amongst nine cows, he is weak and small. In essence he didn"t want Aker to pick fights with others but if they pick a fight with him they should be crushed.
There is no doubt that living and fighting in The Pit will create a killing intent that Aker will always struggle with keeping hidden as time progresses. It"s something that will seep into his bones, flow through his blood and blend with his soul. One of Vance"s task will be to help Aker maintain a sense of normalcy while living and growing up in h.e.l.l. That begs the question though, what would a person who viewed h.e.l.l as a normal everyday life be like? Could that person be normal by everyone elses standards?
"Excellent, I have been waiting for you to come over here my boy. It"s good that your done with that stuffy Dr. over there and now you can do the work of a real man. A real man"s got to sweat when he works, he"s got to use his muscles and most importantly he has to create."
Mavis called out seeing both Vance and Aker approaching his Armorer stand. The whole foray is roughly double the size of the arena so it is extremely large. To travel from one side to the other can take a couple of minutes. Inside the foray they obviously hold fighters who are preparing to go out into the arena but they also have all of the different areas such as the armory, the medic station, cafeteria, beast cages, betting stations, pill and potion shop, and formations shop.
There is a considerable number of people who work in the foray who support the operation of The Pit that runs in the thousands. On top of that there are people who come to fight in The Pit of their own volition. They don"t get paid by The Pit but they are free to bet on themselves . The Pit doesn"t pay anything to them on account of the fact that there is no shortage of people to fight.
In addition there are fights that happen that allow for the use of magic formations and as such a formations shop is needed to support those fights. The formations used in The Pits could only be described as fairly low level however they do add a level of excitement and some mystery to the victors. Formations have in the past been able to change the outcome of fights so when battles occur in The Pit with formations it"s anybody"s guess as to who will win.
While the prisoners don"t get to eat at the cafeteria that doesn"t mean all of the hundreds of non-prisoners in the foray don"t need some place to eat. The cafeteria is also responsible for cooking up the food that gets sent to the prisoners cells, its just that the food that they are getting served could barely be called food as it only prevents them from starving to death.
The walk from the medic center to the armory only takes a few seconds as they are located right next to each other with the armory being to the right and the medic center being to the left of the gate that leads to the arena.
The reason for the armory being next to the gate is that they don"t want the prisoners walking around with weapons longer than they have to so they get them right before entering the fight. For most fighters the first thing they need when done with the fight is to get medical attention so by happenstance they are side by side.
Hearing Mavis"s words Vance put on a frown and called back to Mavis "Don"t go putting dumb ideas in his head like learning medical skills is a waste of time or any nonsense like that!"
"Haaa! I"m not sayin that its a waste of time, sure...sure...without them doctors and such those fellows wouldn"t make it very long. What I"m talkin about is priorities. Priorities, first and foremost that fella should have started with me, I still can"t believe you sent him over to that doctor first. When I"m done with him if there is still time then he can go about learnin that doctorin stuff...until then he needs to be swingin a hammer, makin sparks and dancin with the flame!"
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Mavis"s impa.s.sioned speech could be felt by both Vance and Aker. It was obvious listening to Mavis talk that he loved blacksmithing.
Aker was laughing on the inside, the more he was around Mavis the more he liked him, but he couldn"t agree with his thoughts here. While he had only been exposed to medical center for a few hours he had found that he really enjoyed it, as long as they will let him, he was planning on learning there.
"Hurry up, follow me, quit just standing there. We need to get started right away." Mavis said as he was emphasizing the need to expediently begin moving.
"No need to follow, I"ll take care of the boy." Mavis called out to Vance as he headed to the back where his forge was.
Previously when Aker was over in the medic center, while Vance was not located by him, he was able to keep an eye on him the whole time as the medic center is an open area. Things like patient privacy and closed care didn"t exist for the prisoners fighting in The Pit.
The armory that Aker saw was basically just the store front whereas the door leading to the back was where the actual forge, hammers, anvil and tools needed to do the blacksmithing were located.
As Aker was disappearing behind the door into the forging area Vance hesitated for just a moment before steeling his resolve and heading out. In truth he had a couple of important errands to run and this gave him the perfect opportunity to do it.
"Boy pick up that hammer over there." Mavis pointed at a hammer laying on the floor in the corner.
Aker looked around the room and was slightly excited at what he was seeing. Taking a significant portion of the room was four furnaces. Between the four furnaces they each seemed to be made of a different material. The biggest one was furthest in the corner and seemed to be made of some sort of brick and stone. It"s fire was lit and Aker could feel the heat from it as it radiated out into the forge.
"I"m not goin to explain everything your seein here for now. You only need to know four things today." Mavis said as he eyeballed Aker who was trying to take in the whole area.
Hearing Mavis"s words Aker returned his attention to Mavis and looked up at him "What are the three things I need to know Teacher Mavis?"
"Before any of that, lets get something straight. Inside this forge this is my world, his Majesty owns the Underground but I own this forge. I"m not Teacher Mavis and you"re not no Aker. In here I am Master and you are apprentice and as such that"s how we will refer to each other inside the forge."
Mavis said this to Aker in a way that left no room for negotiation or interpretation. Hearing Mavis"s words Aker had no problems so of course he responded back "Yes Master."
Hearing Akers positive response Mavis was satisfied so he moved on.
"The four things you"ll be needin to know are that"s a hammer, that"s an anvil, these are tongs and this is an ingot." Mavis pointed out the three items as he spoke.
"I understand the hammer and anvil, but what"s an ingot?" Aker who was looking at the block in Mavis"s hands seemed some what confused.
"An ingot is a block of metal that"s already been purified and processed and is ready for shaping. We just need to toss it into the fire to get it ready."
With that Mavis walked over to the brick and stone forge and using the tongs put the ingot in the flame. He then walked to the side and began pumping the bellow. With each pump of the bellow air was forced into the forge and the flames burned hotter and brighter.
"There are people now a day"s that use machines to push air into the forge, but how can they really call themselves smiths when they are depending on machines to do the work? When you are smithing you have to feel the flame and metal. You have to watch as the flame envelops the metal. You have to feel and know when to make it burn brighter and hotter and when to cool it down. Can a machine do all of that?"
Mavis spoke to Aker as he pumped the bellow never taking his eyes off of the fire in the forge. After a few minutes he pulled out the ingot that was blazing red and set it on top of the anvil. He picked up a giant hammer and began to pound the metal.
Each time the hammer hit the ingot the sound of metal on metal would cry out into the air. As Aker listened to it he found himself entranced by the rhythmic sound as if though it was singing a perfect melody.
As the melody played, the beauty and majesty of the melody became deeper and Aker became more entranced.
After swinging the hammer only 20-30 times Mavis stopped and looked down at Aker.
"Do you understand what I want you to do?"
Aker pondered on everything Mavis had told him and shown him since he had appeared with Vance and after a seconds thought he responded.
"Just swing the hammer?"