Aker finished up his time in the medic station without much hoopla as there was no significant cases that came through the station today. There was a family who had been suffering from a rare disease for longer than they should have, and he helped take care of them and was slightly agitated with their doctors who let it drag on that long.Finishing up Aker headed over to the forge where he was still trying to get his mold right for his body armor. He had tried dozens of different variations with the mold and none of them felt right. As it happened, the body armor that Mavis had made for him was holding up so Aker wasn"t in a hurry to make his. He really wanted to make something he could be proud of. At this time Aker had spent so much time swinging his hammer and the only item that Aker had to show for it was his throwing darts, but he felt strangely happy with his progress.
To date Aker hadn"t even attempted to try and smith any new weapons or armor as he didn"t feel his skills were at an adequate level yet. While Aker didn"t try and make any new weapons or armor, Mavis wasn"t pushing Aker to create them either. Mavis seemed more than content with his disciple that would practice his molds, swing his hammer and worked towards perfecting his. .h.i.ts.
Every time Mavis saw Aker swing his hammer, he felt his spirit shake. Not because Aker"s skill was so monstrous he couldn"t contain himself, if it was skill alone Mavis had seen plenty of young ones who in a blacksmith could put Aker to shame.
Most great teachers didn"t evaluate their students based on their current skills as trying to compare a fifteen-year-old smithy with a twenty-year-old smithy wouldn"t give a clear picture. Even trying to compare a fifteen-year-old to another fifteen-year-old could end up being a lie that would cause the teacher to miss out on a fantastic student.
Suppose that a fifteen-year-old had only just picked up a hammer a week or two before but was already swinging his hammer at a 15% rate and was capable of pounding his metal the way they wanted. How would that compare to a fifteen-year-old who had been swinging a hammer for five years who was. .h.i.tting at a 20% rate? While it might seem as if though the fifteen-year-old swinging at 20% was the far better student, the reality was they were far inferior to the one hitting at 15%.
This is what excited Mavis so much about Aker. His talent with a hammer and fire was the best that Mavis had ever seen. It wasn"t just his talent that Mavis enjoyed so much, it was also the way that his mind processed as he worked. Aker could feel that his swing was off, his sound wasn"t right, knew to thin out the metal, to give it angles and was getting a feel for how to hammer it to emphasize its strengths while minimizing its weaknesses, he did all of this naturally as a matter of course.
For example, Mavis had given Aker an ingot of Jac.l.i.te metal, a metal known for being exceptionally light. As a tradeoff for being light it was more brittle and easier to break. Some magic fighters preferred the lower protection with higher agility so for them it was the metal of choice.
While Aker was hammering the metal and thinning it out, he became agitated with it and ended up folding it. Upon folding it and hammering, he hammered the ends closed and began smoothing it out. Of course, Mavis knew of this technique, but it was considered a trade secret for this metal that was only shared among higher level blacksmiths. If others were to see this there is no doubt, they would believe that Mavis taught it to Aker and no amount of explanation would be believable. For Mavis he was left in utter bewilderment as he watched Aker intuitively find these solutions and he found himself excited each day to see what Aker would do next.
Leaving the forge Aker began his first day in the kitchen as a Novice Cook working at the most central station. As always Sampson was not there but Aker did overhear the other apprentices talking, and it turns out that Sampson stayed in the kitchen working like a mad man for almost 24 hours straight completely inspired by Aker"s Dragon Roll.
In fact, Sampson had spent several hours simply imitating Aker"s Dragon Roll except he had taken a couple of the ingredients and subst.i.tuted them. After several different variations he was laughing crazily, repeatedly calling out "beautiful, it"s a masterpiece and glorious" in that order over and over again. For almost every cook in the kitchen they had been inspired and were trying cooking that they have never tried before. Almost every attempt was a failure but every now and then someone would scream out in elation with an unbelievable success. So, as Aker stood at Sampson"s station right in the middle of the kitchen not only did all the cooks not look down on him, they would secretly sneak glances at him filled with admiration and a little "what"s he going to try".
When Aker first stepped up to the central station, he had seen all of the perfect tools and abundant ingredients. As Aker stared down at the ingredients, he broke out in an internal struggle causing a serious conflict for himself. What allowed Aker to be so creative was the freedom that he had. All of the apprentices while working on their cooking were as diligent as they could be as to not waste the ingredients due to how expensive they were. The waste pile was proof that there were plenty of errors, but that was a representation of the c.u.mulative failures and not singular. Each apprentice could fail a couple of times and they wouldn"t suffer any repercussions, however, too many failures and they would be demoted or worse yet kicked out of the kitchen.
Aker enjoyed exploring what he could do with a knife and fire and didn"t want to be limited by expensive ingredients, so to everyone"s shock Aker stepped back from the central station and walked towards the edge and over to the reject station. He looked down at his barely functional cutlery and worn-down work area, his waste pile filled with limitless ingredients for experimentation and smiled. Maybe in the future he would work in the central station but right now he was having too much fun discovering cooking. Being back where he felt most stirred and inspired, he began digging through the waste pile as he looked for today"s trial dishes.
Finishing up in the kitchen oblivious to everyone"s gaze"s filled with respect and the single gaze filled with killing intent Aker left to go fight in the arena. Just as the day before Aker defeated two Level 1 Basic magic beasts, but instead they were a mixture of earth and water. Of course, the earth beast specializes in defense which makes them extremely difficult opponents. The problem with fighting an earth and water magic beast together is the water beast. Water magic beast tend to specialize in healing others while also being able to attack. Their attacks are not nearly as strong as a fire based magic beast, but they have the added bonus of being able to heal others. Wood magic beast can heal themselves almost endlessly which makes them awful opponents but when fighting against a water magic beast if you don"t defeat it first forget about winning.
In this configuration the water magic beast can hide behind the earth magic beast and launch attacks endlessly. Typically, while Aker attacked the earth magic beast to try and create an opening to go after the water magic beast, the water magic beast would heal the earth magic beast. The entire time it would be healing the earth magic beast it would also be attacking at random intervals. The only saving grace for Aker is that the two beasts must stay extremely close to one another for this configuration to work. This allowed him to have the advantage in speed and s.p.a.ce which would ultimately allow him to emerge victorious.
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Today however ended up just like his previous battle. Walking up to the earth beast he was able to defeat it in one swing, he then moved on to the water beast which he also crushed in only one swing. Both beasts were defeated in just a couple of minutes. The only reason it took longer than yesterday"s battle was because neither of the beast were particularly fast, so it just took time for them to cover half the distance of the arena.
Aker had now reached a point where the Level 1 Basic magic beast were no longer any kind of challenge to him or at least fighting just the two of them. Based on how easily he defeated them, it would seem that even if he was fighting five to ten of them, he shouldn"t have any issue at all, which is exactly what happened.
As the months rolled by Aker was able to take on more and more magic beast, fighting them off easily as he fought day in and day out in the arena. He had long ago broken through to the Body Conditioning Organ level thus significantly increasing his strength.
Before breaking through to the Body Conditioning Organ level Aker could easily defeat ten magic beasts. While it wasn"t as simple as just standing in place and swinging his sword as ten did require him to plan and strategize, he was never in any danger.
Aker had become a well-known doctor in the Underground Empire as people from all over the empire came for his care. Word had gotten out some time ago that Aker had cured a whole family who had been suffering from a rare disease that was hereditary that none of the doctors had been able to diagnose much less cure. It was a disease that caused the family to be shorter than average as well as caused problems with fatigue.
This family had been scrupulous in business dealings so they were incredibly rich, however their money could do nothing to fix their issue. It was Aker that recognized the blood disease that started from a parasite in wild boars not being cooked well enough. At some point, one of their ancestors had gotten the parasite, had his blood infected and pa.s.sed it on to the kids. In order to combat the disease, it required a huge amount of Rekeme herb to be consumed over months of time. The hot iron in this herb caused the diseased blood to thin out until it disappeared. While it wouldn"t do anything to help the height of the people currently affected it would stop it from being pa.s.sed down and more importantly would allow the affected members of the family to have vitality they had never had.
Aker"s reputation as a medic was growing outside even the Underground Empire as sick patients were starting to work their way over catching smuggling ships hoping that the Little Life Doctor or Doctor Life & Death might be able to do something for them or a loved one.
Due to the increased popularity of The Pit medic station Doctor Life & Death began examining the patients who were coming for help. Initially he was very reluctant but after helping a few people solve diseases that had been plaguing them for a considerable amount of time he found he looked forward to each day. While Doctor Life & Death continued to be the same monotonous and lifeless soul he had always been, every now then Aker would catch the hint of a smile from him.
The part that was hardest for people to understand was that suddenly and without any warning Aker began to wear a mask at all times. As Kara had heard privately and was sworn to secrecy by Aker, the mask that Aker always wore was an exact replica of the same mask that Vance wore when he fought in The Pit.
The first day that Aker wore it around from the medic station, to the forge, at the kitchen and then into the arena it threw everyone for a loop. From the first day that Aker began wearing it he never took it off in front of anyone except for Vance. Not even Kara had seen Aker for some time as she wasn"t allowed back into the prison cell area and Aker didn"t remove it where others could see.
The mask completely covered Aker"s head and didn"t allow anyone to make out any of his facial features and ran down his neck which also made it somewhat difficult to make out his body as well. The mask itself was pitch black and had black horns that raised from the sides. There were two blood red eyes which had bright scarlet blood red war paint dragging down from them. With Akers black robe and black midnight sword, every time he would stand in the arena it gave a freighting and chilly visual affect. When he wasn"t in the arena, he would take out the horns attempting to not scare his patients and the others in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the scream of patients became a daily routine as they would catch a glimpse of Aker. There was also the shouts of other young boys and girls that would scream out "Awesome" upon seeing it. Either way his mask would always be a ma.s.sive attention getter.
Wearing the mask didn"t hinder Aker"s abilities in any facet and he found each day to be rewarding and even exciting. His medical knowledge could rival any "well known" doctor in this part of the outer universe. At this rate only Doctor Life & Death was still more knowledgeable than Aker. Confusingly enough Doctor Life & Death"s medical capabilities and knowledge still far outcla.s.sed Aker, at one of the rare times that Aker would be stumped on a patient Doctor Life & Death was always able to quickly make the diagnosis and used those times as opportunities to guide Aker.