kingdom falling | gyuricky

nine | my strange duel partner

The duels were supposed to be a quick way to get a sense of their partner's fighting style and gauge the level of their abilities so they could better work together. From their short clash earlier, Gyuvin had an idea of Ricky being a somewhat more careful fighter, someone who would watch from the side to get a bearing of the situation and make sure he was fully prepared instead of jumping in immediately like Gyuvin would. Ricky didn't have a holy weapon, but he was adept with the elegant longsword he had sheathed at his waist, and his spiritual energy was on par with Gyuvin's even without a holy weapon, which was something to be admired. His shielding abilities looked to be much stronger than Gyuvin's, too.

The rest of the day was spent doing basic drills, training, and trading skills. Ricky showed Gyuvin how to control the central point of his shield with a different part of his mind so it didn't take up so much of his attention that it would distract him from attacking, and after a few tries of the unfamiliar technique Gyuvin was slowly grasping the concept. His golden shields still flickered every now and then as he struggled to focus on multiple things at once, but it was something he could foresee himself getting used to with practice.

In return, Gyuvin taught Ricky how to use his cloning talisman. Every big sect had their own unique path of cultivation; for example, Lunar Valley's cultivators were highly skilled in stealth and surveillance, thus their abilities in silent enchantments and spells were much stronger than their close combat abilities. Meteor Court's location was surrounded by densely populated towns and small cities, and given their tasks so often involved dealing with commonfolk, they found it was much more effective and generally less intimidating to avoid using weapons. Thus, cultivators from Meteor Court largely followed the path of talisman study. Gyuvin himself was one of the anomalies simply because he had a holy weapon, but even so his training with Yuexi was done privately under the sect leader, and most of his day-to-day training was with talismans and spellwork.

The cloning talisman itself was in fact created by one of the seniors at Meteor Court, so unless they had fought alongside a Meteor Court cultivator before it was unlikely that any other sect had ever seen this talisman in their lives. It required precision in the user's strokes but it had to be completed fast because it was often used in close-range combat, and Ricky grappled with the unfamiliar writing for a couple of tries before he got it. Of course, since Gyuvin was familiar with the talisman's properties, he could tell the user and the clone apart immediately; he slashed at the clone with Yuexi to make it dissipate into smoke every time Ricky used the talisman to show that he could tell them apart, until Ricky eventually got tired.

"One of these times you're gonna guess wrong and hit me instead of the clone," Ricky said, frowning.

"I wasn't guessing!" Gyuvin protested, laughing. "Besides, you act like you can't take me in a fight. If you really wanted, I wouldn't even be able to get anywhere near you."

Ricky unsheathed his sword from the scabbard hanging from his waist. The blade of the sword was the color of ice, iridescent in the afternoon sun, completely clear like a deadly icicle. Two words were carved in white on the body of the blade, Tianling. Order of heaven.

Gyuvin bent over to look at the blade, curiosity immediately piqued. "What is this made of? How long have you had it?"

"Clear celestite," Ricky answered. "I've had it since I was twelve. Moonrise Palace's cultivation path is heavily weapon-based. All cultivators begin training with different types of weapons from the age of seven, and at the age of twelve you enter the Palace Forge to have a weapon specially made for you based on your abilities."

Gyuvin admired the glimmering body of Tianling, agape. He, too, wished he could have a beautiful weapon custom made just for him, but of course, Meteor Court was not even half as rich as Moonrise Palace to be able to afford such luxuries. Then again, since he himself already had a holy weapon, he supposed he should learn to be content with what he already had.