Honestly Daniel had actually done a lot better than expected.
Throughout our entire first session of sparing he had actually dodged most of my attacks.
He had been able to destroy or evade all of my magic attacks, and evade my physical blows at the sa ti.
Which is a lot better than most highly trained soldiers would be able to do.
And the adventurers who had slowly started to pour into the arena had been able to see that as well.
I could see most of them standing at the edge of the arena whispering amongst themselves.
Which I expected was all part of Julia’s plan.
That sister of mine was pretty good at manipulating events so Daniel’s prowess would be seen by as many people as possible.
But at that ti, that was the least of my worries.
The performance of the man hadn’t been bad at all, but it had also been sloppy, and way too focused on defence, and physical attacks.
"Firstly," I said, raising a finger to the sky. "You’re way too focused on defence."
"If you’re only focused on defence, you hand the montum of the battle to your opponent, and if you do that with any opponent that’s worth his or her salt, you might as well give up."
"Secondly," I said, raising a second finger. "Apart from using it to defend yourself you almost completely ignore your magic."
"It’s almost as if you think a battle should either be magical, or physical, and not both."
"Once again, any proper opponent would use that to sway the montum of the battle in their favour."
"And lastly," I said, raising a third finger. "You think way too much."
Daniel sat up with a sigh.
"I know," he said, rubbing his ribs. "Julia’s said as much to , but isn’t a battle supposed to be strategic?"
"I an are you telling you just went along with the battle when you completely trapped into that final move?"
I could only shake my head at those words.
"Instincts are much more important in battle than strategic thinking."
"Thinking slows you down, it takes ti away from reactions, whereas instincts would make reactions imdiate."
"You need to learn to trust your instincts."
"If you had trained and trusted your instincts more, you would have known that you were never trapped into taking either the sword, or the fireball, it’s overthinking it that caused you to co to that conclusion." I answered.
"And how am I supposed to train my instincts?" Daniel asked.
A grin spread across my face.
"By doing exactly what we just did," I answered. "And stopping yourself from thinking about what you’re doing."
"So what you’re saying is that I should go into a sparring match against you, and trust my untrained instincts?" Daniel gulped.
"Exactly," I grinned. "The only way to train your instincts is to let them go wild, and get beaten up if they’re wrong."
"Sounds fun." Daniel muttered.
"I know right!"
"Now get up," I said, standing again, and offering him a hand. "Let’s continue."
"Already?" Daniel asked, looking at with wide eyes. "Can’t we take a few more minutes?"
"Nope." I shook my head, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet.
I stepped back a few feet from him.
"Wait!" He called out, just as I was about to start. "Can I at least borrow a sword from soone before we get started?"
His request made so sense.
It wasn’t like he was always going to fight with his fists.
And if we were going to train his battle instincts he would need to train with the weapon he would be fighting with.
"Grab one of those," I said pointing to the racks of wooden swords lined against the far wall of the arena.
Daniel looked at those racks with a startled expression, which imdiately told that he hadn’t even noticed them.
That would need to be another thing we had to work on.
He seriously needed to pay more attention to his surroundings.
After he had walked over, picked up a sword, and ca back to his spot, we were finally ready for our second session.
It started about the sa as the first one.
Daniel kept on the defensive, destroying or evading my magic attacks, and blocking my physical attacks with his sword.
After a few minutes of this I could see him finally stop to think about how to dodge, or block, and simply to let his body do it.
After another few minutes he even started to counter attack naturally.
Eventually he had even mixed in so magic counter attacks with his physical ones.
He had actually started to keep on my toes.
It hadn’t been just an all out slaughter like the first session had been.
I actually had to work for every hit I landed.
I actually had to dodge his attacks, instead of just attacking his weak points like I did in the first session.
The rate at which he had improved astonished .
It felt like every mont we sparred he was improving.
His casting decisions beca almost impeccable.
His defenses beca almost impenetrable.
His attacks beca almost unavoidable.
If he had been fighting against almost anyone else he would have easily defeated them.
But he wasn’t fighting anyone else.
And there was always room for improvent after all.
After a few more minutes of our back and forth, I made my move.
I shot two fireballs from the front, raised a wall of fire at his back.
As he evaded the two incoming fireballs, I dropped down and swept his legs.
He hit the ground with a bang.
Before he could get back to his feet, my sword was against his throat.
As he lay there, I could see his mind slowly start to clear again.
I was almost like a fog had slowly been lifted from his eyes.
"Good job," I said. "That was a lot better than the first session."
A massive sigh escaped Daniel’s lips.
"Does that an we’re done here?" He asked.
"Of course not!" Julia answered, as she and the rcenaries stepped over to us.
The n were battered and bruised, most of them were wincing with every step they took.
"You paid for four hours after all," She said as she ca to a stop next to Daniel. "It’s only been a little more than two hours, do you want to lose four silver?"
Daniel’s previously exhausted expression imdiately changed into one of determination.
"Let’s go," he said, standing up again. "We have to make the next two hours count."
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