The Divine Hunter

Roy started his hell week of training the next day. He would wake up from meditation every day at five in the morning and get trained in swordsmanship. Compared to Letho, Auckes’ training was simpler and more straightforward. He went straight for the hands-on stuff, and he didn’t even use training swords. “Training swords are for kids. True witchers can even kill their own brothers. We’ll be using real swords.” Auckes blew on his short sword and shot Roy a provocative look.

He had a weird way of holding his short swords. He held the hilt in a reverse grip with one hand and the normal grip with the other. The short swords danced across his fingers like they weighed nothing.

Auckes was kidding, of course. They would cast Quen on themselves before they sparred, just in case someone was hurt. However, Auckes would never hold himself back. He went full power on Roy. “Guess what, Roy? I’m not going to hold back like that baldy did. Nobody’s going to hold back in a life-or-death battle, not even if you are a handsome man.”

And with that, the young witcher’s hellish training began. The usually silent courtyard was filled with the sound of metal clashing against each other. The witchers would clash and break apart many times, and sparks would fly every time the metal swords met. Roy would lose at least a hundred matches in the span of a single morning. Sometimes he would lose in two seconds, as Auckes’ blade would already be on his neck the moment the battle started.

If he was lucky, he would last ten seconds, but that was pure luck. Auckes was too fast for Roy’s eyes to even catch. He could only guess how Auckes would attack by pure experience, and if he was lucky, he would guess it right and block Auckes. However, all his counter attacks would miss his adversary.

Training with Auckes was just a massacre. Roy had no chance to counter attack or win. His confidence plummeted after the first day, and he doubted his own skills, but by the next morning, he didn’t even feel anything after he lost another hundred matches. On the third day, he understood what Auckes was trying to teach. The continuous failures in battle not only taught him about swordsmanship, but also about his battle sense, danger sense, instincts, and resilience.

Swordsmanship might be important, but the other elements were crucial to witchers too, so Roy held on. But just when he was getting used to the brutal training, Auckes switched it up a little. “You can’t just endure the hits. I have something else for you too. See those things in the courtyard?”

“You mean the tall logs, the spinning puppets, and the sandbag hanging from the tree?” Roy had a bad feeling about the matter.

“Yes. Serrit and I spent a month preparing those for you. So, are you surprised?” Auckes grinned toothily, and he had a smug look on his face. “Every apprentice in the school has to go through this. They’re used to train your balance and reaction speed. You’ll have to get used to them, and you will get injured in the process, but well, scars are a man’s pride. Don’t let us down, Roy.”

And Roy had to go through another kind of training every morning. He would jump around the twelve logs in the courtyard. Roy always fell and almost broke his bones in the beginning, but eventually, he got used to it, and his movements became as agile and elegant as a cat’s. He was quiet, accurate, and balanced.

Auckes would take part in the spinning puppet and the sandbag training. Roy stood in the middle of the puppets and sandbags, dodging them as they kept assaulting him. Naturally, he was still on the enduring end of the practice. Once he was done enduring, he’d cast Quen, and the routine would repeat until he had no mana left.

He had bruises all over his body after a single morning, and his head was as swollen as a balloon. And he felt dizzy because his mana had run out.

Auckes sat with him in the courtyard, and they stared up at the overcast sky. “Don’t look so glum. Smile.”

Roy forced a smile, and the pain made him wince.

“That’s more like it, Roy. Don’t end up like the other two. They always look so tense.” Auckes winked at him. “The life of a witcher is a dull one. It’s either training or requests. Lots and lots of requests. We should have more humor in our life. Do something fun. After all, we might drop dead someday. If you don’t have any happy memories before you die, then your life will be nothing but a tragedy.”

“Yeah,” Roy agreed.

Auckes beamed, happy because Roy acknowledged his point of view. “You see. I am a handsome man…”

“Yes, you don’t look bad.” Roy looked at Auckes. He looked exactly like Serrit, and if he were to change into plain clothes, Auckes would look just like a farmer.

Auckes’ training was a bit special, and he’d always talk after he was done, so Roy gleaned some sort of fun from it. He could feel himself improving every day. It wasn’t a growth in stats, but a growth in battle sense, and that would only show in battle.

***

Letho’s alchemy class would follow in the afternoon. Before the trial, Roy could only make two kinds of potions: marigold potions and paralyzing poisons. However, after he unlocked his mana pool after the trial, he could craft concoctions.

“I’ll start by teaching you the simplest, most commonly used concoctions. There are three of them: Swallow, for regeneration, Thunderbolt, for more muscle strength, and Petri’s Philter, for more powerful signs.” Letho looked at Roy, and he said, “Tell me about the recipes for those concoctions.”

“All those concoctions use dwarven liquor as base,” Roy answered without any hesitation. “But Swallow requires five ounces of celandine and two ounces of drowner brain… Thunderbolt requires two ounces of beggarticks and an ounce of endrega fetus. Wait, do we even have that ingredient?”

“Someone was selling it in the market this morning. A layman. He found the fetus by chance and sold it off cheap, thinking it was a beehive. And you’re paying for the ingredients. I’m not paying for it out of my own pocket,” Letho said seriously, and he seemed slightly nervous.

“Fine.”

“Very well, then. Let’s continue. The recipe for Petri’s Philter.”

“…Five ounces of arenaria, one ounce of specter dust. As for the specifics…”

“Now watch how I do it. I’ll only do it once. Memorize the whole thing and copy it.” Letho started making the concoctions and told Roy about what to pay attention to in every step. “First, Swallow. Take five ounces of dried celandine and add it into the mortar, then crush it with the pestle, but don’t grind it into a fine dust. Use about half of your grip strength and crush it four hundred times. Put the crushed celandine on a plate and set it aside.”

“Grind the smoked drowner’s brain into a fine dust. About as fine as the flour you see…Add half a dose of dwarven liquor in the cauldron before you start this step, then light the fire and heat it up.”

Letho’s back would contract and ease up from time to time as he went through all the complex yet necessary steps of making potions. Once all the ingredients got to know each other in the cauldron, Letho heated them up and poured them into a flask. Then he sat cross legged and placed the concoction in his lap. He sent his mana into the potion and used it to neutralize all the conflicting elements in the concoction.

“The mana required for neutralization is a tenth of what we spend on signs, and you cannot spend it all at once. You must be slow and gradual, or you’ll destroy the potion.”

A while later, Letho raised a flask of green potion, and a dose of Swallow was done.

***

Of all the three training sessions, Roy was accustomed to alchemy the most. He had gone through the same kind of training twice, and the third time’s the charm, so he adapted to it well. Roy’s agility increased significantly after the trial, and thanks to that, his coordination and hand speed increased as well. He could weigh the ingredients, handle the base of the concoction, and use all the apparatuses smoothly at this point.

Roy would rarely make any basic mistakes like taking the wrong weight and underheating or overheating the cauldron. After seeing Letho’s presentation, Roy managed to create a dose of Swallow after ten failures. His mana was almost fully depleted, but he managed to make one, though its effect was only a third of what Letho’s Swallow was. However, it was a huge improvement, as he had to go through a few grueling days to make one dose the last time.

He mastered Swallow in two days, and the process of making Thunderbolt and Petri’s Philter was about the same, so no accidents happened. Roy’s alchemy skills were growing slowly but surely, and he enjoyed that kind of feeling. However, the only problem was money. They spent more than three hundred crowns in a single week, and eighty percent of that was wasted.

***

After alchemy and dinner, it was time for Serrit’s theory class. Roy thought Serrit would only read the text of Almanac of Creatures word by word, but instead, Serrit veered off script and brought up interesting examples every time he talked about a creature. Most of the time, the example came from his own experience, though he modified it a little.

“So you memorized two pages last night. Not bad. Here’s a question. What’s the most distinct difference between drowners and nekkers?”

“Drowners can’t see too far, while nekkers can’t see too clearly.” Roy experienced those himself, and the memory was still vivid.

“Good. Looks like Letho taught you some basics.” Serrit smirked. “Let’s move on to some of the more advanced knowledge. Trolls, to be specific. Not ice trolls, not forest trolls, but trolls. They are powerful humanoid creatures. They are fat, and their muscles are thick. They are nearly invincible, and they possess significant strength. They can tear off our head and arms easily and shove it up our ass. So what should you do if you run into a troll, kid?” Serrit looked at Roy.

“Run,” Roy blurted. He was still too weak to face trolls, but he thought he could run even if he couldn’t fight it.

“So what should I do, Mr. Serrit?” Roy looked down humbly as he requested for the answer.

Serrit loved that attitude. He straightened his hair band and puffed his chest. “Trolls might possess great strength, but they have simple minds, and they are slow. That’s their weakness, and you can exploit it. If you run into them, the best course of action is to stop moving and crouch down. Cover your head with your arms, and the trolls might stop attacking, since they’ll think you’re a rock. Then you can slip away while they take a nap.”

“Um, are you sure that will work?” Roy was doubtful. “Won’t they tear me limb from limb and make me into a human stew?”

“It will work. Speaking from experience. That’s one unforgettable memory. I was eighteen back then, and I had just departed the great Gorthur Gvaed,” Serrit said. “I was injured after handling a ghoul request in a village, and I ran into a troll on my way back. It was right beside the wooden bridge. I pretended to be a stone, and I managed to slip by. Then I used the same trick three times at the same spot. Back then, I wondered how a humanoid creature with such low intellect managed to survive for so long. By the fifth time, I couldn’t hold my curiosity back, so I raised my hands and slowly went over to have a chat.”

“You had a chat with a troll?”

“Yes. Trolls speak human tongue as well, but they have limited intellect, and their temper is short. Naive and stupid, so to speak.” Serrit emphasized, “If you wish to talk to them, you have to master the art of conversation, and you have to think on your feet. You must not show any kind of nervous emotion, or they will smash you into bits, thinking you want to cross the bridge.”

“So what did you talk about with the troll?” Roy asked.

“It told me about bridgemaking and how to cook mushrooms, while I taught it how to count using fingers,” Serrit said. “Trolls usually only know how to count up to five, while I taught it how to count until ten with its fingers. It was delighted, and I knew that if I were to invite him, I would gain a friend, an underling, and a goon, or a bodyguard. Trolls do not understand betrayal. That concept doesn’t seem to exist, so their loyalty is guaranteed. It was a shame I had no place to keep that giant, and it had a big appetite, so I couldn’t sustain it.”

“Oh, I wrote an article about it, titled ‘How to Deceive an Innocent Troll Using the Art of Conversation.’ All the details are in there. Interested?”

“Yes, of course.”

***

It was already night after the theory class, so Serrit took Roy and left Cintra for the wilds. Sleuth work, tracking, and hunting were included in Serrit’s class. Since witchers would have to live in the wilds a lot, hunting and survival skills were crucial to them. Letho had taught Roy the basics, but Serrit went deeper, and he easily taught Roy about the most important parts.

First, he taught Roy about the traps he could make to catch some fish, birds, rabbits, and marmots. The traps were made using anything that was available in the wild, including vines, twigs, and fallen leaves. They made the traps at night, and if they were lucky, they could get something the very next day.

Then, he showed Roy how to use their witcher senses to track bigger prey using their urine, footprints, fur, and feathers. Then they would hunt down their prey, skin and disembowel it, and finally make barbecue out of it.

“You’ll be on cooking duty from now on, kid, so learn how to grill,” Serrit said nonchalantly as he chomped down on the meat.

“Why me?”

“School tradition. Youngest witcher is on menial duty.”

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