“I see the trainings during the evening helped,” Kerryn noted.

  “They did,” Varre agreed, “I almost have enough energy to last half an hour now. I needed time to regenerate of course, but I managed to find fifteen minutes each night to do some simple exercises.”

  The adventurer returned to reading the report from the talent check. “We had to limit your combat training and your strength hasn’t improved that much. But regular jogging and physical exercises increased your speed and dexterity. That’s not half bad.”

  The king nodded. “And my power and aura increased too. I tried to enhance myself while out on the road here and there. Concentration helped.”

  “Indeed,” Kerryn patted him on the shoulder, “and so did participating in battles. Personally, I think we all need to experience stress to grow faster.”

  “I suppose high level adventurers have to do that all the time,” Varre conceded.

  “We do. But stats alone will not help you. You need to know what you’re doing with them,” the coach stepped back and drew his practice sword, before assuming a fighting stance, “let’s see if you still remember some of your lessons.”

  The king retrieved another practice weapon from a nearby rack. After taking a few moments to mentally prepare, he enhanced himself and charged forward.

  He was significantly faster than in his natural state now. He started off with a diagonal strike, aiming right at the opponent’s torso. He was blocked, so he quickly repositioned and attempted another blow from the right.

  Kerryn, could still keep up, but he clearly struggled. He couldn’t rely on reaction speed alone. He watched the monarch carefully and tried to predict what moves might come next, based on his stance and body movement. Varre moved faster, but he lacked the experience to move efficiently. It was time to make use of that.

  After their blades met, the adventurer decided to go on the offensive. He stepped forward and tried to drive his shoulder into his opponent’s chin.

  With their swords still connected, Varre couldn’t use the weapon to defend. He jumped back, narrowly avoiding the strike, but losing all of his advantage in the process. Now he was on the backfoot, unsteady, and Kerryn decided to follow this up with a long sideways swipe.

  The king frantically moved his blade back and managed to stop the attack. Just barely. To make it in time, he was forced to block with just a single hand. If it wasn’t for his superhuman strength, the strike would have easily overpowered the defense and struck true.

  There was no time to think about that. Kerryn kept up the pressure, quickly pulling the blade back, before repeating another blow from the same direction.

  Again, Varre wasn’t expecting that. Assuming that his coach would return to a more neutral state, he did the same to match that. Now, his weapon was out of position once more. He scrambled to block the attack, as it aimed even lower, straight at his knees.

  The king grit his teeth in frustration. He had every physical advantage, but his opponent was simply smarter. Kerryn’s decades of experience taught him plenty of tricks he could pull off now. Adventurers, who specialize in fighting monsters, are well versed in combat against creatures that are stronger and faster than they are. The only way they can win is through equipment. And skill.

  If Varre wanted to turn the situation around he had to start fighting like a real duelist. Not a beast. He quickly took a few steps back, to reposition and come up with a new strategy. The coach tried to punish that with a blow, but fortunately, the king was too fast.

  “That was decent!” Kerryn complemented him, “you’re much faster than you were before!”

  “Not fast enough!” the king bit back.

  He jumped back into action, without waiting to hear a response.

  The adventurer smiled. This was a good move. Though the fight had barely lasted a minute, energy was a limited resource. So far, only Varre was enhanced, so talking just burned away his temporary advantage.

  This time the king tried to focus more on his speed. He lunged forward, thrusting the blade into the enemy’s torso. He held it in his right hand, to further increase the range.

  Kerryn expected this, noticing the way Varre held his sword. Still, with this speed, the adventurer had to turn his body sideways, while parrying the blade with his own at the same time. If he only did one, he would have failed.

  But the king’s maneuver wasn’t over.

  Using his momentum, he kept barreling forward. He aimed his free hand at the adventurer’s exposed shoulder and shoved him with all of his force.

  Kerryn’s quick maneuver managed to block the thrust, but it left him vulnerable and without steady footing. The king’s enhanced state gave him plenty of strength too. Enough to push the coach and throw him off balance.

  The retired adventurer fell to the ground with a grunt. He didn’t see this coming.

  Varre wasn’t done just yet. He took a step forward to regain his balance and quickly swiped the blade, aiming right at his opponent’s neck.

  Kerryn shut his eyes while landing on the ground, and that cost him too much precious time. Instinctively, he was already turning his sword towards Varre, trying to keep the threat away, but he was too late. By the time he could see again, the blade was already at his neck.

  The battle was finished. And the king was the victor.

  The coach chuckled and dropped his weapon in a sign of surrender. Varre, panting, sheathed his own, and then extended a hand to help his teacher up.

  “Well done Varre, well done indeed,” Kerryn said, dusting off his clothes, “some would call that inelegant, but fuck ‘em. There’s no room for that in a real battle.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I realized I couldn’t beat you in a normal duel, so I had to improvise,” the monarch admitted.

  “And that’s the most important lesson I can teach you,” the adventurer nodded, “those who rely on brute strength, don’t get to live very long. You gotta think!”

  “So what happens now?” Varre asked, “will you start enhancing yourself for our future duels?”

  Kerryn just smirked. “Why don’t we try it?”

  Once he was done dusting off, he picked up his own weapon again. He quickly checked it for damage, before enhancing himself. Once he assumed a fighting position, he gave Varre a long look. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” the king confirmed.

  “Try to block this!”

  The king stretched out his muscles and fixed the grip on his weapon. His stance was purely defensive now and he was eager to see what the adventurer could throw at him.

  Kerryn moved far faster than any human should be able to. He stepped forward and unleashed a powerful slash right at Varre.

  There was no way the king was going to move in time to block this. Worst, with this level of strength, he was certain that even a training weapon could cause some serious damage. He grit his teeth and tried to reposition himself to better receive the incoming attack, but he knew it was hopeless.

  Fortunately, the adventurer was only aiming at Varre’s sword. The blades met and the force ripped the weapon straight out of the monarch’s hands. His body followed it, surprised, but there was no way he could catch it again.

  Instead, he simply crossed his arms and grimaced. “Show off.”

  Kerryn laughed. “Sorry, there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re capable of beating me in my base form now, but you’ve still got a ways to go to reach me when I’m enhanced.”

  “Can’t you just go easy on me?” Varre suggested, “this is kind of pointless.”

  “I could, but it wouldn’t be very fair,” the adventurer winked, “to you I mean. Every time you’d feel like you’re finally gaining on me, I’d instinctively use more of my force and simply block or overpower you. Nothing I could do about it.”

  “So what now?” the king asked.

  “Now? I will have to focus on teaching you other things. We can still practice dueling when we’re both in our base forms, to learn new techniques and do physical exercises. But when it comes to dueling while enhanced,” Kerryn winked, “I’ll have to find you a more suitable sparring partner.”

  With this teaching experience out of the way, the rest of the session was spent checking up on Varre’s progress in other areas. A piece of parchment with some stats written on it was one thing. Running laps around the courtyard and lifting heavy weights often showed a different picture.

  By the time the men were finished, it was completely dark outside. Fortunately, thanks to the physical exertion, Varre didn’t feel cold, but the whole area had to be lit up by torches.

  The next day passed in a similar matter. Another extensive meeting with the council, followed by even more extensive training session. There was a lot of catching up to do on both fronts.

  For now, one of the Royal Guard recruits would serve as a decent enough sparring partner. The knight may have been stronger and much more experienced, but he’d certainly hesitate to go all out against the monarch. The fights were generally even, with Varre learning plenty of more formalized techniques from the warrior.

  Now that the king’s energy breached the twenty four barrier, it also created a new problem. The resource regenerated at a pretty constant rate of about one point per hour. There were some people with extremely rare abilities that allowed them to increase this rate, but Varre wasn’t one of them. Those lucky enough to be born with such talents tended to become highly successful adventurers.

  This meant that the monarch could no longer fully expend all of his energy every single day. Rather he could, but then it would never regenerate back to its full amount. Instead, a new training regimen was designed, where he was expected to spend specific amounts on different days. Depending on which attribute Kerryn wanted to focus on a given time. And each coach had to monitor the time carefully.

  While the retired adventurer focused on physical strength and toughness, the other two tackled different categories. Lora developed Varre’s speed and dexterity, while Elvira his aura and power.

  At least this gave him another opportunity to interact with the twins. As they’ve agreed during the feast, Zarkon’s apprentices started working under the Court Mage and visited her a few times a week.

  One of their first tasks would be to help Elvira develop the new training program for future wizards. Her new academy would eventually need to train dozens, or perhaps even hundreds of fresh commoners in the mysteries of magic and there was a mountain of work to be done. Though they could base some of their system on the guild’s, there’d be differences.

  For starters, many commoners didn’t know how to read. Though the Court Mage could limit herself to only taking on those that knew, the whole point of this program was to search for hidden gems with magical talents that would otherwise be forgotten by the system. Potentially, the first year or two could be focused on such elemental knowledge, with more educated students simply starting later. But that was just the first detail.

  The girls also needed to choose which magical disciplines to focus on. They needed to be things useful to the kingdom, and the crown in particular, while at the same, they had to be careful not to anger Kadmos too much. The archmage wouldn’t want to see a new army of wizards, ready to challenge his students in the future. No matter what he had already agreed to.

  Opportunities for training Varre were a nice change of pace from the exhausting tasks. While Elvira focused on meditation techniques and visualizing magical force, the twins tried to put their own spin on it. Jury tried to show off some basic spells, such as creating a small spark of fire. Perry on the other hand, tried to teach the king how to deflect attacks with a shield. For now, she placed the relevant spell on it herself, but eventually that would be up to the king.

  Over the following week, Varre continued to work hard and make up the lost progress over the last couple of months. The mountain of reports on his desk was growing shorter. So were the daily Council meetings. All of the advisors were busy, developing his ideas further.

  Captain Hakon, together with Count Jan, started to work on creating the new royal army. They sent out a message to all of the sergeants who participated in the war. They were invited to join up and asked to speak with their former subordinates. Many of the men had not gone home yet and were still enjoying their high earnings in the capital. The veterans of the campaigns could serve as the main, experienced core of the army in the future.

  Meanwhile, Nilo worked hard on investigating all of the rebellious knights. They were split into different categories and catalogued. Based on the level of their support to the various rebel factions, their overall strength and risk, as well as loyalty to the crown, they would be treated differently.

  He was preparing a long list of nobles who had to be punished in various ways. Soon, it’d be given to Hakon, who would send out his Royal Guard to lay down the law.

  The new alderman also worked on preparing the rewards for the loyalists. While Varre had already discussed which of the officers would be promoted during one of the council meetings, Nilo had to pick which specific properties and titles to give each one. At the same time, together with Steward Marna and Treasurer Johan, the trio attempted to consolidate the Crownlands.

  Since the throne owned hundreds of villages spread out across the country, many of which recently belonged to Varre’s relatives, managing everything was pure chaos. Some of them were isolated by dozens of miles from the next one. Others were right next to each other, but technically led by completely different overseers, each with their own hierarchies.

  To improve efficiency, Johan suggested selling some of those separate properties and buy out those closer to the central economic core. Of course, with the sheer size of the crownlands, combined with the fact that much of it belonged to multiple different dukes, the end result would still be multiple areas spread out across the country. But a dozen massive latifundias would be easier to control than hundreds of individual hamlets.

  And so, the entire council was busy. They worked hard, trying to get everything ready for October 15th. The day, when the heroes of the civil war would be promoted by the king in a grand ceremony.

  He had definitely improved. Though he is still lacking in experience, he is able to think of his feet.