A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1363 - 1363: The Problem - Part 7

The young man was at a loss. Oliver knew he was being particularly difficult that day. It wasn't in Jorah' nature to be reckless. But that only made him all the more fun to tease.

"Eh? What's the Boss doing? How come Jorah gets a turn at sparring before me? And what are you lot doing stopping your drilling for? Back to work! Back line, press up against the front, extend those spears!

EXTEND!" Firyr said, momentarily distracted by the scuffling on the other side of the training ground.

There was no need for any teasing this time. Oliver could practically see the gears turning through Jorah's eyes. He fancied he could recognize the moment when the young man made the decision to go all out. His forearms tensed up, and he brought his sword up, past his shoulder. He came rushing in with a battle cry, trying to fight against his instincts not to cut at his Lord.

This strike, at least, Oliver thought to be a stronger one. There was the slightest hint of desperation in it. There was enough strength that it might cut at a lesser foe. And that made it all the more fun to dismantle.

Oliver slid past it, and using the very tip of his own sword, he hit Jorah's hilt, sending his blade flying out of his fingers.

It was teasing, and it was cruel, but it was still ever so fun. Though Jorah had expected to lose, the look on his face told Oliver that he hadn't quite expected to lose like that. It brought to mind how Dominus had once trained with Oliver, and the many ways he would find of pointing out his weaknesses through his almost comical batterings.

Only now, did Oliver begin to get a hint of the joy that old man had in doing so.

"…Impressive, my Lord," Jorah said, genuinely seeming to mean it.

"You know you, I didn't come down here for compliments, Jorah," Oliver said. "We're just playing around. Naturally, we'll end up doing a few ridiculous things, mm? Come, show me your most cunning attack. Let us see how creative you can get, when you wish for it."

"I'll give it a try," Jorah said. He picked himself up quicker than he had before. It was hard to tell, but Oliver thought that the young Commander might finally have been getting into it. At the very least, he seemed to realize, with both his body and his mind now, that no matter what mistakes were made, or how reckless he was, his sword would never reach Oliver.

That certainty must have come with a fair degree of liberation for him, for the next charge he gave, as Oliver had bid him to, was far more creative than the last few had been. His sword stank of strategy.

He led with a long step, as if trying to go in close with Oliver, but before a counterattack could sweep him off guard, he took a short step back, and then leaped off to the side, before attempting to land a strike from overhead. He tried two of those. Oliver parried them both, wishing to see where Jorah would end up with his manoeuvring.

Jorah used the recoil of the second blow, when their two swords collided, to spin back away from Oliver, recovering a short bit of distance, and sending his next strike whirling around at Oliver's side with a mighty swing of his hip.

"Oho…" Oliver acknowledged. That was the strongest strike that he'd thrown so far. A looping blow, with all his force behind it, set up by all the strikes that he'd delivered before it. It was cunning, rather high level swordsmanship. "That wasn't bad at all, Jorah."

"Still far from being enough," Jorah said modestly, but now he was grinning. When one had practised with their weapons as much as Oliver and Jorah had, they could tell in an instant whether a move they had performed had been strong or not.

"There's hints to it, of being beyond enough," Oliver said, quite earnestly. "It exceeds your ordinary manner of fighting by twofold, or threefold, once you see it landed."

"Truly?" Jorah said. He seemed quite ready to take Oliver's word for it in an instant, and his head tilted itself in a calculating expression.

"Those are the seeds of a Boundary Break," Oliver said. "That which goes beyond ourselves. When we can no longer control it… When our body moves with an intent that is almost dangerous to us, from how out of hand it gets. It might surprise you, the limits an ordinary man sets for himself, for fear of the danger he walks, in carrying out a move such as the one that you just did."

"It does feel like something beyond me," Jorah admitted. "As if I am pretending to be someone else in carrying it out. I would not use it in a normal battle – only against a training partner that could withstand it, all whilst being kind enough to let me carry it out. In other words, I doubt I could practise it on anyone else."

"There are certain ideas presented to us that require a certain deal of bravery to carry out," Oliver said thoughtfully. "Finding those ideas, and being almost afraid to use them… That seems to be where there's progress to be had… But even in saying that, and supposedly knowing that, I struggle to take my own advice, so perhaps those are meaningless ramblings after all."

"I very much doubt it, my Lord," Jorah said. "When you speak of matters of the sword, I will listen to every word that you have to say. If you were to write a book on it, I would read it a thousand times over. Yours is a state of such unnaturalness, in terms of your achievement, that merely being near you seems likely to inspire my own sort of growth.

I would never assume to question you on such matters."

"Then be reckless with those strikes of yours," Oliver said. "I enjoy seeing them."

"If you wish so, my Lord," Jorah said. "I suppose I should count myself fortunate, today, given that you chose me to be your sparring partner. Ordinarily, it would be the Lady Blackthorn, would it not?"