After a while of touring the weapons training arena, Zephyr still decided to go with a large battleaxe. Maybe because his mind was set on it in the first place, he didn't really feel much connection to any other weapon he saw.
There were very few soldiers practicing with the battleaxe, so their section of the arena was fairly quiet. Most of the soldiers were simply going through forms with the weapon and not sparring.
Zephyr looked around at each of them as he got closer and immediately felt out of place, like he was the odd one out here. Which he was.
Every single soldier was huge. They had bulky frames to accommodate the large weapon they all used.
'Cedric would've fit right in here,' Zephyr thought.
It wasn't like Zephyr was small for his age, but he also wasn't winning any medals for his height or size. He was just middle of the park. Not short by any means, but not particularly tall either.
A huge guy with his brown hair in a short buzz cut watched as Zephyr approached them cautiously, staring at him pointedly as he stood to watch the soldiers who were practicing.
Zephyr nodded at him in greeting, but the soldier didn't respond, only gazing at Zephyr with a flat look. His large battleaxe was upside down on the ground with his hands resting on the butt of the weapon in a relaxed pose.
Some other soldiers noticed Zephyr but continued their thing like he was of no significance. Only the brown-haired soldier continued to stare at Zephyr.
'What's with this guy?' Zephyr began to feel uncomfortable with the unnerving look.
"Hello sir..." Zephyr hesitantly stepped up to him to greet, trying to put an end to the weird look.
"…"
The man looked Zephyr down, then up again.
"Are you lost, kid?" the man asked unhurriedly. It was either he naturally had a slow way of talking, or he was just in a zen mode or something, Zephyr couldn't really tell. But his drawl was very pronounced.
"Um, no sir. I'm here to learn how to use the battleaxe," he said.
There was a slight raise of the man's brow, but it was gone just as it came. A light scoff escaped his mouth before he nodded toward the rack. "Then by all means, go pick up a weapon."
Zephyr looked at the rack in question, scanning the array of battleaxes of different sizes— all large, but some even larger— and immediately headed toward one of the larger ones.
He had sensed the tinge of condescension in the man's voice that made him want to prove himself. Besides, the head of the axe he was going for was large enough to also be used to shield if he used it properly. But the thing was massive. Almost as tall as he was. The head alone had a span of nearly his whole arm from blade end to blade end. The shaft of the axe was made from some kind of alloy. It was girthy, with enough weight to handle the heavy head.
Zephyr tightened his grip on it and carried it up in one sweeping motion.
'Heavy.' Zephyr thought. 'But the weight is well distributed.'
Even Zephyr, who had never used a battleaxe before, could tell the balance was good. Maybe it was his time as a runesmith with Bjorn—though he usually handled swords and other small weapons, never anything like this, but the balance just felt right. The head was obviously very weighty because of the size, it looked like it could cleave a man in two in the right hands, so the shaft had to counterbalance that weight properly while also maintaining its structural integrity and still giving the weapon some proper heft toward the head for better swings. And it did.
'What kind of material is this?' Zephyr looked at the shaft of the battleaxe, stroking it gently.
'Looks like Ironwood steel...' Zephyr knocked against the shaft, lost in his own world, his previous goal of proving a point now lost to the wind.
The brown-haired soldier was still staring at Zephyr, but this time there was an undisguised look of acknowledgment in his eyes, though he didn't look moved beyond that.
Some other soldiers were also gawking at the sight in front of them. They all knew how heavy that weapon was, but here was Zephyr, easily carrying something he had no business carrying at all. He even swung the weapon a few times to get a feel for it.
"Yes. This is it," he muttered to himself, reassured of his choice of weapon. It wasn't flimsy like the spear he used earlier. He felt confident with this weapon, like it was tailored to him. He imagined himself splitting wild Skarnids apart with this, which didn't seem far-fetched.
The brown-haired soldier waved the others back to focus on their practice, walking up to Zephyr.
"So you can handle the weapon. Okay." He grabbed the weapon from Zephyr's grip.
"But don't think swinging it around makes you invincible. It can feel like that at times, but you aren't."
"Why'd you want to learn how to use a battleaxe?"
"…" Zephyr looked at the man's questioning gaze and thought about bullshitting his way through. Spit out some generic-sounding thing. But he decided otherwise, thinking of the most straightforward answer he could give.
"It just feels... right?"
"Hmm..."
"You don't get to swing this around yet." He twirled the battleaxe around in his hand a few times like it weighed next to nothing.
"Watch them first." He motioned to the soldiers going through some preset combat forms. The forms were precise, without any fluff. They went from wide swinging arcs to defensive forms fluidly and in quick time.
Zephyr could already see some flaws he made in his earlier spar with Anna, though it was a different weapon then.
They both watched for a while, Zephyr gleaning whatever little bits he could from just watching alone. But one question kept coming up in his mind. Ultimately, he just decided to ask.
"Sir. Why are they not casting any spells at all?"
The man took his time, letting the silence go on for a bit before he answered. "Who says they're not?"
"Huh?" Zephyr watched more intently, trying to notice any sign of magic, but he couldn't.
The man scoffed. "If you could tell, then they shouldn't even be able to call themselves soldiers. They're all ready to release a deadly spell enhanced blow at a moment's notice, but only a trained eye can tell that the spell is already active right now."
"The further you go, the less flashy you must make your spells become..."
"Well, that only applies to body enhancers like myself and them. Ranged mages can get all flashy as they like." He added.
"As a body-enhancing mage, your spell must be active all the time. Or at least, make it seem so."
He saw the look of surprise on Zephyr's face— like he couldn't comprehend how running a spell for that long was possible, and smiled.
"I forget you're still a greenhorn. When you learn about efficiency nodes on your second evolution, you'll understand."
"What's your mana node count?" he asked.
"… One"
"…"
"Oh. So you're the kid. Word around is that there was one this year."
"Pretty rare." He nodded.
"But then, that means you'd have to wait till your third evolution before you can create an efficiency node." He drummed his fingers slowly against his axe, calculating some things in his mind.
"Hmm..." He turned to look at Zephyr straight in the eye.
"You're fucked, kid."