The boy returned to his position, facing off against Oliver, preparing to begin the second round of sparring. Kolan intervened once more.
"This is better for him than you," he said to Oliver. "More experience. You are better spent working on your thrust. Do you like sparring?"
The quiet man had a jarring way of speaking at times, completely eliminating any connection from one statement to the next.
"If you advise that I work on my thrust, then I shall follow your wisdom, Professor," Oliver said.
The man grunted, and gave a sharp nod. "You, new partner," he tapped the other boy on the shoulder, and pointed to a student that hadn't yet found anyone to spar with him. "You, over there, space is free," he said, pointing at Oliver.
Oliver nodded, and went to the patch of frozen sand at the other end of the training square. The snow had been shovelled off, and dumped on the sides. Over the last week, it was beginning to lay good and proper on the Academy grounds, though it still didn't seem to land as thickly as it did in the Grand Forest.
He attracted a few odd glances from the others, as he worked on his spear thrust, alone. He could have stubbornly insisted that he would have preferred to spar, but to do so would have been foolish. He trusted that Kolan knew more than he did, especially about this sort of weaponry.
To have gained such a level of competence in as many different weapons as Kolan had was a remarkable achievement, and one that likely didn't get the recognition it deserved. People flocked to the very best at one thing, after all, rather than someone who was competent at many.
He worked away at his thrust, feeling the twist of his hips as he forced through it, and punched at the air. The use of the hips was different than it was in the sword, since the balance was so different. He experimented with different positions, bringing his arms further back, and testing the power of his thrust from there.
He'd half expected Kolan to begin to criticize him once he tried stances like that, but even though he'd acknowledged what Oliver was doing, he didn't move to correct him. He seemed content to let him experiment. More than that, he seemed approving, as though he believed that what Oliver was doing was likely the best approach.
Once he was satisfied with Oliver, he gave his full attention back to the rest of the class.
'This isn't so bad,' Oliver thought. Sparring with the other students had seemed like an affair that was a bit of a waste of time, given the skill of the majority compared to his own. Here, at least, he could get access to a variety of weapons, and train under the supervision of someone who knew what to look for.
Now that he'd discovered the Grand Forest, and the monsters that lay there, the prospect of finding an opponent to train with had diminished in importance. After all, there were no students in the Academy – that he knew of – who could come close to matching the might of a Hobgoblin. He'd need to receive the personal guidance of a Professor for that.
After a few minutes of distracted thought, and merely testing technique variance, Oliver fired off a thrust that felt distinctly different from the rest. He could almost feel the air shimmer around the point of the spear. He looked up, to see if anyone else noticed what he had.
He got the gaze of Kolan, and the man nodded his firm approval.
Oliver had to hide his grin, doing his best not to break his concentration. I was in moments like these that he was once again reminded of just how much there was for him left to achieve and learn. Surrounded by students that were weaker than him, that was easy to forget.
It wasn't only academics and strategy that he needed to improve on, he was still relatively new to the world of weaponry, and there was just as much to discover here as there was elsewhere.
Along with his first Close Combat lesson, he was finally allowed a chance to experiment with the Academy's physical enhancement problem… But that was disappointing, to say the least.
The Professor had been blunt with him from the moment that he'd arrived.
"I doubt you'll find this useful, Patrick. It's meant to be a class drill, teach them how to tend to their bodies. It'll likely be too basic for you," the Professor had said, not unkindly, though Oliver had gotten the distinct sense from him that the man wasn't awfully keen on him.
Nevertheless, Oliver had been allowed the chance to see what the class was like. Running and rocks about summed it up. It was similar to the sort of training he'd done with Dominus in the Black Mountains. A long-distance run to start with, followed by sprints, then rock lifts from the floor, and then rock lifts overhead.
Oliver had at least hoped to find equipment that he'd not had access to before. When he was developing his Poison Water Style, and had worked on the style of Overwhelm as a pre-evolution of that, he'd tied bits of wood around his sword to give it extra weight. He had hoped that he would find something in the Academy, more fit for that purpose.
He'd asked the Professor, and the man had bluntly dismissed it.
"Not for third years. You'd have to buy something like that yourself," the man had said.
So it was, by the end of the day, Oliver was faced with a choice. What to do instead of the Physical Enhancement class?
Unlike with the Close Combat class, the Professor had made it clear that his focus was on the class rather than the individual. He wasn't interested in teaching Oliver anything new, since he was already ahead of the rest. He'd said that Oliver could use the class to do whatever training he wanted himself, but that had seemed more like a dismal than a gesture of goodwill.
"Indeed, I am of the same opinion as you, my Lord. You are already training by yourself come evening. It might be a waste to use that tutelage time on things that you can accomplish yourself," Verdant told him, as they once more shared tea around the table of the Advice House.