Sparring Realizations and Iron Realities
Sword clashed! The wooden swords collided head-on. My attack was blocked, flinging my arm in an unwanted direction. The initiative shifted. I quickly recovered my sword to brace for defense, but Sir Roland Ashford's blade was faster. Whoosh—! My senses, expanded by aura, detected the incoming wooden sword at a speed I never could have perceived before, and my reinforced body effortlessly dodged its trajectory.
Tat-tat-tat! Wheeik! Clack! In a flash, I deflected and evaded the pursuing strikes several times. I barely regained my footing for a counterattack, but it still didn't land. Recovering my sword once more to block the incoming blow... Thwack! "Ugh—!"
"Haha! You can't keep relying on the same old tricks! Think a little deeper!"
His wooden sword thrust half a beat ahead, stabbing my shoulder. It stung a bit, but my tougher body made it bearable. The pain faded fast, and I backed off to reset my stance. Then we clashed again! Clack!
*After training wrapped up.*
"Good work! You're picking it up fast! I can't wait to see you as a squire."
"Ugh... Today felt tougher than usual."
"Haha! You've formed your Aura Heart now. Things can't stay the same as before."
"It still hurts way too much."
"A meal or two, and it'll be gone."
Sir Roland laughed heartily as always and headed off to his next task. My whole body throbbed from all the wooden sword hits during the spar. He'd never landed direct blows before, but the moment we met today, he spotted my Aura Heart and stopped overlooking my mistakes or bad habits. I painfully realized just how much leniency his verbal pointers had provided.
Beyond the shift in his teaching style, desperately moving in today's lesson gave me a feel for handling my aura-enhanced body. And I finally understood how absurd it was when Sir Roland claimed swordsmanship wasn't that important.
Ever seen pro boxers in a match? Especially the highlight reels—fighters exchange attacks, defenses, and dodges five or more times in a split second. Without slow motion, it's just a blur of shushushushu. Boxers drill relentlessly to make those motions reflexive at any moment, predicting opponents' actions like pre-inputting combos in a fighting game. When predictions align perfectly, those highlight masterpieces are born.
Swordsmanship relies heavily on prediction too, but the focus differs. Boxing has short telegraphs from setup to strike, emphasizing quick reactions to subtle cues. Swordplay allows predictive reactions like boxing, but once committed, there's no turning back—so it prioritizes preempting foes to claim advantageous space beforehand. That "advantageous space" means positioning where my sword reaches the opponent before theirs hits me or my blade.
It usually arises in the brief gap of the opponent's recovery—the "reverse motion" after acting. Swordsmanship evolved around feints to bait wrong responses, prepping counters for expected counters to exploit those gaps.
Now imagine you're wielding a sword with faster reflexes for quicker reactions, boosted cognition stretching perceived time, peak physical and motor skills for rapid precision, and enhanced flexibility for wider joint ranges and diverse angles. Could an aura-empowered knight, duped by a feint into a bad move, halt mid-recovery as the enemy's counter flies in, pull back the sword, and successfully defend?
The answer: 'Impossible without a massive physical edge.'
Assuming equal physiques, by the time you perceive the counter and send the neural command, the strike has landed. Calculations from my past life knowledge: nerve transmission, muscle contraction, and perception speeds need at least double for any reaction; quadruple minimum for evasion; and with recovery distance to sword and defend, at least tenfold.
Conversely, unless you're at least four times physically superior, "swordsmanship" holds up—even against a higher realm. Meaning a single rank gap lets you bulldoze with the blade.
I'd sparred plenty but lacked formal training, so even lower-realm foes demanded caution.
'Guess I'm no knight material.' Once decided, only the downsides kept surfacing. I'd give my all sparring Sir Roland, but no urge to seek sword lessons elsewhere yet. That could wait until after I set out and settled somewhere.
Lunch done, leisure time returned. After mastering small light spells, I'd pushed magic studies to evenings. No study access after dark, so I kept memorized wooden plates in my room. Lessons with Priest Ben on etiquette, history, and admin were finished; temple books exhausted. Nothing filled the half-day till dinner.
Post-riding lessons, with a servant escort, I could roam anywhere inside Bayfort Village's palisade wall. Lately, prepping for life after departure, I'd wandered the village to grasp this world's economy.
"Hm? Ah, is that the young master?"
The forge sat slightly off the central square. Before a display of farm tools and kitchen knives, the blacksmith uncle—spotting my guiding servant and guessing my identity—greeted me casually from his relaxed break. I'd been buzzing around the village lately, so his nonchalant reaction felt like he'd seen it coming.
"What brings you here?"
"Curious about forge work. Mind if I watch?"
"Hm. Apprentices are off buying charcoal; I'm just resting. Nothing to show right now."
"Can I ask some questions, then?"
To gauge this world's iron industry, I inquired about iron sources, products, and buyers.
"Hm. Get iron as ingots from merchants. Used to come from Wainwright Count's Castle, but now from the villages the lord pioneered, they say. Forge 'em into farm tools, hand tools, kitchen knives, nails—sell to villagers. Horseshoes, iron-banded buckets, cart wheels? That's the place by the east gate."
I asked how they made the iron: crush ore, melt in small furnace for bloom iron, then heat and hammer to shed impurities into wrought iron.
From the description, his "iron" was wrought iron—low-carbon steel laced with slag. Soft and workable but not hard, so for tools or weapons, they'd carburize the surface to steel via pack hardening and case-harden with heat treatment.
In my past life, bloomeries—small furnaces under 2 meters—produced this wrought iron popularly until finery processes converted mass pig iron from larger furnaces during the Age of Sail.
This world's ironworking seemed pre-Age of Sail level. I'd figured dwarves and magic meant advanced methods... but tech wasn't that high? Or maybe elite tech-hoarders monopolized it, not reaching borderlands like this.
Best not judge till checking goods in a bustling trade city.
'Still, not bad. I can put my knowledge to use.'
I knew pre-industrial tech inside out. Worked as a planner at a big game company, handling crafting systems meant heavy research.
But most medieval-viable theories yielded low-value goods. Without factories, no big bucks. Pre-industrial civs lacked mass raw materials or markets anyway.
Build a factory? Warehouses overflow, goods crawl off shelves, raws scarce and pricey, products glutted and cheap—no profit.
Plus, you'd piss off suppliers and buyers, breeding enemies in a relationship-driven era. Total no-go.
Those novel tropes of a lone genius sparking industrial revolution with machines and factories in medieval settings? Pure fantasy. Near-total self-sufficiency, masses with zero buying power—no dumping excess goods.
Needed state-level reforms: boost incomes for market growth, pool capital for raws->factory->sales pipeline with expanded production/import/infra, tech for cheaper better goods outcompeting olds. Only then cycles the wheel.
Or imperialism: colonies, smash their industry, force-sell yours for momentum.
Not doable for a capital-less individual.
So, to profit in this pre-industrial medieval world: vast lands with tenant farms, large-scale haulage, or high-value small-batch crafts sold targeted.
Zero-capital me? High-value small batches it was.