Demon's Virtue
chapter-99

"87....88....89..." Arc counted quietly, accompanying each time he swung the wooden training sword down from over his head, which was the practice that Eiro had told him to do. In the meantime, he showed Sammy how to handle her bow, and Rudy how to properly hold his shield.

Rudy was actually training with the help of Lugo, who would try to ram against the shield with different strengths to let the boy get used to the feeling of handling the shield like this. Sammy was simply shooting some of the arrows that Eiro made against a tower of hay bales that the Demon set up for her to practice the actual act of shooting.

And once Eiro was sure that they were all doing alright for now, and that Clementine was able to really understand Nelli's Water-Magic Lessons, since a Water Spirit should have a fairly different view on things when compared to a young girl, he made his way into the hut again to get a certain wooden puppet that he wanted to put together for the past two weeks.

Of course he confirmed with Nelli that it was alright to do that now, and then grabbed his old wooden hand and then placed it onto the place where the puppet was missing its own right hand. Just when it was set into place, Eiro took a step backward and looked at it properly. "And what's supposed to happen now..?" The Demon asked himself confusedly, and the moment that he finished his sentence, it happened.

The Puppet's fingers slowly started to move, and then the whole hands did. Then the Arms, which the Puppet used to pull itself up with the desk.

Once it seemed to be standing nearly upright, its legs also started to move, and it gained control over its whole body before walking right up to Eiro. It was just as tall as him, and was carrying itself in a similar way as well. It was a bit awkward to look at, to be completely truthful, at least from Eiro's own perspective.

"Hello?" Eiro asked quietly, but the Puppet just stood there in front of him and pointed at the Satchel that the Imp was carrying with him. Confusedly, he looked at it and pulled it in front of himself to open it up, and the moment that it was open the Puppet pushed its hands into it, pulling on a specific thread inside of the satchel.

At first Eiro was thinking that it might be trying to break it, but then the Puppet wouldn't go for this hard-to-grasp thread, but would rather pull out all the cloth that was used to cover the inside of the satchel.

And then, once the thread was pulled out, Eiro saw one more note inside of the satchel as part of the cloth dropped off. It seemed like it was something like a double wall, and the cloth that he had been seeing at that spot until now was just the regular kind, instead of the kind that came from the spatial bag.

"What the..." Eiro asked himself as he took a look at the note, which had four small octagonal wooden token tied to it. One had a dagger carved onto its surface, one had a fist and an open palm, another one showed a tree with a figure climbing up it, and the last one had five different signs on it, each corresponding to another one of the five basic senses.

And all that the note said was 'Practice Material'. Eiro was rather confused about this, but then the Puppet pressed onto the center of its chest and pulled out a small, blank octagonal token and then pointed at Eiro's hand that was currently holding the five other tokens.

Then, Eiro understood what it wanted from him and pressed the first token he could see into the open spot in its chest, and it was the one with the Dagger on it.

The moment that the Token was inside of its chest, the Puppet held its arm forward with the palm upward, as if wanting something to be given to it. And the only thing that Eiro could think of giving it was a Dagger... So, he stepped through the room and grabbed one of the wooden training daggers that he made a couple of years ago and gave it to the Puppet, before it started to take a stance as if preparing for combat.

And then, what Eiro had been thinking was finally confirmed in his head. This Puppet was supposed to help him train himself. "Jura really was amazing, huh..?" Eiro muttered to himself quietly with a light smile on his lips, and then grabbed another one of the training daggers. He didn't really want to fight it with his real dagger since he didn't want to scratch it up or unneccessarily dull his dagger, and it seemed like the Puppet was alright with that as well, and prepared to attack Eiro, although the Demon quickly stopped it.

"Let's get outside first." Eiro suggested, and then stepped out through the hut's door again, swiftly followed by the puppet, that the others were immediately paying attention to.

"What's that..?" Sammy asked confusedly, since he just saw the figure of two things that walked in the exact same manner while having the exact same figure, Eiro and the Puppet. And Eiro just smiled a bit at them.

"Another present left behind by Jura. Nelli, it's meant for training, right?" The Demon asked, and Nelli immediately nodded her head in response, "Yup, that's exactly right. You're starting with the Dagger Mastery one?" She asked, before Eiro just nodded his head with a light smile.

"Yes. I think I'm going to try each of them out a bit for now." Eiro pointed out, and then stepped a little bit away from the others when they started practicing again, although they were obviously all still a fair bit focused on Eiro and the wooden Puppet that was moving on its own.

And with a light smile, Eiro held his wooden dagger in his hand and looked at the Puppet, "Alright, let's start." He said, and before he even closed his mouth after speaking, the Puppet already jumped forward to attack the Demon, and he tried his hardest to dodge in response to the sudden movement.

But even if he could see it pretty well, he wasn't fast enough to perfectly evade the attack, and felt something hit his cheek. But that wasn't before the Puppet already started its next attack, now standing behind Eiro, and pressed the tip of the wooden dagger right into the center of his back. It didn't even take a full second, and Eiro was already in a position where he would be dead if this Puppet was a real opponent.

"Did that doll just beat Eiro..?" Arc asked with a wry smile, before the other kids just nodded their heads in disbelief, although Nelli couldn't help but chuckle, "Well of course, those are the techniques of one who reached the Mastered Grade in Dagger Mastery, slightly changed to fit Eiro's current build." She explained, and Eiro turned toward the Spirit confusedly.

"Mastered Grade? That's three grades above my current mastery..." Eiro muttered quietly, thinking about the different types of skill grades again.

There were five grades that were achievable by the average person. Beginner, Apprentice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Mastered, and one was right to assume that one had to train all their life to reach the last of those, no matter how high your talent was.

Often enough, despite one being extremely talented in a specific field and dedicating their whole life to raise that one skill, their Lifespan was simply too short to reach the Mastered stage. There were those with overwhelming talent that did manage to do so, even humans. Jura was one of those, actually, since his Carving skill had reached the Mastered Grade as well.

Technically, there was still a grade above these five, but it was one that only beings achieved that lived for hundreds of years already, which was the Ascendant Grade. Some rumors even said that there was a grade even further above that, but that's all they were, rumors.

Either way, no matter how many grades there were, the 'Mastered' Grade was something so amazing that Eiro could now understand why he was so quickly beat. He was actually pretty glad that he was able to dodge the first attack, at least for the most part.

"But wait, where did Jura get someone to teach this to a Puppet?" The Demon asked with a slight frown, and Nelli crossed her arms with a smirk, "You still don't understand how great Jura was? Of course his friends would be just as great as him!" She exclaimed, and Eiro slowly turned toward the Puppet behind him and told it to stand down, before simply smiling like an idiot.

Practicing with something that has techniques of someone that Mastered a skill... Was just an amazing opportunity. But at the same time, he was rather curious about what the other tokens could do.

"Do these here also have a Master's techniques?" Eiro inquired as he held the other three tokens up, and Nelli slowly nodded her head, "Mhm! Hand-to-Hand combat, Freerunning, and then... the last one is something that Jura made to help you practice your new senses after you go used to them." She explained, before Eiro just lightly nodded his head with a smile on his face.

"I see, interesting..." He said quietly, before turning toward the Puppet, "Hold still, I'm changing the token." The Demon explained, and then pressed the token in the center of the Puppet's chest to pull it out, and quickly switched it out with the Hand-to-Hand combat one, so the Puppet immediately dropped the wooden dagger it was holding and held its hands similar to the way it was portrayed on the token.

One as a fist, and the other as an open palm. And after Eiro placed his dagger to the ground as well, since he figured that this was meant to be hand-to-hand combat practice a daggger was a rather bad idea, he took the same stance that the Puppet did.

The moment that this was the case, the Puppet started moving again, and all of a sudden, Eiro could see the world upside down as his body was flipped. Soon, the Demon felt something hard on his head as he dropped back onto the ground.

"Now then... It seems like I can't really compete with a Master at Hand-To-Hand combat without even having the skill, huh?" Eiro muttered quietly, and Nelli once more just started to chuckle, "Who'd have guessed?"

With a light grumble, the Demon looked at her, "Oh, and I'm the sarcastic one here?" He asked, before Nelli nodded her head, "Yup, glad you're starting to see it."

"What, that was-" Eiro started confusedly, although in the end he just sighed deeply and shook his head, "Nevermind." He said, and then once more warned the puppe that he was about to switch out the Tokens, before putting the 'Freerunning' Token into the Puppet's chest, and Nelli quickly tried to warn him.

"Ah, for that one, I think-" Nelli started, but Eiro just looked at her with a frown, "Don't worry, I've got this. I know how to climb, what kind of difference could it make to be a master?" The Demon pointed out, and Nelli just crossed her arms with a light frown, before Eiro turned around toward the Puppet confusedly. But that made him even more confused, since the Puppet wasn't there anymore.

"What the- how..?" Eiro muttered quietly. He barely noticed anything going on, and that even with his new senses... Where did it go? Did Freerunning have the possibility of making you invisible? And then, Eiro suddenly heard something, since the Puppet seemed to want to catch his attention.

And the sound came from... above. Once Eiro moved his head upward, he managed to see the Puppet hanging by its legs from one of the branches of the tree that the house was built into.

"How the..." He asked quietly, and Nelli just laughed again, "It's what I wanted to say. 'I think you should prepare', because while the task for the Dagger and Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery tokens is to beat them in a fair fight, the task for the freerunning one is 'Tag'. You have to catch it, and then run from it."