A cold autumn wind crept in from the north, dragging a veil of chilling drizzle with it. It crept beneath cloaks and collars, seeped into stone, and made the towering trees around Wildeguard Academy shiver and sway. Leaves rattled like dry bones as if the forest itself resented the sudden chill.

  Weylan and Stitch walked from the spawn point toward the academy dorms. They had spent the night at the inn after what had turned into a surprisingly relaxed evening with the revenants. Weylan using his artifact to repair the bard’s oversized noise bag had gone a long way toward improving the half-giant bard’s mood.

  There had been a moment of awkwardness later when the innkeeper had very pointedly insisted on giving them separate rooms. None of them had even considered asking for a shared one, but the implication had lingered all the same.

  They had returned to the spawn point right after breakfast.

  Stitch still drew the occasional glance. Whispers followed her, eyes tracking the clean lines of her stitched skin. Most students had heard of the flesh-golem by now. Weylan was no longer certain whether the looks were for her… or for the fact that they were holding hands openly.

  They turned a corner and Weylan nearly collided with Professor Kaelthorne.

  She stood there with arms crossed and an expression that could curdle milk. An extremely angry-looking Professor Kaelthorne. Her gaze flicked briefly to Stitch, then locked onto him with full force.

  “Weylan,” she said sharply. “There you are. I just heard that you reached master tier in a weapon skill without immediately consulting me. Is that true?”

  “Well,” Weylan said carefully, “kind of…”

  “You will come with me. Right now.”

  She turned on her heel. From her tone alone, Weylan was reasonably sure that failing to follow would result in the loss of several vital body parts.

  He glanced at Stitch helplessly. She shrugged and silently mouthed, She won’t kill you.

  That was… not as reassuring as she probably thought.

  Weylan reluctantly let go of her hand and hurried after the professor.

  They went straight to her office. Kaelthorne closed the door behind them and sat down behind her desk. She did not offer Weylan a seat, so he remained standing. After the previous evening, he had spent more than enough time sitting anyway.

  “Valen Aldrich made an appointment with me after reaching master tier in fencing,” Kaelthorne began. “Considering he has been trained since he could walk and hold a stick, it was not unexpected. Still, it is a commendable achievement at his age.”

  She fixed Weylan with a hard stare.

  “When I asked him what pushed him over the threshold, he mentioned his duel with you. He also mentioned that you had already unlocked master tier.”

  Her voice dropped dangerously low.

  “Without telling me.”

  “I did not know that was required,” Weylan said weakly.

  Kaelthorne shot to her feet and leaned across the desk, close enough that he could feel her breath. “I am your combat magic teacher!”

  She straightened abruptly, then took several deep breaths. When she sat down again, her voice was calmer, but no less serious.

  “I have worked at this academy for many years. It is rare. Very rare for one of my students to reach master tier. When it does happen, it is usually nobles following carefully planned upgrade paths drilled into them by family instructors.”

  She paused.

  “I will not tell you what Aldrich chose. But I will tell you that he followed my advice and adjusted his path to better suit his style going forward.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Her eyes bored into him.

  “Your mastery defines the foundation of your combat style. So tell me, Weylan. What were you thinking, not asking me for advice?”

  Weylan swallowed, then shrugged. “I wanted to talk to my master first.”

  She blinked. “Your master?”

  “Yes.”

  “The steward,” she clarified slowly. “The man teaching you to be a house servant.”

  “…Yes.”

  Kaelthorne stared at him. “You wanted to ask a glorified butler for combat advice?”

  Weylan’s posture folded in on itself as he subconsciously tried to make himself smaller. “Kind of.”

  She covered her face with one hand. “It is customary to consult your own master when reaching master tier. But think. What exactly did you expect him to offer? A secret servant combat style?”

  She gestured wildly. “Plates and kitchen knives? Devastating improvised household techniques?”

  Weylan straightened slightly, a grin tugging at his mouth. “Well, if there was something like that, I could not exactly tell you about it, could I?”

  She rolled her eyes and waved him into a chair. “Sit. Finally.”

  He did.

  “So,” she said. “What are your options?”

  “There are a lot,” Weylan replied. “No ranged attack option for shadow mana, though.”

  She clicked her tongue. “Ranged strikes. Yes, you can take one. They are not terrible.”

  She sighed.

  “But they are what you choose when you plan to stop there. A flashy master-tier ranged strike to prove competence. Then you sell yourself as a noble’s bodyguard and call it a career. The end.”

  She waited.

  Weylan shook his head. “I need to get better. The dangers facing our world are only going to escalate. And the revenants will not stop developing.”

  Kaelthorne leaned back. “Good.”

  She steepled her fingers. “I have only seen you fight a handful of times. Describe some battles I have not witnessed.”

  Weylan complied, selecting a representative sample of near-death experiences interspersed with several one-sided surprise backstabbings.

  She interrupted occasionally, asking for clarification. At one point she even had him stand and demonstrate several maneuvers and stances. It felt ridiculous swinging a sword-staff around in a study, but he still walked away with corrections to his grip and footwork.

  Eventually, Kaelthorne sent him to make tea while she thought.

  They drank in silence.

  Then she spoke.

  “You favor an unconventional, improvisational style,” she said. “Which fits your life perfectly. You do not need traditional one-trick techniques or rigid counters. You will rarely fight in shield walls. You will not duel under controlled conditions.”

  She smirked faintly.

  “You will fight mud golems in cellars. Hoarderscales in bathhouses. Or something so absurd even I cannot predict it.”

  She took another sip.

  “You do not need a perfect piercing strike or a flawless retreat. If you require ranged utility, acquire an artifact or a hand crossbow. Do not bother with throwing knives unless you intend to specialize fully. Without the proper feats and mastery, small thrown weapons are ineffective.”

  Weylan almost facepalmed.

  He owned an Assassin’s Hand Crossbow from the Dungeon of Alchemy. He could not remember ever taking it out of its case.

  Then he remembered why. It practically screamed assassin.

  Still… at his level, strange weapons were becoming common. It would hardly stand out anymore.

  He resolved to start training with it immediately.

  Kaelthorne snapped her fingers. “Is there a feat with ‘Improvisation’ in the name?”

  Weylan mentally scrolled through his options. “Yes. ‘Improvised Integration’. I never even considered it.”

  “And that,” she said firmly, “is where you went wrong.”

  She leaned forward.

  “It will not give you an immediate power spike. But it will improve everything you do. For your style, the only superior option would be a true temporal movement feat such as Scramble or Fencer’s Speed.”

  She scoffed. “Those are almost impossible to unlock.”

  Weylan remained silent. He also managed to suppress a smile.

  Kaelthorne narrowed her eyes. “You already have one.”

  “…Yes.”

  “I dread to ask how.”

  Weylan shrugged. “The short version is that Selvara and I were trapped in a dungeon far above our level. She clung to me and I ran through the whole level.”

  She stared. “You ran. Through the dungeon.”

  “Yes.”

  “Across traps and monsters.”

  “Yes. There has been some jumping and dodging as well. But basically just running as fast as I could.”

  “And the boss? You can’t skip the level’s boss fight by running past him.”

  “We did not,” Weylan admitted. “It was Nigrufumi. An Alchemical Dwarf Smogsmith. Level twelve. Lightning hammer. Flame attacks. Some mechanism that injected potions right inside his body.”

  She refused to accept the summary and forced him to recount the entire ordeal from beginning to end. He omitted his interactions with the dungeon heart and fairy and discreetly renamed the feat Speedrunner’s Movement.

  When he finished, she nodded slowly.

  “That explains a great deal,” she said. “Your greatest advantage is that you were not professionally trained for long.”

  She held up a finger.

  “That usually gets people killed. In your case, it allowed you to integrate all your abilities into a single, cohesive style. Specialized techniques will never blend as well for you.”

  She paused.

  “I am not saying you should never acquire a finishing move or armor-piercing option. But nothing will serve you better right now than a general enhancement.”

  They continued discussing options for another hour. In the end, he came to the conclusion it actually was the best option.

  Master tier skill feat acquired:

  Improvised Integration (Any improvised action performed with a sword-staff gains Master-grade validation. Environmental use, half-formed techniques, broken stances, and reactive maneuvers are treated as deliberate combat actions rather than mistakes. When an action meaningfully combines the sword-staff with another skill, feat, or discipline, the skill attempts to weave them together.)

  exactly specify your prompt. You can probably guess what went wrong.