Sleep wouldn't come. The uneven ground pressed against his hip, and every shift brought a fresh trickle of cold water somewhere new. He listened to the rain's rhythm, counting the spaces between thunder rolls as the storm moved overhead.
At least there are no monsters tonight.
After an hour of restless turning, Clive gave up on sleep entirely. He crawled out from under his inadequate shelter, already soaked, and retrieved his steel dagger from his pack. The rain had softened to a steady drizzle, and pale moonlight filtered through the clouds.
He moved away from the camp to a small clearing where fallen leaves had created a natural practice area. He stared at the dagger in his hand. It was a weapon he was familiar with. Back in his old world, he started carrying a pocket knife after mugger number fourteen. This dagger was longer, sharper, but the principles remained the same.
Clive began with fundamental exercises. Simple thrusts. The wet ground made his footing treacherous, forcing him to adjust his stance with each step. His first few strikes felt clumsy. The rain made the handle slippery, and he had to concentrate on maintaining his grip.
His mind turned to Dagger, one of his favourite characters from the manga Blade’s Edge. She wasn’t as strong as the other characters but she made up for it with ruthless efficiency. He'd spent countless hours copying her techniques from the manga pages, practicing the motions in his apartment until they felt natural.
Elbow close to the body, extend from the shoulders rather than just the arm. Thrust, recover, step, thrust again. He settled into the rhythm as his old muscle memory came back. Dagger never wasted motion in the manga. Every strike had purpose. Every step created an advantage or denied it to her opponents. Clive tried to channel that efficiency as he moved through the sequences he'd memorized from the panels.
But this wasn't ink on paper. His breathing grew heavier. Water dripped from his hair into his eyes, clouding his vision and making it increasingly difficult to maintain his form. But he gritted his teeth and persevered.
He shifted his stance, lowering his center of gravity. In the manga, Dagger fought opponents twice her size by staying close to the ground, making herself a smaller target. The artist had drawn her in these impossibly low crouches, her body coiled like a spring. Clive tested the position, feeling how it changed his balance on the wet terrain. His thighs burned from the unfamiliar angle but after a few tries, he recognized the advantages. Smaller profile, better leverage for upward strikes.
When his foot slipped on a patch of rotting leaves, he didn't fight it. Instead, he let the slide carry him into Dagger's signature crouch-and-strike combination. The movement felt awkward with his longer reach, but the principle held. Use the environment. Turn disadvantages into weapons.
He tried the slip again, this time deliberately. Step, slide, crouch, strike upward. It could work against a larger opponent, getting under their guard while they expected him to stay upright.
In the past, he used to imagine muggers from downtown LA as he practiced his strokes, faceless figures in hoodies approaching him in deserted alleyways. Now, those muggers morphed into shadowarmadillos, bigger, faster, deadlier.
He visualized the shadowarmadillo diving at him, its claws extended. Step, slide, crouch, strike upward. The blade would catch it in the soft underside. A clean hit.
The rain intensified, each drop striking his face like tiny needles. His clothes clung to his skin, heavy and restrictive. But he kept moving, kept practicing.
[Level up]
[Dagger Mastery Level 3]
[Power Level +1]
The notification appeared in his vision. Clive looked up to the sky and smiled despite the rain running down his face. One more level, one step closer.
But it wasn’t over yet. His next step was to weave in spells. His experience in videogames had taught him that a pure magic or physical build was rarely optimal. He'd learned that lesson the hard way in countless RPGs, monsters could be resistant to magic or physical damage, leaving specialized builds helpless against certain encounters. His experience with the shadowarmadillo only reinforced this belief.
You needed a well-rounded party to make any progress. But in the absence of a party, there was one class archetype that could solo even the hardest content. The red mage - a jack-of-all-trades capable of both sword and sorcery. That was his ideal.
He started adding spells between strikes. After each stab, he would flick the brush through the air, painting quick symbols with blue pigment.
[Paint: Blue Icebolt I]
[MP Cost: 2]
[Environment Modifier : Rain]
[Blue Icebolt I dmg x 1.5]
A shard of ice materialized in the air before him, crackling with cold energy. The rain around it froze into tiny crystals that tinkled as they hit the ground. It was a great spell, but it took him five seconds to complete. That might have been serviceable at range, but up close, it was suicide.
He tried again, this time focusing on speed over precision. Instead of the detailed strokes he'd used for the full icebolt, he dabbed the brush quickly against his palette and flicked it forward. Just a blob of blue paint launched into the air.
[Paint: Blue Burst 0]
[MP Cost: 1]
A smaller shard formed, weaker than the previous spell but manifesting in under one seconds. Clive smiled and tested the other colors. Red produced a brief flash of flame. Yellow sparked with electrical energy. White gleamed with holy light. Each burst cost only one mana point and required nothing more than a quick dab and flick.
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Now he could try real combinations.
He thrust the dagger forward, then immediately swept the brush through a red burst. The flame singed the air where his imaginary opponent's face would be. Step back, reposition, thrust again, blue burst at center mass. The ice would slow them down, allowing him to create distance for a finisher spell.
[Paint: Blue Icebolt I]
He smiled, satisfied with the general motion of his combo, but the execution still needed work. His strikes were clumsy. The dagger would swing wide when he tried to paint. The brush would lag when he focused on the blade. His feet tangled when he attempted to step and cast simultaneously.
He slowed everything down. Thrust with the dagger—hold the position—dab the brush—flick the paint—now step back. Once he could execute the sequence without fumbling, he gradually increased the speed.
The breakthrough came when he stopped thinking of the weapons as separate tools. In the manga panels he'd studied, Dagger never paused between her blade work and her throwing knives. The transition flowed like a single continuous motion. He tried to capture that fluidity, letting the completion of one strike become the beginning of the next.
Thrust, the forward momentum carrying his brush arm into the paint motion. Flick, the recoil helping him step backward into position for the next sequence. The dagger and brush began to move in harmony.
[Paint: Red Burst 0]
The small flame illuminated the raindrops around him for an instant before guttering out. He followed it immediately with another thrust, then a blue burst, then a step to the side that positioned him for an upward strike. The ice crystals scattered across the wet leaves as he moved through the combination.
Twenty more repetitions and the movements began to feel natural. Not smooth yet, certainly not graceful, but functional. He could see how this might work against a real opponent. The quick bursts would distract, disorient, create openings for the blade. And if he needed more firepower, he could still fall back on the full spells when he had time to cast them properly.
[Power Level +3]
The rain lightened up, becoming little more than a drizzle. He heard movement from the direction of the camp and turned to see Lucia's silhouette emerging from her tent. She moved carefully through the trees toward him.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked when she reached the edge of his makeshift practice area.
"Ground's too wet, shelter's too leaky." Clive lowered his dagger and brush, wiping rainwater from the blade with his sleeve. "Figured I might as well make use of the time."
Lucia nodded toward the weapons in his hands. "How is it going?"
“Not too bad. Learnt some new moves.” Clive demonstrated the magic burst combo —thrust, red flick, step back, thrust, blue flick, sidestep. The small flames and ice crystals scattered through the rain-soaked air.
Lucia watched him complete the sequence twice and applauded. “That’s impressive.”
He practiced for another hour as the drizzle gradually diminished to occasional droplets falling from the tree branches overhead. When he finally sheathed the dagger and tucked the paintbrush back into his belt, his clothes were thoroughly soaked but his understanding of both weapons had deepened considerably. His shoulders ached from the unfamiliar coordination, but the muscle memory was beginning to form.
They reached the clearing where their camp sat. Lucia paused at the entrance to her tent, looking back at Clive's improvised shelter with guilt.
"I still think we should take turns," she said.
"I'm already soaked through," Clive pointed out, pulling at his waterlogged shirt. The fabric clung to his skin, heavy and uncomfortable. "No point in both of us being miserable."
He peeled off the soaked shirt, wringing streams of rainwater from the fabric. The cold air hit his bare torso, but it felt better than the clammy embrace of wet cloth.
Lucia’s eyes wandered to his chest before she caught herself staring and looked away. He wasn't hulkingly muscular, but his lean frame carried the kind of definition that came from practical work.
She disappeared into her tent and emerged a moment later with a small vial filled with clear liquid.
"Remedy," she explained, offering it to him. "It won't keep you from getting sick, but it'll help your body fight off anything you might catch from spending the night in the rain."
Clive accepted the potion gratefully. The potion had a bitter, herbal flavor that lingered on his tongue long after he'd swallowed it. But almost immediately, he felt a subtle warmth spreading through his chest, warming away the stiffness in his joints.
"Better?" Lucia asked.
"Much. Thank you."
She nodded and retreated back into her tent. "Try to get some rest. We should be able to reach Marblehaven tomorrow."
Clive returned to his makeshift shelter. As dawn approached, the pages in his sketchbook regenerated. He started sketching daggers again, even though he had no intention of materializing them now. Better to have the drawings ready in case he needed them in an emergency.
The rhythm of his dagger practice echoed in his mind as he finally closed the sketchbook. Thrust, spell, reposition, repeat.
Just wait for me Jill. I’ll find you again.
Name: Clive Weston
Class: Pictomancer
Rank: Apprentice
Patron Deity: Certainty, Goddess of Certainty and Undoubting
Power Level: 24
HP: 108/108
MP: 19/19
Certainty Points: 1
- Metalwork Illustration: Level 2
- Consumable Illustration: Level 0
- Architectural Illustration: Level 1
- Dagger Mastery: Level 3
Artist's Eyes (Passive): Enhanced visual perception and analysis
- Upgrade: Motion Vision - Can perceive movement trajectories before they occur
Draw (Active): Creates permanent physical objects through detailed sketching
Paint (Combat): Harnesses color theory for elemental magic
Available Colors: Red, Blue, Yellow, White
Red Spells
- Red Fireball I - MP Cost: 2
- Blue Flu I - MP Cost: 3
- Blue Hail I - MP Cost: 3 + 1/min (ongoing cost)
- Blue Icebolt I - MP Cost: 2
- Yellow Fever I - MP Cost: 2
- White as Holy I - MP Cost: 3
- White Light Spear I - MP Cost: 2
Burst Spells
- Red Burst 0 – MP Cost:1
- Blue Burst 0 – MP Cost:1
- Yellow Burst 0 – MP Cost:1
- White Burst 0 – MP Cost:1
Metalwork Illustration (Level 2)
- Materials: Iron, Steel
- Quality Levels: Poor, Normal
- Weapon Types: Dagger
Consumable Illustration (Level 1)
- Current: Water, simple colored liquids
- Current Structures: Basic house designs
- Materials: Brick, Wood
- Scale: Currently limited to toy/miniature size
- The Edge of Understanding II: Create a High Quality Steel Dagger
- Truth in a Bottle I: Create a functional health and mana potion
- Escort Lucia to Marblehaven: Safely escort Lucia Thornwald to Marblehaven
When the ground shifts beneath you, don't fight for balance, let the fall become your strike. Every disadvantage is just an opening you haven't learned to see yet.
—Dagger, "Blade's Edge" Volume 7