"So who are you really?" Isaac questioned Walter.

"You feel strong but not as strong as you should be." Lenna added.

Walter smirked. "As much fun as it would be to keep being mysterious, if we're gonna go on a month-long trip together, there's not really a point in doing so." He said and pulled a chain necklace with a pair of platinum tags out of his saddlebags. He had to fight with his shoulder length hair to clasp it behind his neck for a moment and the duo waited for him to finish because it felt like he still had more to say. "My name is actually Walter Walker. I know that it is a human name. No, I will not talk about it further. I am a triclass, that is why I feel weaker than I should be to you." He told Lenna with a nod. "I am known as The Engineer for creating mechanical things powered by magic that no one else has thought of or believes is possible. Breaking the rules with nothing but creativity and knowledge is what I do. Fist fighting is a pastime that helps relax my mind. Any questions?"

"Triclass?" Isaac wondered with a raised eyebrow. "As in, you multiclassed twice?"

Walter nodded. "Yes. I am a first level rogue, fifth level warrior, and fourteenth level wizard." He explained transparently.

"You are capped at seventh level spells." Lenna commented. "That is why wizards don't multiclass out of their chosen path."

Walter shrugged. "I don't really use anything above third, if I'm being honest. Magic above that is just unnecessarily complicated and complex with not nearly enough upsides to warrant the difficulty spike." He told her.

"So you do have class levels helping you!" Isaac exclaimed as if it proved why he had lost their fight.

"What are your subclasses, if you don't mind my asking?" Lenna wondered.

"Scout, Champion, and Artificer." Walter told her without any hesitation. "Everything I've told you so far is easily accessible for a gold rank adventurer through their Guild Master so it isn't exactly hidden knowledge." He further explained when Lenna leaned back slightly in surprise at how open he was.

"I am mostly surprised that you don't have any nature related classes or subclasses." Lenna said with a contemplative look at Gypsy.

"Things are not always what they seem." Walter spoke with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Can you do enchanting work for us before we leave or while we are on the road?" Isaac questioned.

Walter shrugged. "Horses have to rest, and if you're keeping watch, I can actually sleep while on the road for once, so sure. I'm still going to charge you normal prices though, and it had better be simple enchantments. I don't know a lot of the more common complicated ones. Most of the enchanting work I do is custom from the ground up."

"What kind of custom work?" Isaac wondered.

"Stuff that wouldn't make any sense to you unless you saw it in action, I can assure you." Walter countered. It was clear that he did not want to get into it at the moment. "Now, about the contract." He pulled out a notebook with metal rings keeping the pages together. He flipped its thin metal cover over the top to open it and pulled a Never Ending Pen out of the inside of the rings. His brilliant crystal pen matched the color of the cloudy sky as it sat gently cradled in his left hand.

"Double platinum bounty for escorting us to and from Material de la Celestia." Lenna said aloud for him and he wrote it down.

"To be paid in full upon your arrival at Material de la Celestia." Walter continued.

"Is there anything else?" Isaac asked. "If you leave us there, it will count as a failed bounty and will go on your record. Not to mention, I will want half of the money refunded."

Walter wrote down more or less what Isaac had said and added it to the contract. "If you decide to find another way back, say via teleportation, the bounty will still be marked as completed and I'll keep the full bounty price."

Isaac shrugged. "I can't fault you for that." He conceded.

"We will leave at noon today. That will give you just over two hours to get anything you need in order." Walter told them. "I would recommend waiting until after Jet and Kylus beat the everloving shit out of each other first though."

"You won't need more time?" Lenna wondered.

Walter shook his head. "No. I take almost everything with me at all times. Never know when you need to split town because you slept with the local powerhouse's sister." He said with such a matter of fact tone that the ridiculousness of it almost flew over Isaac and Lenna's heads.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"From experience?" Isaac wondered.

"That's a long story." Walter told him. Isaac stared at him flatly like he knew that Walter was just dodging the question.

"And the ten minutes are up folks!" The announcer called out over the crowd who had mostly all returned to their seats from wherever they had gone and whatever they had been doing.

"Oh thank the gods." Isaac heard Walter whisper under his breath.

"It seems like our second place champion has decided that our champion will need to be warmed up first!" The announcer went on. "Our humble host has agreed and Jet Jikan will be fighting our reigning champion in a one-on-one before the champion showdown! Place your bets folks! One minute until the match begins! Fighters to the arena!"

"Are you actually going to stay and fight whoever wins?" Isaac asked Walter with a raised eyebrow.

"If it's Jet, sure." Walter replied with utterly no shame. "I only fight when I have to, or I know I am going to win, or, I guess, if it's just a spar."

Isaac shook his head. He couldn't argue with Walter's fighting mentality but in the arena it was a little different. If everyone followed that principle, well, there wouldn't be much of an arena now would there be.

A short while later, Jet and Kylus were standing face to face in the arena. Kylus was an absolutely massive monster of a man. He looked hardly over twenty but his half goliath blood made his inexperienced age a nonissue. He stood at seven and a half feet tall. His arms were the size of tree trunks and his legs were built like the marble columns Isaac had seen in the royal citadel. His skin was like sandstone and his eyes were the gray blue of the cloudy sky. Unlike pure blooded goliaths, Kylus had eyelashes and eyebrows but he was otherwise bald just like his pure blooded kin. Poor Jet looked like a child in front of him.

"I know monks can be tough opponents, but does Jet stand a chance?" Isaac asked Walter with a raised eyebrow. They had gotten out of the way and taken a small section of bench that was less than a dozen feet from where they had been standing.

Walter nodded. "If he doesn't get hit, yeah." Walter replied. "Jet's monk style's incredibly difficult to master, which is probably why he's going on a walk-a-bout. The Golden Ratio is powerful but actually lining up attacks that fit the trajectory's an effort in futility, more often than not. It all comes down to if Jet can land a good hit without getting turned into a pancake first."

"You barely dodged plenty of his attacks." Isaac commented.

"That was on purpose. I wanted him to realize his fighting style's shortcomings before he fought Kylus." Walter explained.

"You planned their fight from the beginning?" Lenna asked rhetorically.

Walter nodded. "I did." He agreed. "Kylus is also faster than me."

"What?" Isaac said, utterly dumbfounded. How a man so huge could be faster than either of them was beyond his comprehension.

"That's one of the reasons I won't fight him again." Walter went on. "Some people are just born and bred to brawl."

"The bets are in! Fighters, get ready!" The announcer called out which silenced the crowd and yanked everyone's attention back to the two in the middle of the arena. "Fight!"

Kylus exploded forwards in a blur of motion and thrown mud. His guard was up in a boxing stance and his right cross flew in faster than a ballista bolt and was twice as wide. Jet rolled backwards out of the way with eyes widened in terror. He had just realized how utterly lethal those punches could be if any of them landed at the wrong angle. Jet dodged backwards out of the next two alternating crosses. He dropped low and swung his leg out in a perfectly executed golden ratio sweep that should've blown clean through both of Kylus's feet.

Jet's eyes could only widen further in horror as Kylus picked his feet up just in time for Jet's attack to miss. Kylus's feet came back down so quickly that his head hadn't even had time to lower from the lack of connection to the ground. He raised his right foot and stomped down towards Jet's still extended leg but Jet barely managed to get his limb out of the way of the tumbling mountain that was Kylus's stomp. Jet slipped through, between, and around each of Kylus's five follow-up attacks. The massive man hadn't slowed in the slightest.

After five seconds and nine near fight ending attacks dodged, Jet realized that he was going to run out of stamina or make one tiny mistake before Kylus would even start to slow. Kylus didn't look like he was even trying that hard but was simply using Jet to warm up before his next fight. Each attack came at a predictable rhythm and that consistency was why Jet was still alive, or at the very least conscious.

After another five seconds and ten near fight ending attacks dodged, Jet was starting to come up with a plan to fight that absolute monster in front of him. Jet picked his right leg up like he was about to kick but then held it for a split second before he picked his left leg up too. During that time, Kylus had pressed the attack and had decided that trading blows with the scrawny monk was perfectly within expectations. Jet hadn't expected Kylus to not even attempt to block the kick which made him realize his plan was going to end with them trading blows.

Jet's right foot swung out downwards and built momentum and speed as his leg extended in perfect synchronization to ensure that his foot followed the golden ratio. With his position solidly in freefall, Jet knew that Kylus's cross, which had just started flying towards his face, would hit something. He raised his right arm just in time to take the attack as his right foot attempted to imbed itself in Kylus's stomach. Jet's arm was entirely obliterated as the bones in his forearm were shattered into a dozen pieces each. The only reason his entire body hadn't suffered the same fate was because his kick had landed. Kylus was launched into the air and over Jet towards the arena fence in a perfect golden ratio arc. Kylus let out a grunt as his lungs were forcefully emptied from the impact but he couldn't even gasp in surprise at how high and far he was sent flying. It was almost like Jet had imparted a new law of nature on him and his body had to follow its predetermined flight path.

Jet's back impacted the ground hard enough that he fractured a rib on the muddy ground. Meanwhile, Kylus hit the ground fist first and turned his crash into half of a roll that ended with him on his back colliding feet first into one of the arena fence posts. The post cracked and fractured as his considerable weight tried to barrel through it. Thankfully for Kylus, his impact with the ground broke whatever effect Jet had imparted into him so he was at least able to stop.

The crowd went silent as they watched their champion almost get thrown out of the arena by a man a third of his size. When Kylus managed to keep all parts of his body from going outside of the arena, the crowd went wild. Jet had come so close to winning his fight by throwing Kylus out of the arena but the massive man had somehow managed to bleed off enough of his momentum to keep from entirely blowing through the fencepost.

Jet groaned in pain as he struggled back up to his feet and locked eyes with Kylus as the massive man did the same, though without a groan but a grin. "What are you made of?" Jet couldn't help but question.

Kylus's grin widened. "Muscle and blood, skin and bone."

"A mind that's weak and a back that's strong." Walter finished under his breath which got a confused look from Isaac and Lenna.

Kylus exploded in motion once again towards Jet. His right fist flew out towards the smaller man's face with enough force to kill the monk instantly. Jet's left hand looped up just in time to meet the underside of Kylus's wrist a foot before instant death. Kylus's wrist was yanked away and upwards with more force than he could fight. As his fist attempted to yank him towards the sky, the rest of his body snapped like a whip directly into Jet's arm and chest.

The obscene force of three hundred pounds of pure muscle, moving at the speed of a racing horse, getting whip cracked into him sent Jet sailing through the air like a kicked child's ball. Jet was airborne for half of the length of the entire arena before he hit the ground in a tangled mess that only seemed to get worse as he rolled and tumbled another six feet into a fencepost.

"Shit." Walter swore under his breath as he shot to his feet. "Healer!" He called out and hopped the bench in front of him. He landed with a slight slide as the muddy ground gave in to his horizontal momentum. He quickly regained his balance and took a step forwards which covered half of the distance to Jet and then he did it again to appear right next to the bloodied crumpled heap of a man in two quick teleports. Thankfully, there was more than one paladin watching the fight, otherwise, Jet might've met his end in the following moments.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.