As I approached Autumn, they paused their practice and deactivated the Kinetic blade on their glaive.

"So, it doesn't really matter if you slice my shell to pieces. I'm going to keep my Core in my head, just don't break it, and we'll be good. But how am I supposed to avoid killing you by accident?" I asked as I walked up on the platform made of manifested Earth.

"I would be shocked if you could kill me only using that hammer with no magic or Skills, but you are free to try," Autumn replied, flicking their glaive into a defensive posture.

"Even with the enchantments I put on it?" I asked. "You don't even know what I could have added."

They tilted their head, "As long as you don't do something as destructive as turn my remains to ashes, my soul will remain attached, and I will be able to regenerate eventually."

Oh, come on, that's unfair. Why was my Soul detaching due to bad programming when Autumn could be reduced to a pile of mulch without a problem?

What was even keeping their Soul attached to that mulch? I knew they didn't have a brain or any organs that could be destroyed, but this was kind of ridiculous. Was this common in the multiverse?

I didn't remember any other species in the list that I could choose from that wouldn't die from some critical part of them being destroyed. Even imps died if you destroyed their brain, and it wasn't even a real meat brain, or at least they didn't set off my annoyance at their very existence.

"So what are we doing this until? First blood doesn't seem fair because it's a lot easier for you to poke me than for me to whack you," I said while absentmindedly twirling the hammer with one hand.

"Great hammers aren't a traditional duelling weapon, so we'll go until submission. Does that even have enough weight behind it to do anything?" Autumn asked, to which I could only chuckle.

Bringing the hammer up over my shoulder, I leaned forward, pulling the weight of the liquid metal core with me as I took a step. As it started to come down, I pulled the far end of the shaft up while the head flew towards the ground. An instant before impact, I flicked an internal switch. This sent the concentrated Mana inside from the Silver Whisperash core of the hammer to the Klyven Dew jacket around the core.

The Silver Whisperash increased in inertial weight massively, and the Klyven Dew hardened to the point I couldn't actually damage it in the simulation I ran. Unless I manipulated it with pure Nature Mana, it was practically indestructible and unmoldable to anything that I could realistically do to it myself.

This nigh invulnerable jacket of metal propelled along by an increased inertial weight slammed into the ground like a meteor striking the earth. A small meteor, but a meteor nonetheless.

The ground detonated with a thunderous crack, as the earth around the impact site exploded in a starburst pattern. Chunks of stone flew through the air and embedded themselves in my skin. The hammer bit deep into the ground.

I hit the switch again and tried to pull it back up, only to realize it was stuck. With a burst of [Argent Flow], I ripped it out of the rock.

"That's without using my enhancement Skill at all. Except to pull it out of the ground, it was really stuck in there," I said as I dropped the hammer back over my shoulder.

"Yeah, okay, that has enough heft to it. As for getting stuck, you could add a crown to the ends if you want. Some Sylvan would attach a spike to one side of their hammer and turn it into a sort of war pick," Autumn said, moving their glaive such that it was resting against the back of their neck.

"I don't think that's really my style. Aight. Are we doing this?" I asked, rolling my shoulders. I sent a stream of Mana into the ground, repairing the impact crater.

"Come at me whenever you feel like it. I'm not going anywhere." Their glaive remained resting on their shoulders.

Goading me? Did they think that would work?

They were right, it absolutely would.

As I advanced, I shifted the hammer from my shoulder to under my arm. Using my waist as a leverage point, I swung the hammer in a sweep from right to left. Just before it would have hit them, their glaive fell off their shoulder and hit the ground with all of their weight, launching them into the air. Spinning in the air, their blade was suddenly aimed at my neck.

I knew they would dodge somehow, so I hadn't flicked the switch in the hammer. With a shift of my footing, I altered the swing upwards.

I hadn't expected them to jump, so my transition was awkward as hell and almost led to me tripping as the weight pulled me down.

Before I could land a hit, their glaive's blade entered my neck and severed the wire stack that enabled my eyesight. A moment later, I felt my hammer contact something, but that contact didn't feel right. It was like they had… shit.

Spinning around while transitioning the upward swing into a downward one on the other side, I sent the hammer down against the ground. Halfway to the ground, I activated the inertial weight, but unfortunately didn't hit anything.

Instead, I found a blade in my eye, a couple of centimetres from my Core.

"I surrender," I said when my neck veins reconnected. "You know, I don't remember you being this good back when I first fought with you."

"Having a weapon that I'm well-practiced with helps with that. I'm still not used to these," Autumn said, their Blood vines fanning out around them like a peacock's display. "I think you should use your enhancement Skill. You need to learn to fight with it anyway, and from what I've seen, it would be an effective tool in your toolset. That Skill is why I recommended you choose the hammer anyway."

What they said made sense. It did allow me to do some interesting things movement-wise.

I signalled understanding in Root, then paused, "Will you be using your movement abilities?" If Autumn just started teleporting around, I'd be fucked.

"No, this was mostly supposed to be a demonstration of potential pitfalls you'll run into. I won't be leaving the ground in the rest of our matches today," Autumn said before going into a detailed explanation on what I needed to know.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Given that I demonstrated that I had no idea what I was doing, they started from the beginning.

Foremost, the great hammer was a weapon defined by two key elements: domination and control, both of which tied into each other.

For slow or anchored targets, the great hammer should be treated as a siege weapon. Heavy blows able to break stone and shatter metal were incredibly useful when fighting opponents who relied on heavy armour or large size. For these targets, I should aim to put all my power into dealing as much damage as possible before relocating. I was already doing this properly because I never held back with my strikes.

Smaller, faster opponents demanded the opposite. Control wasn't about crushing but steering. Forcing them into places where dodging became impossible. That meant chaining swings so each carried into the next, using momentum not just for power but to cut off escape angles.

I hadn't been doing that; I was just swinging at Autumn like they were a wall to smash. Nor did I attempt to force them into a situation where they had to be in a specific spot. Using Mana would help with this, but Autumn said it would build a bad habit if I learned from the ground up using manifested projectiles to corral my opponent into advantageous positions.

This was where I was the weakest. I wasn't great at understanding how or why people would move in a fight yet. Relying on control alone was a problem. But it was okay, I could practice.

Against well-rounded opponents, given the amount of power behind every blow, the great hammer couldn't be blocked or parried except by somebody who had far more Might than I did. They either dodged or had to accept taking a hit. Through dominance, I would establish control.

Argent Bastion would be very useful here as it improved my control immensely, while allowing me to fix overcompensations by resetting my momentum whenever I so choose. That was the reason Autumn had even brought up the great hammer. Because otherwise the weapon was too unwieldy for my current Stats.

Standing across from Autumn, I lazily held the hammer's shaft. The head sat on the ground slightly behind me and to the right. I watched them as they attempted to prompt me to make the first move again, but I chose to wait on them this time.

A minute in, they launched themselves forward out of nowhere, glaive aimed at my head again. As they drew close, I pulled the hammer from its resting position and threw it upwards in a quick diagonal sweep. Autumn adjusted their swing to avoid my hammer and ran to my right to avoid the momentum my hammer was building up. Calling on [Argent Flow], I halted my velocity and changed the direction my hammer was swinging, then activated the enchantment on the hammer. It appeared to freeze in place for a tenth of a second, during which I flicked the internal switch, before exploding into motion.

Using [Argent Flow] channeled through myself, I prevented myself from being flung with the hammer and instead brought it into a circular orbit. The momentum carried by my weapon spun me so fast that the world blurred around me for a moment. I noticed myself clipping Autumn's weapon while I was spinning, shattering the shaft as they had been going in for a stab before I started spinning.

I hadn't even done that intentionally. I was just trying to get some space so I could react properly.

As I slowed down and the world stopped being a blurry smear, I was met with Autumn jamming their butt spike into my skull.

"You probably should have transitioned yourself into another movement at some point before the spin started to slow. Damaging my weapon gave you an advantage that you could have followed up on," was the first thing Autumn said to me after I surrendered.

They weren't wrong. I wasn't expecting to turn into a spinning top.

"Alright, another round?" I asked.

Autumn looked at their broken glaive, then back up at me.

"Ah, right," I muttered to myself as I started growing another glaive for them.

"Before we have another go, I think it might be beneficial for me to show you proper technique," Autumn said, pausing to catch the new glaive when I tossed it to them. They slung the polearm over their back as they approached me, handing it off to their vines. "Something you haven't been doing but really should be is carrying through on your strikes with your whole body."

Over the next hour, Autumn went through different ways for me to use the hammer without rooting myself in one spot. It was actually far more versatile than I had expected.

When they showed me how to use the hammer to pole vault, I knew immediately that I was going to be doing that a lot.

Unlike Autumn, I couldn't transition into aerial moves effortlessly. Still, if I treated my Core as an anchor point and froze only its momentum using [Argent Flow] at the peak of my jump, I could transition into a spin. This had the effect of collapsing the entire earthen platform I was practicing on when Autumn had me try slamming the hammer into the ground with a full rotation of momentum.

And that was without even using the Avalanche enchantment.

Really, everything I was doing relied on me using momentum as effectively as possible, as if it were a sort of resource that I would build up the longer I continued a motion uninterrupted. It was often better for me to just do a full rotation instead of stopping my hammer and restarting it.

I was glad I didn't have any prior training with weapons, as I'm fairly certain some of the ways Autumn encouraged me to move would have given a HEMA practitioner a stroke. The addition of Stats really changed what was even possible during a fight compared to Earth standards. Grace, for example, allowed for bullshit physics-defying nonsense sometimes.

"Okay, let's do another round," Autumn finally said after I proved that I could reliably avoid tripping in the event that I needed to redirect the motion of my hammer while running.

We returned to our starting positions, my hammer slung loosely over my right shoulder.

Autumn's glaive's blade hummed into life as they dashed forward.

As they approached, I activated [Argent Flow] and channeled the silver Mana through my perception circuits. A silver shine coated every surface, while Autumn's every motion burned itself into my sight.

Just before I was within their reach, I started to swing the hammer, pulling down hard with both hands and using my shoulder as a pivot point. Autumn was forced to stop and retreat a pace backward out of my reach. That wasn't a problem. I didn't expect to hit them with that.

I changed the angle of the swing so that it wouldn't hit the ground, flicked the switch, shifted my top hand up the shaft pulling the hammer head closer to my body, and pivoted on my front foot. Following the swing with my whole body, I found myself being flung far faster as I tightened the spin.

Hitting the switch, decreasing the inertia carried by the hammer, I allowed the hammer to loosen outwards as I passed the halfway point in the spin, bleeding part of my angular momentum, but less than I gained when I pulled the hammer in while it carried more inertia. Then I flicked the switch again.

I allowed the hammer to pull me forward, and with the foot I wasn't pivoting on, I took a step.

Autumn seemed surprised as they were suddenly within range of my hammer. They tried to bring their glaive up to knock the shaft of my weapon, but they didn't have nearly enough weight behind the move.

The hammer carried through, slamming into them, pulverizing their arm and snapping their glaive while also knocking them onto the ground.

I pulled it into another spin, this time angling it down and back up such that when I came around this time, the hammer was being brought back down onto Autumn, who had been knocked to the ground.

"I give up!" they shouted a moment before I would have slammed it down on them. Turning them into a paste.

I froze my momentum with [Argent Flow] and returned my weapon to its resting position.

"Did I do good?" I asked as I offered them a hand.

"Yeah, didn't expect you to be able to speed up mid spin," they replied, accepting with their one remaining arm. Their destroyed one was already starting to grow back.

"I just used the functionality I built into the weapon to increase my speed. Speaking of, why haven't you used the Symbolic Weave I installed in the glaive yet?" I asked, only to suddenly feel something sitting on top of my head.

"Hey, sorry for interrupting. I just wanted to let you two know that I'll be gone for a bit. I told Sam I'd be back in twelve hours," Novi said, then vanished from whence they came. They were probably still sitting on my head, knowing them.

Now that they mentioned it, the sun was starting to set over the horizon. Had we really been at it for that long?

"I should probably get to work on the javelins for tomorrow. Thanks for the lesson!" I told Autumn as I dropped the hammer in my Inventory.

"Just doing as I am required," Autumn replied.

I didn't think too hard about what they meant.

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