Chapter 80: Earth Armor Mastery
POV: Adam
Ten days of preparation had transformed the training chamber into a battlefield simulator.
Stone pillars rose at irregular intervals, forcing combatants to navigate obstacles while fighting. Trenches cut the floor into defensible sections. Target dummies carved from granite waited at varying distances, each marked with vital points that a real enemy would protect.
Thorek stood at the chamber's edge, arms crossed over his barrel chest, watching with the critical eye of someone who'd spent centuries perfecting his craft.
"Again," he said.
I planted my feet, drew breath, and reached for the earth.
Stone answered. It flowed up my legs like water made solid, coating calves and thighs in interlocking plates that moved with my body rather than against it. The armor spread—stomach, chest, arms, finally forming a helm that left only my eyes exposed.
[ Earth Armor: Active ]
[ Defense Bonus: +150% ]
[ Movement Penalty: -40% ]
[ MP Drain: 15/minute ]
Too slow. Too heavy. The movement penalty alone would get me killed against anyone with witcher-level speed.
"You're building walls," Thorek observed. "Walls don't move. You need shells."
"Shells?"
"Think of a beetle." He picked up an iron ingot, turned it in his hands. "Thick plates, yes? But jointed. Overlapping. Each piece supports the others, but they move independently." He set the ingot down with a clang. "You're making statue armor. Make insect armor."
I released the earthbending, felt stone slough off my body and return to the floor. The concept crystallized slowly—not a single continuous layer but hundreds of smaller pieces, each thin enough to flex, collectively strong enough to protect.
"Like scale mail."
"Like scale mail made of mountain." Thorek's approval rumbled in his chest. "Try again. Thinner plates. More of them. Let them interlock."
—Scene Break—
The breakthrough came on the fourth attempt.
Stone rose in fragments rather than sheets—thumbnail-sized scales that fitted together like fish skin, each piece hard as tempered steel but thin enough to bend with movement. The armor weighed less than half my previous attempts while covering more completely.
[ Earth Armor: Refined ]
[ Defense Bonus: +120% ]
[ Movement Penalty: -15% ]
[ MP Drain: 10/minute ]
I moved experimentally. Rolled my shoulders. Threw a punch. The scales shifted, clicked, resettled without restricting motion. Not quite natural—I could feel the stone's presence like a second skin—but functional.
"Better." Thorek circled me, examining joints and overlaps. "Weak points at the inner elbows, behind the knees. Typical armor vulnerabilities. But the coverage..." He tapped my chest, heard stone ring against stone. "Solid. Very solid."
"How do I test it?"
"The witcher offered." Thorek's grin showed teeth filed sharp in traditional dwarven fashion. "Said something about 'proper stress testing.' Sounded eager."
Lambert. Of course Lambert had volunteered to hit me repeatedly. Probably been waiting for exactly this opportunity since the wall incident.
"Send him in."
—Scene Break—
POV: Lambert
The kid stood in the center of the training chamber, wrapped in stone that somehow managed to look both primitive and elegant. Scale armor grown from the ground itself—Lambert had seen a lot of strange things in his decades as a witcher, but this ranked among the strangest.
"Rules?" He drew his steel sword, rolled his wrist to warm the joint.
"Try to break through. I try to stop you."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Lambert attacked without warning.
Witcher speed closed the distance in heartbeats. His blade arced toward Adam's ribs—not a killing blow, but one that would bruise bone if it landed cleanly.
Stone met steel. The impact jarred Lambert's arm, sent vibrations up to his shoulder. The armor held. More than held—the scales had absorbed and distributed the blow across a wider area, dissipating force that should have cracked normal stone.
"Huh." Lambert circled, reassessing. "Not bad."
He attacked again. Faster this time. A combination: high cut to draw the guard up, low sweep toward the legs, thrust toward the chest as Adam compensated.
Each blow landed. Each blow failed to penetrate. The stone shifted under impact, scales sliding over each other to present fresh surfaces, but nothing broke through.
Adam's counter came without warning—earth pillar surging from the floor, catching Lambert's ankle, sending him stumbling. The kid followed up with a palm strike that moved with unnatural speed.
"Air pushing him forward. Combining elements."
Lambert twisted away, felt stone fingers graze his cheek. Close. Too close.
"You're getting creative." He regained balance, switched to silver sword. "Let's see how that armor handles enchanted metal."
The silver sang different notes against stone. Higher pitched. More penetrating. Lambert felt the blade bite deeper, saw hairline cracks spread from impact points.
"Magic disruption." Adam's voice came slightly strained—maintaining the armor while fighting clearly taxed his concentration. "Silver's enchantment interferes with the earthbending cohesion."
"So mages can hurt you through it."
"Probably. I'll need countermeasures."
They reset. Lambert attacked again, this time with oils applied—Specter oil, because it was the only bottle he'd grabbed, not because he expected it to help.
The armor held, but cracks accumulated. After ten minutes of sustained assault, Adam's stone shell looked like weathered statue—functional but damaged.
"Thoughts?" The kid released his earthbending, letting cracked stone fall away. His breathing came heavy, sweat darkening his tunic.
"You can take hits now. Real hits." Lambert sheathed his swords. "Against normal soldiers, that armor makes you basically unkillable. Against mages or witchers..." He shrugged. "You'd survive longer than you would without it. Might even win if you're smart about it."
"High praise."
"Don't let it go to your head." But Lambert allowed himself a small smile. "You're becoming a proper threat, kid. Few more months of this, and fighting you would actually be dangerous."
[ Earth Armor: Mastered ]
[ Defense Bonus: +120% (base) ]
[ Additional: Regenerates when damaged (MP cost) ]
[ Weakness: Magic/Silver reduces effectiveness ]
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
The final test pushed every limit simultaneously.
I stood at the chamber's center, Earth Armor active, facing Geralt and Lambert both. The witchers circled like wolves assessing prey—measured, patient, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
"Combine everything. Air for mobility. Earth for defense. Water for offense."
Geralt moved first. Silver sword tracing patterns that seemed almost lazy until they suddenly accelerated, blade singing toward my neck.
I ducked, let air cushion my fall, rolled away as Lambert's strike passed through space I'd occupied. Earth Armor absorbed a glancing blow from Geralt's follow-up, scales cracking but holding.
Water answered my call. The moisture I'd seeded throughout the chamber—condensation on cool stone, drips from carefully placed containers—gathered into a spinning ring around my body. Ice formed, crystallized, became a barrier of frozen edges that forced both witchers to reconsider their approach.
"Good," Geralt acknowledged. "But can you maintain it?"
They attacked together.
The next three minutes became a blur of desperate defense and opportunistic offense. I threw earth projectiles that Geralt dodged easily, created ice walls that Lambert shattered with silver-enhanced strikes, used air bursts to create distance when they pressed too close.
My armor cracked, reformed, cracked again. MP dropped steadily—800, then 600, then 400. The regeneration drained reserves faster than combat ever had.
[ MP: 380/760 ]
[ WARNING: Approaching critical threshold ]
One more exchange. Lambert feinted high, Geralt came low. I caught Lambert's blade on an ice-reinforced arm, felt the impact shudder through my entire body, then used the moment of contact to redirect his momentum into Geralt's attack path.
The witchers collided. Not hard—they recovered almost instantly—but the momentary tangle bought me precious seconds.
Earth surged. Stone walls erupted in a circle, forcing both opponents back. I dropped to one knee, pressing palms flat, and pushed with everything remaining.
The floor rippled. Shockwave radiated outward, destabilizing footing for anyone not rooted to the ground. Lambert stumbled. Geralt maintained balance through sheer experience but lost offensive positioning.
And then I was behind them both, stone armor reforming, ice spears hovering at my shoulders, air swirling around me in a visible vortex.
"Yield."
Geralt turned slowly. Something flickered in his expression—surprise, maybe. Respect, definitely.
"You win this round."
[ TRAINING COMPLETE: Three-Element Combat ]
[ XP Gained: 350 ]
[ LEVEL UP! 34 → 35 ]
[ Earthbending: Adept Tier Achieved ]
—Scene Break—
POV: Ciri
She found Adam afterward, sitting on a stone bench with his head in his hands, trembling from magical exhaustion.
"You pushed too hard."
"Pushed exactly hard enough." He looked up, and despite the fatigue, his eyes held something new. Confidence, maybe. Or just the absence of doubt that had plagued him since Cintra. "I can fight them now. Not easily, not cleanly, but I can fight."
"Fight who? Cahir's soldiers? The witchers just proved you can handle them."
"The Hunt." He stood, and even exhausted, he moved differently. More certain. More dangerous. "Not alone. Not yet. But I'm getting closer to the point where running isn't our only option."
She took his hand, felt their bond pulse with shared determination.
"Eighteen days until we have to deal with Cahir. Then what?"
"Then we deal with everything else." He smiled, and it transformed his tired face into something almost boyish. "One crisis at a time, remember? That's how we've survived this far."
"Terrible strategy."
"Best one we've got."
Tomorrow they'd plan the ambush. Tonight, they had warmth and each other and the quiet satisfaction of progress made against impossible odds.
It would have to be enough.
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