During the rest that they were given, Dirin and Ritchard huddled together, with Ritchard sweating and Dirin drenched with water. Ritchard started listing things they could do to work together to make Mr. Till drop his guard. Dirin nodded along as if he understood what he was saying despite being lost.
At the rate things have been going, Dirin knew that Ritchard already understood that he didn't understand a thing that was being planned. Dirin had him explain things for the first couple of days, but they both had an agreement that Ritchard would just ramble on for the satisfaction of rambling on.
As Dirin was just lazily nodding along with him, Tillie came up. Ritchard stopped his rambling and looked at her, hoping that she at least understood anything he said. She shook her head, which caused him to frown a bit. "It seems that there is a rhythm that Vale has discovered." She pointed towards Vale, who was writing down notes on a small blue notebook.
Dirin turned his head to her and waited till she further explained things. "Apparently, he does seven beats in total. Three on Ritchard and four on you, Dirin. These come in a variety of things, like the geysers that come from the ground or blocking Ritchard. He seems not to adjust it at all. Always seven beats."
"What is considered a beat?" Ritchard was confused and asked the question that Dirin also wanted to know.
"Any type of action, I guess. Moving, dodging, attacking, planning. You name it. All of it is considered a beat. He only does seven in total during each line. Don't ask what a line is. I don't know. Though he does have a brief period where he has a 'quarter note of time' where he restarts the whole beat thing."
"A quarter note?" Dirin was answered with a shrug and a slow shake of her head. "Well, he's holding back, so we can expect him to be able to change these... beats... at any time. Maybe he let her figure this out to tell us, so we are caught off guard."
Ritchard nodded in agreement with him. Ritchard was happy about the information, nonetheless, and threw a thumbs up towards Vale's direction that wasn't noticed at all. Ritchard went over to the weapons, which left Tillie and Dirin alone.
Tillie stepped forward and scanned the back of Dirin. "Looks like that fall wasn't as bad as it seemed." She mumbled to herself. "How far are you from becoming Rank 1? What else do you have to train?"
Dirin thought to himself as he thought of it. He already tried to do everything in magic and even had the delusion that he could actually use it during combat, but sadly, he still didn't have access to mana flows or anything like that. He had only had a couple of elements left to do, along with spiritual and some physical. Other than that, he was very close to becoming a Rank 1.
The candle that he was given was very helpful for him in terms of studying, but he couldn't use it mid-fight since it was pretty hard to run and carry a flaming candle. At least when he was getting water thrown at him, that is. After telling her all of this, she nodded as she pulled out her phone. "I have a class I'm interested in taking in an hour. I'm going to head there now and probably stop for some lunch. I'll be back after. Want anything when I get back?"
Dirin thought about it for a bit. He didn't have any money to repay her. He and Keith weren't great savers under the delusion of Markus' money. They spent almost all of their savings in a couple of days on things, but the majority was Kieth's fault. That was what he said, at least. He shook his head, and she nodded slowly before leaving with one last look at his back for injury again.
Once she was gone, Ritchard came back with a smile on his face. Dirin looked at it and rolled his eyes, which got a chuckle from Ritchard. He had this idea that they were already close to dating, which Dirin disagreed with. "I'm telling you that it would only take you asking her out for dinner or something similar. Don't tell me you are that serious about studying."
"I am. After being beaten around for a couple of weeks, I had a revelation. I could get really strong if I practice and return all of that to Mr. Till pretty easily once I get stronger. With interest as well. And no. Spit is not what drives me. That is just one of the few things. I've learned a lot of things, and some of them are really interesting when you learn them. If you give me enough time, I could explain most things thanks to my studies. Heck, I could even demonstrate them if given the correct things." Dirin looked around at the shadows and the sun and started to predict what temperatures he would get if he measured open sunlight compared to the shadow, a habit he picked up from Keith.
"It's interesting, in my opinion, that I already know how so many things work and how to replicate them. Given enough time, I could explain why shoelaces are so good. Friction mainly. I could tell you why a rolling ball is faster than releasing it on a slope, but that should be obvious regardless." Dirin started to give random scenarios that even a normal person could understand. "I could even tell you why you are using your aura wrong as well."
Ritchard narrowed his eyes a bit as he heard that. "Do tell."
"When you try to enhance something, you do the whole thing. If you just did the muscle group that was being used, then it would be more efficient or stronger if you condensed it down. Also, when you try to use it to extend a weapon, you tend to let go too early, causing it to slow down before it departs. When we were hit by Mr. Till's aura, your first reaction was to study it instead of using your own aura to keep your footing. Then you would've been able to study it even better."
Ritchard heard this and sighed. He also knew that last bit, but everything happened too fast for him to get out of his dazed excitement to fight Mr. Till's aura in time. He raised his hands a bit and silently admitted defeat. He looked over and saw that Vale was still writing things down. He was planning on asking her for help with getting one over Mr. Till, but he didn't know how to approach her. He asked Dirin once, but Dirin refused since he wasn't that interested in her.
He walked towards her while she was writing things down. "Hey... uh... Ma'am?" He already regretted calling her a ma'am when the words left his mouth, but she looked at him with a questioning look, which didn't seem to mind what he called her. "Do you have any other suggestions that we can use against the professor?"
Vale thought over it a bit and threw another glance at her notes. After a couple of seconds of reading, she looked back at him. "He seems to alternate between beats if they target you. If they don't, then it's random. He also likes to restrain you while he openly attacks Dirin. If you can switch that you would be in a better situation most likely. He also likes to only throw glances at Dirin after you swung, so if you delay your swings a bit, then you would throw him off a bit, but only delay them after you swung normally first, so when he gets warmed up, he is only expecting that..." She slowed down her speech as she started to think of more things to say.
He was genuinely surprised. He hadn't noticed any of the glances, and he figured that since Mr. Till only did seven beats, then he should increase how quickly he swung. Though after some thought, he did think that slowing himself down would cause Dirin to get more breathing room. It would slow down when Dirin was looked at and put more attention on himself, and increasing in speed against someone three ranks higher than him was a bad idea anyway.
Ritchard nodded to her and went back to Dirin to tell him the new plan. He liked telling Dirin all of his plans. He always seemed to listen and even though he didn't understand anything. It was well worth the effort of explaining everything anyway, since Dirin did somehow grasp what he planned during the whole thing anyway by some miracle, but questioning the person who already had all the knowledge to progress in everything and only needed practical use to do so didn't seem smart.