As he dodged the hit directed at his neck, he was forced to sidestep another one directed at his waist.
He couldn't afford to get hit once or its game over for him, although he couldn't receive damage in the training hall, but his sword only had one durability left, and one's sword is no less important than one's life.
Without his sword he is simply broke, he wasted all of his money on swords and this is his last one, so he has to make the best of it.
After thinking about it, he figured out there isn't really a point to dodging the attacks, he did it out of instinct, he already maxed his agility so he wouldn't earn anything from dodging.
He only needs one more vitality to finish his training, but he was too scared his sword will break, he couldn't keep hesitating, it's just a waste of time, he had to go all out.
He replaced all the dummies with one dummy that has twice his strength and agility.
The stronger the enemy, the more rewarding blocking his attack is, so he readied his mind and started the training.
As soon as he started the dummy came to life, and started swinging its hand towards him, but he was prepared as well.
He managed to sidestep the fist, and then struck it at an angle that made it slide across his blade, barely doing any damage.
He looked at the combat log and couldn't believe his eyes.
[Defended an attack from a stronger dummy, 100% success]
He couldn't believe he managed to finally perfectly block an attack, he managed to block with 99% success many times, but for some reason he couldn't perform a perfect block.
Now he understood that blocking shouldn't be done in a direct way, a good block is one that uses the least force to reduce the most damage, which means using your opponents' power against themselves.
Now that he finally managed to finish his vitality training, and with one damaged sword to boot, he decided to leave and said goodbye to Shane.
While walking towards the building with the book emblem, he decided to take a look at his stats.
Name: Swordmaster
Titles: [Sword Genius]
Level: 0 (0%)
Race: Human
Class: None
HP 300/300
MP 100/100
HP Regen: 1.5/second
MP Regen: 0.5/second
Strength: 15
Agility: 15
Vitality: 15
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 5
Physical Defense: 0
Magical Defense: 0
Luck: 0
Fame: 50
Equipment:
- Plain Old Sword (Common)
Skills:
[Strong Strike (LV 2)], [Double Strike (LV 2)], [Quick Draw (LV 1)], [Defensive Stance (LV 2)], [Parry (LV 2)]
Talents:
[Beginner Sword Mastery (LV 4)]
He had many gains from the vitality training, but his biggest gains were upgrading Sword Mastery to level 4 and Parry to level 2. He trained with a sword against dummies for more than a dozen hours, but his Sword Mastery was only raised by a single level, and with an educated guess he can tell masteries go from beginner, to intermediate, and then advanced. It seems like there is a long way before he can use his family's traditional sword art.
But it's pointless to get held back by the negatives. He could now do more damage with a sword and learn better sword skills, and with Parry he could now defend even better.
He kept walking while thinking about his fast improvement pace, and eventually he reached the library, at least that was what he called the building.
As he entered, he was welcomed by a beautiful young lady, with blond hair and blue eyes, dressed in a light blue robe while holding a wooden staff with a blue gem on top of it.
"Welcome adventurer to the magic training hall, I hope you enjoy your stay", she said, and turned to the next player. This place is much more popular than the other training halls, he thought.
He didn't expect this kind of inspector, he was used to the weird old men, so he dazed off for a few seconds while looking at her.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" He heard a voice from his left, he turned and saw a player sitting on a chair with his legs crossed, holding a book.
The player had blond hair, green eyes and thin eyebrows, if it wasn't for his voice you could mistake him for a girl with short hair.
"Yea, I'm used to the old men at the other halls, I didn't expect this kind of change. I can't say I don't like it though" he responded.
"Well don't even dream about it, a guy once tried to get close to her and he instantly turned into an ice statue, quite a sad way to die" the player said while smiling, like he was recalling a happy memory, he didn't look sad at all.
Kyle was a bit freaked out, but he was still thankful for the warning, so he decided to make acquaintance with the guy.
"Thanks for the warning, my name is Kyle, how should I refer to you?" He asked.
"You can call me Mark, pleased to meet you" the player responded.
"Well I'm going to train my intelligence stat, do you perhaps know how to do that?" He asked Mark while looking around, the hall was split into multiple parts.
To his right were many shelves with books, most of the books were thin and ragged, players were taking books the shelves, and many books could be seen magically appearing on the shelves.
To his left were mostly tables with chairs around them and a lamp on top, you could see players sitting and reading books, some players looked interested while some looked like they were slowly dying inside.
To his front he could see a big door at the end of the hall, players were constantly leaving and entering through the door, and when it was open he could see grass and trees, he figured out it was some kind of garden.
As he looked around he heard Mark's voice again "Then you came to the right place, do you see all these players reading books? Most of them aren't doing it because they are smart or because they like books, the books are thin for a reason" Mark said while pointing at the players.
"Reading a book raises your intelligence stat, and there is a trick to it. The higher your understanding of the content the better the rewards, of course complicated books also give more points. These players are reading because to use magic you need at least 10 intelligence" Mark continued.
"I don't exactly understand how Replica can know your comprehension, but I guess if it can listen to mental commands like opening the character menu, it can do much more" Mark explained.
"Well I need to go back to my books, I advise you to read magic related books, they give more points" Mark said while returning to reading his book.
"Thanks Mark, see you later" Kyle thanked him and started walking towards the bookshelves, he could see a sign on each bookshelf with a genre written on it.
He saw a history bookshelf, a languages bookshelf and even a romance one, he wondered who wrote all these books.
At the end of the hall was a bookshelf with "Magic Theory" written on it, he guessed this was the one Mark was referring to, so for the first time in his life, he was thirsty for knowledge, after all it was for the sake of training, and when it comes to training, it's always exciting.