"This doesn't make any sense!"
I was standing in my room and tried out how much stronger I got over the last week.
"Why am I still advancing so fast?!"
Everyday we trained for more than 12 hours a day, breaks not included in that time.
The problem is that It seems like I am getting stronger too fast! Normally my growth rate should've been halved, but why does it seem like nothing changed at all since that day?
I didn't learn any new techniques over the last week, but I still advanced so fast that the teachers noticed and even praised me, although I don't know if it's because of my connections rather than my real advancements over that time.
I tried to hide my talent as to not attract attention, but normally I wouldn't even have to do that. It's because it seems like at this place I am getting stronger faster than normally.
"Why?"
It's not like I didn't suspect the mana in this environment to be denser or anything. But that can't be it. After all my physical abilities, speed, strength and stamina and just over all my muscles seem to also get stronger.
The problem is that my normal body isn't dependent on mana at all it's only using the mana normally flowing through my body. Only magic is draining a lot of mana to use.
It's even faster than before, when I trained alone in the forest or the cave.
The most problematic thing is pretending to only be average, it takes a lot of effort to pretend to only be able to fight with a skill half of your normal skill level.
My sword skills are a lot better and it's honestly a lot harder to hide your strength than just use it all. I also feel like I would be able to advance faster if I didn't need to hold back.
I prepared beforehand, but something is different. I halved my normal talent for the time being, pretending having great talent, but not to the point, where I would stand out inside of the lion class.
And I am still getting stronger too fast!
Is this what you call suffering from success?
"Thinking about it, should I head outside, too?"
It was the seventh day since the training had begun and although it was hellish at first and my muscles were hurting extremely bad with my talent it seems like this kind of training isn't even bringing me to my limits anymore.
"Let's head outside, I can't slack off just because I see some improvements right now."
I was actually looking for a certain person, which I also noticed to be outside.
I took my katana with me and walked outside into the beautiful nature.
As I was walking on a path surrounded by the last flowers, the last ones actually blooming anymore I could hear her steady and controlled breathing. The fast and accurate sword swings and the air following her every sword strike.
It was almost winter and I could only imagine her white hair fitting perfectly with the snow, which would soon fall down upon the whole academy.
I could observe her standing a few hundred meters away from me. She was training, even after such a day. The training got a bit more bearable, now we were only training for about 10 hours a day, but that was not stopping her from training in these two extra hours, which normally would be free time now.
"Do you need a sparring partner?"
She had been so focused on her training that she didn't even notice me approaching her. That was one of the only flaws I could find in her. She concentrated too hard on certain things and doesn't even look at her surroundings while training.
It was like I would just choose not to use my enhanced senses to their full ability while training or just not use them at all.
She looked surprised as she turned around and our gazes met.
"Are you not resting? We still trained a lot today. It's not good for your body to train all the time."
I could already expect her answer, but still wanted to hear it.
"Don't you also need to rest? As far as I can predict you also came out her to train. And that although you told me to do the exact opposite not too long ago."
She was saying that, but didn't look mad at all, rather she looked pleasantly surprised to see me.
"Well my reasons are the same as yours I assume. The two extra hours of not training today left me with the stamina I would've normally needed to use while training.
"I presume I would feel bad not to use these two hours to train."
That was actually the truth and I couldn't help, but also feel a bit happy, when seeing her smile like that.
"Well then, I guess we could train together." While saying that she looked expectant.
Well, let's not betray her expectations.
"Sure, so what is on your mind, sparring or training our magic?"
She seemed to think about it for a bit and then decided on something with a face, which looked like she suddenly had a really good idea.
"I guess we could do both at the same time."
Interesting, so she wants to use this option, but which method will she choose to make it work?
Will she choose the best one, I also needed to experiment a bit with my magic to get the idea to make something like that work.
"That's of course also possible, but how do you plan on doing that. With these sharp swords we could easily hurt each other. I presume you don't have two training swords lying around somewhere here."
Now what did she think of, there are a few options I myself already thought of, but what conclusion did she reach? Will she suggest the same thing I thought of?
"Well, what if we used our magic to protect and at the same time attack each other?"
Interesting, indeed.
"So you suggest that we both use our magic on our swords and at the same time on our opponents clothes? That would enable us to control both of these places, which will be imbued with magic and let the magic collide with each other, which will stop our attacks, because of the force of that collision. I guess it's a good idea, it could also improve our magic control and swordsmanship at the same time."
"Exactly." She was content, but then she realized something and already wanted to ask, when I also realized my mistake.
"But how did yo-"
"Anyways, we should begin. We still need to get our rest after the training, so that we will be at our best condition tomorrow."
Fu*k! I hope she doesn't ask again. I accidentally thought out loud after seeing how she chose the most efficient training method. I somehow can't help, but do dumb things like that in situations such as this.
I should be more careful, how can something like that happen to me even after already living in this world for more than half a year.
I'm also almost fifteen years old, I am too clumsy in these departments.
I need to be more careful!
I approached her and got ready to apply my magic onto her whole attire.
Depending on how dense the magic is the better this method will work.
Depending on the density the match could either be over or still resume. If the magic on the clothes is denser than you will have to be more accurate and closer to actually hitting the opponent.
It's a perfect training to control both, the magic applied onto your sword and the opponents clothes.
Of course it's risky, because you have to be accurate with the magic on your opponents clothes.
If you aren't applying your magic right or stop it in the middle of the match you could hurt your partner, so you have to have trust in the one you are sparring with.
But it's also a great way to train, so as long as you don't concentrate fully on defeating your opponent you shouldn't mess up with your magic.
"Ok then, I'll try to apply my magic."
"Sure go ahead."
My eyes turned completely dark and I concentrated on applying my magic on her clothes as dense as possible without having to concentrate completely on my magic.
I had previously thought about how I would use magic in the academy, without anyone else realizing my mana center, which lies in my eyes and I then I had a good idea.
I told everyone that I can apply my magic onto my body to enhance my sight for example.
Darkness magic is so unknown, which makes it one of the best I could use. I can just use darkness magic to explain the change of colour in my eyes by saying that it helps with training and concentration.
I also brought the argument that it's a way to constantly train the control of my magic by using it on my eyes all the time.
They may have doubts about my it, but they can't disprove it, after all it's not like I have a simple magic like fire or water magic.
And the great thing is that even with such a 'simple' magic there're still things you can discover and invent using just that magic, so even if I had for example fire magic I could still maybe use my magic by thinking of an excuse it would only be harder to explain, because there's already so much known about these kinds of magic.
"Wow, this is amazing, it doesn't feel any different at all."
Her complete attire had completely turned dark, or at least that's how it looks like. As far as I know and what I also know from the teachers the only way in this academy to train with magic and a sharp sword at the same is to risk getting hurt.
There may be methods to use in other kingdoms, maybe even of other races, but those are not known in all of Raiken. Or at least the teachers won't tell us about those methods.
"If I infuse my sword with my magic and are about to hit you it should create a collision caused by the two different magic flows, which will reflect the sword.
"The one who first hits his opponent in that way will win the match, it's the closest thing to a real match without hurting each other."
"Yes, that's exactly what I thought of. I'll apply my magic, too okay?" She came so close that I could even feel her breath. Damn sharpened senses they are really useful, but can also cause things like this to happen!
I didn't let her notice and immediately reduced my senses to the point, where I wasn't able to feel her breath on my body.
"Sure, go ahead."
I could feel a slight layer of wind magic tightly surrounding my clothes.
It shouldn't really have any additional benefits like increasing my speed, or anything else.
While training I was able to observe the old man use wind magic a lot to demonstrate certain things. I could see the mana and I could also on some occasions see exactly how wind magic can enhance the speed or be used otherwise.
It's probably not known exactly how it works, but from what I observed the wind magic is used to push the air in front and besides you away. It's basically removing the friction from the air making you a lot faster.
The problem is that you have to exactly know the speed you're going at to not waste too much energy.
If you are in the middle of a fight concentrating on using the wind magic at the same time is incredibly hard.
Even with an extreme amount of experience like the old man has it's impossible for him to fight while using his magic consistently. In such situations it's probably best to use wind magic to get sudden bursts of speed and then get slowed down again by stopping the use of magic.
If you try to push the air too far from you it'll cost a lot of energy and you will quickly lose strength.
That's why wind magic is probably the hardest magic out of all of the four normal elements.
"Ok, after applying the magic to our weapons we can be begin."
That's why it's already incredible for Katsumi to be able to use her magic on me and the sword at the same time and always reversing the mana flow, so that a collision can be created.
Her amount of talent is incredible, even to me and catching up to her won't be as easy as I thought. I still underestimated her!
"You should already know this, but are you sure that you want to spar against me under these conditions? You have to have full trust in my ability." I asked it specifically, because I wanted her to be sure and also because I wanted to hear it from her.
"Well... I could ask you the same and your answer will probably be the same as mine. I don't know why, but I just trust you completely."
It was a statement, which I didn't expect in such clarity.
But I couldn't help but smile.
It's exactly like she said, I too can somehow trust her completely. And it feels like it's getting worse the more time we spend together.
"Ok, are you ready?" I asked her as we were now standing 10 meters away from each other.
"Sure. Don't go easy on me."
"I should be the one to ask that of you." It was true, I still wasn't as strong as her, there was still a big difference and her talent seems to also be excellent.
"If you want to fight me for real, then you have to make me fight for real with your strength." She said it with an expecting smile on her face.
"I'll gladly to that."
We both began to approach each other and then drew our swords.
The impact of the first hit was already the strongest I had ever experienced myself and she already had the upper hand.
As I was pushed back bit for bit the time started to fly. We were both focusing more on speed and accuracy rather than strength.
Maintaining the steady use of magic was tiring me out, but the flow of the battle made me not even not even notice it.
As the seconds and then minutes passed we both sped up. It wasn't even my plan, but we both didn't notice it and soon we were fighting at my full skill level.
Although she was allowed to she didn't use magic. She was fully aware of my magic not being an attack type magic, but rather a passive type.
It was the basics of magic, which had also thoroughly been explained by the two teachers.
The basic elements are all for the most part attack type magic, you mostly use them to directly affect the opponent or yourself.
For example using wind magic to control the air and suddenly making your sword attacks faster by using the same technique you used to make your movements overall faster.
There's also the second type of magic, which is a lot rarer, one of those is my darkness magic. Those types of magic mostly only affect things not related to attacking your enemy directly. It was a strong magic, even in fights, but it couldn't deal direct damage and was rather used to change your surroundings around you to trick your opponent.
My darkness magic for example is able to hide myself or other objects in the darkness and can be potentially used to confuse someone by turning your sword completely black from one moment to another. It's extremely strong in dark areas, where you don't need a lot of magic to completely hide yourself in the darkness.
There wasn't a lot known about the uses of darkness magic, because the only person, who ever obtained that magic was not living in Raiken or any of the human kingdoms, people didn't even know his real name or race. He is known as 'The lord of darkness'.
And he's also said to be dead, so darkness magic is completely shrouded in mystery.
And as we were fighting we didn't even really notice the time, which seemed to pass incredibly fast.
It was so much fun and you could feel it in every swing.
It wasn't a serious fight, but it seemed like it was a perfect fight. Fun like this is something I have been striving to achieve and it'll even help me get stronger!
After a long time, we both were getting more and more tired, but the idea of giving up wasn't even present to the least extend.
But then like every good battle it had to end. I gave it my all, but in the end I wanted to easily block an attack, but then she surprised me by quickly moving her wrist, slightly adjusting the direction of the attack. I was only millimetres away from blocking the attack, but then she hit me.
I was at the end of my strength and as the magic on her sword connected with the magic on my robe the collision happened as planned.
Her sword was pushed back and after realizing my loss I finally noticed just how tired I was. I only had a bit of strength left and had to sit down onto the ground to recover my strength again.
"That was a great match!" I couldn't help, but say out my thoughts out loud.
It felt like she was the perfect sparring partner. I realized how easily I had shown my whole strength during that battle and how I didn't even notice it. It made me a bit disappointed with myself to not even realize it, but I wasn't too mad about it.
My mood had after all lightened up a lot.
"Yori... This was the best match I had ever had." She also sat down next to me as we both stopped using our magic.
"You hid your strength during every training we had so far. In the beginning you didn't even use your whole strength against me and you also didn't use your whole swordsmanship. Just why do you hide your strength, so desperately? Our other classmates believe that you are the weakest out of the whole class, but I doubt that anyone would be able to defeat you."
She sounded a bit hurt, she must feel like I didn't show my whole strength the whole time, because I believed she wasn't strong enough. I would be mad too, so I can understand her.
"Katsumi... for me personally it's better to let everyone else think I am not as strong as I really am. I would also like you to keep it a secret. I am not from the royal family and don't have any great connections, at least no connections, which are confirmed."
I looked at her, I don't know why, but I wanted to make her understand.
"You might not no this, but you are the only one I ever showed my full strength, not even when fighting against the principal I would show my whole strength.
"I don't know why, but Katsumi... I feel like you are special, I feel like I can really trust you."
I said these words too tired to really think about it logically, it just seemed to fit this moment perfectly.
So I didn't even notice her face turning completely red. She was asking herself the same question we both couldn't help, but ask ourselves so many times before.
Why do I feel this way?