"Foolish! You didn't even try to exploit that moment!" Moxia yelled as she prepared for another charge.
"I'm too lazy to chase you across the arena, come to me instead." I yelled back, 'who even had time to talk in a fight!?'
We made a few more exchanges of me parrying and counter attacking while she remained incredibly aggressive, only attacking, dodging my counters with her footwork to continue attacking with her sword. It was really f#cking annoying if I was to be honest.
After a few exchanges we locked blades for a moment and then pushed each other away, gaining some distance again.
"Tch! I thought you weren't half bad at first but your swordsmanship is mediocre at best. You only rely on your larger energy reserve for physical enhancement. Pathetic." Moxia said, insulting me.
I was suddenly even angrier, I didn't want to fight yet here she was insulting my sword skills. It was one of the very few things I put effort into, though only half an hour a day with my mother after half an hour of physical conditioning.
I wondered if I should use the extra reward from starting a business to increase my imperial sword skills to distinctive rank. However I hadn't tried upgrading a skill through the system yet and didn't know what would happen. 'Should I just risk it?' I wondered for a moment.
Meanwhile, me and Moxia exchanged a few more blows, instead of being passive like before though, I started using acceleration to increase my speed and became more aggressive.
"F*ck your swordsmanship!" I said as I started to massively increase my speed with acceleration. My attacks multiplied and soon I had forced Moxia to shut up as she was wholly focused on blocking and dodging for a few moments before we separated once more, putting distance between us. I had only used acceleration to quadruple my speed, but that was still a massive increase and should have overwhelmed Moxia by now. I was actually starting to sweat and my breathing was heavier than usual.
It was fortunate the system counted this as necessary physical exertion else I would probably be burning my lifeforce by the bucket right now.
At the very least, my attack had also tired Moxia out a bit too who yelled once more.
"Is physical enhancement really all you can do!" Moxia yelled at me and I gave up on not using it. I pulled up the system exchange menu and immediately exchanged for basic Ocean Splitting arts, for 650 points, which were a sword art the system described as being incredibly well balanced in every aspect with incredibly good cutting ability. On the contrary, the system described the imperial sword arts as mediocre with poor evasion.
I got a small headache as all the basics were drilled not just into my head, but into my nerves and muscles. Immediately, though, ignoring the pain I used the previous free upgrade to bring the skill to Distinctive level. The headache and stinging sensation magnified tenfold as my muscles shook slightly with the change.
"Ha! You're about to collapse already!" Moxia mocked as she took the opportunity to charge… Big mistake.
I changed stances at the last moment and met her sword with a one handed uppercut. Contrary to both our expectations though, instead of just knocking the blade away in preparation for its follow up move, my blade cleanly cut through the metal and with an unconscious elegant flick of my wrist, the blade was completely cut through.
While I was confused, I didn't waste the opportunity and kneed Moxia in the gut, sending her flying several metres in the air before crashing back down.
"Dirksen Han Vowser has won the match!" The assistant headmaster yelled out, raising his hand to stop the match and declare my victory.
'Wow. The difference between intermediate imperial sword play and Distinctive Ocean splitting Arts is kinda… Massive.' I thought before I immediately collapsed on my back from the ongoing process of having the Ocean Splitting arts forcibly ingrained into my mind and body. Me collapsing must have really sold how close the match was since the system rang a moment later.
"So damn troublesome." I complained, listening to the combination of boos and applause from around the auditorium.
"How dare he beat our idol!", "Let's gang up on him later!", "B-But he beat a rank-1? Doesn't that mean he can beat a hundred off us?", "He only won with luck!", "Our goddess would never lose in a fair fight! He must have cheated!"
I heard a lot of accusations and threats in the crowd, but it seemed mostly from the other first years while everyone else was applauding normally, except for my sister's class which was applauding incredibly enthusiastically. I could hear the occasional threat my sister made between cheers for me to her fellow students. 'I'm sorry my sister cares too much about her siblings.' I apologised to my sister's classmates in my head as I got back to my feet.
'Oh? That's nice.' I thought as I looked over to the pink haired girl. She had thrown her destroyed sword away and was walking back dejectedly. It kinda annoyed me seeing her act all dejected when she lost in a fight she absolutely could have avoided.
Either way, the assistant headmaster must have just wanted to screw me over with the duel since the assembly ended the moment our duel finished. Well, maybe the headmaster wanted it too since he popped up on the podium for a moment and congratulated us on the fearsome duel to start the year off before disappearing again.
…
By some miracle I managed to get to my first class without interruption after avoiding several suspicious groups of first years with a murderous look in their eyes.
I took note of the classroom styled like a lecturers hall. My first class was magic theory, followed by herbology classes. I would normally have Classic literature this time in the mornings, but today we had the assembly instead of first classes which then replaced our second classes for today. Such were my electives since I planned to sleep through them anyways. Too bad magic theory was mandatory for the three mandatory years, else I would have chosen the most boring and unpopular subject I hadn't already chosen.
I took note of my magic theory class since it was my homeroom class as well. I had taken a seat at the veeeery back, contrary to every other student who squeezed into the front rows.
I was planning to sleep, but I was interrupted by an old and familiar voice.