Time passed.
It has been 3 years since Eiji fought with the jaguar.
He is now a senior, 5th grader!
In about a few days, he will be graduating!
In fact, he could have graduated early last year, but he and his master decided not to.
The reason being is that apart from the third year, the fourth and fifth years are more about actual performance.
In the fourth year, they would camp for days, and even weeks in the forest with nothing on them but their swords.
Then they would have a duel competitions as exams. And winning more duels, means having a higher score.
While in the fifth year, it's all about battles!
This time, they are fighting not just the children in their class section, but also the others.
And graduating has 3 requirements, first you must have a good academic grades.
Second is to achieve good results in the battles to earn the approval of the teachers for your graduation.
And lastly, to breakthrough to the Elite Swordsman Level!
As kids, they are at the level where they can move the ki inside their bodies, which was the Novice Level Swordsman.
The Second Level of swordsmanship is the Graduation Requirement, Which is the Elite Level Swordsman!
In this level, they are able to manipulate their ki outside of their bodies and use it to further increase their sword techniques and coat their swords with their ki's for durability, sharpness and more, the effects varies depending on the sword techniques that they have.
While the next level for that are people that are called the Master Swordsman.
At this level, the swordsman is able to use Sword Ki!
They can cut anything from a distance with a single slash!
And a person that is able to use a sword ki freely in any of their attacks and use their sword techniques perfectly are at the Grandmaster Level!
This is the level which only those that are even incredibly talented people stop at and couldn't advance any further.
This is the peak at which only a small amount of people can achieve.
While the people that are able to break past these limitations are those at the level of Sages!
At this level, any attack can destroy mountains and move rivers!
These people are the strongest of the strongest.
Of all the great kingdoms in the world, Only the five great kingdoms have their very own Sages.
These sages are always held as the king, no matter if they are the family of the last king or not, the moment a person become a sage, they can become the next king!
For the Kingdoms in this world, only the strong can lead!
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Last year, Eiji had already become an Elite Level Swordsman!
It wasn't unprecedented, he wasn't the fastest yet not the slowest.
The fastest known person in the kingdom to be able to graduate early and become and Elite Swordsman is from a huge clan.
This person was able to it in just a month after entering the school!
Although Eiji now have the support of his master, his master didn't drown him with special herbs and pills or some crazy things to achieve immediate success.
He was always taught of the basics everyday for the entirety of the three years!
His master had told him that now he has the most solid foundation in his whole batch!
His master Muri knew that Eiji has an almost, always one track kind of mind.
He just does things as were told and if he wasn't told anything more, then continue!
Even though he sometimes does some new things in his own initiative, it would always be about how to be able to do his tasks more efficiently!
Eiji was now very obsessed with efficiency!
After having a Master to lean on, and having access to resources and advance knowledge from his master, Eiji didn't want to disappoint him, so he always wants to do things more rigorously in training and more efficiently in his studying and tasks.
With more time with each other, Eiji and his Master Muri had a lot of talk. After knowing the last word of his mother,
Eiji was told by his master that it's okay to not be as monstrous as those geniuses from a huge clan, or it's okay to not be perfect in all of his missions, or it's okay to do things moderately.
His master wants to honor Eiji's mother's last words, and just make Eiji able to survive.
Because of this, Eiji didn't have any limitations with his training or rest.
He can do his training as long as he achieve his every day goals and then he was told to rest, but Eiji didn't want to waste his and his master's time and effort so he just keeps on training and training.
Now he has mastered the Quick Draw technique and even chose a new technique from the Sword Pavilion and is now near mastery after so much practice.
Eiji didn't waste any of his time during these last 3 years.
He only went to the orphanage a few times when it was vacation time but still came back to the dorm to train with his master.
Now he is at the 1st place of the academics in his class and 7th in the whole batch, and 2nd in his class in practical battles and 44th in the whole batch.
The person that was ahead of him in the class was Ignis Newark.
His fighting prowess was just a bit above Eiji.
And as a child of a noble clan, he has a lot of resources and techniques he can access to, he would become a laughing stock if he couldn't win against Eiji, who is an oprhan.
While Eiji isn't at the forefront neither was he last placed in the whole batch, he was seens as a bit above average in his rank.
There was still the second and first sections ahead of him.
Most of the second section srudents were children of the noble clans, while those at the first sections are the geniuses among geniuses.
So it could be said that Eiji is one of the strongest kids out there.
Although after all of this, Eiji wasn't allowed to use his Sword Intent as well as his second sword technique.
Even the personal technique of his master, that was taught to him was kept a secret.
For his classmates, friends and the competitors from his batch, they only knew that he mastered the Quick Draw, he has a new technique from the library but still hasn't quite mastered yet, although he can already use it in combat practice.
It could be said that after all of this, Eiji, is only fighting with only a quarter of what he was truly capable of!
End Of Chapter.