"Look closely." He slowly stabbed using a rapier, then slashed with a sword, then swung with the great sword.
Despite his foul demeanour and appearance, his technique was profound and beautifully executed.
"Alright, 3 sets of 100 rapier stabs, 100 sword slashes, 100 great sword swings! Get to it chump." Three swords of varying kinds were lying on the floor, he said that I'd be trained, but wasn't this the same but just a different type of basic exercise?
"Today, I'll be training you on your technique, as I saw yesterday, you're stab from before was sloppy and ugly. By repeating all three, you'll eventually see what to improve on yourself from my demonstration." He sank deep into the couch.
I started off with the rapier, it was light, and extremely fast. It was easy to do, however, even if I performed a stab, it wasn't effective.
I remembered most of the details of what Murren did, though I wasn't able to grasp everything. With the rapier, Murren's posture, his unused arm hid behind his back, probably to reduce as much movement and sloppiness.
His body rotation to extend the range of his attack to its limit, and his leg propelled forward in sync with his rapier's thrust. I couldn't tell if I was missing anything else.
With Murren's slash with his sword, unlike the rapier, his hand had gripped it firmly. His unused arm was held near most likely to combat any counters, and he stepped with the opposite leg to his dominant arm.
With the great sword, he used both hands this time, and had an open-like stance, both feet off to the side, as he swung horizontally, without much recoil or movement.
Even after mimicking all three hundreds of times, I felt like I had only made a small dent into mastering swordsmanship.
"Well would you look at that, you're technique is already better than before! I underestimated you. We might only need today to refine it." He chuckled lightly, "The problem you have is you don't ask, if you had asked me to demonstrate it again and again, I would've done so. Same as those basic exercises, that's your problem. You're not brave, and with swordsmanship, you must be brave yet also cunning. Well, you look like you already have one half of it down."
"Right well, you were always asleep or ate cut fruit from Priscilla.."
"I was always watching you know, I'm still a teacher, you might not like my current ways, but it proves effective, and I don't have to be attached to little gremlins like you." His eyes looked down to the floor, and for a second, his face softened. Dark eyelids were more visible, as he brought his hand up, touching his forehead, I could see the bruises and calluses on his palms.
"We'll stop here for now, you've done enough kid. Superb job." He walked away, clutching his head with his hand. The weapons and the great sword still within my hand was pulled away into his ring.
I was confused, did I do something wrong? His eyes, his face, his hands, it appeared he was facing a mental illness. He was always sleeping, so why did he have such tired eyes?
Within the same week, I continued to revise and perfect new spells and old from Miss Layla, refining my Aether Soul and further developing my Soul Realm. Lione had stated that you could tell how much Aether the soul has accumulated through how big the realm was. From what I could tell, mine was a square and each side was 8 meters in length.
Apparently Claudia's Soul realm was triple my own, but that was because she had been doing it since she was 6.
As no one knew of my ability to connect with Aether itself, I practiced in secret, using the knowledge that I learnt from Layla and Lione to use elements such as the 3 other main elements. I had also tested out other elements like sound which allowed me to enhance or decrease the sound of my own bodily movements or voice for little to no energy.
Sensing Aether didn't cost all too much either and when doing so I also didn't try to experiment with the black flame particles that still resided nearby. This was because as soon as I tried interacting with it, I'd be instantly burned with the slightest graze.
If it wasn't obvious enough, without sensing the particles of Aether, I was naturally bypassing the particles as if they were never there.
A new week started and Sir Murren was already waiting early as usual. I hadn't forgot what happened, and the details I had caught were still there. Eyes fatigued like he had never slept a day in his life, his hands appeared to be a little more bruised, however his face remained arrogant and normal.
"You've finally arrived huh. You know the drill, basic exercises, 3 sets of all three." His tone was back to normal too, and the way he hit the couch that was still on the training ground was also the same. I could've just been paranoid, he was still no doubt the worst teacher I've had.
The day went by pretty fast, Instead of 3 sets of 100, I had done 9 overall, Murren was dead asleep by the looks of it, and he didn't even wake up till an hour after our usual end time.
"Ugh.. Hm? You're still here kid? It's already past the time, you should've left."
"Well you didn't say anything, since you're 'always watching', you should've woken up at the designated time huh." I teased.
"Silly brat, I was only testing you! To test your endurance and patience! You did a good job now go, it's already nearing dusk. You should've eaten dinner a while ago." He pushed me from behind, almost falling forward, I kept balanced.
"Alright alright, I get it." I turned, his face had the usual 'douche' smile.
The next day, Sir Murren hadn't shown up, Priscilla gave me a short notice afterwards that he had fallen ill as well.
I looked out the window down the hall, and the three weapons I normally used were laying on the ground. He was absent and still wanted me to train? Typical.
Walking over, I resumed my training past noon. I couldn't tell if I was progressing or not, I had no sparring partner and the only thing I was really doing was just doing basic stabs or slashes.
Was I really getting better at swordsmanship? If Roy was here, would it have been easier to tell?