24 Sword and Archery
Their wooden swords clashed, and both stepped back two steps.
Yale and George were at the peak of the 1-star Mortal Rank in all the body stats, and both of them were skilled with the sword.
Their battle grew more intense as the time passed, even the instructor started to pay more attention to them.
"I knew that asking to battle with you was the correct choice. You are the first from my generation who can compare with me in swordsmanship."
"I can say the same."
As both were at the same level of swordsmanship, both were quickly improving in battle, ten minutes after the sparring started Yale's Sword Mastery reached level nine.
When the class was about to end, George spoke again.
"There's no meaning in restraining ourselves, let's use our Sword Battle Skills!"
George liked to battle against strong opponents and disliked restraining his power. However, against the other students, he needed to control himself to avoid hurting them too much.
However, when battling against Yale, who was at the same level as him, George not only used full force, he also wanted to use Battle Skills.
There wasn't any rule against it, but no one used a Battle Skill in the previous classes, mainly because the students had a low control over them, so using them was dangerous for both parties.
On the other hand, George was able to use his Sword Battle Skill without problems, and he believed that Yale could do the same.
While George was focusing his Inner Qi on using his Battle Skill, Yale did the same with his Origin Qi.
Of course, Yale had no problem in using his Battle Skill as he also wanted to test it against an opponent of his level. Yale wanted to see how awesome Tri-sword was compared to other Battle Skills.
Both launched their respective attacks at the same time, and the swords clashed again but with much more power than before.
George smiled as he executed the second hit of his Battle Skill. Usually, the Battle Skills that a 1-star Mortal could master were only of one strike, but George learned one with two, and that was his trump card.
However, Yale's skill was even better, with three full strikes.
The second attack clashed again, and George was surprised to see that Yale's skill also hit for the second time.
"I didn't expect that you also mastered a Battle Skill with two strikes. I never expected that I would find a rival like you in the Nacesai Academy."
However, as he finished to say his words, his face changed as a third strike was directing towards him.
George tried to block the incoming attack, but he just finished using his Battle Skill and couldn't execute it again in time.
The Tri-sword third strike impacted on George's wooden sword breaking it and pushed George back more than ten meters.
A Battle Skill shouldn't be interrupted, or the energy would backlash and harm the one who executed the Battle Skill.
Thus, Yale didn't stop his last strike even though that could hurt George's pride. Yale liked to have someone who could battle against him and didn't want to scare him, but injuring himself wasn't an option either.
Moreover, before using the Battle Skill, Yale had decided that even if George didn't know a Battle Skill of three strikes, he wouldn't restrain himself.
Giving your all battling an opponent was also a show of respect, and George was the only one in his generation who won Yale's respect as a swordsman.
The class ended after the clash of the two Battle Skills, which all the classmates saw with baffled expressions.
George neared Yale again to spoke with him.
"I never expected that you had mastered a Battle Skill of three strikes. I lost the battle, and I have no regrets. I thought that I wasn't underestimating you and that you were at my level, but in the end, I still underestimated you."
George looked at the sky and continued.
"I always thought that my talent with the sword was the best and that no one would master a better Battle Skill than me, but I was wrong. Now I understand that the world is big, and some people can be as talented as me or maybe more than me."
Then he looked at Yale again.
"Thank you. You opened my eyes. I was too arrogant before, and in a real battle, that could have led me to my death. You are stronger than me right now. However, I will train harder from now onwards, and I will continue challenging you until I win!"
The battle against Yale helped George to mature. Being alone on the peak made people arrogant, but when one had a rival with equivalent power, even if both were at the summit, they will train even harder.
Initially, George considered Yale strong and worthy to battle against him, which was already something that hurt his pride, but Yale's swordsmanship wasn't worse than his own, and thus, George thought that every expert needed a rival to polish himself and Yale fit well for that position.
However, George never thought that he would lose against Yale, a tie was the worst situation he could think of. George understood his arrogance after losing the battle due to a definite difference in the quality of their Battle Skills.
"I will accept any of your challenges as long as I have time. After all, I'm attending to too many classes."
George smiled at Yale's words and then left. He didn't have an interest in archery as it wasn't a Battle Class like the others, Yale was the only one who would attend all the classes.
The Archery Battle Class only had eight members, and all of them were new faces for Yale because they didn't attend the previous classes.
Yale didn't see any girl in the previous classes, but in the Archery Battle Class, there were five girls.
It wasn't like there weren't any girls training as Warriors in Yale's promotion; the proportion was similar for both genders.
However, as the previous classes focused mainly on melee battle, that would lead to too much physical contact, so they had classes in a separate area to avoid some guys taking advantage of them when battling.
Although it might not be too much of a problem for those of Yale's age, for those with fourteen or fifteen years old, it could be a serious problem, so the rule was applied to every class with direct contact.
However, as that problem didn't happen in the Archery Battle Classes and there were always too few members in that class, they were all together.
Due to that reason, Yale didn't know if some of the girls attended to all classes like him, but usually, the ones who practiced archery disliked the other weapons and vice-versa.
Yale looked at his seven classmates, wondering if at least one of them would be able to compare with him in archery. He also wanted to have someone to compare archery skills.
The Archery Battle Class was simple as it focused on shooting arrows at different targets.
However, the difficulty of targets was variable, with some being mobile ones.
Everyone had their targets so the eight could shot simultaneously, so it was easier to compare who was better than the others.
Yale had an outstanding level of archery, mainly after he practiced hunting in the Beast Trial, so the others started to fall behind him quickly.
Yale shot quickly, and with perfect precision, he finished all the standard targets and started with the mobile ones.
While Yale was shooting, he finally discovered someone who was shooting at the same rate and precision as him.
He was a skinny blond guy. He was the same as Yale and didn't appear to be strong at first sight. He even looked weaker than Yale.
However, seeing how he shot arrows, he had substantial power in his arms. Yale suspected that at least his Strength and Dexterity were at the peak of the 1-star Mortal Rank.
The blond guy also noticed Yale and smiled as he went even faster when shooting arrows at the mobile targets.
The blond guy was someone who loved archery more than anything else and hated anyone who looked down on archery, which meant that he hated a lot of people as the majority of people underestimated archery.
The other members of the class weren't weak at archery as all of them could leave Nosehawk biting the dust, but they couldn't compare to the abnormal talents of Yale and the blond guy.
They finished all the targets with spare time, which was a rare sight as the normal for the new students like them was hitting just half of them in an hour.
The others were still shooting, the worst of them was the other guy who could be considered average in the Nacesai Academy history.
On the other hand, two of the girls were exceptional and would have been famous for their archery skills if Yale and the blond guy weren't in their promotion. The other three girls were still above average.
The blond guy directed his gaze at Yale with a severe face.
"I didn't expect that we finish at the same time and with the same score, but I'm not happy enough with that, I want to know who is the most skilled between us."
"I also want to know that. How do you plan to decide it? By the way, you can call me Yale."
"I'm Zack. I'll ask the instructor for another mobile target, and the first who hits it wins."
"Alright, let's do it."
The instructor agreed to their competition and released a new mobile target; the formation spell set in the archery training grounds generated them, so it was easy to produce them as long as one had permission to use the formations.
As the target appeared on the training ground, both shot their arrows towards it.
