XXXVI

Part 2 of Volume 1

I bring up my sword to block Reinhart's attack, before then initiating a counterattack of my own. After over two months of daily practice, my abilities as a swordsman have far surpassed any point in my previous life. Where Reinhart had once gone easy on me, limiting himself as to provide an opponent I could grow against, he now fights with his full effort. While he still wins more often than not, I have proven myself capable of beating him even at his strongest should he let his guard down even a little.

When viewing my rapid growth, I am quickly able to settle the debate that Lector had once mentioned, the uncertainty over whether skills serve as a source for one's ability or as a marker of such. He had claimed that swordsmanship is a cut-and-dry case of level only serving as a marker, but considering my astronomical rate of growth, far faster than anything I was able to obtain on Earth, in my swordsmanship, I can only surmise that skill level influences ability even in this field. If it did not, no skill leveling bonus would increase my rate of growth with the sword, which, considering that my capabilities have grown manifold, is an idea I can rather easily dismiss.

And my abilities have grown quite immensely. To be able to match Reinhart, the best swordsman at this training location, a commander of the military renowned for his ability with the sword, after only a couple of months of practice - such growth is ludicrous. And, of course, my abilities have grown immensely in areas besides pure swordsmanship.

Even now, as I dash with great speed across the battlefield, using my enhanced strength to leap ten feet or more without any wind mana to propel me, my growth across all of my skills makes itself apparent. Of course, I am still far from omnipotent, far even from Lord Lion by my estimations. While the pressure I feel from him has been steadily decreasing over time, I still get the feeling that I would not last even a second against him. Still, I cannot help but be hopeful that I should survive on the battlefield, barring any extremely unfortunate events.

Realizing that I have been getting distracted, I refocus on Reinhart only to be flung back by an extremely strong blow. I crash to the ground before immediately rolling away to avoid his followup blow, a viscous stab toward where I had been laying a fraction of a second before. I leap back to my feet, eyeing Reinhart warily as I again return to a defensive stance.

"You became distracted again," he chides. To which I only nod, knowing that even answering him with words would provide a crucial weakness that he could latch onto. Instead, I keep my gaze locked onto him, particularly his sword. While he has been going all out, that thankfully does not include using his legendary sword; it would be simply unfair for him to do so, as that blade would cut through my own like butter, entirely unabated.

Without warning, he lunges forward, intent on skewering me on his slightly bent and chipped iron sword. I batter aside his attack, forcing his sword to the side before following up with a full-power swing to his neck. He jumps back, his leg strength not inferior to my own, before again returning to a defensive stance, as though his previous attack, which had lasted less than a second in its entirety had never occurred.

Tired of his incessant toying with me, I leap towards him this time. We exchange a flurry of blows, our attacks only a blur to those without enhanced eyesight, each of us struggling to gain the upper hand.

I eventually, after a couple minutes of intense sparring, leave an opening in my defense, apparently too tired to notice. Reinhart immediately capitalizes on this, stabbing through the opening that I left. I smile, knowing victory is near as Reinhart falls for my trap. Instead of desperately trying to cover my opening, I continue my attack that he had been too distracted by my apparent opening to notice.

My blow lands on him a second before his was set to land on me, battering him to the ground with its excessive strength. Before he can try to return to his feet, I bring my badly damaged sword to his neck.

"The victory goes to me," I say curtly, careful to keep any gloating edge out of my voice.

"Indeed, that it does. I must say, your growth continues to astound me. Forget being merely lucky enough to have such unfair proficiencies, your ability to grasp concepts is the true marking of a genius. Every trick I teach you, or even the ones that I don't teach you and you see merely by fighting me, you remember and immediately begin incorporating into your fighting style. You are, without a doubt, the most suited to being a swordsman of anyone I have ever trained."

"No, no, you exaggerate. I simply put in a lot of time and effort, nothing more, nothing less."

"No one appreciates false humility, you know. You are quite gifted, and should be proud of it."

I laugh, before replying "What is there to be proud about in gifts from birth? Actually, what is there to be proud of in any case? Have you not heard that pride goes before destruction?"

"Hmm… while I have not heard it said that way, there is truth in it. Very well. If you would rather look at yourself through a pessimistic lens, always assuming the worst, that is your prerogative. Still, my point about your growth still stands true; it is downright astonishing."

"If you insist, then it is likely the case. Still, I must be going; my master's class will be starting very soon."

"Well, don't let me hold you any longer; I wouldn't want Commander Lector to be displeased with me."

From there I depart, directing myself towards Lector's new training field. A recent incident had left his old field filled with poison that was proving difficult to clean up, so he had temporarily relocated to one that was, much to my irritation, almost as far from Reinhart's field as could be possible.

Combining wind elemental manipulation at my back, increased strength in my legs, my physical improvements from passing two level 25 barriers, and my 'speed' skill, I almost seem to fly across the mostly flat landscape, passing by many fields of gathering soldiers.

Realizing that I still have about a minute, I take this opportunity to check my skills.

Name: unnamed

Level: 59

Race: Human

Class/Job: Slave

Skills: Greater Pain Resistance Lvl. 9, Master Madness Lvl. 9, Greater Sight Enhancement Lvl. 3, Moderate Hearing Enhancement Lvl. 2, Greater Resistance Lvl. 2, Moderate Heat Resistance Lvl. 6, Lesser Cold Resistance Lvl. 6, Moderate Thirst Nullification Lvl. 9, Lesser Hunger Nullification Lvl. 6, Greater Sleep Nullification Lvl. 9, Greater Swordsmanship Lvl. 8, Moderate Melee Magic Conduction Lvl. 8, Greater Magic Sensory Lvl. 5, Greater Elemental Manipulation Lvl.8, Lesser Mental Attack Resistance Lvl.3, Moderate Chaos Lvl. 7, Lesser Analysis Lvl. 4, Lesser Suffocation Resistance Lvl. 1, Greater Wrath Lvl. 8, Moderate Strength Lvl. 6, Moderate Speed Lvl. 4, Greater Magical Exhaustion Resistance Lvl. 9, Lesser Venom Lvl. 1, Lesser Poison Resistance Lvl. 1, Lesser Venom Resistance Lvl. 1, Moderate Acid Resistance Lvl. 2, Lesser Madness Resistance Lvl. 3, Lesser Alchemy Lvl. 7

While I have been growing rather disappointed by the lack of new skills of late, (with the exception of alchemy, which I had been studying one night a week with Sir Lector), I can be nothing but ecstatic over the growth of the vast majority of my skills. My sight enhancement, resistance, sleep nullification, swordsmanship, magic sensory, elemental manipulation, and magical exhaustion resistance skills had all pushed into the greater level. I learned from Lector that someone with even one skill at the greater stage is a rarity, so to have so many is quite exceptional.

Slightly less fortunate was the rise of my chaos, madness, and wrath skills. Chaos had risen a fair bit, and though I still don't know what exactly it does, I have a very strong feeling that it is not something that I want to see leveling. Madness had reached master level 9, and I very much don't want it to reach the level beyond master (grandmaster, as I had learned from a book). As for wrath… well, at least the skill gives me a much easier time manipulating it.

With both magic sensory and elemental manipulation reaching greater in level, I can now manipulate all the emotion elements. However, the difference between manipulating wrath and the other emotions is like night and day, with wrath being manipulated nearly as easy as any other element within my body as opposed to the other emotions which feel like trying to push mostly ethereal spectors around.

I am in the process of cursing each and every one of the non-wrath emotion elements for being too difficult to manipulate (and too rare to practice freely with, considering that they tend to complete disappear when used incorrectly) when I arrive to sir Lector's field, just as he is calling the class to attention.

He gives his usual introduction about what we will do in today's training session, which today will be devoted to more practicing with same-element multicasting. I had grasped the much harder multi-element multicasting in only a couple of days, so the fact that even after two weeks many of these fools have had no success comes as a bit of a shock. Heh. Maybe Reinhart is right. Maybe I AM a genius. A mad genius, perhaps?