Restrictive Training (1)

A tall, muscular man dressed in blue armor arrived at the scene, and next to him was a tall, thin man who also wore blue armor. Ayla didn't care about the thin man, as she glanced at the tall man, who fit her target.

The chief supervisor announced, "Lord Minamoto no Yoritomo and Lord Minamoto no Yoshitada, please reveal the battle matchup chart for this competition."

The two approached the front of the main hall where a large notice board covered by a blue curtain with the Genji Clan's crest in white. They raised their hands at the same time to unveil it.

Whoosh—

Once it was revealed, the notice board showed the positions of the top thirty-two all the way to the champion were displayed.

Everyone looked up at the sign, their gazes landing on the top spot—the position of the champion.

Those who could come this far were those with promising talent—this in turn gave them the heart of a champion! However, in the end, only one of the 32 competitors will become a champion at the end of this.

"Now, the drawing of lots will begin," the chief supervisor said. "May the competitors with odd nimbers please come and draw their lots."

A genji samurai walked up to the drawing box and drew out a small wooden ticket. The juniper supervisor wrote his name above the 15th spot on the notice board.

Ayla was next, so she walked up to the drawing box and drew out a small wooden token with the numbers, "Seven."

"Ayla, the seventh pick."

A junior supervisor wrote her name above the seventh spot on the matchup chart.

After that, all the remaining competitors went up and drew their tokens—this showed the path leading up to the championship clearly outlined, but it couldn't tell who would be the champion at the end.

With there being nothing else to do, Ayla left the Genji Dojo, where everyone was distracted by looking at the match-up charts. She didn't care about the others, and decided to practice her hand-to-hand combat to pass the time as the next round would begin in three days.

Instead of returning to the inn, she left the city and entered a mountain forest that was inhabited by demon hounds.

Once she entered the forest, it didn't take long to find a small pack of demon hounds. They all lunged at her, aiming to dig their razor-sharp fangs into her, but with a single punch to the leading demon hound, they were all killed, either by their bones being shattered or by the shockwave that had been released from her attack.

Ayla looked at how easy it was to kill them. She looked down at her clenched fist. 'I'll need to restrict my strength, otherwise it'll take much longer to improve my hand-to-hand combat."

She searched for more demons and soon found a pack of 17 demon hounds.

'I should restrict my agility as well. If I brought them down to a human level, it'd be too weak against them. I'll bring my agility and strength down to above average for a human.' After changing her agility and strength to above average for a human, she sprinted towards the demon hounds.

She threw her punch at the leading demon hound, but instead of hitting her target, she hit air, as the demon hound had avoided her attack with its agility.

She changed her trajectory and threw another punch, aiming for another fatal area of the demon hound. It dodged swiftly without much effort.

Before her agility was leagues above the demon hounds, giving them no chance to avoid her attacks, but now they can do it as simply ad lifting a finger.

With her now being vulnerable, the demon hounds all pounced at her at once, barring their fangs at her as their fangs met their targets.

"Can you not? I don't want your saliva all over me." Ayla tried to throw them off of her limbs, but it was futile with their jaw strength being stronger than her restricted physical strength.

She wasn't at all worried about the chances of her dying, because she hadn't lowered her defense, but she still didn't enjoy the feeling of their teeth attempting to dig into her skin and their saliva getting all over her.