Imperial Style

"Em," Ludwig didn't know how to answer other than, "I just followed that guy's move?" he said almost questioningly.

The teacher looked at the person Ludwig was talking about, it was the same guy he was tracing earlier with his eyes, and frankly he was the best one at it among his peers for her class.

"That's quite impressive," she said. She thought for a second and said, "Do it again."

Ludwig followed her orders and swung once more, this time more cleanly. Making the surprise in her eyes grow bigger.

"A genius!" she said and grabbed Ludwig by the scruff of his clothes, "Come with me," she said dragging him even.

Ludwig was helpless against the pushy attitude of this ogre like teacher and was pulled all the way to a room inside the building.

The room had no one inside it but a few training dummies and a few wooden swords laying around.

"Show me if you can replicate this," she said as she slowly demonstrated to Ludwig a slow upward swing that flowed immediately into three consecutive slashes after a forward step.

The dummy was blasted apart by the move and made Ludwig surprised to see that slow move doing so much damage.

Ludwig's eyes immediately lit up, [Trace] activated and he saw the pattern the teacher took.

He approached the dummy, grabbed the sword and began following the patterns that [Trace] was showing him.

So far [Trace] could only replicate basic moves, and this one didn't seem to difficult. So he did as told, an upward starting slash, followed by three consecutive swings after a forceful step forward.

Once he finished his moves, it was as if the time had stopped for the puppet, and immediately the puppet blasted away as if all the blows came after a delay.

The teacher was stunned as she saw him execute the move perfectly.

"You're a monster!" she said. "Ah, wait, that was supposed to be a compliment, I'm not talking about the fact that you're a skeleton, but what the heck was that? How did you replicate the Imperial Style Swordsmanship after seeing it once?"

Ludwig frowned, "It looked simple enough, shouldn't anyone be able to replicate it after they see it once?" he asked.

"No! that's the whole damn point of the Imperial Swordsmanship, it may look simple, but any newbie would fall to the ground the moment he took a step forward to allow the consecutive hits to flow, that's not something that can be replicated without years of practice!"

"Then how about you try this?" she said and showed Ludwig the second move, a follow up, to the first stance of the Imperial Style Swordsmanship. It continued on with a forward body spin that slammed the sword down and then with a forceful heave, ripped it from the ground, causing the air to flow ahead like a cone.

It didn't look that impressive, but Ludwig felt that the teacher was slowing down the move purposefully for him to see it.

[Trace] had already memorized the move for him, and so he just had to follow it to the letter.

Ludwig tried to do the same, but instantly fell down, unable to spin his body forward.

"I see, I guess it's too hard for you," she said. "How about you try the first stance first and try and combo it with the second stance?" she asked.

Ludwig nodded, and did the same, the moment he finished the first move and slashed thrice, the blue [Trace] light turned yellow, and immediately after he tried to spin forward, it turned red and shattered, causing him to fall to the ground.

"Hmm," the teacher said as she rubbed her chin, "You're following with your eyes before your body, this shows how weak your foundation is… you need to learn how to walk before you try and run. Though that's mainly my fault, you're supposed to be a mage…" she said.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ludwig asked.

"Basics, the basics are everything, look at your hands," she said.

Ludwig did but didn't understand anything, "You're holding the sword too tightly almost afraid it would escape, you're too rigid, you're inflexible, your feet are almost a beat slower than the rest of your body. You need to have more muscle… wait…" she facepalmed.

"Yeah… fake body," Ludwig pointed at himself, "Skeletons have no muscles," he added.

The teacher's eyes lit up, "I know just the guy who can help!" she said and pulled a communication crystal calling someone who Ludwig least expected, "Yo old foggy!" she said and Bastos Van Dijk appeared in the holographic image, he looked to be in the slums of some city.

"Dearest Joana, what's the reason for this rare call? Aren't we on bad terms?" he said.

"Enough with that, let bygones be bygones! I have something interesting to show you!" she said as she showed him Ludwig.

Van Dijk's usually smiling and carefree face turned sour immediately, "What is the meaning of this?" he asked anger boiling up clearly in his voice.

"Aren't you also surprised! It's a skeleton that's acting as a student! Regardless, I want your help with something!" she said.

Ludwig immediately did the "I didn't say anything," motion by raising both hands in surrender. This made Van Dijk understand that she has yet to correlate Van Dijk to the skeleton.

"What is it that you need?" Van Dijk asked.

"I want to know, if its possible to increase a Skeleton's flexibility and strength, even if they don't have muscles! I'm not that great when it comes to undead physiology, so you should know more," she said.

"Well, they simply need to train, and kill," Van Dijk shrugged. As if it was the simplest and most obvious answer in the world.

The moment Van Dijk mentioned Killing a notification appeared in front of Ludwig which he immediately willed to go away. The conversation in front of him was too important for him to be distracted for now.

"Kill? And train? How can they gain strength when they're merely bones?" she asked.

"An undead is powered by the power of the Death God, them training allows the blessing of Undeath to permeate their bodies better, but it's killing that gives them true power. As a reward for sending one more soul to the God of Death, they'll gain a small almost negligible portion of the sent soul onto them. That's how you can artificially create a Death Knight, in theory that is, if it kills enough living beings, they'll grow stronger, and stronger," Van Dijk explained.

"I don't have anything for it to kill," Joana said.

"Don't even bother, killing, would take it a few centuries to gain any significant power. It's a low-ranking skeleton after all and it would probably die the moment it encounters anything strong. But training him would do wonders. It's the best option you have if you want to allow more of the Death God's powers to permeate his body. Though it is extremely limited," he said.

"How limited?" she asked.

"Let's see, a Skeleton, would probably gain about three times the power of an adult male. But they'll grow no more afterward because they'll need to start killing to gain more power," he explained.

For a moment Van Dijk quieted and then asked, "Why are you asking all these questions, Joana? Also, why does he have a sword in his hand when he's wearing a mage uniform?" Van Dijk asked.

"Oh, you won't believe this! He actually perfectly copied the Imperial Sword Style's first stance and move! Do you know how impressive that is?"

"Oh, believe me, I know," Van Dijk said almost remembering terrible days. He sighed once more and said, "Ludwig."

"Yes, Master," Ludwig replied, and this made Joana's eyes widen some more.

"Do whatever you want, as long as you don't expose yourself to your peers, and make sure to keep up with your studies. I'll talk to you later about all this…swordsmanship thing…" he said and cut the call.

The swordswoman turned to Ludwig, "So, you're that despicable man's property?" she asked.

Ludwig gulped down hard, "Don't worry," she said. "This is even better, now I'm a 110% more interested in making you take the path of the sword just to spite him! Go again! This time follow my moves!"