Ch 9 - Practice, Practice, Practice

"Interesting. I didn't expect that you'd grow so fast."

Bianca's eyes sparkled as she watched me swinging my sword.

"What is it? Are you doing secret practice behind my back?"

"It's not like that."

"Then what? Are you secretly the descendant of a great dao somewhere? Did you use their bloodline arts to break through your limit?"

"What great dao? The only Dao I know of is that uncle over there."

"Gasp. You mean that uncle who fixed broken pipes? Is he a hermit after all?"

It seems like my teacher feels bored or wants someone to talk with today.

"Did something happen?"

"Hm? Nothing like that."

"You looked a bit different to say that."

"Ara, were you watching me? Fufu, it seems like my disciple loves his teacher too much."

She looked at me with warm eyes.

"It's just… it feels nostalgic somehow."

"Nostalgic?"

"Yes. It's been such a long time since I saw someone using that sword skill."

I looked at my list of skills again.

Absolute Blade Arts.

It's a legendary-grade skill with an unusual name. At the very least, it's a sword skill I've never heard of in-game.

'It doesn't fit with any swordsmanship school either. Neither the west nor the east… Just where did such a powerful sword skill come from?'

It was a sword skill that took only the best from all schools. 

That said, it doesn't have a unique characteristic that distinguishes it from other sword schools by itself. 

It's a sword skill that will change according to how the user uses it.

'It's a good thing for me. But if it were any other swordsman, they might get overwhelmed by the sheer options alone.'

If I had to use an analogy… Let's see… 

Assuming this sword skill is water, then even for basic things like slashing, I can swing it powerfully like a tsunami crashing down, gracefully like a calm lake optimized for counter, or flow continuously like a river and aim for never-ending quick-combo-attacks.

The important thing is that they are as strong as other legendary sword skills optimized for powerful attacks, counter, or quick strikes, respectively.

'It's similar to mixed martial arts in my previous world.'

Mixed martial arts, or MMA, combines the best of all martial arts to create the most deadly arts of all.

'It's also one of the hardest, if not the hardest martial arts to learn though.'

Of course, the benefits are so great that every second you spend training is worth it in the long run.

'It makes me even more curious about the person who created this sword skill.'

I couldn't help but ask Bianca.

"Who created this skill?"

"Well…"

Bianca think for a bit.

I wonder if it's a hard question to answer.

Or maybe it's a secret, and Bianca simply didn't trust me enough to tell me about it.

"It's complicated."

Either way, I don't think I can get an answer from her anytime soon.

"I see."

I decided not to overthink it and continued my practice.

"From the looks of it, it seems like you prefer quick strikes?"

"Is that how it looked? Actually, I tried to try them equally before focusing on one. But if what you said is true, then I must have unconsciously made a decision already."

It's okay to decide later, but now that she mentioned it, let's try the sub-skill derived from quick strikes.

[Absolute Blade Arts]

[Quick Strike, First Art - Vorpal Thrust]

I took a stance and kicked the ground to propel myself forward before thrusting the sword in my hand.

Stab!

Then, it pierced the thick tree without resistance as if sticking a knife in tofu. 

I was pretty far from the tree, but before I knew it, I had arrived and delivered a deadly attack. All of that action lasted no more than a second, and that's considering I didn't even use mana or aura to increase my speed.

'And since I didn't feel any recoil to my arm… it seems like this skill ignores Newton's law of action-reaction and motion.'

For every action done, there's a reaction equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. 

This skill breaks that law completely.

And not just that. Since I accelerated and stopped almost instantly, it must have also ignored the law of motion to some degree.

'What's in motion will stay in motion. An object will not change its motion unless a force acts on it. So what is this force that acts on my movement speed?'

It's a fascinating technique. 

However, thinking about the mechanism behind it won't help me at this point, so I decided to think with my body instead and continued to practice.

"See? You can already use the first style. It took me around 3 months of daily practice before I could even use it, you know? In this case, you are much more talented than me."

"Did you also prefer quick strikes?"

"No, I prefer counters. But even the derivative skill for counters took me 2 months to learn. And power strikes took even longer than quick strikes."

"I see."

Every person has things they are good at and bad at. 

That's even more true when we're talking about this skill. 

It doesn't usually take months to learn the first derivative skill, even among legendary skills that were known to be very hard to learn. 

"I wonder how long it would take me to learn them all."

It seems like Absolute Blade Arts is an even more outrageous skill than I had initially thought.

"You can take your time. There are 7 derivative skills for each type. If you learn them all, I don't think you would ever need to learn other swordsmanship in your lifetime."

"Certainly…"

Assuming every derivative skill took 3 months on average to learn, then I could learn all 21 within 8 years before chapter 1 begins.

By then, how strong would I be? I could probably breeze through the first chapter with ease.

'I'm looking forward to it.' 

At the time, I didn't know of the great danger I would face because of the future I changed.