Chapter 41

At first, the man asked Adair to show him what she already knew about swordsmanship. Since she didn't know how to speak she just shook her head. But while the Galactic Empire did not train her in swordsmanship, they did teach her how to use a dagger, so she figured that she might as well show him what she knew about how to use a dagger.

The man asked if Adair was ready, and when she nodded her head, he came at her with a longsword that had somehow appeared out of nowhere. And then he started attacking her. He wasn't doing anything special, just making clean and fair attacks. No was not baiting her into leaving an opening or making faint attacks.

The man quickly started making quicker and quicker attacks, but at this point, Adair could not keep up athletically. Her breath soon became ragged, and her arm strength quickly failed until just a couple of minutes in, she couldn't keep up and failed to block an attack. The man went through the attack and leaned the tip of his sword at her chest, saying, "you're dead." But after he said that, he backed off.

Adair then heard him talking to himself, and while she understood the words coming out of his mouth, she had no idea what they meant when combining them together with the way the man was. Eventually, after a few minutes of talking to himself, he returned to Adair and asked her a few questions.

At first, he tried asking what weapon style she had trained in already, but since Adair could not speak, she didn't answer the man. She also did not really mean what the man meant by weapon style, so even if she could talk, she wouldn't have been able to give an appropriate answer. The man then asked what body enhancing art has her family taught her, and this time Adair at least knew what the man was talking about because there was a galactic empire body enhancing art that all of the strongest warriors in the empire had, but she needed to do well in the galactic test to get the art and since she failed the galactic test and reincarnated she was never able to get the art.

She shook her head no to answer this question, though. The man then had an understanding look as if he realized something and asked, "why is Anahel helping you?" to this, Adair only gave a questioning look at the man and lifted her arms in the universal I don't know symbol. And when the man saw that she did this, he muttered "I see" and turned away and started muttering to himself again.

He then came back to Adair and said I see you have already trained in daggers or a short-ranged weapon. I have no idea why you were taught this because it will be utterly useless for you since someone could just sneak up on you and clip your wings with anything longer than a dagger, and you wouldn't be able to stop them at all. Maybe you even taught self on how to use a dagger, but that doesn't really matter. We need you to forget all of the bad habits of using short-range weapons.

I could teach you how to use a ranged weapon, but that also does not help you protect yourself either if someone comes up close to you. Ideally, you would never let that happen if you are good enough, but if someone is dedicated enough to try to kill you, they will be able to get close to you. So I have three options for you. The first one is that I teach you how to use a rapier which he then pointed to a medium-length sword on the wall that had a thin blade but a very fancy crossguard. The second option is that I teach you how to use a saber which he then pointed to a sword a bit longer than the previous sword he pointed to, but this one was much thicker and had a much studier crossguard and handle. The last option is that we go into the magic weapons area and have a weapon choose you. If you do this last option, though, you will not be able to change weapons ever, and this will be your only weapon for as long as you live.

Adair thought about the different options and which one would suit her best. The most interesting one was definitely having the magical item choose her. But Adair did not like the uncertainty that came along with it. What if she got a weapon like a shovel or a pickax? Since she would have to continue with that weapon for the whole rest of her life, she did not really want to limit herself to something so random.

There was even the possibility of getting a good weapon, but it was completely unsuited to her needs. For example, she could get the most overpowered magical knife in existence, but the fact that just as her teacher said her mobility options along with her wings being such a huge target completely, and lastly removing the stealth benefits that go along with using a knife completely eliminated the benefits of using a dagger or a knife.

While there was the option that she could get an amazing weapon that suited all of her needs, she did not want to leave that option to change when she had two options that this man felt fitted her needs.

While she was unsure of the qualifications of this man, especially with how her previous teacher had acted, at least this one came to the same conclusions that she did. He also was able to recognize that she had been trained using a dagger even though she was using a shortsword during the mini-test that this instructor had done.

So now, since she had eliminated the magic weapon from the list of options, she could go with a rapier or a saber. At first, she was inclined to use the rapier because it seemed like a good weapon that was great at dueling. It also seemed like a weapon that allowed for many different specializations, so she was not forced into one specific specialization when using that weapon.

The opposite appeared true for the saber. The saber appeared to be a good all-around weapon that could be good for both attacking and defending. But it also seemed that you were forced into one type of fighting style with the saber.

For all she knew, though, her basic impressions of these weapons could be completely wrong, and that the exact opposite was actually true about these weapons. The problem she had run into, though, is that she had no way to ask questions about the pros and cons of each weapon.

After thinking about it a bit more, she concluded that even if she was completely wrong about her assumptions of these two weapons, she felt more inclined to choose the rapier. So that was the weapon she decided to take off of the wall. The man quickly grabbed the weapon and told her that a custom one would be made just for her and that it would be counterproductive to practice with a weapon unsuited for her.

The man had responded as if he already knew which weapon Adair was going to choose, which both interested her and slightly frightened her as well because what else could he tell about her already if he already knew which weapon Adair was going to take.

Adair also questioned if she even had a choice in the weapon she chose, or if it was already predetermined when the man asked the question. Unfortunately, it did not appear that she would learn the answer to that question any time soon, but when she learned how to activate the interface on the devices or learned how to speak the language, it was probably going to be one of the first questions that she was going to ask this man.

She did realize that if she had no choice in the matter, her custom weapon would have already been made for her, so that gave her some hope that she was just following a script. But the man interrupted her thoughts, saying that she was going to go get tested to see what art would fit her best.

The man started walking off to the corner of the room, which had a large tube in it that somehow Adair had missed when she first examined the room. She did not know what to do, so when they reached the tube, she just stood in front of it, expecting something to happen. As soon as the man had said the test, she had worried that it would be similar to the test her mother had given her and explained that she had been reincarnated and a whole bunch of other information that her mom either tried to hide or delete she didn't know which.

Luckily this test did not appear to be some blood ritual, unlike the previous test. Unfortunately for Adair, it appeared that she was supposed to do something to activate the test or get in it somehow, and the fact that she wasn't made the man question something, but eventually, after standing in front of the machine not doing anything for long enough the man tapped the glass on the tube, and it opened for her and hoping she was doing the right thing Adair stepped into the tube machine.