Chapter 9: Training Arc

I looked, around, seeing for the first time the sight of the Vatican.

After Asia made her bags with Valerie, Vasco decided to use a teleportation device to go directly to the Vatican instead of going the normal way. And while the inhabitants of Asia's church tried to stop us from taking their holy maiden with us, we made it clear to them that they lost Asia's custody right when they started using her as a tool and that they had no right to stop her from doing what she wants.

We all arrived at the Vatican without fanfare and we have been admiring our surroundings with Asia chatting excitedly about everything while making our way to the Exorcists headquarters.

Vasco said that I needed to register as a new member of the Order and that he needed to see a friend regarding Asia and Valerie's exorcist training.

He said that he was only allowed to take one apprentice by orders of the higher-ups and that he will already be busy enough training me and that his friend will take care of Asia and Valerie.

I didn't know if I should feel pleased and excited that I'm going to be trained by the Greatest Exorcist in History, Vasco Strada, or feel terrified out of my mind by said training.

I am not a stranger to hellish training as Sun Wukong, my Shifu, is a hard taskmaster but for some reason, I felt like it would be much, much worse with Vasco.

I sighed and thought that I should be happy that I was lucky enough to be chosen by such a man. I smiled while looking at Asia babbling happily with Valerie about all the new things she is going to discover.

I then decided to ask Vasco about something that I've been worried about.

"Your Eminence, am I going to be partnered with someone during missions," I asked as I know that all exorcists moved into teams of 2 or 3 and I didn't want to behold back by my soon to be partnered. Some would say that I was arrogant to think like this but it is what it is. I already know that I was much stronger than any exorcists bar Dulio, Cristaldi and Vasco. It would be much easier if I did the mission alone as I didn't want anyone to learn about my True Longinus by accident but I know that only top exorcists were allowed to move alone in the supernatural world.

All exorcists are precious resources to the church and it would be suicide to send lone exorcists on missions. Vasco looked as if he knew exactly what I was thinking and answered. "Don't worry Cao Cao, I know exactly who I am going to partner you with. One of the top exorcists has been getting cocky lately and I believe your presence may humble him if I make you team leader and make him understand that he is not a top dog among the people close to his age."

I raised an eyebrow and I nodded in understanding. Inwardly, I wondered who he was talking about but I had the feeling that I already know.

"Vasco."

I was startled from my thoughts as the voice of a woman was heard. I looked at the figure approaching us. It was a beautiful blue-eyed woman wearing nun clothes. Se looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She had a polite smile plastered on her and was looking at us curiously. She was also accompanied by a blue-haired girl around Asia's age with an emotionless look on her face. 'Is that Xenovia?' I thought, recognising the child.

"Griselda." Vasco greeted me with a smile and my eyes widened.

So this is Griselda Quarta, the future Queen of Hearts and the Top female exorcist of the Church.

Not a single day has passed and I already met two legends of the Church.

"So why did you call me and who are these cute little ducklings following you around ?" Griselda asked with a raised eyebrow.

Asia hid behind me and looked at Griselda shyly, no doubt timid in front of such an imposing figure. Griselda cooed in delight while looking at Asia. "Ooooh, you are so cute. What is your name, little one ?" She asked crouching herself to her level.

"A-Asia Argento, nice to meet you, S-Sister Griselda."

"Oooh you are the holy maiden of Rome, aren't you? What are you here for ?" "I-I am going to become an exorcist like a big brother." She said with a stutter but with conviction nonetheless. Griselda raised an eyebrow. "Most holy maidens don't take the path to become an exorcist." She said while looking at Vasco questioningly.

Vasco coughed. "Mmmh yes, that is one of the reasons I came to see you." Vasco looked at me and Valerie. "This is Cao Cao and Valerie Cain. They are both here to join the exorcist ranks alongside Asia."

"It is an honour, Sister Griselda," I said, bowing while Valerie imitated me. Griselda nodded at us with a smile.

"I have a favour to ask you. I would like you to train Asia and Valerie alongside your ward. I believe that they both have potential and they would only grow under your tutelage." Vasco asked.

"Are you sure? I mean, I don't mind but I am not the kindest of teachers." Griselda said uncertainly.

It wasn't Vasco who answered but Asia. "P-Please Sister Griselda, Take me and miss Valerie as your students," Asia asked clasping both hands together and looking at Griselda with the ultimate weapon of cute, puppy dog eyes.

Griselda's eyes sparkled and her smile stretched from ear to ear. "How can I say no to that? Of course, I'm going to teach you, sweetie." She said patting Asia's head. "Yes !" Asia cheered.

"I have a good idea on how to use your Sacred Gear for combat." She said and looked back at Valerie. "What about you? I already know about Asia's Sacred Gear but I do not know what you are capable of and Vasco wouldn't have asked this favour for you if you were not special in any way." She asked Valerie.

Valerie who looked disinterested in the conversation until now looked at Griselda nonplussed. She then lifted her fist and a golden light enveloped it. "I can do this." She said with a small smile that looked like a smirk. We all looked with wide eyes, including me, as Valerie use Holy light in front of us. Granted it was just a small amount but I never thought that Valerie would be able to use Holy Light thought after reflection I shouldn't be surprised.

It is the Holy Grail after all. The ultimate and most holy tool in the world, second only to mine in terms of holiness. It would have been stranger if Valerie couldn't use Holy Light.

Vasco looked at Valerie, seemingly reassessing and most likely never thinking that she had a light attribute. Griselda looked at Valerie with an odd glint in her eyes. "Oh, Holy light though a small amount. Strange for someone who is not from the faith, who is not using holy equipment and hasn't been blessed by an angel. Though it is a small amount, it seems to be enough that she could be potentially a natural holy sword." "Indeed." Vasco agreed no doubt happy with his decision to bring us here.

I was kind of surprised that they would think that Valerie is a natural holy sword wielder but again if Valerie in canon was capable of using Incinerate Anthem and controlling holy flames then she can most likely wield a Holy Sword with no problem.

I was kind of afraid that Valerie showing so much would gather suspicion but it seemed that they couldn't possibly deduce that she has the Holy Grail with so little.

Valerie looked back at me with no expressions but there seemed to be a small trace of smugness and pride as if she was saying "Praise me for my bluff Master."

I looked back at her with a smile and patted her head. She still had no expressions on her face but seemed to preen under my ministrations.

"What about this young man? You didn't ask me to train him." Griselda asked, looking at me curiously. "Don't worry about him. I'm going to train him personally." Vasco smiled sweetly while looking at me and I shivered, feeling cold creep up in my spine.

Griselda and Xenovia's eyes widened in surprise.

"Oh, you never took an apprentice before apart from showing those who caught your interest a few things," Griselda said while seemingly reassessing me. I coughed under her attention.

"Cao Cao is special. I believe that he has the potential to surpass me like Dulio. He is also the disciple of The Great Sage and was able to go toe to toe with me." He said while gripping my shoulder.

'Toe to toe? But you kicked my ass.' I thought while looking at my new teacher as if he was crazy.

Griselda and Xenovia both looked at me intently. They may not be related by blood they sure have the same reactions to surprising things.

"So this is him, the higher-ups have been smug and eager since you informed them of his coming. Wasn't Heaven going to send one of their angels to welcome him as a sign of respect to the Great Sage?" She mused out loud.

I may have looked calm on the outside but I was inwardly panicking. I didn't want to meet an angel as they could potentially identify my Sacred Gear with a glance.

I trusted Mephisto's talisman to hide my Sacred Gear but I didn't want to take the risk.

Vasco coughed. "I convinced them not to do it. It would have been too much for a single recruit." 'And thanks Gabriel for that.' I thought in relief.

"So, are you going to present him to the higher-ups ?" Griselda chuckled. "I wouldn't want to be in your place right now, young man." She said while I looked at her in confusion.

"I'm not that much of a bastard, Griselda. I'll take him there only after Cao Cao acclimated himself to the Church." Vasco said with a wave of his hand.

"Fair enough. Anyway, it is time for me to train my ward." Griselda said with a sweet smile while patting Xenovia's head. Xenovia shivered in terror. "Bring me the two girls at dawn tomorrow. I'll see you around Vasco, Cao Cao, Asia and Valerie." She said with a polite smile.

"Very well."

"Say you're goodbye to your fellow exorcist's trainee, Xenovia," Griselda said to Xenovia while preparing herself to leave.

"Goodbye." Xenovia said with a monotone voice and followed after her guardian.

Asia bid her goodbye enthusiastically while Valerie and I nodded.

Vasco then took us all to a small house after I registered where Asia, Valerie and I will live in.

It belonged to Vasco though he doesn't use it often due to his numerous responsibilities and offered it to us so that we could have a place of residence in the Vatican.

I first installed Asia in the biggest room of the house and took her to bed as it was getting late.

"Good night, Big brother," Asia said with a smile while preparing herself to sleep.

"Goodnight Asia," I said warmly while stroking her hair gently.

I then made my way to my room, opened the door and what greeted me was Valerie who came in and sat down on my bed without care of her surroundings.

"Valerie, what are you doing here?" I inquired as I was confused as to why she would come into my room at this time of night.

"I have come to keep an eye on master as I need to make sure you are safe at all times and I can't do that from any other room but this one so I'm going to sleep with you from now on."

Just as I was about to reply we were suddenly interrupted by someone knocking on my door.

I opened the door to see Asia standing here timidly.

"Asia, what are you doing here ?" I asked the young girl.

"I-I want to sleep with you if you don't mind big brother." She asked shyly.

I smiled at her gently."Of course, I don't mind. Come in."

I made some room in the bed for her and she immediately lay on the bed.

I looked back to Valerie and said. "Valerie, you can go back to your room. It's getting late." But to my surprise, she went to my bed and lay on the other side of the bed.

"Wha-" "Master need someone to watch over him during the night," Valerie said repeating her same answer from earlier.

"I don- you know what, I'm too tired for this," I said tiredly and went to lie down between Asia and Valerie "Oh, it's just like these sleepovers I've heard about !" Asia said excitedly.

I sighed and went to sleep while trying to not think about Valerie's breast pressing against me.

X

I was lying on the ground, all the bones in my body screaming in pain and looked up at the one responsible for this torture.

"Get up," Vasco said with a sweet smile even though he beat the shit out of me and a terrifying aura was seen around him.

It has been two weeks since I became an exorcist of the Church and Vasco have been taking care of me ever since. Well, take care is a little bit big, more like tortured me for two weeks non-stop through his idea of training.

I thought at first that Vasco's training would be just a little bit worse than the one I went through under Sun Wukong But I was wrong, so very wrong. It was easily ten times worse.

Vasco Strada, that I now called Teacher as a sign of respect and to differentiate him from my Shifu, told me that Sun Wukong trained me like a creature from the supernatural which I am not.

According to him, I took the easy way by awakening Touki the way I did and should have trained my body extensively first. And because of this the Touki protecting my body was like a wall made of glass, bulletproof glass but glass all the same. My Touki was powerful and efficient for offensive attacks while increasing my stamina but somewhat weak for defence compared to all the Touki users he has seen. A single good and powerful hit from someone as powerful as him could destroy that wall easily and it would take dozens of seconds for the Touki to reform and protect my body again. Seconds that could easily lead to my death. In other words I was a glass cannon.

And if a human-like Vasco, though an extremely powerful one, could do this when he was just using twenty per cent of his physical power then many supernatural beings with powerful bodies could do the same and take advantage of my weak body to defeat me.

And while I could deal with this weakness by using the Grail, it would be the easy way out like he said. I needed to make my body much more powerful and durable so that my future upgrades are more efficient. Not like I was even planning these upgrades for now. I didn't want to pressure Valerie and thought that it would be better to use the Grail after I founded my organisation as there is the risk of Valerie being found out if she uses it while being a member of the Church.

Anyway, to remedy this problem, Teachers have been putting me through the wringer and broke my body every day so that it would grow stronger over time. I wasn't allowed to use Touki and only use healing magic to accelerate the recovery of my muscles.

By him constantly breaking me and me healing my wounds or going to Asia for healing I was able to exponentially speed up my physical training. Meaning I began to get a lot physically stronger.

Along with training my body, he began teaching me the basics of Swordsmanship. Which was extremely helpful to me, as until this point I had been using my made-up style and was figuratively swinging in the dark with my swordsmanship. Due to the constant training, I was beginning to refine my swordsmanship reducing unnecessary movements which intern meant that I was able to move faster when swinging my sword.

I looked up at my Teacher and got up on my feet using my light sword, as a support then I dashed toward Vasco and resumed our training.

Two hours later and I was once again on the ground completely exhausted while Asia was healing my wounds with Valerie looking on from the side.

Speaking of these two, their training under Griselda has been going well and while they've been coming back home exhausted every night, they seemed to get stronger by the days.

According to Griselda, they both have great potential and while both of them never fought anyone in their life, they learned fast.

Asia seemed to not like to hurt people, but she was still determined to become an exorcist so Griselda have been training her in the use of a bow as she didn't seem to like hurting people in close combat. And Asia seemed to be talented at it. Griselda also began to teach her elemental magic so that Asia could fuse it with her arrows.

I also began to tutor her in magic myself using the knowledge I gathered from Grauzeberer. I also had tons of ideas for her to use after all there were a plethora of magical archers in all the anime and manga I've seen.

As for Valerie, she decided to use a sword through the advice of Griselda as she may be a natural holy sword wielder. After all the Church has in its possession a great number of holy swords compared to any other types of weapons. Griselda decided to teach her alongside Xenovia while Vasco would give her a few pointers. Asia also seemed to have made a friend in the person of Xenovia. They seemed to be glued to each other since the beginning of their training. Asia seemed extremely pleased that she had a new friend despite Xenovia's blunt nature and lack of common sense. Though I wagered that both of them only needed a friend their age. It became a common occurrence for Xenovia to come by to our home to play with Asia.

"Could you at least try not to hurt big brother so badly, Father Strad?" I was startled from my thoughts by Asia's complaints.

"All in the name of training Asia dear, I'm sure you're going through the same thing with Griselda." The teacher said with a smile and I swear I could see both Asia and Valerie shiver.

"It's okay, Asia I'm fine," I reassured my little sister as I patted her head.

"Still, you should be careful with your body." She mumbled as I stroked her long blonde hair while Valerie nodded cutely in agreement.

Vasco walked toward me and I got up from the ground.

"You're getting stronger, Cao Cao." My teacher said.

"It's all thanks to you, Teacher. You've made me realise that I still got much to learn."

Vasco nodded graciously. "I believe that you are ready to go on missions. Not like you were not even before you joined us but it would have been stupid to send you on missions right away as the higher-ups wanted." I scoffed at the mention of these senile old men. "I used these two weeks to teach you what it means to be an exorcist and put the basis of our training regime as it would have been problematic if you didn't have one for when you will be on long term missions."

The higher-ups wanted to send me on missions to measure my worth, not a day after I joined the Church. Of course my teacher, Vasco Strada protested, telling them that it would be too much to send me right now when I didn't know the rules of engagement and the politics involved in certain territories as I no longer had the liberties I had as the disciple of Sun Wukong and by proxy the Hindu Pantheon.

While I was travelling around I had counted a bunch of devils that, were not strays, and were terrorising a kid with sacred gears I then killed all of them after I told them to leave him alone, but they wouldn't. I was a relative unknown back then but now that I joined the Church I became a known entity and the one behind the attack might know by who I am now but there is nothing they could do about it as back then I was protected by The Great Sage and through him by Indra, the Head of the Hindu pantheon and no one would be stupid enough to challenge a pantheon that could destroy all the factions in the blink of an eye.

However, if I did what I did as a member of the Church that is to say killing several High-class devils to protect a Stray Devil, I would have sparked an international incident between the Devil faction and Heaven faction. Now that I am a member of the Church I could not take such liberties anymore.

In a way, I was now chained by politics. Of course, that is the case of only one of my persona.

Vasco then looked at Valerie "How are you finding the Excalibur's so far."

Flashback

About a week ago Griselda took Valerie to see if her theory of her being a natural Holy Sword wielder was correct. I accompanied them invisibly as I didn't want to leave Valerie alone with the superiors as they would be present for the test and I went invisible so that they would not know I'm there and potentially ask me to take the test. Not that surprising that they would be present when you take into account as there are less than ten natural holy sword wielders in the Church. So they are valued much more than artificial ones as they could end up being chosen by a unique sword-like Durandal.

What awaited us was three Excalibur fragments that Valerie needed to lift to see if she was compatible.

Valerie was able to lift Excalibur Rapidly without any effort and the use of Valper Galilei artificial light attribute.

Of course, The higher-ups were pleased to welcome another natural holy sword wielder among the Church ranks.

Due to the exercise amount of light energy and that she was learning to duel wield they had surprisingly decided to give Valerie two Excalibur's to wield, Rapidly and Blessing. This had shocked me at the time as I would have thought that the church would be trying to make sure that their Excalibur's are weirded by as many people as they possibly can give it to. After the ceremony, I asked the Teacher why they would give Valerie 2 Excalibur's. He then told me that as one of the few holy sword wielders that the Vatican had they decided to not let the swords just collect dust in the vault and they would rather let them be used.

I also asked him about non-natural holy sword wielders and he looked at me strangely and told me that there were currently no non-natural holy sword wielders as it was impossible to make a holy sword wielder. I then told him I heard about a project the church had running called the holy sword project. He told me with a solemn expression that it had failed and that the facility had burned down and that only 2 kids had survived one which had frozen herself in time and the other had escaped the facility as it was found out that the head of the project had tried to kill the students.

This gave me an uneasy feeling as in canon Valper, the head of the project, was still alive and the reason one of the reasons for Kiba's revenge. If the Facility was burned down and everyone killed there can only be one person who would do that, a person with serious revenge Bonner for the project and my best guess would be Kiba! This means my canon knowledge is now even more useless.

Flashback End

From that day Valerie had been training with the blades and had almost completely mastered them within a few months after she had received them. Though she was still having a problem wielding both swords at the same time, she was slowly getting used to it.

"Come by tomorrow to the training ground. It is time for you to meet your new partners." Vasco told me.

My mind blanched at this. "So I finally get to meet him. Who is he?" I asked.

He smirked. "You'll see tomorrow."

But I think I already know who he is from what information I was able to gather from around the Vatican. My partner was most likely to be Siegfried, which I had no problem with honestly. It was beneficial to my plan as now I didn't have to search for him.

The next day I walked to the training ground of the exorcists early in the morning to meet my partner for future missions.

Some would say that I do not need a partner but the Church and more precisely the Exorcists order have always functioned in a two or three-man team.

Every exorcist is precious to the Church and they want to increase their chance of survival by making them train in a team. It is also because sending a human exorcist alone against supernatural creatures is practically suicide. Only the truly strong ones like Vasco, Griselda, Christaldi and Dulio are the exceptions to these rules as they are veteran exorcists.

And while I am strong in my own right, I am still technically a rookie exorcist and an invaluable asset. So I had no choice in this matter and had to work with others which are going to be complicated as I have always fought solo until now and that's not even taking account of them potentially finding out the truth about me.

I sighed as I waited until I could see a person with white hair approach me on the training ground. He was definitely near my age, a young man with red-eye and white hair wearing the usual exorcist outfit. There was also other people on the training ground, fellow exorcists, and they have been staring since the moment I entered the field.

The teenage male is a silver-haired boy with red eyes. I immediately recognised him as Siegfried better known as Chaos Edge Sieg.

"So you are Cao Cao," Siegfried said quietly and then smirked. "You don't look like much."

"Neither do you," I said calmly

Before he could reply I continued " Anyways nice to meet you. As you already know I am Cao Cao. I will be working with you from now on." I greeted him politely.

"Yes, I already know who you are. The guy who has been fast-tracked in the order through recommendations from the top brass. Tell me is it true that you are trained by Vasco Strada ?" He asked me with a scowl.

I was confused by his antagonism toward me but I answered all the same. "Yes, it is true."

"Tch, so not only you paid your way to our ranks but you had the gall to have them order Vasco Strada to train you," Siegfried said with a frown.

Why would he think such a thing? "What are you insinuating ?" I asked

"All exorcists need to go through a test to join the order and before that there are years of training to get to that point. All of us did it even Vasco Strada, Griselda Quarta and Dulio Gesualdo but here you come, a foreigner who is not even from the faith, literally walking to our order without any complaints from the top brass. They told us that you were recommended by them and that they had ordered Strada to train you. It's too fishy and taking into account that you look like an arrogant rich boy from Asia. You must have paid them to fast track you into our ranks. What I find the most insulting is that you got them to order Vasco to train you even though he never took a disciple before you, not even me." Siegfried told me with a scoff while Jeanne looked at me with a strained smile and the other exorcist in the field looked at me with a frown.

Well, I suppose that's to be expected from church 90% of the time these guys were corrupt as fuck, I remember reading in the history books how corrupt these guys were. Corrupt was rife in the church in the past, from the priest to even the Popes, while I'm sure some of them were not corrupt there are many cases where the church was involved in corruption.

I was recommended by my Shifu, Sun Wukong, to join the Church and I knew that they knew about this but instead of telling their men that I am the disciple of a youkai from a heretic religion, they turned it around and told them that they were the one who recommended me knowing full well that I will be surely among the strongest of their ranks thus increasing their popularity to the masses as they will believe that they were the one who recruited such a strong asset.

They even told the people that they were the ones who ordered Vasco to train me when the truth is that Vasco was the one who made me into an exorcist and chose to train me. It is also kind of sad and funny that their men believe them to be corrupt enough to accept bribe money.

Though it will be useless to tell the exorcists in front of me this as they will surely not believe me. However, I was getting kind of pissed that they will make such assumptions about me and what do you mean I look like an arrogant Asian rich boy? I may be wearing expensive clothing but they were gifts from Shifu and besides I grow up on a farm with the bare minimum, dammit.

I was startled from my thoughts by Siegfried. "Listen rich boy this is not a place for someone like you. Go back to your big house in China. I do not plan to carry a burden in my missions."

What the hell? Does he think he can dismiss me because I am a foreigner from Asia? Do they not recognise my name, you know Cao Cao like the hero of the Three Kingdoms who defeated Lu bu.

The exorcist forces are mainly made of Europeans and because the Church is the only human organisation that they know of, they seem to believe that there are no strong humans in other countries mainly because of their upbringings. They grow up in a place where the stories and legends of Christianity were glorified and all the other legends were ignored on the basis that they were from a "fake" religion and foreign countries not affiliated with the Church thus it warped their view of the world.

Of course, they must have learned about other factions mainly in case they got to fight them but they must have never learned of how strong they truly are. Though I could understand why they never heard of Cao Cao as even I wouldn't have known about the Three Kingdoms if it wasn't for animes so for orphans who have never lived in society, it is understandable.

And besides, I can understand his animosity toward me. Teacher told me that I was to be the leader of our team even though I am technically a rookie exorcist so it must have pissed him off that I was made team leader on top of the supposed rumours about me.

But still, it was incredibly arrogant of him to dismiss me in such away. Sometimes I forgot that the original members of the Hero Faction were cocky and that it was the reason for their downfall.

That's not good. Not good at all. I won't have potential recruits of my organisation have such a narrow-minded view of the world and have my fellow exorcists believe me to be a weakling.

So I decided to do what I did best. Fight and teach a lesson to people full of themselves.

I kept silent for a moment and then I laughed along and mocking laugh. "Hahahahhaha !" They were all staring at me with disbelief.

"What's so funny?" Siegfried growled.

"I-It's hilarious that you seem to believe that you are top dog here." I regained control of my laughter. "Let me disabuse you of that notion. " As I finished talking, a pressure bearded upon him and the rest of the exorcists. A pressure that made them unable to even move.

"You seem to believe that I am weak and that I got in through the use of money. I can understand the latter, after all your superiors can be quite corrupt and I can't deny that I got fast-tracked but why do you think that I am not strong enough to join you." I asked them with a smile and then I got an idea.

"How about a bet to prove you wrong if this little demonstration was not enough ?" I told them.

"I'm listening," Siegfried said and despite the sweat caused by the pressure, he was grinning like a maniac in my direction.

"You will fight me right here right now. If I win, you have to accept me as team leader but If I lose, I will leave and never come back." I posed the terms of ours par with a smirk.

"And to make it fairer in your favour I won't even use my weapons I will only use my martial arts and magic.

He of their eyes narrowed. "Are you underestimating me?" Siegfried growled.

"I'll be frank with you," I smirked. "The only chance you have to win against me is if you fight me without any weapons." He growled at my taunting and it seemed that I succeeded at fully pissing him off.

All the exorcists in the field backed away from the three of us and stayed in a corner, safe from the coming battle.

Siegfried summoned Gram also known as the Demonic Emperor Sword and the Sword of the Sun and took a battle stance. He looked at me with the lust for battle clear in his eyes.

I got into my martial arts stance and waited for him to approach me. We were watching each other silently, the tension between us growing.

I broke that silence by appearing in front of him in an instant not wasting any time and delivering a punch to his chest not hesitating one bit. His eyes widened and he only had a second to block the strike with Gran raising it to protect his body. The collision of my fist with his weapon created a shockwave and I could see from his gritting teeth he was barely being able to withstand my Touki-enhanced strength.

But I wasn't finished as I raised my leg and aimed for his gut and delivered a blow to his body kicking him back and putting distance between us again. Siegfried took a moment to regain his bearings. He raised his sword again and then charged at me attempting to slash at me of course I dodged his attack and delivered a punch to his face and sending him to the ground. What happened next actually surprised me because he got up even though I sent him to the ground. While I wasn't using my full strength, I was still using Touki which should have been more than enough to knock him out.

"You are strong," Siegfried said grinning maniacally despite the exhaustion and blood coming from his nose. "I apologise for doubting your strength but that doesn't mean I will accept you as our team leader."

"Then come." Indicating with my hand for him to come.

He then took out an artificial light sword and charged at me. I dodged and weaved through all his attacks, not letting him near me.

We continue to exchange attacks with him slashing with his sword and me attempting to get a hit on his body which he would then defend with his other sword. What I was surprised by was just how fast he was for a human. I suppose the blood of Sigurd is a factor in his abnormally fast speed and durability.

Deciding that I now had enough of this exchange I then began enhancing my body with magic and attacking and relentlessly bombarding his body with blows from my fist and getting in hits on his body.

"I would recommend you surrender. You are beginning almost finished at this point and I haven't even broken a sweat yet." I informed him

"Surrender? What do you mean to surrender? I want to fight until the end." Siegfried said

I raised an eyebrow. "Even after the beating I just gave you, you still think that you can defeat me."

"Well, I could have used more deadly techniques but we have our first mission tomorrow, a mission that Vasco Strada chose especially for us so I didn't want to hurt you too badly," I told him.

"Well, I'm going to keep fighting you until I can't fight anymore," Siegfried told me.

"Very well then I'll see you tomorrow bright and early." I then Manifested my magic circle and began launching fireballs at him to distract him. I then accelerated and appeared behind him and due to him already being tired I hit him on the back of the neck before he could do anything and knocked him out.

I then looked around the training ground and noticed everyone looking at me with shock. I then turned around and began dramatic walking towards the exit

As I was at the exit of the training ground I realised that I left Siegfried unconscious on the floor. I decided to leave him there as he kind of deserved it and kept walking as to not ruin my badass exit.

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So a new chapter here, sorry for the delay I've been busy and had to do this at 4 am. Anyway the Duo of Cao Cao and Siegfried is formed. By the way I have decided to remove Siegfried's Sacred gear and removed his usage of the other demon swords p. In case your wondering what happened to them I will reveal that in the future. But the reason I removed Siegfried's usage of the twice critical is because in the light novel it's mentioned that due to him possessing a dragon sacred gear he would always be negativity effected by gram so I decided to remove this problem. I also decided to take away the demon swords as he would not be able to use them as effectively. I will most likely have them distributed between the other descendants of Sigurd that were made, such as Lint, Freed and others.