Training

Waking up early in the morning, 4 AM to be precise was sure a new experience I'd be glad to have. Usually, I always woke up late past breakfast time. But, right now, with a comfy bed and fresh breeze air entering through the window I opened all night, I felt alive.

"Oh right. I need to work out today."

When I was about to open the door led to the living room, I saw a black cat on the windowsill. The cat's meow was echoing clearly in my ear.

"Hey there. How did you get here?"

This was the second floor, so how did this cat get here? There wasn't even anything that could be a foothold to jump up here.

*Meows* She purred as her skin brushed against my skin. Her fur was soft like cotton candy, and her purring sounds made me relax somehow.

Knock–! Knock–!

As I enjoyed my time with the cat, a knocking sound was heard along with a mellow, familiar voice that had been rendered by the door and walls.

"Zio. Are you awake?"

I turned my attention toward the door and answered back. "Yes. Wait for me."

When I looked back at the cat, my hand was patting the air where the cat was supposed to be there. 

"A summon? Or illusion magic?"

I pondered a moment about the cat's identity. Well, either two of them were enough to explain why there would be a cat standing on my window rail suddenly. Appearing without a trace, and so disappearing without a trace too.

But there were questions stuck in my mind. Who was the cat's owner or the magic caster? And why would they send the cat to me?

Shaking my head, I left my room and headed to the park with Shannon after washing my face and brushing my teeth.

…

In front of me stood a young girl with dirty silver hair, her eyes the same color as her hair. I dare say that she was an angel because her smooth and clean white skin makes it hard for my eyes to look away.

Noticing my gaze, her beautiful, unmoving face formed a smile as we made eye contact.

She tied her long hair into a ponytail. As she did that, her hooded training jacket tightened in some obvious parts which hooked my gaze on her even more.

"It's rude to stare at a girl's body like that, you know?"

I shifted my gaze to her face when I heard her saying those words.

"It's called observation. I was just observing your perfectly sculpted body and thinking that God is so generous to bless me with a cousin as perfect as you!"

"Okay, okay. Rather than flattering me with enchanting words, why don't you start running and exercising?"

"Right now?"

"No. Next year…" she paused for a moment and then continued "... of course now, my dear cousin."

I nodded while holding back a laugh. Eventually, I chuckled and went straight to jogging in the park.

There was a problem when I was jogging…

And that problem was my poor stamina. Not even 5 minutes had passed since I started jogging, but my stamina was already depleted. I forced myself to run a little more before I collapsed.

"Haaa… Haaaaaa…!"

I breathed heavily. My legs were trembling while I sat and leaned on a nearby bench.

Shannon looked at me with raised eyebrows and then shook her head lightly.

"This is why I told you to do daily exercise even if you are locking yourself in your room…"

I lifted up my face a bit to peek at her. 

"I…" Opening my mouth, I tried to argue with her but immediately shut myself. "Nevermind."

I couldn't believe it, how could there be someone with a body like this? 

After a little rest, I started running again. Like earlier, I need to stop every 5 minutes to rest and then continue running again. I kept repeating the routine for two weeks. The result was quite satisfying.

From the first day to the third day, I just jogged and stretched in the park for an hour. On the fourth day, Shannon increased my training portion; Jog for an hour, push-ups and sit-ups 50 times, and stretch.

On the fifth day, I started my sword training. After jogging and doing push-ups and sit-ups 75 times, Shannon gave me a wooden sword and told me to do a vertical swing 100 times.

Jogging and running in the park had increased my stamina and slightly tempered my body's condition, the same could be said for push-ups and sit-ups.

The sword training was the most exciting activity for me. 

In my previous world, swords were used as decorations instead of a weapon. Well, that's what I knew about swords in the modern era, as people were using a gun instead of a sword.

Unlike my previous world, this world's most effective weapons were sharp weapons like the sword, the spear, the dagger, and so on. Gun was still used as a weapon, but it was not as effective as a blade or blunt weapon unless you were rich and bought a specially-made gun with a ton of magic bullets.

Anyway, as someone who never held a sword in his entire life. Of course, I was excited when I got the chance to learn how to use a sword.

With Shannon's help and her clear and easy-to-understand instructions, I was able to understand the basics of swordsmanship in just a few days.

When I was learning swordsmanship under her teaching, there was a popup window that notified me that I got a new talent.

— Talent: [Swordsmanship] has been received.

Right, with that, now I have two talents; [Dual Wielding] and [Swordsmanship]. But, I felt like the swordsmanship talent was kinda useless that I already had dual wielding which allowed me to use a sword at least on a basic level. 

It was not like I need to be a master at swordsmanship to be able to perfectly use the dual wielding, or in another case, dual sword talent. 

Now that reminded me, were dual-wielding and dual swords the same? I'd heard and written about dual swords in the novel but never a dual wielding…

Starting from the tenth day to the next four days, my training changed from learning swordsmanship to sparring.

That's right, sparring…

I had to spar with Shannon to test my swordsmanship as well as to gain some experience in using a sword to fight rather than just show off by the display.

The result of my first-day sparring: loss

Second day… loss

Third day… loss

And now it was the fourth day of my sparring against Shannon…

Currently, I was standing in a square-shaped room while gripping a wooden sword in my hand. This place is a training room inside an awakener training center in the city, the closest to my house.

I exhaled a long breath.

I need to clear my head, I need to focus.

'I just need to hit her once and I will win!'

Because of my losing streak three times in a row, Shannon changed the rule of the spar.

"If you can hit me just once, it's your win," she said.

Gripping the handle of my wooden sword, I observed her briefly. Her stance was flawless, I couldn't find any opening in her stance's form.

I gritted my teeth when even after a long observation, I still couldn't find the opening.

Softly smiling, she extended and spread her arms wide as if purposely exposing her weakness to me. "So confident, eh?"

After saying that, Shannon leisurely swung her wooden sword, probably a warm-up session.

I, too, did a warm-up. Unlike her, I didn't just swing my sword here and there but also did some quick movements like dodging, dashing, and so on. 

"You ready?" Leisurely stretching her hands, Shannon asked me while smiling.

"Yeah…"

I gripped the wooden sword tightly and prepared my stance. While doing so, I caught her smirking at me.

"Preparing for the stance? This isn't a fist combat or martial art duel."

Ignoring her words, I finished my stance. Looking at my posture, I felt slightly proud of my two weeks of training with her.

Even though it's only two weeks, I felt like my constitution had gone up quite a number. Maybe, I could run for 90 minutes instead of just 10 minutes with my current constitution.

"Unless you have a technique. A stance before the fighting was useless for swordsmanship." 

She raised her wooden sword at me and said. "Now, come!"

Firmly standing in my place, I observed and studied her. On the outside, she looked calm and even her defense was wide open and exposed. 

She was full of openings and yet I felt nervous.

Swallowing my dry saliva, I sighed a long breath.

'I just need to hit her once…'

I took steps forward slowly and steadily, and after that, I immediately dashed all the way to her in a quick motion.

Appearing in front of her like a mist, I swung my sword horizontally.

But, just as I expected. She dodged my flash attack with ease and minimal movement.

"Try harder!"

Swinging more of my sword, I tried to break her rhythm of defenses.

Horizontal swing, and then another one. She stepped one block behind every time I swung my sword. 

I squatted, gathering my energy to my feet as I prepared for a vertical swing from under.

Swoosh–!

Dak–!

Quickly releasing the energy and making a jump, I swung my sword from under to the top of her head.

She intercepted my attack and was blocking my sword so that it couldn't finish its swing into the air.

"What will you do now that your weapon is stuck?"

She said with a smile.

Nonchalantly smirking, I released the grip on the handle and then spun my body while still in the air then…

Dak–!

After spinning my body 360 degrees, I launched a flash kick aimed at her face.

"Nice move!" She said,

Casually pushing my leg after she successfully blocked my kick, she then patted her hand.

"Tch."

I clicked my tongue, feeling disappointed that I couldn't even hit her once after all that.

When I was going to attack her again, a sudden alarm coming from the device on her wrist stopped me.

"Time's up!"

'Shit…"

That was hurting my feelings.

Truth be told, I'm actually the kind of guy who can't tolerate a consecutive loss streak to the same person. The more I lost to the same person, the more desperate I wanted to win. That was why I felt more sensitive about the result of this spar.

Just why I couldn't win? Why couldn't I hit her even once? She's not even one of the main characters, she's just an extra like me… but well, she was a 7th rank holder of her batch year.

I clenched my fist until its turned white.

"Don't be angry, cousin…"

Hearing her soft and mellow voice entering my ears, I felt like if there was an anger measurement point, I could proudly say that my anger point would be decreased a lot until it reached zero.

I sighed and looked her in the face. When I did so, my throat unusually produced dry saliva that I needed to swallow immediately out of nervousness.

"According to the rules where you just need to land a solid hit on me once to win…" She paused as she placed the wooden sword back on the weapon shelf.

"Well, you win this time. Congrats!"

"Huh?"

I was about to ask why I won when I didn't even land a single hit on her because she always blocked my attack easily. But, I stopped when I saw her gesturing at her forearm which she used to block my kick.

"That count?"

She nodded and said.

"I used my body part to block your kick so its counts as a hit."

Blankly staring at her, I scratched my neck.

Now that I think about it… We're sparring swordsmanship, how come I think to fly a kick on her?

Well, there was no rule about not using a punch or kick, so I guess I won, then?

I checked my status. Unfortunately, I didn't see many changes except that my <stamina > had gone up a rank from <G > to <F- >.

"Hmm…"

Should I start to use a shortcut?

"Nah…" I shook my head.

Even if I knew the existence of the artifact that could help me improve my abilities, I didn't think I could get my hands on it. Especially if I was this weak. I could even die in the hand of a low-rank monster, bruh.

"What are you thinking about?"

Shannon stood in front of me while wiping the sweat with a towel. She placed the towel around her shoulders after she finished.

Looking at her, I shrugged and said. "I was wondering how I can become stronger in a month…"

"Haha. You're so funny and delusional, cousin!" Shannon laughed.

"There is no way someone can become strong in just one month. Even the current first rank in the heroes ranking, Thunder Emperor, couldn't do that."

Thunder Emperor… 

One of the characters I created. He was humanity's strongest hero in this era, but he would die because of an incurable disease, Magic Core Dysfunction.

Magic Core Dysfunction occurred when the body and magic core–the place where mana circulated in your body–didn't synchronize with each other. Those two aspects are like yin and yang, they need to be balanced.

If one had a high-quality magic core but an average body, his body would be burdened by the magic power stored in his magic core causing damage to the organs and cracks in the magic core. 

In addition, because the quality of the magic was not compatible with his body which has a limit, it would cause the connection between magic and the body to be severed. 

Each person has potential and limitations. If one forces their way to break through their body's limit, M.C.D will occur.

Well, let's take the Thunder Emperor as a direct example. His potential and limit were S, but he forced himself to try to break through to the next level–SS rank. Even though there was no record that someone had achieved SS-rank potential limits, the Thunder Emperor wanted to be the first to achieve that.

Unfortunately, he failed to do so and his core was shattered causing his core to have dysfunction. He could still use his original power, but every time he used it, it would damage his body, and that's how he will die in the future.

Oh, for the record, the last time I checked, it seemed my potential rank was B.

Feeling a soft tap on my shoulder, I came back to my senses and looked at Shannon close beside me.

I shook my head.

Smiling at me, she ruffled my black hair.

"You look a lot like your sister… with black hair and black obsidian eyes too…"

Hearing her words, my ears instinctively twitched. I snapped my gaze at her with a frown face.

With a gulp, I said.

"I have a sister?"

Once I said that. Her eyes widened open as if she just saw a ghost. After a moment, she gained her composure and smiled at me.

"Y-you had one…"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Is she… like my parents?"

Shannon shook her head slightly.

"No. She is still alive, I-I hope. But, she went missing ten years ago, and even after a thorough search, I couldn't find her…"

"I see…"

I said in a low voice. My eyes were peeking from the corner of my eyes, and Shannon's face looked troubled as she said those words. It seemed like she was guilty when saying it, but it was more like she just regretted breaking a promise or maybe telling a lie. I wouldn't know.

"Well. Let's go!"

Shannon went back to her old self, the confident and kind girl.

She grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me.

"Wa-wait. I need to put this wooden sword back."

Happily looking over her shoulder, she smiled widely. Her clean white teeth looked like it was glowing.

"Just drop it by the floor. The building staff will clean it later for us."

What the hell?

Shaking my head in confusion, I did what she told me. I released my hand from the sword and then it fell on the floor. Looking at the front, I could still see Shannon's smile even from behind.

Well. I didn't know why she was acting like that but, as long as she was happy and that it didn't bother me.