Chapter 4: Training!

*Celia’s POV*

Despite the whole, me causing a war thing, it seemed like nothing would happen for a decent while. We even went to our classes as if nothing was wrong.

There were just a few unimportant classes this morning, such as history. With those classes finished, we all headed to where Solia would be teaching us.

Rather than a field within the academy, or a random building, we had to fly out to Solia’s class. As she had told us this morning, that she would only teach us where no one could watch. Which ended up being a battle-torn field, miles away from the academy.

Solia: “Oh? All four of you made it here?” She asked with a smile.

Ria: “That we did. Now then, Lady Solia? I do not think that it would be necessary to train me.” She said with a serious tone.

Solia: “You’re just here for show. I might be old, but you’re ancient compared to me. There is quite literally, nothing that I could teach you.” She said with a shrug.

Nia: “What about me?” She asked with a curious tone.

Solia: “You’re pretty old as well, so there isn’t much that I can teach you. Though, I can help you train to get stronger.” She answered.

Celia: “So wait, who will be the ones that you will mainly teach?” I ask with a head tilt.

Solia: “That would be you, Celia. And the other person would be Lia.” She replied.

Lia: “I understand you teaching me, but Celia is plenty skilled and strong as it is.” She said with a raised eyebrow.

Solia: “Strong and skilled in theory. But like others before her, she is probably using her system as a handicap.” She explained.

Lia: “…”

Celia: “…”

When the hell did she figure that out!? Did my mom, Yona, rat me out to her?… I mean, I think that she and Solia are good friends, from just the first time that I met her…

Solia: “I figured that you would have a System, and Yona confirmed that for me. Do not worry about if I am trustworthy.” She said with a laugh.

Celia: “Can I really trust you?” I ask with an unsure tone.

Solia: “Can a daughter not trust her mother?” She replied with a head tilt.

What!? Oh God… she isn’t joking… What does that even mean? Looking around at everyone else, of course, the two people who can see the future, are just laughing, while me, and the other non-future peekers, are confused to all hell…

Solia: “Oh? Did Yona not tell you? How funny. We’ve been together for many years, but we haven’t officially married, and we won’t until she gives up the throne to you.” She explained with a giggle.

Celia: “You’re Yona’s wife? But she never mentioned that…” I say with spiral eyes.

Solia: “That girl likes her tricks, so she probably planned for this to happen. You know, I’ve always joked with her that I wanted kids. I never thought that she would take me seriously.” She said with a hearty laugh.

Yeah… Yona would do something like that… Back on topic, what did she mean about me using my System as a handicap? I was curious, so I asked her just that.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Solia: “I’ve trained someone with a System before, and once they turned off their skills, they became completely useless.” She replied with a sigh.

Celia: “Ruina, I can turn off my Skills?” I ask in my head.

Ruina: “Yeah, but it isn’t recommended.” She answered.

Celia: “How do I turn them off?” I ask.

Ruina: “Just think about switching them off, sorta like a light switch.” She replied.

I mean, I feel like I could turn them off now, but I didn’t really feel any different at all…

Solia: “Your helper taught you how to turn them off, right? Then we shall begin the training.” She said with an excited tone.

All of a sudden, the woman split into three different versions of herself. That’s kinda cool… I wonder if I will learn how to do that? Just something to think about in the future, I guess.

Solia had us all, besides Ria, split up further away from each other. Now it was just me and her in this empty field.

Celia: “What happened to the System user that you mentioned?” I ask with a curious tone.

Solia: “I killed him.” She replied with a nonchalant tone.

Celia: “…Why?” I ask with a nervous tone.

Solia: “He stated that my method of training was cruel, so he gave up training with me.” She answered.

Celia: “So you killed him just for that!?” I say with a shocked tone.

Solia: “No. The dumbass oddly wanted revenge on me, so he plotted my death, and poisoned me. Why he even thought that would work, I have no idea.” She replied with a shrug.

Celia: “…”

Solia had a sword appear from within the air, and I took my sword out of my pouch. To this day, I still haven’t replaced my weapons yet…

As the fight started, I realized how outclassed that I was by Solia. As she basically vanished before my eyes. Though, I was still able to block her attack when she appeared again.

Oddly, I think that she was going easy on me, as it wasn’t a completely one-sided fight. We traded blows, not injuring each other, but with our blades. This went on for thirty minutes, before she called for the fight to stop.

Solia: “Celia, didn’t you turn off your skills?” She asked with a serious tone.

Celia: “I did?” I say with a head tilt.

Solia: “Truly?” She said with a shocked tone, before doing something weird…

The woman then proceeded to laugh for ten minutes straight… What the hell did I even do to get this woman to laugh this much? Do I just have that effect on women?…

Ruina: “Celia… Holyshit!” She yelled.

Celia: “What!?” I yell back in my head.

Ruina: “Some of your Skills are bugged, and don’t give you any benefit past level one!” She exclaimed.

Celia: “Meaning?” I ask with a confused tone.

Ruina: “Your Swordsmanship Skill, and other combat Skills, despite them being maxed, they all act as if they’re level one…” She explained.

Celia: “…”

So I have been playing on hard mode this entire time!? Why is my System so fucking buggy? Am I just unlucky, or something?

Ruina: “Your System seems to be more broken than I originally thought, this will take some time to fix…” She said with a grim tone.

Celia: “Take your time. Apparently, I can cope with it being broken.” I say with a sigh.

Ruina assured me that she will have it fixed within a month, but I still asked her to take it easy. I don’t want her to stress herself out a bunch, after all.

Solia: “Sorry, sorry, Celia. I just realized that you were tricked.” She said with a giggle.

Celia: “I wasn’t tricked, it’s just that my System is slightly broken, it seems.” I say with another sigh.

Solia: “Hm? So you weren’t tricked, that’s good. Now, with how competent you currently are, we can step up our training.” She said with an excited expression and tone.

*Many Hours Later.*

Training with Solia was very good. Even better than that one good teacher back at the other academy. Thinking of her, she should be in this one now. It’s a shame that I can’t get her to teach me anymore, but Solia is a good replacement for her teaching.

On the way back to our dorm, I had a realization… I recalled a small bit of what happened in my nightmare! I told the girls to go on ahead to the estate, as I had something that I needed to do.

Oddly, or rather, it was because Nia convinced them, they let me go. In my nightmare, I recall a mirror, in a unfinished and abandoned part of this academy.

With me flying around, it still took me a decent while to find the building that I was looking for. It seemed that instead of building on top of the old academy, they just moved locations, and abandoned the old one.

It was still in decent shape, even if it was unused. Though, my destination, was a very old wing of this place. And it looked super rotted…

Inside, I found furniture draped in long white sheets. After searching for a bit, I found the mirror that I saw in my nightmare. Taking off the sheet, I saw myself in the reflection of the oddly clean mirror.

I looked at my reflection for a while, until the me reflected in the mirror smirked. She, or rather, the mirror me, somehow moved on her own, she then thrust her hand out of the mirror, and dragged me into it…