Leon slashed his sword at Claire’s neck, their weapons locked in a dance of sweat and steel. There were no skills or tricks involved. Besides Fortify, their duel was one of pure weapon skill so that nothing could distract them. The entire focus was on overcoming their opponent with superior technique rather than hitting the hardest or tripping them up by doing something weird.

Claire stepped back as the blade flew under her chin. She thrust her spear at Leon’s gut, but he deflected it with a casual swipe of his sword. They didn’t even use the full extent of their physical abilities. He could’ve tried to tackle her or grab the tip of her spear with his greater strength, but the purpose of the battle wasn’t to win. It was to push their mastery to the highest level, and that meant completely focusing on using their weapons and nothing else.

As the saying goes, steel sharpened steel. They hacked at one another, trying out new moves or just falling into a predictable rhythm of attacking and defending in turn like the ebb and flow of the tides. Of course, if Claire did something stupid or made a mistake, Leon would ‘punish’ her by giving her a little scratch here and there to point out where the flaw was. They would also take breaks and heal up so that they would always be in top form.

Her spear work was still rough but Claire was improving every day. Her current flaws were mostly poor aim and bad timing when she attacked, a major improvement over being disarmed or tripping over her own feet.

Now that they could fight without holding back, Leon attacked her without holding back rather than acting as a training dummy. And a result, his mastery of simply using the sword was skyrocketing with each passing day. The more Claire improved, the better she was at picking apart his flaws, allowing him to integrate his basic chops, slashes, and thrusts into a burgeoning sword style.

While Leon was an amateur like Claire, he was getting closer and closer to reaching a basic level of proficiency. Another month and he would be able to fight like the man in the sword crystal. The guide had displayed a perfect example of the basics, shifting fluidly between his moves without error. Just swinging or thrusting a sword was easy, but combining those disparate techniques into a refined system of movements was ten times harder.

Leon had been studying the crystal every day after training, analysing his every movement before attempting to copy them himself. He was getting skilled enough that transitioning between them was becoming instinctual. The motions were sinking into his muscles so that he didn’t even need to think while fighting, his improvement opening up a whole new world of combat that he had never experienced before with martial arts.

Now he could shut off a part of his mind and simply move to the rhythm of the battle.

It was a mixture of violence and art like he was dancing to a song while in the process of creating it. Of course, the sounds of clashing metal, laboured breathing, and clomping feet were terrible in his ears, but his soul was another matter entirely. With his mind half-awake, the clamour of war had become the most gorgeous symphony one could imagine. It told a story of freedom wrought through power; of energy, passion, and life that could slip over the precipice and end at any moment.

A thrill of chaos and a soothing lullaby folded into the sharpened edge of his sword.

Leon danced to this self-created tune, his body sinking into motions that he didn’t even know were possible. He didn’t think. He simply acted as if the music pushed him to move. His sword flowed between attacks and his body danced, gliding across the ground as if he was an extension of the sword rather than the other way around.

Claire thrust at his neck, her stance low enough that her weapon blurred with speed as she lunged. Leon twisted his arm and easily parried it away. The movement was slightly awkward, but his body found the correct path regardless.

She stepped forward, pushing him back as she settled in to launch a flurry of thrusts at his upper body, each blow controlled and precise in where she struck. The weapon was like a snake, its head snapping at different parts of him to sniff out a weakness. It leapt for his legs first. He jumped back as the spear lashed out at him, the weapon trying to make him lose his balance over the uneven terrain.

When that failed, it went for his centre of gravity and other vitals. Head, neck, heart, shoulders, the arteries in his legs, and even the tendons in his arms weren’t spared. The spear rushed at his stomach before going for his hands. Leon was barely able to fend the blows off, but his sword was always there to parry the blows away.

Finally, Claire began to lose her momentum after only scratching his arms and legs a bit. None of the injuries were dire, but some were dripping with blood while others were deep enough to hinder his movements. She could’ve tried to capitalise on his injuries and win the battle, but she quickly settled back into a casual rhythm where they hacked at each other in a dance of clanging metal.

Rather than the tedious work of martial arts that he’d come to know, this was actually fun. Leon’s cheeks were hurting from smiling so much. Everything just felt right, his movements clean and his mind focused as he fought Claire to a standstill. There was nothing else in this state. Only his weapon and the opponent standing before him, allowing for everything else to fade into the background. Even time wasn’t a concern, which was why he barely stopped his weapon before he lopped Claire’s head off.

The blade clipped a few stray hairs before it stopped at the base of her neck. Leon stepped back, wondering why they were stopping. It wasn’t until he noticed her exhaustion that he realised how tired he was. They must’ve been fighting for over half an hour without a break.

With shaking hands, Claire dropped her spear and collapsed onto the grass with a sigh. Her body was covered in sweat, the same as Leon's. He sat down across from her and recovered for less than a minute before they were rested enough to talk.

“That was awesome,” Claire said, pulling Leon out of his stupor. “You were in the freaking zone, there. It felt like I was fighting a real sword master.”

Leon didn’t respond, looking at the notification he’d received.

[You have demonstrated a rudimentary understanding of the sword and can now learn a Mastery skill: Sword Mastery.]

[Mastery skills are unlike normal Qi-based abilities. They are not born of the self and are thus closely linked with the System. For example, the ability of a sensory skill to draw extra information from the system’s database is in the same category. Mastery skills draw on a similar database so that a cultivator can walk further down the path of their chosen weapon.]

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

[Each weapon has been decoded, broken down, and analysed by the system to create a method of guidance that anyone can receive. While not enough to replace a master or make up for a lack of dedication and resources, Mastery skills are the most flawless universal guides to learning a weapon. There is also no limit to adding or removing Mastery skills, so do not hesitate to learn this skill as there will be no consequences besides wasted time.]

[Would you like to learn Sword Mastery? Yes/No?]

“Leon?” Claire said, calling out to him before he could accept. “You okay? I didn’t hit you in the head by accident, did I?”

“No,” Leon said, making his notifications visible. “I think I’ve gotten good enough with the sword for the System to recognise that I deserve help.”

“That’s awesome! Shame I didn’t get the skill first, though.”

“You know, it makes me feel bad when you compare yourself to me.”

“And it makes me feel bad when I fall behind.”

“Okay, fair point.”

Rather than making a joke, she giggled and walked over to Sophia so that he could tell her about the skill. She was sitting on her sleeping bag and doing the puzzle box.

Leon took the time to accept the skill. Something built up inside his head, almost as if a layer of awareness was being draped over his brain. When the sensations faded away, he couldn’t feel anything was different so he stood up and began to practice again. He slashed his sword to see if something would happen.

Nothing.

Leon glanced around the forest and even opened up his status, but he failed to notice any changes other than the new entry into his skill list. What was he missing? He soon decided to send a bit of Qi up into his head. That was where the sensations came from when he gained the skill, after all, so it was worth a bit of investigating.

Again, there was no obvious change. Leon glanced down at the sword in his hand and paused when something caught his eye. There was some kind of shadow layered over his hand, almost like his arm was blurry. And on top of that, his grip on the handle looked wrong somehow. The only issue was that he couldn’t exactly understand why it looked wrong.

It just did, his brain telling him that there was a problem while not pointing out what that problem actually was.

Adjusting his grip on the handle so that it overlapped the shadow arm, the sensation abruptly disappeared, leaving him dumbfounded. Leon tried slashing and thrusting a few times and found that it was a bit more comfortable. The weapon also responded to his intentions with a bit more accuracy. Moving over to a bush, he aimed for a particular leaf and struck it several times with much greater consistency than he usually could.

That was when he realised that the flow of Qi to his brain had stopped. Pushing more in as he continued hacking away at the bush, a new shadow appeared over his body and in his mind’s eye. It was like he could sense this other form and feel what it felt. Mid-slash, the change was extremely disorienting. One moment he was waving his sword around and the next there was a shadow of his arm phasing through the real thing.

Leon tried out a few more things before he concretely understood what Sword Mastery did. By sending Qi into the base of his skull, - which was where the skill rested - he could generate an illusion of himself that copied his every movement. The System would then analyse his technique and somehow adjust the shadow to demonstrate a better version of what he was trying to do.

It would also make him feel an unsettling kind of discomfort until he fixed it, but that could be stopped cutting off the flow of Qi into his head. While training, however, it was incredibly useful to nearly instantly point out what to focus on. He could then flow between different movements and adjust them in real time, his every slash, step, or chop moving closer and closer to the correct form.

Leon continued his training while the sisters whispered to one another. His weapon flowed like water and his body moved with a casual, almost effortless grace. Only someone with thousands of hours using the sword could do what the phantom did.

Leon analysed the projection in his mind. Its grip was firmer and yet also more relaxed. Its shoulders weren’t as tense, allowing for a smoother swing that could extend even further without its shoulder hitching. And then there was the blade itself. It seemed to slice through the air currents themselves, the edge almost ignoring the wind.

Leon hadn't realised he was making any of those mistakes. And if he didn’t realise, then how would he possibly correct them? Rather than stumbling blindly, he could now feel what he did wrong and see the ideal version. There was likely no way to use this in battle. And yet, as Leon began to swing his sword again and again, his movements becoming more refined and the feeling of wrongness fading, he realised that this was something he would use until the day he died. Although the skill would likely change form many times, it was a perfect teacher who could guide him to the pinnacle of swordsmanship.

Seeing Sophia and Claire walk over, Leon stopped and quickly opened up his skill notification.

[Sword Mastery (Common): The most basic Mastery skill of the sword. It teaches all of the basics, including how to hold and use the weapon until a rudimentary level of proficiency is reached. Actively empowering the skill with Qi provides the user with a weak instinctual knowledge of how the sword is supposed to be used as well as allowing them to see an improved version of their style.]

“Ahem,” Claire said, breaking his focus. “We can go away if you’re having fun?”

“Oh, really? That would be awesome, thanks.”

Claire rolled her eyes while Sophia tilted her head.

“What’s going on?”

“I got a new skill that you should know about. If you improve enough with your weapon of choice, it seems you can gain a mastery skill. There are a bunch of benefits that make it super useful as well.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sophia said, looking confused. “I received a Bow Mastery skill about two weeks ago.”

Leon and Claire both glanced at each other, her expression likely as shocked as his own.

“So long ago? Why didn’t you mention anything?”

Sophia shrugged. “Well, you guys have been training so much more than me that I just assumed you already had it. Didn’t take me very long to gain the skill, either.”

“I train the most with my weapon and yet I’m the last to receive a Mastery skill,” Claire said, her eyes aflame as she summoned her spear. “Come on, Leon. How about we test if your new skill is useful in a sparring match?”