“Okay, the training is going to be very simple.” Sir Leonidas said.

“You have a shield. I have a sword. You use the shield to block my sword and if you block it 100 times in a row, you switch to a smaller shield. Ready?”

I was nodding along as he spoke and I didn’t find any trap that I could pinpoint, but the uneasy feeling inside me was growing.

However, I didn’t have a choice to say no. After all, I might just explode any second if things go on without me getting the living daylights beaten out of me again.

Sir Leonidas sprang into motion.

A blur registered, and I moved the shield instinctively to block it.

Clang.

The sword hit the shield and bounced away.

Honestly, that wasn’t too hard. All I had to do was just stand in place behind the shield and point it at Teacher.

The shield, being so huge, sure has its advantages; I thought gleefully.

Only for the next second to howl in utmost agony as the pointy tip of the sword almost went up my sensitive behind.

“Wait, isn’t this cheating!!” I cried out desperately

“What, I told you to defend 100 times. I didn’t tell you I wouldn’t attack you from behind.”

“En garde boy!” he yelled and attempted to stab my heinie again.

Sometimes crawling, sometimes hopping, I dodged the sword - all thoughts of the shield forgotten.

All until the sword pommel smacked upon my head and I saw stars which didn’t disappear even though I shook my head like a dog.

“Pathetic,” sneered my gentle and noble teacher.

“Absolutely pathetic,” he repeated.

Throwing myself on his mercy, I pleaded for a reprieve but to no avail.

As such, another round of humiliation ensued with shouts of “coward,”, “Stop Running!” and so on sprinkled liberally.

Eventually, the responsibility for torturing me was handed to Alessia, who was initially reluctant. Reluctant until she found out she could use warforce, at which point she became so ecstatic that she started eyeing me hungrily like a wolf, raising goosebumps all over my body.

So started the next round of torture.

Except, it wasn’t so bad.

In fact, it was surprisingly good.

I was blocking almost every strike because all of her blows seemed slow and feeble.

Puzzled, I tried to think about the reason, only to be dumbfounded.

“The difference between awakened ranks can be so much?” I blurted out.

Clapping his hands, Teacher measuredly said, “I wasn’t using awakened powers at all. I was using iron-ranked powers. Alessia is still at 5 stars of awakening. Just a step away from iron rank but the gap is massive in terms of what one can achieve.”

“What do you feel right now?”

“I feel like her sword is slow and clumsy,” I replied truthfully, while shooting a nervous glance at Sia.

“You’re the only one who might think that in the whole of the awakened rank. Her sword, in fact, is the fastest I have ever seen for an awakened rank. One of the many reasons that she’s my squire and not a page!”

While blushing at the compliment, Sia proudly and helplessly glared at me, as if to say, “Non-awakened boy, you don’t know how awesome I am, but I’m unlucky to have met a freak like you!”

Continuing on, Teacher said, “The reason you find it so slow is that you’ve taken over half an hour of my careful teaching just before. So you’re used to awakened speed. Then with my sword having iron ranked speed, obviously the awakened speed would be slow to you and it will become slower and slower over time.”

“Our bodies are very adaptable. We improve as long as pressure is applied. The more, the better. It’s just that normally people bend or break under the pressure rather than growing to hold the pressure up.”

“Plus, they normally don’t have precious healing objects and generous teachers to heal their training injuries, so they don’t dare to push themselves so far.”

Under his breath, the Teacher mumbled, “My doublet…”

“Haah, moving on, Let me know if you have any difficulties mentally. You can keep submerging yourself in the potion bath but you have to meet me immediately after it!”

“Now chop chop, keep training until you can use the smallest shield here,” saying so, the Teacher unveiled a collection of shields ranging from the size that I was holding, all the way to a teacup saucer-sized shield.

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Again, I do not know where he pulled all of that out from, but this is getting ridiculous.

How do you even block with that saucer shield? The sword itself is wider than that!

But all doubts were cast away as Alessia furiously launched a barrage of attacks, no doubt infuriated from the fact that she had been looked down upon.

I was half tempted to change shields immediately, but caution warned me otherwise. The fury of a woman can be infinitely more dangerous than the sharpest sword wielded by the greatest swordsman!

So I blocked and blocked, till 100 blocks in a row were made.

Holding my fingers up in the victory sign, I cast off the shield carefully, only to stop in stupefaction.

The surface of the shield, which had been pristine, had been dented completely and looked like a bull that had been infuriated, had savaged it.

Gulping, I glanced at Alessia with respect, mingled with fear. If that had been my body and not the shield - I shudder to think of it.

Taking the next shield, which I noticed was also made of the same wood, I idly weighed it and thrust it about before asking Teacher, “What wood is this? It’s so heavy!”

“Thornwood. It’s the same wood as the shield before, just that the shield before was only made internally of Thornwood.”

“Thornwood…” I murmured in appreciation.

“Good shield! Let’s do this, Sia!” I yelled and took the initiative to charge first.

Only to jump back in fright as splinters flew from the shield.

“Wait, wait, wait… didn’t you say that the previous shield was only half Thornwood and this one is fully Thornwood? So isn’t this supposed to be better?” I cried out.

“Who said that? If something is thinner and the material used is the same, won’t its quality be worse in most cases?” My teacher retorted, in contempt.

Befuddled, I had to agree with him. But more importantly, Sia!

If the bull was infuriated last time, the bull was rampaging this time!

HELP!

In less than a minute, the shield had been reduced to its skeleton frame, and I was running helter-skelter all over the prison.

“TIME-OUT,” I bellowed frantically.

With much reluctance and traces of glee, Sia finally put down her sword and gave a rueful, apologetic look at me.

“Sorry, I got too excited there. Whacking you is really fun, you know?” She said with a laugh.

“Sure, everyone gets to whack someone except me,” I bemoaned.

“Not really. You get to whack away as you wish at me for exactly 30 seconds. What you learn during that time is up to you though.” Interjected Teacher.

Brightening up and lighting up the room with the radiance that brimmed on my face at those words, I almost hugged Teacher right then and there!

Whacking Teacher?

With pleasure!

“I made you a sword which is a lot better than Alessia’s. Take good care of it, it took me a long time to make.” Saying so, my teacher threw a sword at me.

Bracing myself, I grabbed it out of the air with a grunt and while I stumbled back a few steps; I didn’t fall down!

“Oh, you seem to have known how heavy it is?”

Glancing at Alessia, who was blushing, he instantly understood what was going on and chuckled before saying,

“That’s made of the finest Thornwood. Its density is over 5 times that of your shield and weighs roughly-”

“50 kilos, I know,” I interrupted.

How do I know? It’s because ol’ Thomas would get so tired of me sneaking down to the kitchen - that he would prepare sacks of food for me and we fixed the weight at 50 kgs. Just enough for me to drag and heft up the few stairs to my room.

Apparently, Leonidas figured it out too, for he asked, “Thomas?”

“Aye,” I replied

“Well, go ahead then, remember 30 seconds.”

Before he could even finish his sentence, I was already dashing ahead and waving my sword erratically and, to be honest, absolutely amateurishly.

Because I was an amateur!

I quickly realized this was the trap that Leonidas had devised.

But thinking back to the beating I underwent, I copied the simplest move that I could remember.

The straight stab.

I almost hit him, but weirdly, I missed at the last second as my sword wound up scraping his shield.

Wait, his shield!

“You didn’t say that you would use a shield,” I howled

“And what? Let you try to touch my body with that sword? Keep dreaming!” retorted my teacher.

Furious now, I launched a series of attacks that could be described as throwing everything but the kitchen sink that existed in my arsenal.

Only for Sir Leonidas to be like a slippery eel, dancing his way through the clumsy blows while occasionally blocking partially with the shield when it came too close.

“Alright, time’s up! 15 minutes, give me an answer as to what you learned,” He said while sighing in disapproval.

Why disapproval? Because I didn’t even touch the corner of the air touching his unstained doublet.

Panting away, I flopped to the ground and thought hard - replaying every move that Teacher made.

Which, I realized, was actually very few.

He didn’t seem to move, yet my sword would miss him.

He didn’t seem to block, yet my sword would slide off the shield.

Wait, slide off?

Bolting upright, I looked at Teacher with excitement before grabbing another Thornwood shield, similar to the one busted by Sia, and gestured to her to attack me.

Doubtfully, she launched into a barrage of attacks, only for me to block every one of them by tilting the surface of the shield such that the attacks scraped by or bypassed me entirely.

Astonished, she looked at me and exclaimed, “You learned redirection so fast?”

“Is that what it’s called?” I asked in delight.

“Yes, though your usage is very rough right now, it is indeed redirection.” observed Teacher, as his eyes shined.

“The principle behind redirection is the smallest force used for the greatest effect. If you can move the sword away such that it misses you or causes the smallest damage, then why would you want to block it entirely?”

“Wouldn’t that be extremely stupid and tiresome?”

“That’s why you redirect the force and the pinnacle is to use redirection to where you want it to land on. But that’s for much later,” the Teacher said, as he broke into a smile.

“Now what are you waiting for, you still have another 20 shields to get that 100 streak on!” Bellowed Teacher.

And so, my training continued.