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“Ready yourself.” Instructor Greyham said as he pointed his wooden sword at me in a casual stance.

Once I ready myself, he dashes towards me at almost superhuman speed. It is slightly slower than Dad dashing at me without aura, but if I compare their ages, Instructor Greyham is extremely spry for an oldtimer.

I raise my sword to ready myself and anticipate the incoming strike, but that is when Instructor Greyham raises his sword in a totally impractical stance that I have never seen before, like some weeb who bought this first katana.

His blade was in front of his face, covering his eyes… how am I supposed to take someone who does that seriou- “GAHH!!!”

As I was wondering what Instructor Greyham was doing, a bright light flashed from the front of his blade, blinding me. The only thing I was able to do was to bring my guard close into my body as I closed my eyes tight from the pain of getting flashed.

Next thing I knew, I felt a strong whack to my wooden sword that almost disarmed me, but I caught my sword and took a wild swing in the direction I thought the attack came from but hit air, and then I felt my legs get swept out from under me as the blunt tip os a training sword met my shoulder.

As I was blinking the spots out of my vision, I found myself on my ass with a wooden sword pointed at my neck.

“Again.” Instructor Greyham said as he turned around and walked back to his starting position.

I got back on my feet, now more wary of magical trickery, but seeing what Instructor Greyham did to get the better of me, I kind of grasped an idea of what he was aiming for, he was being tricksy.

Once again, Instructor Greyham charged at me, but this time he charged in while using something I had only read about. Single-handed gestures to help speed up the casting of spells he could not purely mentally cast.

In the blink of an eye, he was done with his preparation and outstretched his off-hand in my direction, and a haze of darkness crept toward me and blocked my line of sight on him. The only way I could tell where he was, was his barely audible footsteps that told me he changed directions and was coming at me slightly off from his last seen approach.

I immediately jumped backward to avoid fighting in the dark haze and heard the woosh of his sword barely miss my chest. As I jumped back, I mentally cast a first circle wind spell to blow away the haze, but when my wind spell came in contact with the creeping haze… nothing happened.

Does that mean this haze is pure darkness? I hold a hand above my head and cast the same flash spell Instructor Greyham flashed me with.

The moment my first circle light spell flashed, the dark haze was blown away, to reveal Instructor Greyham was hiding in a thin part of the dark haze I thought he could not fit in, and that he was too close for comfort.

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In response to revealing his position, Instructor Greyham casts a first circle wind spell, but not at me, he did it to the ground a couple of meters in front of me, kicking dust up at me.

I quickly countered with my own first circle wind spell to avoid dust being blasted in my eyes, and as I was lowering my hand from casting the spell, Instructor Greyham burst through the clash of wind and dust as he raised his sword to strike me.

With no time to put both my hands on my sword, I raised my sword in my right hand over my head and braced the tip of the wooden sword on my left shoulder, just in time for the blow aiming for my shoulder to hit my sword and slide off, but even if I defended against the blow, I was still thrown off balance due to the weight difference in the force that could be applied.

As I stumbled to the side from the blow, I decided to make use of my side stumble to jump to the side, did a roll, and got into a sprinting position, from there, I pushed off the ground towards Instructor Greyham and met him blade to blade.

Knowing I would not be able to do anything to overpower him without aura, and even though it was not said, I knew that overpowering my opponent was not the moral of the lesson, instead of manifesting my aura, I grabbed Instructor Greyham’s main sword arm and cast a first circle Spark spell.

This made Instructor Greyham spasm and threw me off of him with the sheer strength of his arm.

I went flying a good five meters before hitting the ground and rolling for a bit, and as I stopped rolling, Instructor Greyham sounded out, “Well done.”

By the time I got up to reorientate myself, one of the healers was already at my side checking on my condition.

“Did all of you see how I fought? This is how you can fight to take advantage of weak spells to greater effect and provide openings to attack your opponents.” then he turned to me, “Nice last move there Ironcrest.”

One of the boys raised his hand, and when he was allowed to speak, he asked, “Sir, what was nice about the last move? He grabbed you and you sent him flying.”

Instructor Greyham nodded and turned to me, “Ironcrest, explain what happened when you grabbed me.”

After telling the class that I cast the Spark spell and shocked him, Instructor Greyham took over, “None of you saw it because we were in direct contact, but shocking an opponent is a very effective way to incapacitate an opponent. Was I much weaker and he continued shocking me, I would have been wide open for him to strike me with his sword. And even with how it currently played out, I was vulnerable for a few seconds, a few seconds that I could have caught an arrow or spell to the face in a real fight.”

After he was done explaining, another hand went up, this time it was some kid from a martial house from the look of his coat of arms, “Sir, are we to learn to fight like that? It kind of looks like the way thieves and other… less savory people fight, without elegance or honor.”

Hearing this Instructor Greyham gave a somewhat disappointed shake of his head, “Yes. That is because it works… if you are having a one-on-one dual in front of more polite company where you are more likely to survive, sure, by all means, fight with elegance or honor… but outside of that, let me assure you, you will be given no such luxury. When you enter the real world and find yourself in a fight to the death, nothing is off the table, eye gouging, aiming for the groin, poisons and hidden weapons, you name it, they will be used if your opponent wants to live another day.

What we have been teaching you in basic swordsmanship for the last four years is how to handle your sword, what I am teaching you in this class is how to apply it along with your magic, but most importantly, how to survive. Can’t swing your sword if you are dead, can you?”

From there, Instructor Greyham taught us when and how to best use first and second circle spells to cover our approach or retreat, and how to use them to open up our opponent for follow-up action.

After that, we were given some time to practice some quick-cast spells of our choice, followed by letting us spar against Instructor Greyham and his assistant instructors to finish the lesson off.