Chapter 8 - Hologram Training

“New training? Why so sudden?” I asked Reid who is smoking his cigarette.

“Well, since I’ve taught you the basics of swordsmanship and some hand-to-hand combats for the last few months and you’ve also learnt magic, I thought that its time to raise the difficulty a bit.” He blows(?) the smoke from his mouth.

“I see. So, what will the new training be?”

“I am going to make you apply all the things you’ve learnt since the first time I trained you.” Reid snaps his fingers.

A transparent figure appears next to Reid. It was a boy the same height as me. On his right hand is a transparent sword. The weird thing about the boy is that he has no face.

“Isn’t that..me?” I was stunned by the appearance of transparent me.

“Yep. Just like this world I made inside your consciousness, I made a copy of you using my mana.” He explains. “This “you” I made is as strong as you in swordsmanship and also has something similar to your magics. This training is similar to the hologram training I had back then.”

I nodded, “Fighting someone of similar level both in physical and magic power..This will be hard.”

“What? Chicken out already?” Reid smirked.

“Heh. Bring it on.”

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Reid snaps his finger once again. Reid disappears from sight to give space for us. The jet-black sword I found back in the cave few months ago appears infront of me. With an excited smile, I grab the sword and both “me” rush towards each other.

‘First one to hit will have advantage!’ I swiftly stabs towards left shoulder. ‘What?!’

Unexpectedly, “he” was able to evade my attack. “He” instantly aimed for a counter attack.

“Shit!” I managed to roll before the sword was able touch me. ‘Same level my ass! This “me” is obviously a level stronger than I am.’

Without giving me any time to stand up, “he” starts to attack me mercilessly. I can barely defend against the fierce attacks he’s giving. I block another attack of his and jump backwards.

‘This “me” has more power than I do. Not only that, his precision, timing and speed is also better than I am. How the hell do I defeat him?’

I got into defensive stance as “he” starts to leaps towards me. “He” unleash yet another wave of flurry attacks. Up, down, left, right. There was no place “he” didn’t attack yet.

After blocking, rolling and dodging many waves of attacks, I finally fell down on my knees. My body wasn’t able to keep up with the fast attacks. As a snap sound was heard, “he” started to disperse and instead, Reid appears in “his” place.

“Why didn’t you use magic?”

“Tch, without magic and that guy already kept me in check. What would happen if he got faster or his weapon got sharper? My body is already riddled with scratches here and there.”

“Bahaha, good thinking! If you were to use magic, being left with few broken bones would be good already.” Reid laughed out loud

“Damn old man, what are you trying to do making me fight that thing?”

“Just be glad that you were weak. Back then at soldiers’ camp, three out of ten would suffer serious injury during this training. You’re lucky to only have scratches.”

“Tch.” I was dissatisfied with Reid’s training.

“There’s a few more hours before morning. Do you want to continue or sleep?”

“I'm going to sleep. I need to check up on Aaron tomorrow.”

"Alright. Remember to not call me unless its emergency or for training. Using mana also tires me."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm off." 

With that, I close my eyes. I feel my consciousness leaving the world Reid created inside me. When I came back to, I was back on my bed. As I feel fatigue to catch up, just like how one would have after dreaming about doing physical stuff, I quickly go to sleep.