“However," Miss Leywin continued, "your current fighting style revolves around waiting for your opponent to expose an opening and then exploiting it. While such a tactic is very good in most situations, it won’t be nearly enough for you. If you just focus on defending you will quickly get overpowered by the other espers without even having the chance to fight back. Furthermore, your ability to exploit your classmates' vulnerabilities while fighting without abilities only works because they usually compensate for those flaws with their own abilities. In the tournament, every esper will have access to their abilities and won't offer you any openings. You must learn to create those openings by yourself, and to do so, you must adopt a more aggressive fighting style. Additionally, while your physical capabilities are above average, they need to be absolutely outstanding in order to keep up with the energy-enhanced bodies of your peers."

Seth nodded in understanding.

"As you can see, there's a tremendous amount of work to be done, but for starters, let's begin by improving one of your strengths: your defense," Miss Leywin suggested. "Until now, your defense has centered on blocking your opponent's attacks. However, when facing adversaries many times stronger than you, such a defense will only turn out to be a weakness. The reason for this is that when blocking an attack, you stop the sheer power of the attack while absorbing part of the impact. This means that in order to block an attack you must have a comparable strength to that of your opponent, which will not be the case."

Seth furrowed his brow. "So, what should I do? It would be worse if the attack hit me."

"Yes, it would. However, it's important to understand that blocking isn't the only method of defense, in fact, it's the least effective. There are far superior techniques you must learn before the tournament. The more defensive options you possess, the better prepared you'll be. For now, let's focus on one technique that will prove invaluable: parrying."

"Parrying?" Seth asked, tilting his head in confusion. He had always considered parrying and blocking to be synonymous, and this distinction confused him.

"Yes, when blocking, you completely stop the attack, which needs a considerable amount of strength and consumes more stamina. However, when you parry, your objective is to deflect the attack just enough to avoid being hit. That’s why parrying requires less strength but demands flawless technique. It involves anticipating the direction the attack is going to come from, matching its trajectory with the angle of your sword, and redirecting it away from you. The key is to allow your opponent's attack to slide along your blade," Miss Leywin explained, demonstrating the parry technique with the swords in her hands. "In fact, the katana that you always use," she pointed to Seth's weapon, "was specifically designed to be used with this technique. Its curved shape and slender profile makes it less suitable and more likely to break when absorbing the full impact of an attack."

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After explaining the fundamentals of executing a proper parry, Miss Leywin started with some training exercises to help Seth get used to and better understand the technique. After some hours of practice, Seth was already capable of executing decent parries.

"Good, now, let's put it into action," Miss Leywin declared, and wasting no time, she dashed toward Seth, launching a rapid flurry of attacks. "You can only defend yourself by parrying," she instructed as Seth focused on matching her speed and precision.

Seth focused as much as he could on Miss Leywin’s movements while trying to move his katana as quickly as possible. However, he quickly realized something. As long as he executed a perfect parry, it was easier to keep up with Miss Leywin’s speed.

‘No, it’s not that,’ Seth pondered, ‘it’s not me getting faster thanks to the parries… Rather, it’s the parries slowing her down. When I parry her attacks instead of simply blocking them, she must first stop the momentum of her attack before being able to launch another one, which reduces the speed at which she can unleash the following attack.’

Clang Clang Clang Clang Clang Clang Clang

'He was able to learn the technique this fast… he's really good,' Miss Leywin thought, impressed, as she saw how Seth was starting to catch up to the speed of her attacks. 'Let's see how fast you can go,' she thought, grinning internally, as she gradually increased the speed of her attacks.

Seth gritted his teeth, seeing how Miss Leywin became faster and faster. ‘I need to go faster,’ he pushed himself.

ClangClangClangClangClangClang

To Miss Leywin's surprise, Seth managed to catch up to her increased speed with equal agility and precision.

Miss Leywin continued to gradually increase the speed of her attacks until it was twice as fast as her initial speed. At this point, Seth started finding it difficult to keep up with the speed of her attacks. He could feel his breath growing heavier, and his eyes frantically darted around, struggling to track each incoming strike.

‘I didn’t expect him to be able to keep up with this much speed, but now, the true training begins.’

At Seth's current level, when fighting, every action, every technique, every movement, required a conscious thought. Analyzing the trajectory of an incoming attack, determining the best way of defending, and then bringing his weapon to the correct position, his mind did all these calculations within a split second. However, this mental process still consumed valuable time. Though, it also meant that there was a way to improve Seth's speed without solely relying on physical agility. Turning Seth’s defense, instinctive.