When was the first time I used a sword or any other kind of weapon? I’m sure it was three years after I started living the second part of my life.

I already learned a few things about this new power, and my body had started changed externally. I could do a lot of things in those 3 years of training, all thanks to the Akashic Records (or what I thought was it), but I would leave that explanation to another day.

I thought that I could do almost anything at that time, but sadly, that void still lingered around me, so I started looking for new things to do, things that kept me distracted, oblivious. And who wouldn’t think about mastering weapons?

At home I had a truly old sword, probably from 19th Century, I took it with me when I leave my parents home… It was all damaged, no edge, chipped here and there, and rusted till you couldn’t see its original color anywhere.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if it broke anytime with just a little swing at anything. But, even then, it became sort of my training sword.

Of course, living in a third world country, finding a gun wasn’t difficult per se, even around my house you could find like 5 to 10 guys with them. And I didn’t live in a dangerous place to begin with, not even a country with free gun rights, so you could imagine how easy it was to find guns around here.

With that said, guns were my first choice. I mean, after playing Devil May Cry who wouldn’t like to be like Dante? Doing stunts here and there shooting two guns like no tomorrow.

But. I soon found out that shooting mana as bullets wasn’t anything close to easy, and that guns of my world would break really fast when handled roughly. So, I abandoned that idea as soon as I broke the second pair of guns. Not that I didn’t learned, but it was still far in time until I got there.

After guns, knife where the other weapon that I tried. But there was something about its reach… I was not confident enough, so I just dropped the idea and let it rest for later.

That leaved me with swords and spears. Swords were obvious. As I said, I really liked fantasy novels, games and everything that had a fantasy theme on it. With spears was the same, with the addition that it is a relatively safer weapon to use. It reaches longer, easier to use at basic level in a more lethal way than a sword, just stab and stab again until it dies.

Between those two, the choice was obvious. The sword. Where the hell would I find some spear to train? Make one? Not motivated enough. I already had a sword close, though it was all damaged, it was still a real sword.

I slowly started training by myself, looking around the Internet for anything that could be remotely useful for learning. Videos, books, audiobooks, even tried some manga, manhwa and manhua’s techniques. But most of those were more on the flashy side that on the practical way.

It wasn’t easy at first, so I kept to basics, swing down, swing up, diagonal, horizontal. I kept repeating, over and over again, until those motions ingrained themselves in my body.

It sounds funny to say so, but that’s a pretty good way to train in something. Just repeat and repeat until your body remembers faster than your brain. With that thought in mind, and after finishing with the basics, I started looking for new styles, and that made me travel to the US, Japan and France. To learn different styles of sword wielding.

The US being a country practically made of immigrants, it wasn’t that hard to find different schools of martial arts, and I could learn from a few different places, including Chinese, European fencing, and a few other styles, even a few one from America and the north, like Norwegian swordplay, or viking fighting, just without the drug using.

Japan with its own history on swords, samurais, and even ninjas (though those last were more on the “not fighting if avoidable”, they still had their own way to use a sword). I truly learnt a lot there, more classic, less sport, kendo was my first choice, but I soon went to kenjutsu, that even if isn’t an international known sport, it still a more practical way of using the sword.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Though, not to lie, they are really conservative with their own things, so I couldn’t learn anything really advanced, more like basics here and there, and a few things I could steal while watching stealthy (breaking a few laws on the process).

And finally, France, with its fencing, that was really easy to start practicing thanks to the multiple sports centers that teach over there. You could really find a lot of places to practice fencing in France, kind of like a popular sport there even. I just didn’t like the light sword used for fencing, neither the epee or the foil sword, even the sabre just felt to light for me.

I still practiced though, as I could use a longsword as a foil sword with my strength. So, you could imagine how it would feel to swing a foil sword for me, probably like a paper sword or something like that.

Of course, along with each sword practice, I had to start learning martial arts, which wasn’t anything bad on its own, I already did some while I was young, so I had some experience. Not experience like in that I could brag about being a master trained from childhood, as I soon abandoned each one of them when the interest just disappeared as if it wasn’t there.

I started learning, adapting whatever I could grasp, and creating my own form. All the while trying to mix everything with my own physical prowess, mana and natural energy, giving life to a style just for me.

It somehow grew with me, and being the enthusiast of fantasy I am, I soon started trying to learn dual swords. For references, I used dual swords only in any Monster Hunter I played at that time, so it wasn’t truly a surprise.

I started working hard on it, keeping my senses entirely focused on using two swords. I’m not going to lie. It was hard. So damn hard. If I had to repeat the basic moves for one sword ten thousand times, with dual sword I had to repeat each movement at least twice as that, even more if the moves went different ways.

Also, I did use some moves from Monster Hunter. Why not? The game has really cool moves, and seemed to have a great balance combo-wise. And I also have some kind of “demon form” I could use to enhance my speed.

After that, times just did its own, after a few years of practicing and practicing I mastered my own dual wielding style, learned a few other weapons and even accomplished my dream of being Dante-like with dual guns and a big sword on my back. For the record, shaping mana in the form of bullets, and accelerating them from the barrel of a gun isn’t easy… And you need a special gun for that, one I had to ask someone to make, but that’s a story for another day.

Now that leads me to the present, right here, when we’ll have to grab a main weapon to use on Cube.

What the fuck should I grab? A sword? I mean, why would I pick a sword here? Wouldn’t be better to pick another thing to make things more interesting? I know how to wield a few kinds of weapons, so I don’t have to choose a sword…

Also, I still don’t know if I have the same authority as Hajin, in which case using a gun or some other weird weapon would help me get some points now and in the future.

…It’s hard to choose…

While thinking about my main weapon, we all walk to a room full of training weapons behind our teacher.

“Any weapon you can think of should be here. Stand in front of the weapon you want. We’ll supply you with the training weapons. But don’t look down on them just because they’re training weapon. Their market price is 5 million won.”

Probably not a lie, I could see a lot of weapons, of any kind. From swords to daggers, from guns to crossbows. I could choose any kind, but I still can’t decide.

“Choose carefully. Once you pick your main weapon, you won’t be able to change it for at least 6 months.”

Maybe a halberd or a spear could do, I did practice with a spear before, a crescent blade spear. But I could also choose two daggers or gloves to do some enhanced hand to hand combat.

Mmm… It’s hard. I don’t know what to choose.

Probably a sword should be the best, after all, I’m at my best while I wield a sword, and in case I don’t get my real self-back, it would be better to choose something that I’m proficient in, just in case. It’s not like I can’t change weapons after today, but it will be hard at first.

“Kim Chundong, why are you standing still?”-Kim Soohyuk suddenly asked, waking me up from my indecisive overthinking moment.

But Kim Chundong, or should I say Kim Hajin, seems to still be lost on his own thoughts. He was probably thinking hard about choosing a gun. Not that I blame him. He still didn’t know about his authority; how could he know it would be his best choice?

Thinking about it, I hastily went to pick a sword while he hasn’t said anything. Don’t want to grab any attention to myself so early. You’re alone on this, mate.

“Kim Chundong.”

After the second warning, he hastily went to pick the gun, and stood there looking at it. By the way, I chose a long sword, but will probably change to something else later, you can’t even dualwield with a long sword, not unless you want to get entangled mid-combo. I’m not chuuni enough to try that.