Next day at school I was besieged by my classmates the moment I stepped into the room, as they all asked me about the fight and praised me. I was really overwhelmed by them and could only answer some few questions before the teacher came into the room and persuaded us to take our seats. The day went by as normal after the little incident, nothing out of the unexpected happened.

The next few days went by as normal: train, train, and train. But after a week had passed since the competition, I met the guy I tied with in the training Center, which would be normal, but I never saw him here before. I walked towards him on sight and asked him what he was doing here. He told me that he wouldn’t give me an easy win next year, and so he would train too. I liked his spirit and told him if he wanted we could train; he agreed without thinking much, and so we spared, spotted, and trained with each other. But even though we were good friends after a while, I never learned much about his family or life. The only thing I know about him is his name, which might as well be fake. Because he said to me that I could just call him ‘Nian’. But I didn’t mind his whole attitude and situation and didn’t ask further.

Nian and I trained much over the year until our day came again when the competition was held. This year, 940 AV, is my third time in this competition, and I will probably be promoted to the fourth class.

This time I won once again all matches and even got 29 points, but later on I challenged Nian, who had also easily won all matches, just like last time. Maybe not as flashy as me, but even then it was quite an impressive sight. The fight began with a huge uproar of the crowd, as our epic fights got known over the year. All the crowd cheered for either one of us.

The fight began with a coin falling to the ground, and at the same time our swords already producing a rumbling. For us it was normal speed, but for the normal spectator insanely fast.

This time we fought for nearly an hour straight. We both fought so often against each other over the year that we knew nearly all our moves, but only nearly. And so, after we were both quite tired from fighting, I used all my remaining strength to finish Nian off. For this, I waited until he attacked with a swing from above, but instead of blocking, I ducked myself and quickly went near him. Through this, his huge sword swung down behind me, and I safely avoided the attack. But instead of trying to step him, which would make him jump back, I let my weapons fall to the bottom and clasped his lower body. So he couldn’t move or attack me. I threw myself on the floor and threw Nian over my left shoulder forward. He landed on his back and couldn’t stand up any more, and so I won with my newly learned martial arts. I am still nowhere near to master them, but they are a nice addition to my fighting style.

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My win made me really happy, and I enjoyed being the strongest once again. But I knew I could as well have lost, and if I stopped training, I would instantly fall behind my rival again.

And so I and Nian trained all those years we were in school together, and every year we would do a more epic fight than the last one. We both got known in the school as the strongest, and many stayed after the competition to see our fight. Normally, no one would even think about staying longer than they had to, but just for our match, they did. We were even closely watched by the headmaster, who rarely took interest in students, but maybe he saw potential in us both. Sadly I couldn’t yet see the headmasters strength, even so he makes the impression, just by looking at me, as if he still could crush me easily. And year after year I began to see more through his strength, and the more I did the more respect I had from this guy.

And so time flew by until I was finally 17, which meant that this year would be my last in school, and when it’s over, I would finally be allowed to do whatever I wanted to do. I already knew what I was going to do: I would join the military forces in Aldorem. The advanced instructor, who helped me train, still has good connections in the military and will help me get accepted there.

But until then, I still needed to complete my last competition and, with that, successfully finish school. Which was still a bit more than a quarter of a year away from taking place. Like all the time I did before, I trained until then, but actually I changed my training habits a lot over the past years. Now I also meditate and do some martial arts, like judo, muai thai and taekwondo; furthermore, I specialized in dual-wielding daggers and short swords, but also in fast speed and strong attacks with high accuracy. For being more deadly, I learned all the weak points not only from the human body but also from many different animals.

For training, I build, near my favourite-spot, outside the chasm, a whole training area. There is also a parcour, with traps that I need to avoid, targets to shoot at, rocks to climb up, and much more. I usually go up there four times a week, and sometimes I take Nian with me. Then I train pretty intensively or go hunting nearby. Over the last few years, I got really strong and could easily hunt anything in the forest, except for bears. All different guys told me that they are just too strong and have a great defence; there is just a little chance that I can really damage them they said, so I didn’t even try.

Nian and I started only sparring every month once since last year, because until the next match, we could now think of many new techniques and we would be able to put up a knew challenge against each other. Before, we spared so often that our fights began taking hours and were getting boring as it was every time just the same as we knew each other's techniques so well. But now as it is, our fights have begun to be more enjoyable again. Through this I am really hyped about our last fight, which will give away the final winner of our rivalry. So I will train even more than normally until it, and hopefully win.