Chapter 107- Freak Of Nature
After the failed attempt to try and fly using the hybrid clawing bird, he made the summon return to his shadow before doing his daily training routine and sleeping. As much as Rin was aware of how special he was, he liked to keep this fairly straightforward and simple lifestyle.
The reason for that is that living a normal life like this even though most of his time, he was experiencing and facing abnormal situations, he wanted to keep his sense of an average life intact. He wanted his feeling of being human to stay as it is. Maybe it was because of his fear of the future or what he will become, but, for the time being, he wanted his daily life ignoring the major events that are happening one after the other to be as mediocrely average as possible.
The next day, after their classes, Emilia called Rin to her office. It has been 3 days since the last training session they had and Rin was frankly eager to continue training under her supervision because the progress he saw in the last week was simply amazing.
Not only did his technique with the dagger jump by leaps and bounds, everything else evolved accordingly without the need to even use the system or his Action Points at all. He was still sitting on over 8000 points that could easily push one of his stats to E+ Or even D- which was impressive.
Having such thoughts, he looked at Emilia who was still ignoring him as she wrote something on a stack of papers. Her aura was even colder than usual.
'She's angry?' He thought to himself as he sat on the comfortable chair silently. Watching her work wasn't really that boring since she had such a charming demeanor that instinctively makes her stand out no matter what she did.
After an unknown amount of time, she sighed and put the pen down before she rested her face on her fist.
"How were your first two days?"
"Not bad. It's frankly easy." He said.
Nodding her head, she stood up and walked toward him, her sharp eyes kept glancing at him.
"I called here for two main reasons: the first one is that phase 2 of your training is going to start today."
"Phase 2? There were phases in my training?"
"Yes, what you learned the last week was phase 1. I just engraved the basics into your head. From dagger techniques to close-combat techniques in general. Your talent made it easier for you to absorb all of that like a sponge."
"Thanks for the compliment, master!"
"It's not a compliment, moron. Sigh…" She tapped her forehead with a long sigh before she pointed at him.
"Your talent can turn into a curse if you don't value it. It's already scary as it is so keep that in mind."
Rin nodded his head at her words knowing fully well that even though she was acting harshly now, she was doing all of this to protect him which he was grateful for. Emilia was someone who didn't like to convey emotions, not because she was simply incapable of doing so similarly to Elise but because she found them 'pointless'. For her, emotions were a hindrance to one's mind and thinking. The more the person drowns themselves in emotions, the more vulnerable they are and that was a taboo for her.
She was a very talented magician and a master at the sword who made millions of people look up to her and millions more envy her powers. Having countless enemies lurking in the shadows means that she needed to erase any possible weak points they could attack her from and emotions were one of them.
So, most of the time, her words, actions, and even her general expression looked intimidating and also slightly harsh. However, Rin didn't mind that at all as she was by no means a malicious person.
"The second important thing is: I want you to spar with me." She said.
"Spar with you?" Rin tilted his head, clearly confused.
"Yes, I want to see how much you improved and also to see what kind of dungeon we are going to visit for your next phase."
"Oh? This quickly?"
"Yes, I expected it to take at least 3 months before allowing you to train your skills with actual dungeon monsters. But, it seems that my calculations were wrong by 5 weeks." She said sarcastically.
"Great! I miss dungeons."
"You did enter a dungeon before?"
"Yes… and it almost killed me, hehe." He said with an awkward chuckle.
"Well, I'm sure you will be fine this time since I will be there with you."
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Rin stood silently as he looked at Emilia lightly stretching her limbs. She looked so causal that it made him feel very slightly nervous. He was sure that she won't beat him up too much but he was still going against a monstrously strong individual that could easily shred him to pieces if she wanted.
"The spar will be 5 minutes long. Use everything you have to try and touch me once. If you do, you will get a reward. If you don't, you will be punished."
"Just one touch?" He asked.
"Yes, very simple, isn't it?"
"You won't trick me, master. I'm sure it will be extremely hard to do that."
His answer made Emilia smile slightly, just barely for him to see before losing her eyes and cracking her neck.
"Well, I don't think you can do that. But, I'm more than curious to see you try. Impress me."
Nodding his head, Rin looked at his dagger for a moment before taking a deep breath. He erased all secondary thoughts from his head and solely focused on the fight. All the things he learned in the past week came rushing back to him.
'I improved a lot. Let's see if that is the case.'
*Swish*
His body vanished quickly as he dashed toward Emilia at his fastest speed. Rin was not stupid enough to hold back anything at all. He was going to go all out this time.
Closing the distance quickly, he didn't immediately slash his dagger. Normally, that would be the case when he fought before. But, the past and the present were completely different.
'Formless Ghost Dagger.' He thought.
[Formless Ghost Daggers.]
[Rank: A]
[Level: 1]
[Daggers are the blades of assassination and the weapons of shadows. A mere swing could harvest souls and end lives. Formless as they are, they will be the ghosts of death that will never be seen.]
[Every time this skill is activated, your movement will become blurry for any opponent while also increasing your movement speed and strength for 10 seconds. The skill's cooldown is 10 minutes. The cooldown decreases as you level it up.]
Activating the skill, his body blurred for a moment from Emilia's vision. But, the latter didn't move at all, instead, she merely bent to the side.
The next second, Rin's dagger slashed where she stood from behind her. He had sneakily changed his position in that one second of camouflage. His speed was also greatly increased, making teh slash appear like a flash of light that quickly vanished.
"Still slow. Don't always try to attack from behind." Emilia explained.
The latter nodded his head and quickly changed the grip on his dagger before stabbing to the side without cutting the combo off.
Emilia simply bent to the side again, dodging it as if it was nothing.
"You are still predictable. You must hide your intent from your enemies."
"Hah!!!" Focusing on his movement, Rin jumped back before dashing toward her again from the side. Then, midway, he jumped in the air and span a few times like a tornado, his blade moved along with him as he aimed for Emilia.
*Swish*
"Good attack, but it lacks speed. You jumped too high in the air." She said as she looked at him.
*Swish* *Swish* *Swish*
A series of swift stabs and slashes followed suit after that but none of them even scraped her clothes let alone touch her. Emilia was predicting his attacks and dodging them as if they were nothing.
"Lacks strength there. Try to use your whole body in each attack to give it as much strength as possible."
*Swish*
"Great side attack. You created a perfect combo with the camouflage of mana."
*Swish*
"That's better than before. Just like that.."
With each instruction she gave him, Rin kept improving basically in an instant. He easily understood and absorbed what she said and then fixed his mistake in the next attack.
That level of comprehension could make other supposed geniuses just die from shock. He can learn in an instant?! What kind of nonsense is that?!
However, only Emilia was there to witness that great improvement. But, even while witnessing her little monster creation, she didn't allow him to have any kind of success in his attacks at all.
She wasn't even pretending that it was exerting some of her efforts. All she did was dodge and then sternly fix his mistakes. However, deep in her head, she was having different thoughts.
'What a fucking monster. Hehehe. Not only has he basically mastered all the Formless Shadow Dagger techniques, but he also kept improving with each word I say. That's a bad joke, really.' Seeing all of her hard work turn Rin into such a freak of nature was so thrilling that it could only make her eyes burn with determination. This boy was just such a subject of deep amazement and unbearable curiosity for Emilia.
'You are something else, Rin. How deep can your mystery go? For how long should I dig to find the end of your potential?'
(A//N: Did you like the chapter or do training arcs feel boring with my writing style? I have no idea so a simple answer will help a lot.)
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