Sam continued on with his practice with Professor Goldblade taking him back through the practice loop of all the different moves he had taught him throughout the class. As he continued to progress through the repetitions he felt himself get more and more comfortable with the moves. It even felt as if the blade had started to feel a bit lighter in his hand.

  The repetition of the moves continued until Professor Jirkemf came to take Professor Goldblade’s place instructing him. He watched as Sam ran through the moves the final time before deciding to change it up a bit. “Alright, I think you’re starting to get the hang of that. Let’s try something new” the professor said as he took a wooden practice sword off the rack. “I want you to take three steps towards me striking at me from different angles with each step. After the third step I want you to transition into a retreat taking a step back as I strike at you. I then want you to block each of my strikes until once again switching to the attack, okay?” the professor instructed. “Sounds good” Sam replied taking up his stance.

  Sam spent the next twenty minutes continuously stepping forwards and striking before retreating and blocking before the professor suddenly parried one of Sam’s strikes and countered him. Sam was taken by surprise by the move and by reflex he blocked the strike. “Good block, now we’ll transition the drill. On the second block I want you to attempt to counter and on the flip side when attacking I want you to try and read the counter and block it without overextending yourself” the professor instructed as their practice continued. Sam surged forward making two rapid strikes before stepping back to block the counter. He blocked the follow-up strike before countering himself. When the professor next went for a counter Sam, instead of blocking moved out the way of the strike drawing his sword in towards him and pushing it back out in a reverse hand strike back at the professor’s blade. The strike hit the other sword pushing it away from the professor. Sam immediately stepped into a thrust aimed directly at the middle of the professor’s stomach. Just before his strike hit he lost his balance as he fell back towards the ground the professor having swept his foot out from under him and caught him mid fall.

  “Nice try, let my guard down a bit there and you nearly got me” the professor exclaimed. “Oh, thanks I just saw an opening and decided to take it” Sam said. “Very good, being able to read your opponent is key to being a great swordsman. Just make sure you pay attention to more than just your opponent’s upper body as the legs can be used to sweep your feet or crush your knees” the professor explained. “I see, thank you for the insight” Sam replied gratefully. “Well, I have to make some preparations for the up coming class so please continue practicing your strikes on the dummy while I’m away” the professor instructed as he turned and headed for the locker room.

  Sam continued his swings at the dummy and as they started to feel a bit repetitive he started to change it up a bit. He imagined the dummy jumping out at him and blocking invisible strikes while parrying other invisible blows and striking at invisible enemies. After another 15 minutes of practice the time came for the next lesson to start. Some of the other students in the class had already arrived or returned from their break and were waiting for the professor and his instructors to arrive. Sam put his practice sword down and joined Albert who was waiting with the rest of the class. “Albert, how was lunch?” Sam asked him. “Good, were you here the whole time practicing?” has asked. “Yeah, I just felt like I was getting into a groove and since we had another class after break decided to practice through since Professor Goldblade offered to stay until Professor Jirkemf arrived” Sam explained. Just as Albert was about to say something else the professor as well as the instructors Alejandro, Harold and Percy arrived.

  “Alright everyone listen up. We’re going to be continuing on from last lesson in your respective groups. Group two will be practicing sword combat with me. Group three will be practicing blunt weapon fighting with Alejandro and Percy and group one will be doing Archery with Harold. Does anyone have any questions?” Professor Jirkemf asked. The professor allowed for a few seconds to pass however no one raised their hands. “Alright, that’s all. Get to work” he instructed as the students began to split off into their respective groups.

  The five members of group two paired up with the professor joining Sam as the sixth person. “Alright, we will begin sparing and go on for around 10 minutes. Please be careful not to injure your sparing partner” the professor said as he began the bouts. Sam sparred with the professor blocking strikes, parrying blows and dodging out the way of thrusts. He felt like he was starting to get into a good rhythm as he increased the number of counters he was doing. Before long Sam noticed that the professor had turned up the pressure pushing Sam back as he got fewer and fewer parries in. Just as he was about to block again he saw a small opening as the professor raised his blade to strike down at him diagonally. As the blade descended Sam parried the blade across the professors chest and thrust his knee into the exposed leg just above the professor’s knee knocking him off balance. Sam stepped through the strike and brough his blade down lightly striking the back of the professor’s neck. ‘Ping’ a notification sounded in his mind as he stepped away. “Nice work Sam, that was a good move” the professor exclaimed.

  Sam took his focus away from the professor and opened his system notifications to read the message he had just received. ~ Natural Skill Gained. ‘Basic Swordsmanship' LV1~ Sam smiled as he read through the message. “Something good happen lad?” the professor questioned. “Yes, I gained the Basic Swordsmanship skill” Sam replied. “Nice work lad. All that practice has paid off. As I’m sure you’re aware, use of the skill in combat and continued practice will help you level the skill up. Once it reaches level 100 it will evolve into the swordsmanship skill and then advanced swordsmanship and finally Master Swordsman skill. Once you have master swordsman you can get a Psudo skill with all the standard combat skills included in it called Combat Master. They all have to also be ‘Master’ skills so it will require a lot of work. But that’s going to be a fair way out for you” the professor chuckled at the end of his explanation.

  “Percy” the professor called out to the other side of the arena. Percy stopped what he was doing and looked over as the professor motioned for him to come over to where they were standing by the training dummies. The whole group of students waited as Percy made his way over to them. “I want you to take over the sword training” I need to help Sam here plan out how to develop his new basic swordsmanship skill” he said patting Sam on the shoulder. “Can do boss” Percy replied signaling back to Alejandro to continue on without him.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Sam followed the professor back into the stands of the arena and through to one of the classrooms. Sam took a seat as the professor picked up some chalk from the podium and began writing on the slate board on the wall. “This here will be your new daily practice routine” the professor said. “You can do it either morning or evening although I recommend the morning. This is only a short training routine, but it will help in leveling up your swordsmanship skill outside of sparring during class and trips into the dungeons. “First you will want to do a quick warm up, especially in the morning. This will be a combination of arm circles, shoulder rolls, wrist rotations and some light footwork drills. The footwork drills will be just a few steps forward, back and around as you imagine moving around an opponent. You will want to do this for no more than three minutes. Next you will want to do some basic strike practice doing 10 reps of the following. Vertical cuts where you’re focusing on keeping a straight centre line, Diagonal cuts both right to left and left to right. Horizontal cuts around waist and shoulder height doing 10 of each and making sure to keep your blade level throughout the strikes” the professor instructed pausing to ensure Sam was following along.

  “Once you have done the basic strikes you will want to spend some time working on thrusts and guards. 10 reps each of straight thrusts followed by high guard blocking drills and finally side guard blocking drills. After that you will want to practice an advancing step, a strike then followed by a retreat and guard. To finish the training off do some figure eight cuts which are a continuous diagonal loop to practice fluidity, some block and counter practice simulating blocking then riposte with a strike and finally a cut and thrust combo with a diagonal cut followed by a quick thrust. This should take you about 15 to 20 minutes to run through it all and leave you in a good position to advance your skill. The skill will activate on its own so just continue how you have been. The final thing is that you should start using your own sword while practicing so as to get used to its weight and length. While you can practice with a wooden sword there isn’t really a reason to do so when training alone” the professor explained.

  “Now, copy that down into your notes. Once done head over to the archery range for the remainder of the lesson and work on leveling up your archery skill” the professor instructed before leaving the classroom. Sam copied down everything the professor had written down on the slate board leaving a few extra notes to help himself better understand the moves in question when he first starts going through the practice. Once he had finished writing it all down he left the classroom and exited the combat arena heading for the archery range. Once he got there he joined Albert in practicing his bowmanship.

  Sam sat down against the wall and checked his notifications reading it out in his head ~Natural Skill ‘Basic Archery’ level gained. 'Basic Archery' is now Level 2~. He dismissed the notification and leaned back up against the wall as he waited for one of the shooting lanes to free up again. The fatigue from his sword practice was finally starting to hit him. The only thing keeping his arms up straight when he was shooting his bow was the skill itself. As he sat back against the wall watching the others take their turns practicing Sam decided to have a look at his status.

  Samuel Holdridge:

  Age: 13

  Level: 19

  Status:

  Strength: 62

  Agility: 19

  Intelligence:38

  Wisdom: 38

  Perception: 19

  Endurance: 19

  Luck: 19

  Resources:

  Health: 20/20

  Mana: 6/6

  Stamina: 15/15

  Blood Skills: God of the Reapers

  Skill Fragments 1/10 - Reaper of Strength Lv 1.

  Natural Skills: Farming Lv 25, First Aid Lv 25, Cleaning Lv 26, Cooking Lv 27, General Identification Lv 27, Item Identification Lv 27, Creature Identification Lv 26, Skill Identification Lv 25, Long Jump LV 5, High Jump LV 3, Casting LV 6, Reeling LV 2, Baiting LV 1, Basic Archery LV 6, Mounted Archery LV 4, Horse Riding LV 2 , Knot Craft LV 4, Mana Manipulation LV 4, Dimensional Storage LV 3, Brick Layer LV 1, Basic Swordsmanship LV 1,

  Titles: Rodent Killer (Plus 10% Damage done to Rodents) 110/1000, Punch Up (20% Stat bonus when fighting opponents twice or more as strong)

  Sam sighed as he finished reading his status. He had gained a lot of skills over the last month but compared to a lot of those around him like Albert it still seemed like he was lacking. It was only a matter of time before he was able to catch up so long as he put the work into it, but he wanted to make sure he had all the skills he needed before their first foray into the dungeons. Fresh resolve alighted in his eyes as he was called back up to the archery lanes, he stood back up and pulled the bow from his storage space nocking an arrow as he moved into position.

  Sam and Albert made their way over to the academic building for the final lesson of the day. Sam was feeling exhausted and was a bit distracted thinking about how he would work to level his swordsmanship skills when Albert rocked his shoulder. “Sam, we’re here at the classroom. I need you to sit down in your seat and not just stare at it” he said. Sam snapped out of his daze pulling the chair out from behind the desk and sat down. “Sorry about that” Sam replied as he slumped back in the chair. “How are you going it manage to get through mathematics and finance when you can barely concentrate on walking?” Albert questioned. “Hey, I made it here didn’t I and besides worst-case scenario I will ask Bryce for his notes” Sam replied. “Oh, will you now” remarked Bryce as he sat down beside them. “Bryce, how did healing class go?” Sam asked ignoring the comment. “Fine I guess. There is a lot more to healing magic than I initially thought there would be. It’s quite complicated and doesn’t make much sense” Bryce answered as he placed his books neatly on the desk in front of him.

  They were soon joined by Alice and Chloe who had stayed back to ask their healing magic teacher for something but had now joined the group waiting for class to start. “Sam… Sam… SAM” Alice called as she rocked his shoulder. “Sorry” Sam replied reflexively slightly startled out of his mind. “Seriously, you pushed yourself too hard” Alice said with a concerned look on her face. “I’ll be fine by tomorrow. It was all worth it as I managed to get the Basic Swordsmanship skill” he said with a grin. “Well, just make sure you get plenty of sleep tonight as we’ve got a double Magic Arts lesson and our excursion out into the city to register for the guild” Alice lectured. “I promise I will get plenty of sleep” Sam said surrendering to her as her gaze bore into him. Not a moment later the professor walked in to being the final class of the day.