Chapter 23

The Fist Battle Class first class was simple sparring among the students; the instructor randomly formed pairs and the students battled for a whole hour.

Yale’s opponent was one of the biggest among all the students, but that opponent was someone who only relied on brute force. Furthermore, Yale estimated that even if the guy had such a big body, he still didn’t have ten points in strength.

Yale thought that because his opponent seemed a weakling in front of him. Yale wasn’t skilled in fist techniques, but he had a good battle sense and perfect stats at his level, the big guy wasn’t enough to make Yale sweat.

The big guy was frustrated as initially he thought that he got lucky to spar against Yale, the lucky kid with an influent big sister.

However, he understood that even if Yale joined the academy by a shortcut and seemed to be without muscles, he wasn’t weak and the big guy learned it the rough way.

Of course, Yale didn’t use his full force nor the Bloodline Force as they were only sparring and there was no hostility between them at most a misunderstanding generated by the irregularities in the process of Yale joining the academy.

If Yale used Bloodline Force, he would be as powerful as a peak 2-star in strength and agility, no one in the class would be able to battle against him.

However, Yale decided that he wouldn’t use Bloodline Force.

Unless the opponent was someone who he hated, even losing a match was okay.

They were only sparring, so who won and who lost didn’t matter, the experience gained in the battle was more important than the result.

Using Bloodline Force would make the matches to be too easy, and thus Yale wouldn’t gain any experience from them.

Furthermore, the Bloodline Force effects would be too shocking, and even if Yale already gathered a lot of attention, he didn’t want to attract even more by showing a 2-star peak strength in a mere week since turning ten.

The class finished, and the defeated big guy ran away, Yale had hurt the big guy’s pride by winning against him without breaking a sweat at all.

The next class was the Rod Battle Class, more than half of the members from the Fist Battle Class left, and new students arrived.

After all, the students usually weren’t meant to attend to all the classes like Yale.

The Rod Battle Class followed the same structure as the previous one, but this time everyone had a wooden rod in hand.

Yale felt better battling with the rod than with the fists, after all, a rod was still a weapon like a sword while the fists were part of the body.

His opponent was one of the students that didn’t attend the previous class, and he was skilled with the rod.

In the sparring, thanks to having a skilled opponent, Yale became aware that it was possible to use a rod in a way that resembled a sword.

The rod was a very versatile weapon and was possible to be used as a sword even if it hadn’t had the same efficiency as a real sword.

Yale lost focus in anything else than using his battle style with the sword applied to the rod.

Yale’s efforts quickly produced results as he started to overwhelm his opponent, mixing Yale’s sword techniques with the rod improved Yale’s prowess with the rod a lot.

“The user understood the similarities between sword and rod; the system added the Passive Skill [Sword-style Rod]”

Yale didn’t expect that his efforts to fuse the styles from both weapons would cause that the system added a new Passive Skill based on his recently acquired understanding.

“Sword-style Rod: While holding a rod the user would be able to execute Sword Battle skills at 50% of power and double cost.”

To execute a weapon-focused Battle Skill it was indispensable to use the same weapon that was related to the skill, but this new ability let Yale use Sword Battle Skills while using a rod, even if the power halved and the cost doubled while wielding a rod, the new skill was still excellent.

“The user started to obtain enlightenment about the essence of weapons. Now it will be possible for the user to obtain new weapon talents and upgrade them by practicing with a weapon.”

Yale was surprised enough to hear that last notification that he almost got hit by the opponent’s rod.

After that, he widely smiled as he found a new meaning to those sparrings which Yale had started to consider boring as he didn’t face difficulty.

Yale stopped using only the rod like it was a sword and started practicing by imitating his opponent’s moves.

That put Yale slightly at a disadvantage for a while, but Yale’s battle sense was top notch among his generation, and he quickly gained the upper hand again.

Initially, Yale didn’t want to learn other battle styles, he had enough with the sword and the bow, he joined the classes to learn how to battle against other weapons.

However, as he could obtain new Innate Talents and upgrade them, he seriously started to try to learn to use the rod correctly.

The more Innate Talents Yale obtained, the more versatility he would have, even if Yale didn’t focus on battling with a rod it was possible that one day he needed to use one.

Learning without an Innate Talent or with a bad one wasn’t something that Yale wanted to do due his limited time, but if he can obtain and upgrade Innate Talents, then he would be serious about learning other battle styles.

Using the rod like a sword as Yale was doing wasn’t wrong but was only a part of the true rod battling style.

As Yale started to understand more about the rod a new notification appeared.

“User understanding about the rod generated [Rod Innate Talent: Lowest grade]”

Yale finally obtained a new Innate Talent, even if it was the lowest grade talent it was still better than nothing and Yale knew that he would be able to upgrade it in the future.

After the class finished, Yale’s opponent bowed to him and left.

His reaction was more mature than the big guy from the Fist Battle Class.

In fact, as someone who loved to train with the rod, he marveled at Yale’s ability to learn how to use it.

The next class was the Spear Battle Class.

Yale noted that excluding himself there were only four among the students who had also signed up to the other two classes.

Yale’s opponent was one of those four, and he seemed to be used to holding a spear.

The spear was more challenging to master than the rod, but Yale started to learn how to use one while battling with his opponent.

Yale was in disadvantage in that match, but he was slowly improving, and in the last ten minutes of the class he managed to reverse the battle and gain the advantage.

However, Yale obtained that advantage only by relying on his abilities with the spear; he restricted his agility and strength to the same as his opponent as he wanted to improve his prowess with the spear and not merely overwhelm his opponent.

In the end, Yale also obtained the lowest grade talent for the spear and his prowess with the spear wasn’t any inferior to his opponent’s.

Yale’s last two opponents were skilled in their weapons, but their level of understanding about the rod and spear wasn’t that high. They couldn’t be considered very talented, at most above average.

The fourth class was the one Yale expected the most, the Sword Battle Class.

In that class, Yale wanted to show off his prowess using the sword.

Even if he wanted to be low key, that was related to Swordmad’s teachings, and Yale didn’t want to let him down, Yale could be low key in any other class but not in the Sword Battle Class.

Yale’s gaze directed to a muscular student, he was the only one aside from Yale who stayed since the first class.

The muscular student was also looking to Yale and then spoke in a loud voice.

“Instructor, I would like to have my sparring against him. We are the only ones who did all the classes.”

There were two ways to interpret his words; the first was that as both have battled for already three hours their physical state was worse than the others and then it would be better to fight together to have a battle without disparities due to exhaustion.

The other one was that as only the two of them dared to attend the four classes, they were worthy opponents.

Yale wasn’t exhausted, nor was the muscular student, the real reason seemed to be the second one, and Yale was also eager to fight with a worthy opponent.

The muscular student, quickly walked towards Yale after the instructor nodded and introduced himself.

“I’m George, nice to meet you. I need to tell you that the sword is the weapon in which I’m most skilled to battle in. Let’s have a good battle!”

Yale felt that George was quite straightforward. Furthermore, he also felt that George was also like him and had joined the previous classes to battle against more types of opponents and polish his skills.

“I’m Yale, nice to meet you. The sword is also my main weapon; I hope we can have a good battle.”

Then both drew their wooden swords and started their battle.