The Gamer's POV-Chapter 233: Mastering the Blade

Even Cedric was no exception to the intense routine.

He trained with Aika at least twice a day to improve both his combat skills and his magic.

Speaking of combat skills, Cedric had discovered that the true nature of combat tutorials was not just about guiding his strikes or telling him when and how to dodge. Instead, the true nature of combat tutorials was that they granted him, the gamer, combat styles. He noticed that when he fought with one sword, the combat tutorials focused on a single-blade discipline, but when he used both his katana and wakizashi, combat tutorials activated a combat style fitting for dual wielding called Two Heavens as One.

The combat style was unlike anything he had practiced before, emphasizing a perfect balance between the longer reach of the katana and the quick, defensive maneuvers of the wakizashi. This made his movements much more fluid and unpredictable, allowing him to attack and parry at the same time.

Both Cedric and Aika took turns wielding the dual blades during their training in an attempt to master this technique.

As for the single blade disciplines, it seemed that combat tutorials picked a technique from a vast library of techniques fitting to his opponent at the time of combat. When Cedric discovered this, he figured that in order to expand his repertoire, he needed to spar with other people who used different techniques so that he could force the tutorials to reveal more styles and countermeasures.

And so, because he had a good rapport with Argentos, he trained personally under Argentos in the mornings.

Of course, Argentos was far more skilled in combat than he had thought. As the leader of the hollow ones, it was not an exaggeration to call him a monster of combat.

The first time Cedric attempted to strike him, he was met with a swift counter-move that left him flat on his back before he could even blink. He tried again, only to find himself pinned once more, in a very embarrassing manner.

It was only after the first week and a few days that Cedric managed to keep up and at least react in time.

Yet still, no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t best Argentos.

Regardless of that, the fact that he could keep up with Argentos now meant that his combat skills had not only improved, but were successfully adapting to a higher tier of expertise.

This made Cedric really happy.

He could remember when he had first transmigrated and how vulnerable he had been at the time. Back then, he was so inexperienced that he couldn’t even react to a basic attack and had his wrist chopped off while trying to defend himself from the gladiator in the arena.

That memory made Cedric giggle.

He could also remember the time when he had been so afraid of Damon’s axe to even move up the stage to fight him.

Cedric grimaced in embarrassment when he remembered that too.

Now, however, compared to then, he was not someone any of the cadets could really challenge in terms of combat. He had become a force to be reckoned with, and he was only going to improve from here. He promised himself that he would continue to train and improve until not even the most renowned swordsman in the empire would be able to match him in the future.

***

Training and combat skills aside, every evening, Cedric’s party gathered in one of their chambers to share dinner together. They would chat, laugh and trade stories to shake the tension away.

There were times when Aurora joined in. She said that she liked hanging out with their party, but all of them knew that she was only coming around because of Leon. Still, it was nice to have her around.

Despite being the princess, she was surprisingly down to earth, and when she was with the party, she seemed to drop the heavy burden of her royal facade entirely.

Princess Aurora was not the only outsider that came around. During the times when she did not show up, Alicia came by as well and just like with the princess, everyone knew that she too was coming for Leon.

Ah, Leon really was one lucky bastard.

To have all the top nobles fawning over him like that was something most men could only dream of.

Anyway, after the dinners ended, Cedric would usually teleport up to the roof of the keep where he could stay alone.

He wasn’t an extrovert and so, after all that social heavy lifting, he would go up there to wash away the lingering social exhaustion in the night air, while chewing on a blade of grass.

On this particular night, Cedric decided to review his stats and see how much he had changed.

~~~~~~~~ Character Profile ~~~~~~~~

Character Name: [Cedric Anele Martini]

Age: [18]

Level: [20]

Grade: [2]

Element: [Darkness]

Exclusive Class: [Gamer]

Exclusive Class Attribute: [Gamer Privileges]

Bond Name: [Aika Soryu]

Bonded Ability: [Chrysalis]

Exclusive Skill: [Flames of decay - Lv10], [One with the Ravens - Lv9]

EXP: [8000 / 10,000]

Karma points: [N1,895 / P287,735]

~~~~~~ ============== ~~~~~~

Cedric’s eyes quickly darted to the exclusive skill section. Then he beamed when he found out that he almost maxed out all his skills.

He had been using them during his training sessions, and even after that, he had been spamming them constantly over the last two weeks and a day. For his training with One with the Ravens, he made sure to teleport everywhere, even to the latrines.

Now, it was just one level away from being maxed out, just like the Flames of Decay.

As for his Exp, since he had been training rigorously twice a day, he gained fifty Exp per session. Intense training granted fifty EXP regardless of level or grade, and so after the two weeks and a day, Cedric gained a total of 1500 exp, which moved his total from 6500 up to 8000 Exp.

Cedric’s eyes lingered on that section for a moment. And then he clicked his tongue loudly because he remembered that Leon was already a grade three.

He muttered a small, petty curse to Leon before finally shifting his gaze to the Karma points section. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Meanwhile, Leon, who was peacefully trying to see if he could do one-fingered handstand push-ups while reciting poetry in his chambers, suddenly halted and dipped a finger into his ear to scratch it. Then he muttered with a clueless, dreamy smile, "Is someone thinking about me?"