The shining, illustrious bde of an axe misses my torso by a mere hair’s breadth. In an attempt to counter, I thrust Wooden Fang forward all the might I can muster.

  “Quill Point Thrust!”

  A resonant sound echoes throughout the training area as wood cngs against metal. Somehow, the axe I just barely evaded blocks my attack. But that’s good enough! I can now retreat a bit and gain some distance.

  “Nice, Daisuke-kun. But you need to use that new sword of yours more.”

  Miyamura-senpai simultaneously praises and critiques me. Without taking my eyes off of him, I nod as I pull the cyan-grey coloured katana from its sheath.

  “Sorry, but this dual-wielding suggestion of yours is a bit difficult to get used to.”

  Without another word, Miyamura-senpai steps forward and appears less than a foot away from me, his battle-axe gleaming with dangerous intent.

  With perfect timing, I parry his attack, sending it into the floor.

  CRASH

  Literally. Hastily, I put one foot on its handle, preventing it from being readily removed. Having what seems like an opening, I ssh at him with the katana, but Miyamura-senpai releases the handle of his axe and nimbly evades it. I’m not done just yet!

  “?Fanged Bolt!?”

  Flipping Wooden Fang into a reverse grip, I level my finger at him. This part will take all the effort I can muster into testing my limits at using Concentration.

  “Rebound.”

  Miyamura-senpai puts up a shield used for reflecting Magic, but that’s exactly what I want him to do. I charge at him at full speed and attack.

  “Boulder Splitter!”

  The katana that I intended to bare down upon him meets with thin air. He’s vanished! But during my training, one thing I’ve learnt is that when this happens, Miyamura-senpai will always attack me from the right fnk. Now’s my chance!!

  I turn ninety degrees, my levelled finger no less than twenty centimetres from my senior’s face, and activate ‘Fanged Bolt’. With a fsh, a bst of lighting dances out of my fingertip, but instead of striking my senior, it merely crashes into the wall with reckless indifference. In short order, my body ‘gracefully’ follows in its stead.

  “Ackkk!”

  With a pathetic thud, I fall to the training room floor. Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody hell. I can’t believe my endeavour was thwarted without even a slight issue. I’m just the bee’s knees, aren’t I?

  “Impressive work, Daisuke-kun.”, Miyamura-senpai smiles. “I guess everything is in a name after all.”

  I disgracefully get on my feet, wincing heavily from the pain coursing through my body.

  “So impressive that it didn’t even work.”, I mutter sardonically.

  Miyamura-senpai comes over to me and rests his hand on my shoulder reassuringly.

  “Come on, don’t sulk. If you were fighting against someone around your level, you would have definitely won the fight with that ploy. Hell, I didn’t even know you could use Mag-Dey.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Mag-Dey is a somewhat advanced use of the Concentration principle. Simply put, it’s building up your mana to the point required to use a spell, holding it there, and then activating the spell. It took my full focus to do it just then, and you’d best be focused when you do it or suffer from one of two failures:

  The spell will straight up not activate. This is what you want to happen if you do end up failing.You’ll suffer from a bout of Mana Lag. When that occurs, you’ll be without the use of Magic and mana based abilities for twenty seconds.You can only dey a spell from about ten seconds, so using it in an intense battle is high-risk, high reward.

  “Come on, let’s go to the canteen for some food.”

  “Right.”

  Our seniors were lying when they said that our training would be rigorous, in reality, it’s utterly hellish. It’s a miracle that none of us have keeled over yet.

  Not only do we have to wear training weights of two hundred kilograms on our wrist and ankles, but we’re forbidden to heal any injuries unless they’re severe. But they’re using Reinforcement to dull the edge of their weapons, that’s very generous of them.

  Upon our arrival to the canteen, we’re greeted with a long queue. It's easy to forget that regur people work here on the above ground floors..

  “Oh joy, it’s time to expend more energy. Just what the doctor ordered…”, I mutter.

  “Don’t worry, Daisuke-kun. I’ll just get today’s special for us, so find somewhere to sit and I’ll join when I’m done.”

  “Thank you very much, Miyamura-senpai. And sorry for the trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  With that, I nguidly shuffle over to the nearest unoccupied table, which happens the furthest away from the door. How lucky..

  I plop down at the table and rest my head on it. As you all know, I’m always brimming with confidence, so the thrashing I’m on the receiving end of is doing wonders for my mental state. I know that I’m improving, seeing as to how I’m using short Incantations with my first spells and I’ve been learning a few more, but losing every session handily makes it seem otherwise. Granted, winning is impossible anyway, so even worrying about it speaks to my high levels of intelligence.

  “Blimey, I’m being even more self-deprecating than usual today. If my wives-to-be could read my mind, they’d be upset with me.”

  Ah, talk of an angel and she shall appear. Red enters the canteen alongside Ninomiya-senpai, looking very haggard and slightly frazzled. Immediately, she sulks over to where I am and sits right next to me, resting her head on my sore shoulder. It hurts a bit, but it is not enough where I’m going to ask her to stop. I can take being a little uncomfortable for her no problem.

  “I’m soooo tired, Daisuke-nii! When will this all be over?”

  “In another fortnight, I suppose. How’s the training with Ninomiya-senpai progressing?”

  Red sighs loudly.

  “It feels like I’m not doing any damage to him at all. He doesn’t really hit that hard, but I’m surprised that the cricket bat you gave me as a weapon hasn’t broken yet. But, I have learned a few spells now, and I’ve gotten a lot better at Reinforcement!”

  I praise her for gaining newfound abilities by stroking her head gently.

  “I’m really proud of you, Red. You’ve grown a lot ever since you awakened your R.S.P mode.”, I smile. “I’m gd that those days of fearing yourself are behind you.”

  She snuggles up to even more, grinning contentedly. At this point our cheeks are practically rubbing up against each other, but I’m certainly not compining about it.

  “Ahh, just doing this with you is making me feel recharged. I can’t wait to cuddle with you when we all get home. I would like to squeeze you tightly, but-”

  She slowly surveys my person with lic-coloured eyes, her gleaming, joyful smile slowly vanishing as she does, until it’s entirely repced with a deep frown as her eyes meet with mine.

  “It looks like you’ll be too sore for that to happen.”, she remarks bitterly.

  “I expected you to be more upset, frankly.”

  “Well, there’s a difference. I know that with Miyamura-senpai, it’s just training. But if it’s him, it’s definitely bullying.”

  In a solid impression of Akai, I let loose a wry smile.

  “Come on, Red. I know Yonaguni’s a bit of a git, but even he will this training seriously. Don’t forget that he has money on us, as well.”

  Red’s eye twitches violently upon being reminded of Yonaguni’s gambling habits.

  “That makes it even worse! You should’ve heard what kind of things he was saying to Naoya-kun earlier! I wanted to barge in there and wring his neck.”

  So, Naoya and Yonaguni are getting along swimmingly as usual, eh? Hopefully these next two weeks go by quickly, if only for my poor cousin’s sake.

  “Lunch is served!”

  Our seniors finally join us at the table. It looks like yakisoba is today’s special, and graciously, they brought a lot of it.

  “Miyamura-senpai, I have a request!”

  “What is it, Akane-chan?”

  “Could you hit Daisuke-nii less when you’re training? Maybe you can hit the wall or something instead?”

  “I’ve been doing that a lot.”, I interrupt.

  Miyamura-senpai ughs lightly.

  “Sorry, Akane-chan. I feel bad about it, but Daisuke-kun can’t get stronger unless he struggles, you know?”

  “...You could make it so he struggles a little less, though…”

  Red pouts at him a little, which again brings him to ughter. Then surprisingly, Ninomiya-senpai speaks.

  “How is Daisuke-san progressing so far, Taichi-san?”

  Miyamura-senpai ponders for a moment before answering, which honestly makes me feel a little uneasy.

  “Very well, it’s actually impressive. He adapts to my pressure quickly, has elite Detection skills and he’s good at coming up with battle strategies on the fly.”, He says finally. “If I had to deduct points for anything, it’s that he tends to overthink things and that he’s a little too willing to endanger himself if it means getting a hit off. Both of those things will get him either critically injured or outright killed.”

  Red goes rigid at Miyamura-senpai’s closing remarks. Noticing this, I try to soce her, but he does so first.

  “Don’t worry, Akane-chan, those problems can be ironed out as long as Daisuke-kun is willing to do so.”

  Red rexes a little, but she’s clearly still bothered by what was said. Hopefully she doesn’t tell the others what was said.

  I promised that I would value my life more, but I just can’t seem to do it. If I need to risk life and limb to nd a solid blow, I’ll do it every time. I’m not supposed to be alive, anyway.

  “How is Red coming along, Ninomiya-senpai?”, I query, hoping to get her mind off the subject.

  “She’s doing very well. Her attacks are not only powerful, they’re also relentless. She’s also incredibly resilient and she’s progressed quickly in her proficiency with Magic.”

  That’s good news all-around. Red’s growth makes me happy, but I’m not too surprised. She is a member of the Chikara blood-line, after all.

  “Her weakness is that her attack pattern is extremely predictable. If her opponent holds out long enough, it could be an issue for her.”, Ninomiya-senpai.

  “Don’t worry about that, Ninomiya-senpai. Daisuke-nii will be helping me out with that.”, Red says.

  “Here’s hoping that I’ve gotten a firm hold on Void Gate by then.”, I swallow. “Hey, this yakisoba is really good.”

  “Void Gate?”, Miyamura-senpai echoes. “Why are you so invested in learning that spell when it’s an inferior form of Jump-Stepping?”

  “That’s true..Unlike with Jump-Stepping, which can instantly warp to a pce within sight or to a pce you’re familiar with in a fifty kilometre radius, Void Gate is only good for two and a half.”

  “Honestly, I just think that it’s cool.", I say pinly.

  “Coolness shouldn’t come over practicality, Daisuke-nii...Arianne-chan and I have to make sure that you don’t get too many otaku style ideas. Yoko-chan is too lenient with you on that, she even supports some of them.”

  Well, she is a former tomboy. However, I’m not telling the full truth when it comes to why I’m trying so hard to master Void Gate. I want to keep that a secret up until the st moment.

  “Well, as your senior, I fully support your endeavours. Now eat up, you need to have max energy before we continue, so if you want another share, let me know.”

  Of course, I’m taking up his offer without a second thought. I’m really hungry, you know?

  MisterEnigmatic