Shadow Author

Having the full extent of Miss Smith's attention I began my proposition.

"As I've already said, I need an instructor. Although it's nothing like what you are thinking. You see I happened to come across a… technique. This technique will allow me to reach highs I've never thought possible. However, the only problem is that this technique doesn't improve my senses or engrave reaction times into my body. The only thing I know how to do is swing the sword but even that I am poor at."

While I tried my best to make it seem like I happened upon a miracle to disguise that I am a master swordsman I just had to pray that Miss Smith would be too preoccupied with the knowledge of the whereabouts of her sister than the logistics of my reasoning.

"So what you are getting at is, that you have the power but no way to wield it?"

"Exactly!"

"I see, in that case, I wouldn't have to help you develop a fighting style but rather make sure you aren't doing something incorrectly and you will handle the rest on your own."

"That's precisely what I am asking for. You don't have to reveal any of your secrets to me or come up with some forbidden mysterious technique to quickly improve my prowess. I only ask that your services be that of a guide."

Miss Smith went over all that said in her head one more time before deciding that it was a more than favorable deal.

In all honesty, she was expecting me to hold the deal above her head and take as much as possible but the deal was actually more in her favor.

In fact, the more that she thought about it the weirder it seemed. Any other combat teacher in Griffin would be fine with serving as a guide but for some reason, I came to her and I was even offering a reward.

But before Miss Smith could get lost in her thoughts and hypotheses I interrupted her.

"Do we have a deal? The sooner you accept it, the sooner I can tell you what you want to hear."

Thankfully my word brought her out of her stupor and she quickly agreed.

"Alright, we have a deal!"

She stretched out her arm offering a handshake and I gladly accepted it.

Once she retracted her hand she instantly got back down to business.

"Now tell me, where is she?"

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"Right, well you see it's a little hard to explain."

"You better not be thinking of a way to get out of this deal and you better pray that you weren't lying to me!"

Before Miss Smith went on another tan page with her aura I quickly began explaining myself.

"No, no, I'll uphold my end of the deal. It's just that I think it would be easiest to show you where she is rather than tell you."

This caught her attraction and completely stopped any chance of me dying.

"You know where she's at right now? Is she nearby? Have you made contact with her?"

"Whoa, slow down!"

She took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart.

"Okay, I'm ready."

"To answer your first question, yes, I know where she is exactly but again I'll have to take you there. As for the second, she is only a couple of hours away. Though I haven't been able to make contact with her."

Miss Smith was nodding along with every answer of mine until the last one.

"Then how do I know that you are actually talking about my sister? You could be making this whole thing up."

"Right, I thought you would ask that. As for proof, would the name Nihil Witch ring any bells?"

"… so you do know her."

I grew a huge smile at the fact that she didn't cause a ruckus like last time.

"Of course, I wouldn't lie about something like this."

"… I understand. When can I meet her?"

"Hmm, two days from now works for me, how about you?"

"That soon?!"

"Well I hate wasting time, plus I have some other… responsibilities to take care of while we are out."

"I hope they won't get in the way of me meeting my sister."

"You don't have to worry, nothing will stop you from meeting her."

She looked directly into my eyes for a few moments seemingly trying to get any information out of me but once she realized it was pointless she sighed and accepted.

"So be it, then in two days I'll be ready."

"Perfect!"

Being that it was the end of our conversation Miss Smith turned to go back to her office but I soon voiced out a complaint.

"Where do you think you are going?"

She stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned back to face me.

'Fuck, I forgot for a second that she was my elder.'

I quickly backtracked.

"Uh, what I meant to say was that there is still some time left in the day, so would you be willing to start training me?"

She remained silent and I started believing that I had just royally screwed myself.

However, rather than being angry a devilish smile soon broke out on her face.

"You're right, there is some time left in the day. What better time is there to train than during the night? Let's get right into it."

I was right I truly fucked myself over.

"First things first, you're weak, way too weak. When I was watching your previous fight against Willow each clash of yours even if it was to your advantage still resulted in your loss. Simply put, a lady has more muscles than you."

As I was being roasted into oblivion I, unfortunately, couldn't help but agree with Miss Smith's assumption.

Not only were my stats way lower when compared to my peers but I looked the part too.

However, this didn't make much sense to me because being that I was originally going to be a blacksmith I should have had some well-defined muscles.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time or ability to think about those kinds of thoughts because Miss Smith immediately went into drill sergeant mode.

"Do 50 push-ups then run from the end of the room to the other and repeat."

'Yeah, I'm dead.'

Dragging myself to one end I immediately started my hellish training with the first of many push-ups.

Two hours later after I completed ten sets Miss Smith finally spoke some words but once I heard them I wished I could go deaf.

"Now add 50 sit-ups."

'She's going to kill me.'

Two sets of this training were more exercise than I had done in my entire past life!

Another hour later after incorporating the sit-ups Miss Smith finally allowed me to take a break.

Hearing those sweet words I collapsed to the ground in pain. My surroundings were spinning, my ears were ringing, and I couldn't catch my breath for the life of me.

I knew I had to do something at that moment otherwise I would end up unconscious.

Knowing that my breath was the most important thing to get under control I instantly thought of Mana Breath. If I could get the breathing exercise started then my body would in turn calm down.

Desperate I tried and tried over again in the hopes of getting a single breath right and after a while, I finally managed.

Then once I took in my first whiff of mana my exhaustion began to dissipate.

This greatly surprised me because I had been solely using the skill to increase my mana but who knew it could also be used to re energize myself?

Five minutes later and with an additional 0.05 mana I felt good as new.

Slowly I pushed myself up from the ground and looked over at Miss Smith only to see her dumbfounded.

'Don't tell me she could see that I was using a skill.'

"What the hell was that?"