Xiao Lin understood very well that his time was incredibly valuable at that moment, which was why he needed to use the limited time intelligently. For Saturday’s battle training class, he had set a goal to learn Broken Strike during the lesson.
Battle training class might have a different teacher, but the contents of the lessons were still the same; it was still meant to train the students in adapting to different opponents.
Xiao Lin was challenged as usual. This time, his opponent was Han Manman, the monitor of Class Four. The newly formalized monitor had regretted not being able to challenge him last week.
Han Manman was a mage that focused on the wind element. As a talent holder, even if she was not as good as Gu Xiaoyue and Chen Dao, she was still a cut above the rest in terms of combat ability.
However, it was not a problem; all Xiao Lin needed was an opponent–nothing else.
The challenges between the monitors were a point of attention by a lot of others. Before Xiao Lin fought, he managed to look at the duel between Cheng Ming and Chen Dao. He actually wanted to face Cheng Ming, but since he had already decided to use swordsmanship during the lesson, he naturally would not choose Cheng Ming, who was also a swordsman, as his opponent.
The two of them were basically legendary figures amongst the first-years, and were very strong. The fight was very close, and it was obvious that both Chen Dao and Cheng Ming were very experienced. Chen dao’s mastery of fire magic was very deep, and Cheng Ming’s martial prowess was also very impressive.
The fight ended up in a draw, the two of them did not hold back, and after they repeatedly had their wounds treated, they finally had to stop the fight out of sheer exhaustion.
After that, it was Xiao Lin and Han Manman’s turn. Han Manman bluntly chose to attack first. She was quite skilled in wind magic, and had focused more on damaging spells such as Hurricane, Wind Blade, and Wind Cutter.
The battle between the two of them was quite tense. Since Xiao Lin kept trying to use Broken Strike, Xiao Lin’s inexperience with the rather mediocre skill caused him quite a bit of trouble, especially under the constant onslaught of a mage which, at a certain distance, meant Xiao Lin could not advance and could merely defend.
That caused Han Manman’s morale to rise. She felt like she was beginning to seize the advantage. However, a very small number of students could see that Xiao Lin was just using this as practice, and an even smaller number of them could tell that Xiao Lin was practicing a sword technique that he was not used to.
The situation started to slowly turn after around thirty minutes. Even if Han Manman had tried her best to control the exertion on her mental strength, she had started to fall into a state of fatigue. On the other hand, Xiao Lin had gotten more and more familiar with Broken Strike, and the advantage of the sword technique that could both attack and defend began to show itself.
As a very ordinary technique, the physical strength it needed was not big, and it allowed Xiao Lin to stick to Han Manman like glue. Even if he could not launch a successful attack, his defense was more than enough.
When Han Manman had exhausted her mental strength, Xiao Lin magnanimously stopped his attacks. Neither of them were injured, other than the fact that the armor Xiao Lin had on for defense had been shattered by various wind blades. However, thanks to his physique being far above Han Manman’s, he was untouched.
The duel between class monitors might have ended in a draw, but it was nowhere near as intense as Cheng Ming and Chen Dao’s. Anyone with a clear mind could tell that Xiao Lin was just toying around, since he had only used Broken Strike from start to finish. The power of Xiao Lin’s swordsmanship was something many of them had seen during the last monthly examination, so they naturally understood how much he had held back.
“Not bad.”
Xiao Lin said to Han Manman as she walked past him, but the woman was shaking with anger, and naturally ignored Xiao Lin. From an objective standpoint, training in actual combat was something that helped a lot in improving skills, especially against opponents with a certain caliber like Han Manman, so it allowed him to understand Broken Strike’s practical value even more.
Broken Strike was not a difficult technique. Xiao Lin took the entire next day to focus on training it, and managed to raise the sword technique to the highest level by nightfall, thoroughly mastering it.
At some point, the topic of Xiao Lin learning twenty different sword techniques had been talked about on the forums by the other swordsmanship class students. Of course, they did not speak in mocking tones since Xiao Lin’s skills was something most of them had come to acknowledge. Even so, it was still outrageous to a lot of them.
[The current report is that Xiao Lin has already mastered at least two swordsmanship techniques!]
[What two? Isn’t it just Total Annihilation? I’m also in the swordsmanship class, so don’t try to bully me for not having a source of information, OP.]
[Your information is outdated, OP is right. I saw with my own eyes that Xiao Lin had mastered Broken Strike in the training hall today.]
[My God! Is that man human? It’s only been a week and he’s mastered two?]
[I haven’t even mastered my first swordsmanship technique.]
[I heard that Cheng Ming has basically finished his first technique, but it’s still a huge difference from Xiao Lin.]
[I heard that Xiao Lin’s magic skills are also quite good.]
...
The bored students slowly turned to talking about these things during their free time after dinner as hobbies, and at some point, Xiao Lin had become a hot topic among them.
He had gone from someone who was mocked and jeered at for entering the academy with the lowest basic attributes in the whole year to catching up to everyone’s standards and standing out in the monthly exam. He had also managed to secure the class monitor position, slowly having people acknowledge him as a true class monitor.
However, with how it looked now, Xiao Lin was not just someone at the strength level of a class monitor; his skills were rapidly soaring, defying all imagination.
In the last week, Xiao Lin had not rested and had thrown himself into new magical studies. The packed training schedule he had the week before had earned him a large payout, having his Strength and Agility both raised up to 30 points, which meant a combined increase of about 10 points.
His rapid speed of improvement shocked everyone. No one else in the year could compare to him; even Gu Xiaoyue could not stand up to him at that point. After all, Gu Xiaoyue’s true selling point was only her rapid growth in Intelligence.
Since they started the semester, Xiao Lin actually had very few chances to privately meet Gu Xiaoyue. At the most, they greeted each other when they met in class, but Gu Xiaoyue did not talk too much about private matters in front of others, and the woman had also been working very hard that semester.
The end of the first month was quickly arriving, and during the weekend, they would be facing a new monthly examination.
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