Both Adrian and Melina were attacking me, as usual, exchanging quick blows with our wooden swords. As usual, I was wielding two bamboo swords – one in each hand – and deflecting the strikes from their s.h.i.+nai with almost effortless ease.

While knocking the both of them back, I raised my two bamboo swords, and they immediately lifted their own s.h.i.+nai to block…

…only for me to kick their feet out from below them and send them sprawling on the ground. My movements were so swift that Adrian couldn't follow, instinctively turning to stare when Melina suddenly toppled over beside him, and then he joined her on the floor.

"You guys really have to learn how to deal with feints," I informed them coolly as the both of the sat up, staring at me in astonishment.

"Feints?" Melina repeated, puzzled.

"You thought I was going to attack you guys with my swords earlier, didn't you?" I reminded her, and raised my swords for emphasis. "But just because I look like I'm going to hit you with my blades doesn't necessarily mean I will. I was deceiving you into blocking what appeared to be an attack from below while exploiting your lapse of defenses below and attacking there instead. Diverting your attention away from the real attack by launching a fake one. That's a feint."

"Oh, right." Adrian scratched his head and sighed. "We will need a lot of experience before we'll be able to tell them apart."

He was smart, I had to give him that.

"But you don't have the luxury of time and experience. Remember, feint attacks can be used by you too. Your opponents during the exam probably wouldn't be used to this." I grinned, and then returned to being serious. "Additionally, the point of this lesson is to remind you to always be on your guard. Don't just focus on the attacks you can see. There will be strikes coming from your blind spots, places you don't expect…angles you aren't looking at. Always be cautious, don't overly rely on your eyes alone, and keep your guard up."

"Yes, Sensei!" Melina didn't seem discouraged, and instead she brightened up and nodded enthusiastically, committing the lesson to memory.

"All right. Again." I plunged the swords into the dirt and offered them both my hands to pull them back up to their feet. "And don't hold back. Don't just use physical reinforcement magic. You have spells. Use them."

"Yeah, Master!"

"Don't call me that," I snapped at Adrian, but I could already sense him beginning to cast the wooden spells I taught him. Just as well, because he could probably also sense me gathering my own mana for defensive spells. Kicking up both of my wooden swords, I s.n.a.t.c.hed them out of the air and beckoned them both. "Begin!"

The both of them came from my flanks. Golden mana flared up around Melina as she swung her sword and unleashed a torrent of energy at me. From the other side, razor-sharp leaves spiraled around Adrian's wooden blade before bombarding me. Conjuring a bunch of ice spells, I froze them before they could touch me.

That didn't discourage them. They continued smas.h.i.+ng through the frozen remnants of their spells and closed in, their bamboo blades thrusting forward for my vitals.

I deflected them to the side, and allowed them to rush past me. The both of them spun about to deliver a follow-up attack, but I then stomped my foot on the ground and kicked up a flurry of snow that splattered across their faces.

"Eh?!"

"Ugh?!"

The both of them staggered, and before they could defend themselves, they found the cool wood of my bamboo blades pressed against their throats.

Lowering my swords, I smiled and straightened up, allowing them to recover.

"What was that?" Adrian demanded as he wiped his eyes. He then blinked uncomprehendingly at the frost. "This is…snow?"

"That was mean!" Melina complained and also rubbed at her eyes before s.h.i.+vering a little. "Cold!"

"Mean?" I repeated, amused. "I'm just teaching you how to fight."

"But…but this isn't how the academy taught us to fight!" she protested. I snorted at that.

"Of course they wouldn't. But you think all of your enemies in the future are going to be solely from the academies? Can you guarantee that monsters wouldn't pull this sort of tricks on you? a.s.sa.s.sins? Criminal mages?"

"That's…" Melina trailed off, realizing that I was right. I didn't tell her that I was taught the same brutal lesson from my dad, and I was merely repeating what I had learned from him. Instead, I softened my expression and stared at the two of them.

"Adrian, Melina. Why do you think I threw snow into your eyes?"

"Um, perhaps it's because you're a s.a.d.i.s.t?" Melina asked, looking bewildered. I ended up burying my face in my palm.

"Think back to the previous lesson I just taught you, regarding a feint."

"Oh!" Adrian struck his palm with a fist, brightening up. "It's to create an opening! You're taking away our vision so that you can strike us while we're undefended and vulnerable!"

"Exactly." I favored him with a smile. Though Adrian was not as hardworking and determined as Melina, he was sharp, intelligent and intuitive. "These are all strategies to force an opening in your opponent's defenses and allow you to deliver an affective attack."

I then raised one of my bamboo swords and swung it, causing both Adrian and Melina to jump back in reflex, avoiding my blow.

"If I attack you with all my might from the start, attack from the front…you're going to be able to defend yourself more properly, right? That's because you can see it coming. No matter how much strength I put behind my blow, if you can see it coming, you can prepare and avoid it. My attack is so visibly telegraphed in my movements, so you have ample time to react and avoid it. Isn't that correct?"

"Yes, Sensei." Melina nodded thoughtfully, but she looked a little disheartened. "Then what should we do instead?"

"Look at me." I braced myself, holding my wooden sword with both hands (the second one continued to be plunged into the dirt a few centimeters away). "Can you attack me?"

"Yes, Sensei!" Before Adrian could stop her, Melina was already charging in. She really was a straightforward person. Too straightforward, in fact. Swinging her sword, she tried to strike me from the side, but before she could reach me, I kicked up the second wooden sword, which caused her to skid to a halt from reflex and deflect the unexpected projectile. "Kuh!"

Before she could fully recover, the wooden sword that I was holding fell atop her head and she cried out in pain, dropping her weapon and clutching her scalp.

"Sensei! That wasn't fair!"

"You still haven't learned the lesson I'm trying to teach, huh?" I sighed. Then I raised a finger to stop her. "Anyway, think about it. What just happened? Weren't you trying to attack me? How did you end up getting hit instead?"

"That's…" Melina trailed off.

"A feint," Adrian put in. I nodded.

"I basically deceived you by allowing you to think that you can land a hit on me, but in doing so I caused you to drop your guard with a diversionary tactic. Kicking my other sword at you and forcing you to defend against that, thus leaving you open against another attack from a different angle. In this case, from above. All because I tricked you into focusing too much on the front. You were so engrossed in trying to strike me that you completely failed to notice the second sword at my feet, and were thus vulnerable to the strike from below."

"So I was deceived…" Melina mumbled, rubbing her head and staring at me in wonder. Adrian nodded thoughtfully.

"And we should try to deceive our opponents during battle…to create these openings and land a decisive strike before they can defend against it…or at least trick them into defending against fake attacks so that we can hit them with the real one when their guard is down."

"Correct." I nodded, satisfied that at least one of them understood it. When Adrian explained it like that, for a second time, it helped Melina absorb the lesson better because she was having it reiterated into her head.

"Are we going to learn the three mana states now?" Melina asked. I gaped at her.

"What three mana states?"

"You know, order, chaos and neutral?"

"The h.e.l.l?" I buried my face in my palm. "This isn't a.s.sa.s.sin's Pride or s.h.i.+n Megami Tensei, also known as Persona! Already people are complaining when I did the whole joke with Ba Qi, which is a rip-off from One Piece regarding their Haki. I'm not sure another joke like that would go down well, and it'll get repet.i.tive in any case…"

"Huh? Huh?"

"Ignore Master. He's just breaking the fourth wall and making all sorts of obscure references again."

"I don't want to hear that from someone who's trying to rip off Magic Stabber Orphen and pretending to be Majic!"

"Ugh…" Adrian flinched at that, unable to rebut.

Anyway, that was the end of the flashback. For now. While I was heading to school with the two of them, hoping that they would do well in their practical exams, I caught sight of Rossetti Picket. She was speaking to one of the middle school students as well, and when she caught sight of us, she waved in a friendly manner.

"Oh, Richard! We meet again!"

"Eh? This is…" Melina looked up quietly, but then recognized her senior from the high school section. Adrian also had a brief flicker of recognition in his eyes, because he had watched her take part in the team battle against my school during the high school tournament over a month ago. "Senior Rossetti?"

"Oh, you can just call me Rose." Rossetti waved her formality away. "You too, Richard. Don't need to be so formal. We're all fellow students in Saint Teresa Academy, aren't we?"

"I'm an exchange student from Jing Tian Academy," I reminded her. She just giggled and waved airily at me.

"Don't sweat the small details. Speaking of which, Miura wants to see you. She has only just heard that you're here, and she's furious that you didn't drop by to say hi."

"Why would I say hi to her?" I asked, utterly confused. Rossetti frowned and placed her hands on her hips, leaning forward to glare at me.

"You don't know how a maiden's heart work, do you?"

"Uh, I don't even know her…"

"Really? You defeated her in the tournament, remember? As they say, the best way to get to know each other is to trade blows. So you're already the most bosom of friends!"

"The same could be said of Kureha Franklin, Eliza Franklin, Lute Dragoon, and Kufa Van Peer. I don't think they care if I'm here."

"Actually, Kureha is pretty miffed that you didn't say hi to her. You were former comrades, weren't you? Even fought a dragon together. I suggested that she come say hi to you, but being the proud Sword Saint that she was, she claimed that you have to be the one to approach her." Rossetti sighed and shook her head. "I really don't understand her. But at least Miura will be taking the initiative to look for you. It's just that you're quite the elusive fella. You disappeared for a few days when she went to search for you during the ice magic cla.s.ses by Teacher Einsberg, and you didn't say anything when you came back."

Because I had no reason to.

"Okay…I'll say hi to her after the practical exams today." I rolled my eyes. At least the guys weren't demanding for my attention, but then again if they did, it would be creepy.

"Oh, Kufa would probably come along to say h.e.l.lo too. Lute, on the other hand, is too busily trying to steal back his harem from the new student, Xu Wu Cheng. It's a clash of Mary Sues!"

"…"

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, and I decided not to. The funny thing was that it was so true. Both Lute Dragoon and Xu Wu Cheng were Mary Sue characters who automatically had entire harems of girls chasing after them by virtue of them being the male leads or protagonist of a wish fulfilment, self-insert story. In any other story, they would be the main characters, but unfortunately for them this was reality, so they didn't get the focus their creators would otherwise crave. Well, not as much for Xu Wu Cheng, because he was more of the typical s.e.xy male antagonist in a shoujo manga than a male lead.

"Ah! There you are!"

At that moment, I heard a familiar voice, and turnin around, I spotted Miura stomping toward me, followed by Kufa.

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