“This rope-tying technique is harder than I imagined,” Okita, who had been carefully observing and feeling Aoto’s movements, let out a low gasp of surprise.
“You have to control both hands while tying the rope… Hmm?
Tachibana-kun?
What’s wrong?
Why are you spacing out?”
Okita looked at Aoto, who seemed to be in a daze, with a puzzled expression.
Startled back to his senses by Okita’s words, Aoto chuckled a few times and said,
“I’m fine.
I just glimpsed a strange-looking bug crawling on the wall, so I was looking for it.”
“A bug?
Where?”
“Couldn’t find it.
I must have been mistaken, seeing things.”
After casually making up an excuse to fool Okita, Aoto quickly opened his system interface—
[Name: Tachibana Aoto]
[Currently Owned Talents:]
[Night Vision, Sword Genius]
In the talent list, “Sword Genius” had indeed appeared after “Night Vision.”
—Demonstrating the rope-tying technique to Okita… This could also be judged as having fought with Okita?
Aoto carefully recalled the moments of playful scuffle with Okita.
The time spent playing with Okita… indeed exceeded 10 seconds, reaching the “time required to copy talent” mentioned in the system’s usage instructions.
At this moment, Aoto was startled to realize: the system’s definition of “combat” seemed to be much broader than he had imagined.
He had just felt like he was merely playing a game with Okita, but the system had judged it as him having a fight with Okita.
When attention is focused on a talent entry in the list, a virtual screen introducing that talent will automatically appear.
Unable to believe the system voice he had just heard, Aoto quickly focused his attention on the “Sword Genius” entry.
[Sword Genius: Sword talent amplified 50 times the average human level]
Looking at the content written on the virtual screen, Aoto was first too shocked to believe his eyes, and then uncontrollable joy surged from his chest.
This was exactly the type of talent he currently craved!
A talent that could help him quickly become stronger.
After his initial joy, Aoto’s emotion transformed into shock.
—This person… actually possesses such an amazing talent?
He couldn’t help but cast a look of astonishment towards Okita in front of him.
At the same moment Aoto cast his astonished gaze towards Okita, he heard Kondo’s booming voice coming from the dojo entrance—
“Hmm?
Soji, what are you doing?”
Kondo strode back into the dojo, carrying a new set of sword practice armor.
“Tachibana-kun was just demonstrating their rope-tying technique to me!” Okita bounced over to Kondo, then cheerfully explained the whole story to Kondo.
After learning what had happened, Kondo raised his hand and tapped Okita’s forehead with a light but firm tap, making a “thud” sound.
“Ow, that hurts!
What was that for?” Okita’s pretty eyebrows went up.
“Heh… This rope-tying technique is really convenient… Soji, you couldn’t even fight back.” After saying that, Kondo chuckled mischievously and raised his hand again to tap Okita’s forehead.
Thud.
“Ah!
You just wait!” Okita thrashed like someone having an epileptic fit, frantically pulling his hands, trying to free his hands tied behind his back, but the knots Aoto had tied were specifically for criminals, and without some skill, he really couldn’t break free in a short while.
Thud.
“Ow ow!”
After receiving his third flick on the forehead from Kondo, Okita, in his desperation, simply gave up on trying to free his hands.
He directly charged like a wild bull, mouth wide open, howling, and trying to butt Kondo’s lower back with his forehead.
Watching Kondo and Okita’s interaction, Aoto couldn’t help but smile.
“You two have a very good relationship,” he said.
“My apologies for making you laugh.” Kondo raised his hand and rubbed Okita’s smooth forehead, which had just taken three of his “forehead flicks.” “Alright, I apologize then.”
After soothing Okita, Kondo placed the protective gear he had been carrying on the ground in front of him.
“Come, Aoto, try on this set of protective gear to see if it fits.
If it does, we can start our training right away.”
In his previous life, Aoto had never seen japanese sword practice armor with his own eyes, and “Tachibana Aoto” had never been to a kendo dojo, so his memory naturally contained no knowledge of how to wear the armor And Kondo was very considerate.
Seeing that Aoto was unfamiliar with wearing the armor, he immediately stepped forward to help.
The protective gear Kondo brought was new, had no unpleasant smell, and was the right size.
Seeing that there were no problems with the protective gear, Kondo nodded with satisfaction: “Excellent!
Then…”
Before Kondo could finish speaking, a few sparse footsteps suddenly came from the dojo entrance.
“Good morning, young master.
We’re here to practice swordsmanship.”
“Good morning, young master.”
…
At the entrance, four young men, all quite young, appeared.
These four should be the other apprentices of this sword dojo—Aoto concluded in his mind.
And Kondo’s next words confirmed Aoto’s guess.
“Oh, oh, you’ve come to practice swordsmanship,” Kondo said with a smile to the four men.
“Come, let me introduce you.
This is your new junior brother—Tachibana Aoto.”
After briefly introducing Aoto’s situation to the four men, Kondo suddenly asked Aoto:
“Tachibana-kun, you just told me—you learned a bit of swordsmanship from your father, right?”
“Yes,” Aoto nodded.
“Just a little bit of the basics.”
“Alright then, I want to confirm your approximate skill level first, so it’ll be easier for us to teach.
Later, you’ll have a simple match with one of your senior brothers.
Don’t be nervous, just think of it as playing a game.”
Kondo’s “confirming the apprentice’s level” was a normal procedure in martial arts dojos, so Aoto had no objections.
Furthermore, he was practically eager to spar and compete with others, so he nodded without hesitation: “Okay!
No problem!”
After Aoto nodded, Kondo turned to look at one of the tall apprentices among the four who had just arrived at the dojo:
“Suzuki-kun, go put on your protective gear.
You’ll have a simple match with Tachibana-kun.”
…
…
The tall young man named Suzuki quickly and deftly put on his armor.
He and Aoto fastened their bamboo swords to their left waists, then knelt on the left and right sides of the dojo respectively, bowing to each other.
After completing their bows, they imitated the drawing of a sword to draw the bamboo swords from their left waists, then slowly rose.
This was the complete set of etiquette for sparring swordsmanship in the dojo.
After completing this entire set of etiquette, the sparring could begin.
The person who launched the first attack was Suzuki.
“Yaaah—!”
Suzuki let out a strange cry as he swung his sword down towards Aoto’s forehead.
This was not an ordinary strange cry.
His strange cry had a technical name, called “Kiai.”
Simply put, it was a loud shout produced by sinking one’s energy to the dantian, helping to generate power and also serving to intimidate the enemy through the sound.
Aoto didn’t understand swordsmanship, but he understood unarmed combat and baton techniques.
These skills gave him an extremely solid foundation in footwork and extensive experience in sparring with others.
With such rich sparring experience, there was naturally no reason for him to be intimidated when competing with Suzuki.
Kondo, Okita, and the other three apprentices who had come to practice swordsmanship with Suzuki were now sitting on the edge of the dojo, intently watching Aoto and Suzuki’s match.
Suzuki was the type who thought “offense is fun.”
He launched a continuous barrage of attacks at Aoto, one after another.
But all of his attacks were skillfully dodged by Aoto using his practiced footwork.
Upon seeing Aoto once again dodge Suzuki’s attack with his footwork, Okita lowered his voice and said to Kondo, in a volume only he and Kondo could hear:
“Kondo-kyo, Tachibana-kun wasn’t boasting when he told me he was good at unarmed combat and Jutte techniques.
In terms of footwork, many veterans at our Shieikan probably can’t match Tachibana-kun.”
Kondo didn’t reply, only nodding silently, then continued to watch Aoto and Suzuki’s match with full concentration.
This was a match to assess Aoto’s current strength.
So Aoto knew—if he kept defending and evading like this, Kondo definitely wouldn’t be satisfied.
Kondo would surely want to see his offensive capabilities.
If he didn’t start attacking soon, Kondo would definitely not call a stop to this match.
Therefore, after dodging another one of Suzuki’s attacks, Aoto seized the opening when Suzuki’s sword had just been swung out and hadn’t yet been retracted, and swung his bamboo sword at Suzuki’s head.
However—Suzuki was good at offense, and equally strong at defense.
He quickly took a step back, and at the same time, swiftly brought his bamboo sword back to his chest, parrying Aoto’s bamboo sword.
Aoto, unwilling to give up, swung two more times.
Bang!
Bang!
The sound of bamboo swords colliding rang out twice.
Aoto’s two attacks were again neutralized by Suzuki.
Not only were they neutralized, but after parrying Aoto’s last attack, Suzuki quickly took a step forward, seized the opening when Aoto’s bamboo sword was parried and his guard was wide open, and delivered a heavy cut to Aoto’s chest.
At this moment, the three apprentices who had come to learn swordsmanship with Suzuki all showed smiles as if they had seen something funny, and one of them even let out a low laugh.
To the three of them, who had studied swordsmanship, the cuts Aoto had just made were simply too poor, like watching a child swing a sword.
They were so bad that they couldn’t help but laugh.
Noticing the three of them laughing, Okita immediately glared at them fiercely.
After being glared at by Okita, the three of them quickly reined in their smiles.
While Okita was using his gaze to stop the three from laughing, Kondo
—Tachibana-kun’s level… I’ve roughly figured it out…
After watching the series of exchanges between Aoto and Suzuki, Kondo had already formed an evaluation of Aoto’s strength in his mind: his footwork was decent, but his swordsmanship was only slightly better than an ordinary person who had never encountered swordsmanship.
—His swordsmanship foundation is a bit weak; he needs to start from the very basics.
—Overall level… he can only be considered an ordinary person with fairly good footwork.
—That’s enough for now.
Kondo, who felt there was no need to let Aoto and Suzuki continue to spar, slowly raised his hand, preparing to call a stop to the match.
However, just then—
“Hmm?” Kondo’s eyes suddenly widened slightly, then he stared intently at Aoto in the dojo.
Okita made a similar movement.
Kondo and Okita, almost simultaneously, widened their eyes slightly, staring fixedly at Aoto.
A growing sense of astonishment slowly appeared in both of their eyes.
…
…
Kondo and Okita couldn’t see it—in Aoto’s mind, there was now a “high-speed projector.”
The content being projected was precisely the scenes of his recent match with Suzuki.
Aoto involuntarily stared intently at the “film” being played in the “projector.”
In his mind, the “film” played frame by frame.
In reality, Aoto’s left hand, holding the sword, loosened slightly, and his left heel also lifted slightly.
—I just… seemed to grip the sword a little too tightly… and my center of gravity was too far back…
In the system’s talent list, the “Sword Genius” entry glowed with brilliant golden light at this moment!
*****
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