Chapter 296: Family Above All [I]

After a little contemplation, Juliana settled on teaching me the

Blossoming Horizons

.

According to her, I was nowhere

near

skilled enough to handle one sword properly, let alone two at once, to be taught

Two Heavens As One

.

That hurt my ego.

But then, with a completely straight face, she added that I was also not mentally

mature

enough to grasp the deep philosophy behind the

Fall Before Spring

.

That hurt even more.

"The fuck do you mean I’m not mature!?" I

immediately

started throwing a tantrum. "I’m very mature! Do you know how many DMs I got from older girls back at the Academy?! Would they be fawning over me if I wasn’t mature?!"

Juliana raised a single, delicate, judgmental brow, then said gently, "Case in point."

I nearly lost it and got into a boxing stance. "Come here, you damn wench! Get these hands!"

Juliana massaged her temple.

"Young Master... the

Fall Before Spring

requires emotional grounding, serenity, discipline, and clarity of spirit. You possess—" she made a loose, helpless gesture in my general direction, "—the opposite of all that."

I folded my arms. "I can be serene. I’m learning meditation from Alexia these days."

"Yeah, I saw you learning. We

all

saw. You were sleeping," she said, deadpan.

I hesitated. "...Okay, then, I can be disciplined!"

"You missed almost all your classes at the Academy," she added in the same tone.

I started sweating. "C-Can I be clear of spirit, then?"

At this point, Juliana didn’t even dignify me with a spoken reply. She just kept staring long enough for the breeze to pity me.

"

Blossoming Horizons

," she repeated finally. "That is the only one I’ll teach you."

I exhaled loudly. "Fine. Whatever. Just tell me what it is."

Juliana shifted, summoning her swords back into her hands.

Her tone turned serious as she began explaining. "

Blossoming Horizons

is a footwork-heavy sword art. It focuses on quick movement, snappy flow, and a lot of feint attacks to create openings. You don’t overpower or overwhelm your enemy with strength or unpredictability. You

outmaneuver

them. At higher levels, when you can channel your Essence outside your body, you can extend your strikes beyond your blade’s natural reach. You can also attack from many different directions at once. It’s said that at its peak, the practitioner of this technique can create enough ethereal swords with their Essence to cover the entire horizon."

I nodded along.

"But at our level, the key," she added, eyes narrowing, "is

anticipation

. Reading your opponent and sensing their moves before they commit. Thankfully, you have a ridiculously high battle IQ combined with equally good instincts, so learning this technique shouldn’t prove very difficult for you."

I smirked and let out a smug,

"Heh."

Juliana didn’t hear. Or maybe she did and just pretended not to.

"Now, foot positioning." She crouched slightly and angled her swords outward. "Keep your steps light. But don’t ever move first. This is a defensive technique, so you need your opponent to come at you first. I know not charging senselessly headfirst into danger is against your style, but please try."

I rolled my eyes. Even the slightest chance to poke me and this girl will immediately take it.

Anyway.

I transmuted two rock swords from the ground and started shadowing my

Shadow

.

And like that, Juliana Vox Blade started teaching me my first proper dual swordart.

•••

Three days passed.

Our march toward the caldera continued, though I was now lugging around a little extra burden — Juliana’s constant, unrelenting criticism of my technique.

"Your stance is terrible!" she barked for the fiftieth time. "I’ve seen puppies swing sticks more gracefully than that!"

"I am trying!" I snapped, slashing with the twin rock swords in quick succession.

"

Trying

isn’t enough! You’re moving like a girl!" she added with an infuriating sneer. "No offense to girls, but you’re slow, sloppy, and indecisive!"

Lily, who was preparing soup by boiling tree bark in water because we still hadn’t come across anything to eat, made a face at that. "How is that

not

an offense?"

I stopped and looked at her. "You know what, Juli? You’re a bad teacher!"

She was sitting directly on top of a small mound of glimmering Essence Stones like a crow hoarding its treasure. Her chin rested on one hand while the other lazily patted Kevin as he sprawled beside her.

And speaking of Kevin... that fucker had grown even more! Now he was the size of a fully grown dog.

At this point, it felt like he was growing every time I looked away from him.

Juliana sighed like the weight of the world rested entirely on my incompetence. "Could be. Or it could be that you’re just a bad student! Now stop complaining and start practicing again! Step, feint, pivot, anticipate! Imagine yourself moving in front of you! If you can deceive yourself, you can deceive the enemy!"

"The fuck does that even mean?" I exclaimed, but immediately got back to swinging. "Why are you talking like Sun Tzu?!"

Michael, sitting by the campfire and shamelessly enjoying the sight of my suffering far more than he should, frowned. "Who’s Sun Tzu?"

Vince groaned from across the clearing, sitting up slowly and clutching his stomach. Yeah, he and Ray still hadn’t fully recovered from eating Kevin. "He was a Chinese philosopher and strategist. Now I don’t know what Chinese is."

I stopped again, only for a split second, to stare at him in confusion.

Then I remembered.

That’s right.

It had been more than five hundred years since the world and its geography completely changed. Most kids today wouldn’t know about old-world countries.

Still, it was strange to hear a Chinese descendant say he didn’t know about China.

Oh, yeah. Vince was half-Asian, half-white.

Probably.

I was mostly sure...

I guess I shouldn’t go around racial profiling my companions. So instead, I returned to practicing.

•••

By the time the day was over, my muscles were aching in places I couldn’t even reach to touch, thanks to awkward footwork and relentless swinging.

Okay, well, due to the near-superhuman endurance granted by my [

B-rank

] physique, most of the pain wasn’t even real pain. My muscle aches subsided within

minutes

.

But the pain of being humiliated and constantly roasted by my own

Shadow

was far too severe to recover from!

I’m not even kidding!

Juliana’s insults were so sharp and blunt and increasingly creative that any lesser man would’ve been reduced to tears!

Thankfully, I’m not a lesser man.

So I didn’t cry.

"...And did you see how Samael started crying when Julia said that even wet noodles are tighter than his arms!"

I turned sharply toward the infuriating voice behind me. "Shut up, Michael! I wasn’t crying!"

Alexia, walking beside me, pointed at me mockingly. "No, you did! You definitely did! And you know what, it serves you right! You ran away from sparring with me, but asked a pretty girl to train you the very next second!"

Slowly, her tone turned more accusing than teasing. "The

very

next second, Sam! You didn’t even hesitate! What is it, huh? Am I not pretty enough for you to train with me, or are you more into dominant girls?!"

By the next second, her tone wasn’t even accusatory anymore. It was downright

injured

. "I thought you were my friend, Sam! Friend! I want to spar with my friend! I want to beat him black and blue! I want to use him like my punching bag! Is it too much to ask?!"

"What the— Alexia!" I spluttered. "First, yes, it

is

too much to ask! And second, I didn’t ask Juli because she’s prettier than you!"

Michael facepalmed. "Wow, you idiot."

Alexia gasped, clutching her chest with one hand like I’d stabbed her.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" I waved my hands quickly upon realizing what I’d said. "No, I didn’t mean that!"

"You didn’t mean

what

, Lord Theosbane?" Alexia asked sweetly. Sweetly in the same way poison berries are sweet.

"I mean, I asked Juli because I wanted to learn dual-wielding from her!" I said, conveniently leaving out the fact that I was more scared of facing Alexia in close combat than I was reluctant to get roasted by Juliana.

Michael sighed. "You know, if you wanted to learn a swordart, you could’ve just asked me. I wouldn’t even have charged you. Why didn’t you ask me?"

...Was I imagining things or did he sound hurt as well now?

What was up with these two?

We continued walking back to the camp with stacks of firewood in hand. Yes, the three of us had been out to find some firewood, and now we were returning.

Actually, only Michael and I had the firewood duty. I don’t know why Alexia tagged along with us.

"I specifically wanted a dual-wielding technique," I explained. "I doubt you knew one."

Michael frowned. "Yeah, fair. But—"

He didn’t get to complete his sentence.

THWAAAM—!!

Because in the very next instance, we heard a loud explosion coming from our campsite up ahead.