Flexibility

"Can I use Aura?"

Weiss shook his head.

"Why?"

"Too many questions. Arch, start."

Arch immediately dashed towards me with his wooden sword pointed upwards.

Even an idiot could tell that he's going to slice downwards.

I side-stepped a little to avoid the trajectory of the sword.

*Swoosh*

Hehe! That was way too easy. Now time to counteratt-!!

"Khh!"

The... the sword suddenly changed its direction and hit my stomach.

"Wh-...what the hell?" I groaned while I clenched my stomach.

The crowd suddenly cheered for my opponent.

There were some who cheered for me though.

And so the crowd was split between the Arch supporters and my supporters, the latter being smaller in number.

"Tch."

I kicked off the ground and swung my sword. Because of the height difference, the trajectory of my swing went towards Arch's legs.

As expected, the guy avoided it easily. He simply stepped back a little and made me miss.

I focused and saw the trajectory of Arch's counterattack. If there's one thing I learned from Weiss... it's dodging

I could see it. The path of his sword. Arch was going to thrust his sword. This is amazing, it seemed like regularly getting beat up by Weiss paid off.

I could see it, but because of my attack earlier I was in a very vulnerable spot. Like it or not I am completely a newbie when it comes to combat.

The sword was coming in fast and from what I could see, Arch was aiming for my forehead. I had to dodge it or else I'd get an annoying headache.

What should I do? My body's currently leaning forward with my right arm holding the wooden sword outstretched.

I've decided. I moved my head to the right, barely avoiding the sword. I could feel the wooden sword's dull edge grazing my head.

After thrusting the sword, Arch suddenly moved his left leg. He's going to kick me!

I dug my feet into the ground and jumped backward. I successfully avoided that counter-counterattack.

Now that I've gained some distance, I could catch my breath. I may have had muscle and stamina training, but I'm still 10-years-old! I don't have that much stamina. I can prolong my stamina by using Aura, but Weiss prohibited the usage of it.

I get where Weiss is coming from though. Aura is a booster. The amount of power you gain from Aura is proportional to the user's own physical capabilities without the usage of Aura.

If someone trains by solely relying on using Aura, it would do more harm than good.

I thought back to what Weiss said before this spar started. Something about my body being flexible and agile or something. Was that true? I never really paid attention to that before.

Wait... now that I think about it, I'm starting to think he might be telling the truth.

Let's flashback a little, from 2 weeks ago.

I was running in the forest with Weiss behind me chasing as if like a wild boar that found prey.

Weiss threw a pebble at me, which made me stop. The pebble's speed was too fast for me to dodge so I had to block it by crossing my arms.

Right after that he suddenly got right in front of me and landed a punch on my crossed arms. The punch was powerful enough to send me flying.

I was going to hit some tree branches if I didn't do anything. So I dodged all the branches that were blocking my path. The branches were quite tight and arranged almost as if they were those security lasers surrounding an artifact in a museum in movies.

The adrenaline I had at that moment just caused me to reflexively avoid (almost) all of those. I still hit some branches in the process of doing so. In the end, I was able to use that moment to position myself in the treetops and that's where I'll end my short flashback.

Back to the spar with Arch. There's a distance of around 5 meters between us. I'm slightly panting while Arch is perfectly fine.

So, I'm agile and flexible. How can I take advantage of that?

Whatever, no use thinking about it. Just attack for now.

I sprinted and closed the gap between us.

I lifted my sword up high, mimicking Arch's first attack. I saw his mouth curl up into a smirk.

Holding the sword with both of my hands, I jumped and slashed downwards.

Arch positioned his sword horizontally and blocked my attack.

I landed on the ground and immediately saw Arch attacking. He was going to slash horizontally.

Keeping in mind my supposed flexibility, I bent my body backward, as if I was playing a game of limbo.

Holy shit! I actually dodged it!

I immediately flung my body forward and used the momentum to thrust the sword towards Arch's stomach area.

My attack made contact. I felt my sword hit Arch's body. Arch got pushed back a couple of steps too, widening the gap between us again.

I inspected my body while still keeping my focus on Arch, in case he tries to attack.

It didn't hurt...

There's no pain from a pulled muscle or something similar. Aside from my dwindling stamina, there's nothing wrong with me.

Haha! Weiss was right!

*CLAP*

I heard a loud clap from my left. It seemed that his clap took the attention of everybody on the training grounds.

"The spar ends here. Luka, go rest. You will spar with Arch again right after."