Ch-22 Swordmanship 101

As Rex entered his son's room, he smiled, seeing him sleeping peacefully.

"Wakey, wakey time for training," Rex said calmly as he nudged William on the bed.

William was still lost in the world of dreams as he refused to wake up.

Seeing his son not waking up, Rex, with a mischievous expression on his face, conjured a ball of water.

After that, the peacefully sleeping William was greeted by a ball of cold water to the face.

"Ahh!" He fell down the bed as he felt the sensation of cold water on his face, kicking him out of his peaceful sleep.

"Haha!" Rex let out a soft laugh at the expense of his son.

Hearing the laughter, William glared at Rex with an angry expression, demanding an explanation.

"Wake up, princess, it's time to train," Rex said, still trying to contain his laughter.

"Ahh!" William exclaimed, remembering everything that happened yesterday.

After that, William looked at the time, and to his surprise, it was still 5 AM; he had barely slept for 4 hours.

"Why so early in the morning? Let me sleep right now," he pleaded, still feeling tired from yesterday's affairs.

William tried to get back on his soft bed, which felt like his sanctuary.

But he was stopped by Rex's hand as he said, "Nah, the early bird gets the worm.".

"Quick young man, follow me. I'm about to teach you what you've been asking for the past 3 years. Be excited."

If this were regular William, he probably wouldn't have even cared about his own sleep and instead would've happily followed his father, but this was William after he received memories of his past life.

Due to these memories, his interest in swordsmanship had waned a little, replaced by a newfound obsession with magic.

But alas, in the end, he couldn't argue with his father, so he just followed after him, hoping to get some sleep after the training.

****

After a few minutes, the father and son arrived in Rex's training room.

It was different from Myra and William's training room.

This room resembled a lush green forest.

There were even some trees and a flowing river in the room, with the floor having dirt on it and a few large boulders present sparingly.

Another detail to notice was how serene and tranquil the room looked.

Giving off the illusion that a person had been transported to an actual forest instead of being in a room inside a mansion.

"Wow!" William exclaimed. This was his first time in his father's training room, and it was definitely a lot different from his or his mother's training room.

"Heh, you like it," Rex asked, clearly pleased with his son's reaction.

"Yeah," William replied almost absent-mindedly.

"Good, because you're going to be spending a lot of time here," Rex said, his face still having a smile, seeing William's reaction to his training room.

"Alright, enough dilly-dallying," Rex said as he summoned a plain wooden sword from his spatial ring.

Once the sword had materialised, he threw it towards William, who quickly caught it.

'How nice' William thought as he did a few practice swings with the swords, pleased with the weight and size of the thing.

"Alright, for starters, do 1,000 vertical swings; no use of mana is allowed, of course," Rex said.

"Sure," William said, understanding the need to learn the basics.

In his past life, William had learned and mastered various martial arts, and while all of those didn't involve the use of weapons, he at least understood the importance of the basics and proper stance.

While he didn't learn anything related to weapons in his past life, he did use a metal pipe, which was quite similar in size and shape to the sword in his hand.

So this knowledge, paired with his passive skill [Martial Genius], quickly allowed him to become accustomed to the motion and keep his breath and stance steady in each swing.

Rex was very pleased with William's progress and realised his talent was on par with his own.

After about an hour, William was finally done, as he dropped his sword. He was about to drop his sword when he suddenly felt a strong impact on his chest, sending him flying.

"BOOOOMMM!!!"

With a loud noise, William crashed into a wall, causing smoke and dust to be generated.

Cough-cough

William coughed a bit, feeling drops of blood coming out of his mouth.

William was shaken, but he quickly took a stance, ready to intercept whatever attacked him.

"Good, very good," Rex said.

William was surprised to hear Rex's voice, but he was even more shaken seeing the raised leg of his father.

"Let this be your first lesson to never let down your guard," Rex said, smugly enjoying himself.

"For a swordsman, dropping his weapon is no different from a death sentence," Rex said as he picked up William's dropped sword and threw it towards him.

William quickly grabbed the sword as he asked, "That was still too much".

"I already told you that training with me won't be easy; you asked for this now; don't complain," Rex retorted with a serious expression on his face.

"Bu-" William looked like he wanted to say something, but he stopped looking at Rex's expression.

"Ok, what next?" William asked, deciding to drop the matter of being kicked and hoping to complete the training so he could go back and sleep again.

"Now that's the attitude; come give me a thousand horizontal slashes now," Rex said, pleased with his son's decision to drop the matter of him kicking him.

Truth be told, William was right; he didn't need to hit him; however, he felt this was the best way to leave a lasting impact on him.

From now on, whenever he wanted to drop his guard or his weapon, he would always remember the kick he received from him.

It's better for him to learn like this than to lose his life due to carelessness.

William could only sigh and curse himself for asking for this as he started the horizontal slashes.