Sword Style

The next day of class was only some training, Just like before, Char and his skeleton were doing some physical training to increase the mana saturation in their body before the skeleton got destroyed with the help of Mr. Brown.

"Char, did you change your magic?" The muscled man suddenly asked him.

"Yes, Sir. I already apply the magic you taught me, it's indeed simple but really useful," he told the man about his observation. Of course, he did not tell the man that he actually improved the design.

"Good, then you will train on your own from today. If you want to kill the skeleton, then kill him on your own. You are free to pick all kinds of weapons that are provided by the academy, but you can only go home once you kill your skeleton ten times," The man instructed him.

"You are free to use your magic or tell the skeleton to stay in moving, but if you cannot kill it in ten minutes, then you will need to start over," he added.

"Huh? Isn't that easy? What kind of training is this? Will this really make me stronger?" Char wondered as he went to the rack where they kept the training weapon.

He picked up a one-handed sword as he was familiar with it; he tried to swing it a few times before he corrected his grip.

Having the right stance is important, the sword needs to have the right center of gravity if he wants to bring out his best technique.

Once he found the best grip, he walked to the skeleton, "Don't dodge or fight back, don't use your magic to regenerate," he instructed it.

The skeleton stood there like a statue, Char swung his sword at the skeleton's arm. To his surprise, rather than cutting the skeleton's bones, it only breaks one of the skeleton's bones.

"What? Why didn't it cut through? Isn't a skeleton supposed to be weak?" he wondered.

It took him a few more tries before he realized the problem, "The training sword is too dull, it could only break the bone but could not cut it!"

"If I need to break every bone one by one, then I will need to do 206 swings since a complete skeleton has 206 bones, but the problem is I only have ten minutes which is roughly 3 seconds for each attack! There is not enough time to rest! The only thing I can do is to do 206 hits without rest!" he analyzed.

Once he told the skeleton to regenerate its broken bones, he tried to start over. At first, he could break one bone in less than three seconds, but after twenty attacks, his sword failed to break the bone.

"Ugh, this is tiring, I need to attack with full power each time I attack," he lamented.

He knew he had failed again, so he told the skeleton to regenerate its broken bone while he rested.

His second try was also a failure, his attack slowed down after twenty attacks as he grew tired, at the five-minute mark he only broke a third of the skeleton's bone.

"Damn it! There is no way I can break all of them in ten minutes!" he grew frustrated.

"I guess there is no choice but to use my magic," he finally decided to use his magic so could finish the task.

Once he rested and the skeleton finished regenerating its bones, Char activated his magic, the magic gathered on his arm and sword. With a single swing, it cut through the skeleton's upper body.

The magic ran out after that attack, so he needed to reactivate the magic. After five swings, he reached his limit and ran out of mana.

But when he counted the number of bones he cut, he only cut thirty bones in total, "Damn, the bones are not in a straight line so I can't cut a lot of them with a single swing!" he realized.

"If I can't cut a lot with a horizontal strike, then I will just cut vertically! There are 33 backbone  so if I cut at the center of the skeleton, I can cut around 40 bones in one swing!"

He planned to cut the skeleton from the center of its skeleton down to its backbone, both of its shoulders down to its legs, then both of its arms. That way he could cut the most bone with his every swing.

It took him twenty minutes to regenerate his mana, and when he finished resting and gathering mana, he went straight to the skeleton.

The mana started to concentrate on his sword, and the mana solidified on it. With a vertical strike, it cut the skeleton's head downward.

"Ah! I missed!" Char could only cut a few backbones before his sword deviated to the side. As a result, he cut fewer bones and his following cut would also cut fewer bones.

"I can only restart," he lamented as he regenerated his mana again.

"This training not only demands stamina but also accuracy and consistency, I need to improve my swordsmanship," he thought.

He needed to try over and over again since when he succeeded the first swing, the second swing would fail.

With the repetition, he finally forms his own sword style, a technique that he learns from repeated training. Of course, it was not a complete set but a single move. But it's still his own style.

When he killed the skeleton under ten minutes for the first time, the class already ended and everyone else already went back to their dorm.

Char continued his training for another three hours since he would need to rest for twenty minutes between each try.

If Mr. Bone saw that, then he would be shocked because he never intended for Char to succeed on the first day.

He intended for Char to train his endurance and strength by repeatedly swinging his sword. Never would he expect that his magic could cut so much bone with a single swing.

It could only cut through so much bone because the magic was concentrated on the sword, and Char was talented enough to develop his own sword style.

"With this, I can actually kill a creature even without summoning my skeleton!" he remarked.