Chapter 109: Good Job

The clashing of steel rang through the white space, the intensity of the impacts increasing by the second.

Sparks flew as the blades clashed with enough force to take down mana-enhanced steel walls.

Valerian raised the greatsword high in the air and brought it down hard. Ravena’s eyes didn’t leave the blade for even a split second, and she let the edge slide off the blade of her glaive.

In a quick movement, she swung around the shaft of her glaive and hit Valerian on the side of his head with the wood.

The force behind the counter sent him reeling to the side, dizzy. But Ravena didn’t let up and swung the glaive down on him.

Barely managing to catch himself, Valerian blocked the falling blade by bringing up the greatsword. Their duel continued as Ravena exploited the range and versatility of her glaive, forcing Valerian onto the defensive with his heavy greatsword.

They moved at incredible speeds; even without mana enhancing their bodies, they were faster than almost all the first-years with mana.

They had been fighting nonstop for over an hour at this point. Thanks to his physique, Valerian didn’t get physically tired, and Ravena herself was a demi-god, so even days of fighting nonstop wouldn’t make her break a sweat. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

But staying on highest alert and fighting someone with so much more experience gnawed at Valerian’s concentration, and he began to make more mistakes.

Mistakes that Ravena exploited every time, and she made sure to let Valerian feel when he messed up.

Valerian blocked every attack he could, but the large greatsword was even heavier than every other weapon Ravena had given him, so his movements were sluggish. Paired with the unfamiliarity of the sword, it made him feel like he was slower than he should be.

Slowly, cuts appeared on his body as Ravena used every opening to cut, stab, or slash at him. She wasn’t scared to actually injure Valerian after she had seen his regeneration in full action during one of their spars.

Ravena slashed her glaive in a wide arc, and Valerian brought the sword up to block the attack, but the force behind it was more than he had anticipated, and his arms were knocked up into the air.

’Shit!’

Using this opening to end the spar, Ravena slashed the glaive through Valerian’s body, opening a deep and wide gash.

Valerian fell to the ground; even then, he was careful not to let the blade fall down.

The wound on his chest began to slowly knit itself together, and Valerian sat on the ground for a moment and looked up at his teacher.

’2 weeks and I’m still so bad.’

For the past two weeks, this had been his daily routine. During that time, he tried out a new type of sword every day, remembering things he liked and disregarding ideas or features that he didn’t like to slowly build his ideal sword.

Ravena put the glaive back into her spatial ring, took out a wooden chair, crossed her legs, and looked at Valerian.

"So? How is the greatsword?"

Valerian sat up and turned to the huge sword in his hand. Like every weapon in Ravena’s arsenal, it was pitch-black without any ornaments or an intricate design. It was huge, reaching almost to his standing height.

"It’s heavy and slow, but I like the power I can bring up with it."

Over all the different duels, Valerian had slowly built an idea of what he wanted his sword to be. First off, he had hated the rapier on the first day; it was too thin, and he hated how it restricted him to just thrusts.

On the second day, he was given a longsword, and he really liked it, but it felt too slow and too rigid in its use.

After that, he tried all kinds of weapons: katanas, twinblades, daggers, and even spears. But there was always something that he didn’t like.

"That’s the whole use of a greatsword: heavy and slow attacks."

Ravena took a cigarette out and lit it with a flame over her finger. Inhaling the smoke, she continued:

"Show me your progress."

Valerian gently laid the greatsword on the ground, careful not to earn himself another round of punches for letting it drop.

When the blade lay on the ground, he stretched out his hand and searched for the black mass that was hidden inside his body.

After losing the soul bond with Twilight, simply taking it out of his body was difficult, as he had to do everything manually and couldn’t just summon it from his soul.

After a second, a black, tar-like mass began to seep through the skin of his hand. It didn’t fall to the ground and stuck to his hand, but the sight of it was more than disgusting, even if Valerian knew that it wasn’t anything weird.

He began to concentrate, and the black mass began to take shape. It was a slow process, but Ravena didn’t hurry him and watched the forming Twilight with interest.

It began to elongate into a thin line, roughly resembling what could be the outline of a sword, without a handle, a crossguard, or half the blade. Black, shadowy smoke with a deep purple light within emanated from Twilight.

Valerian closed his hand on the part of the "sword" that could be seen as a handle by a bump that was the first indication of a half-finished crossguard.

The handle was long enough to be held by two hands comfortably, and the blade was rather long, but it was still shorter than the massive greatsword.

"That’s what I have until now."

Valerian swung the thin black line around, getting a feel for the blueprint of what would become his new sword. Ravena stood up from her chair and walked up to him.

"Give it to me."

He complied without backtalk. When she held Twilight, she moved her hand along the blade.

"It’s better than what you had before. The sword you had at the beginning was soulless; it was a cheap imitation of what you had seen before."

While it still slightly annoyed him how she talked about the old Twilight, he couldn’t disagree with her. He had only used the forms of swords that he had seen somewhere before and just chose what would be good in the situation without actually getting to know a specific form.

"Good job. Keep going."

She threw the sword to Valerian, turned around, and began to walk away.

Valerian was left standing there with the half-formed Twilight in his hands and confusion written all over his face.

’Did she just say "Good job"? I must have misheard it. There is no way the [Goddess of Severance] just complimented me.’

But his ears worked perfectly fine. As strange as it was, this was the first time Ravena had actually said something positive to him.

Valerian wasn’t sure why, but that simple "Good job" made him incredibly proud. Maybe it was because she was someone who had actually worked hard for her strength, being born with nothing and becoming one of the strongest in the world.

And the compliment of such a being meant more to him than any praise he got from the servants at the castle, or even Helias and Freya.

He looked down at the half-formed blade and gripped the handle tight.

’Almost there.’

The familiar space rift appeared as Ravena slashed down with her hand, marking the end of today’s training session. Without many words, Valerian stepped through the rift and appeared back in his room.

Every time he stepped through the rift, he tried to find the location of the place they trained. It didn’t take him long to understand that it was a pocket dimension, likely created by the principal for the sole purpose of this training.

But he just couldn’t find a way to travel between the dimension and the real world himself; it was like there was a barrier that prevented him from finding out more.

But he had to let go of these thoughts about the barrier, as he couldn’t exactly do much about it.

Following the routine he had established over the past two weeks, Valerian made his way to the bathroom to take a shower. When he was finished, he applied the same high-end fragrance he did every day.

Putting on casual clothes consisting of a simple grey T-shirt and black shorts, he took out the communication crystal from his pocket space and called Seraphine.

Every day after training, they would meet up for Seraphine to examine his body and try to crack the secret behind it.

In the first few days, she had pretty much just touched him wherever she wanted, staying off some areas, of course, but then she had begun to bring devices to measure the mana density, purity, and many more factors around him.

Sometimes Valerian managed to take a look at the cover of the notebook she brought with her, and he was shocked when he read the title:

"Valerian’s Body Examination, Volume 5"

She had written five volumes about the research she conducted, and that had been a few days ago, so she must have reached the 7th volume by now.

The communication line connected, and he could hear her voice through it.

"Hey."

"I’m done now with my training. We can start if you want."

Her excited voice came back:

"Give me 10 minutes."

She promptly hung up and ended the communication line.

’10 minutes? Normally it’s just 5. Oh well.’

And like always, Valerian went to the kitchen to prepare the tea.