Chapter 857: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 10)

Normally the previous wouldn’t be something to really worry about, because despite being the case, the truth is that Nerissa’s fighting style was properly adapted to the mortal level.

It is said that she "wastes" too much energy into mobility and fluidity she doesn’t need unless dealing with specific targets, but that’s a relative observation, if we talk about from the point of view of her cultivation manual, then she is perfect.

In fact, even if we were to add her attack and movement type manuals to the equation, such a meaningful world as "abusing" of her fluidity couldn’t be used to describe her current state, at most she will be "inexperienced" but the process of integrating the knowledge of said manuals would be considered set in stone already.

Nerissa can only be considered "lacking" if we take into account her profession type manual too, which is "Sword Maniac", for that same reason, "perfection" can’t be her goal, but to go beyond that, her swordsmanship must not only integrate new aspects as she was originally doing, but it has to digest them and turn into something new that greatly surpasses the materials out of which it was created.

So that’s why she is focusing in aspects that completely oppose her fighting style like this, and the same applies to Iris and Lieze given that they also obtained the same profession type manual, namely sword maniac.

It’s worth mentioning that their results will be as different as night and day, because while their profession manual is indeed the same, their movement and attack type ones, are completely different as they do align with their respective personal preferences and unique traits.

Anyway, back to the fight, the dual blue tone haired girl, instead of making a leap to open distance which she would then normally use to smoothly flow into charging towards the enemy like a fierce wave breaking on the shore, made a twirl right where she was standing to gain momentum and then slash her sword at the incoming enemy.

"What!", the vice was taken by surprise over the previous development, he has fought many "weapon cultivators" as those whose focus is completely related to their weapon are known, the most common being the so called "sword cultivators", given that well, sword is also the most common weapon choice in the cultivation world.

Which also means that the vice has the most experience dealing with sword cultivators, and just like he has stated, by creating a disadvantageous stage for swordsmanship like fighting in a small place, has allowed him to defeat opponents that are way more gifted than him.

The previous is of course a tactic the vice uses when dealing with the most "common" type of sword cultivator too, which is the one who wields long one-handed swords, like Iris, Nerissa and Lieze too.

Their weapons shine in middle ranged fighting, and allow them to easily clash head on with long ranged ones too, but are at disadvantage against short range weapons.

It would be different if we were talking about short swords like Nina’s gladius for example, or if they were dual wielders like it is also the case of the youngest among the three sisters.

That being said, you have seen Nerissa fight before and her sword changes its range and even style with the help of her formless water attribute, so normally the vice would have died the moment he clashed with Nerissa, but right now, there wasn’t spirit energy in play, so despite the scare that he suffered right now, the enemy managed to dodge by lowering his stance by almost outright sitting on the ground.

’This damn bitch is also one of those exceptionally talented bastards!’, inwardly cursed the vice.

Naturally, while experience can be extremely effective against natural talent, that also depends in quantities, how much experience against how much talent, this mercenary has killed a few notorious opponents with way better reputation than him indeed, but his life has hanged from a thread is a few occasions when the enemy turned out to be much more outstanding than what he expected.

After all, tricks are said to be ultimately useless against an absolute difference in power, there is also the fact that mercenaries are often people who couldn’t meet up the requirements to join a specific force of their liking and end up choosing a different way of life than most cultivators.

Which results in people like the vice, who has a deep hatred against those that are clearly more outstanding than him, not like this is a mercenary exclusive trait though.

Unlike what you have seen on a daily basis at the Myriad Occupation sect, where veteran disciples care for their junior disciples who in a lot of cases are much more outstanding than what they were when they recently joined, like older sisters do with their little sisters, which in return results in those younger girls admiring their senior sisters from the bottom of their hearts, something we can perfectly see in how Kana who is a little monster in terms of talent, is cared about and protected by basically all the girls of sect, including those that in terms of battle prowess are actually weaker than the little girl, that’s absolutely not a normal situation in the cultivation world.

In the vast majority of sects, competition is bloody, the seniors don’t want to be outshone by the outstanding juniors, so they either try to recruit them to their side or aim to crush them in secret.

That’s something Lilia and her sisters experienced during their younger years, well, in their case things absolutely didn’t go the way people expected, because like previously stated those three were a nightmare for those of their same generation, to the point that it was considered a "curse" by the vast majority to be close to them in age, meaning that they could never come out of their shadows.

And they were a source of fear for those from past generations, because they not only caught up with them too fast but couldn’t block them from doing so no matter what methods they used.

Naturally, while the sects, families and forces allow this fierce competition to go on, they are not stupid, if a talent is too outstanding, they won’t let others crush it before it blooms, so, methods to protect specific people are in place, that’s why heirs and other similar members of the youngest and young generation with potential have high ranked protectors assigned to them and the like.

But those kinds of privileges come with ties of course, what made Lilia and her sisters different is that since they refused to be restricted, they weren’t particularly neither targeted not protected, but were left to fend for themselves with their own means.

Which ended up not working the way those stuck-up elders expected, because instead of cracking under the pressure, those three used it to perfect themselves, just like how good steel can only be made by constantly striking it to remove the impurities.

That experience was also one of the main reasons as to why they came up with the concept of what will later turn into the Myriad Occupation sect, they wanted to create a place where those that lived together, ate their meals together and fought side to side, wouldn’t turn against each other over resources or raising in rank.

The competition was fiercer than ever though, just like at all those girls fighting over a chance to go on a date with their admired senior brother, but let alone death, not even a normal enmity would ever be formed due to it.

But enough of that, the vice who squatted to dodge the sudden change in Nerissa’s style, stood up while aiming his poisoned bone knives at different areas of the dual blue tone haired girl.

’Now what, miss talented swordsman!’, inwardly thought the vice, as he stabbed at Nerissa’s right side with one of his knives while he slashed at her chest with the other one.

People tend to misunderstand Nerissa and Iris’s rivalry, believing that their personalities are reflected in their attributes which is usually the case for cultivators, fire attributed cultivators tend to be energetic, impatient or outright volatile depending on a variety of reasons, while water attributed ones are usually calm, that doesn’t mean they are pushovers just like water can cause a lot of harm as well, but it’s a common trait among them, as a side note ice attribute cultivators are known to be rather aloof or indifferent, and that pretty much is the usual case for a certain ligress for example, but not for Aria who though calm and serious, is one of the most expressive girls Aster knows, she is just not outspoken about it like Alice is for example.

But Nerissa and Iris are totally different than what their attribute represents, Iris is indeed straightforward and when she fights, she does overwhelm her enemies like fire would, but at the same time, she is pretty much calm and composed at all times and that’s not because her focus is indeed her sword despite, she not being either a pure Bladeheart nor Fireheart princess, that’s just her personality, her fire is overwhelmingly strong but she doesn’t let it run wild and in fact rarely uses it as an attribute, but prefers to apply it to her sword instead.

Nerissa is despite having a completely opposite attribute as water, the same as Iris, she might be calm usually, but her personality when fighting is... incredibly fierce, if one judges her by her soft vibe and pretty looks, then one is in for the beating of their life, after all, when those two clash, the one to first go on the offensive is always Nerissa.

"Humph!", and that fierceness made itself present when the dual blue tone haired girl, directly... punched the vice on the face.

"Ack!", the sudden pain accompanied by his vision being obstructed by tears and blood running down his nose due to the punch, forced the vice to retreat in a hurry, it’s not that he was afraid of pain, nor that this was the first punch to the face he has taken before, but that he could hear the whistling sound produced by Nerissa’s sword which taking advantage of his attack being interrupted by her punch, was already being slashed at the enemy’s neck.

"Swoosh!", just like how her personality outstands when compared to usual, Nerissa despite being an energy/soul path cultivator, is not physically weak in the slightest, she is not a physical training maniac like Agnes, but to better make use of her unique attribute, Nerissa did train her body even as a cultivator, so in this place she doesn’t lose to secondary body path cultivators like Iris when clashing head on and as a result, her sword produced a noticeable sound as it hit the air, because the enemy had jumped away.

"Rip!", that being said, how could that fierce dual tone blue haired girl completely miss her attacks that many times in a row, while the sword didn’t cut the enemy’s body, a large cut mark on his shirt which travelled all the way from his shoulder to his lower abdomen was left on the vice’s shirt due to the previous.

’Holly hell, if I was a fraction of a second slower to react, she would have opened my chest up with that!’, cursed the vice to his insides.

As a short weapon user, his spatial awareness and reaction time should be way better than that of a sword user, because he is used to fight at the closest ranges possible and yet he was nearly slashed down and while fighting in a stage that gave him the advantage over his enemy too, it was ridiculous from his point of view.

The vice wasn’t completely to blame here though, Nerissa had broken out of the "mold" of her usual fighting style too, because you see, normally she would have simply passed her sword to her other hand to block the enemy’s knives in a single go, as a demonstration of her flowing fighting style which puts emphasis in her monstrous dexterity and capacity to adapt to the situation in turn.

But while the previous sounds amazing and it is in all due honesty, since Nerissa can wield her sword perfectly with either of her hands without any sign of neither being her non-dominant one, that would have been a "waste" of energy, because she could achieve a similar result by just straightforwardly punching the enemy, just like she did.

In other words, she just demonstrated the results of her training, by using a concise, direct and simple attack that didn’t even use her sword, not as a secondary part of her fighting style, since it’s not like she doesn’t throw punches at enemies when fighting as a cultivator, given that well, fierce girl, but everything besides her fluidity, attribute and swordsmanship was used as a support for that, like her physical training for example.

But in this case, that punch was given an actually important task, to disrupt the enemy’s attack and create an opening so that she could finish the enemy with her sword, she still unconsciously assigned more weight to her swordsmanship, but hey, progress not perfection, also that’s more than expected, since her profession is sword maniac.

’Iris’s usual expressionless face would surely change if she saw me fighting like she does’, amusedly thought Nerissa, that was a straightforward, simple but overwhelming movement she executed right there, and that’s the trademark of the red-haired top core disciple from the red sword faction.

"Pttoei!", the vice wiped his eyes and spat the blood that had accumulated on his mouth due to the previous punch he took to the face, his nose didn’t break but it was close, if he hadn’t reduced the impact by jumping backwards basically as soon Nerissa’s fist made contact with his face, then his nose would have been crushed right there.

’This bitch, what the hell is she, she clearly has the vibe of those stupid sword obsessed bastards, but then instead of trying to block me with her sword which would have created a nice opening, went on and punched me instead damn it’, thought the enemy.

He actually looked at his surroundings as if trying to discern something, only for Nerissa to directly say.

"Don’t even bother trying, there is no way out of this room, unless you defeat me of course".

That’s right, the vice was looking for a way to go out of the room, why, because he couldn’t understand the enemy, and for someone like him who only fought while having setting up an advantageous stage, this was the worst possible outcome.

Unfortunately, Nerissa was directly standing with the sole exit at her back, she could retreat if she wanted to, but the enemy would have to go through her to do the same.

It was amusingly enough a case of a short-range fighter trapped in a small place with a middle range one, instead of it being the other way around as it should be.

"Damn it!", cursed the vice as he charged at Nerissa, in the way he actually threw one of his bone knives at her face to then jump and slash the other at her neck, which resulted in Nerissa dodging the first knife while using her sword to block the second one.

"Crack!", a bone knife naturally can’t hold a candle against a steel sword, at least not a normal bone knife against a sword crafter by Aster, so due to the strong impact the blade of the knife cracked on the spot, not to mention that the vice had thrown the other earlier.

There was also that jump he did which while sounding cool to watch, was stupid because it created openings in his charge, he couldn’t dodge while midair for example, as he wasn’t as talented or skilled in terms of techniques as the purple lightning princess or Agnes who could twist their bodies without any ground support to change their direction, slightly in comparison to their usual fighting styles.

But it was all for a reason, the vice had freed one of his hands by getting rid of one knife, then took that jump which due to being a movement that left him widely exposed was bound to catch the enemy’s attention, alongside the other knife being slashed at a vital point such as Nerissa’s neck, all with the intention of preventing the dual blue tone haired girl from keeping track of his recently free hand, which had reached into his pocket.

’Go to hell...!’, just as the vice was about to throw the contents of a small bottle at Nerissa’s face, that dual blue tone haired girl moved her right arm like a lightning, and fiercely grabbed onto the enemy’s neck to then... smack him against the ground.

"Thud!", unlike the floors of the houses at Aster’s camp, the floor inside this camp’s refuges is the ground, the normal members use a bunch of grass as a bed and the highest ranked members use a blanket on top of the previous, so the sound of the vice’s body being smacked downwards like that was rather dull, but it was quite loud indeed.

What’s more, his head hit the ground before his body, and the shake that his brain took made his eyes roll backwards, he fainted on the spot, then the small bottle to which he was secretly holding onto, rolled out of his hand.

"Humph, I might not be able to absolutely detect toxins like Vivian, but even as a mortal, where would I put my face if something in liquid state escaped my detection", said Nerissa as she softly snorted.

Yep, she can pretty much detect any liquids in her vicinity, not directly, it’s much more of an instinct thing, a bit vaguer when compared to Vivian who can tell that there are toxins regardless of their form, and even know the basics of their effects without even seeing them.

But that’s because Nerissa’s detected range of things is "wider", Vivian is limited to anything toxic, but in the case of the dual blue toned girl, they just have to be liquid state things, it doesn’t have to be water, poisons, tree sap and even blood can be perceived by her, the area covered by this especial sense of hers is also quite smaller when compared to Vivian, but as you can see, they each have their own unique advantages.

Also, Nerissa is much more affected by the mortal limitations when compared to Vivian, because that dual blue tone haired girl would normally be able to detect also things in gaseous and solid states, as those are also states which her formless water attribute can take.

Vivian is certainly the girl with the highest natural "output" Aster had met, without training or anything, but that doesn’t mean that talent-wise she outshines Nerissa, the previous was caused because her constitution was out of control due to its own power, she experienced the problems that Aster should have gone through if he was a normal Drage with the dragon lineage he awakened, or if he didn’t center himself in the concept of "control", as Lilia and Alice whose dragon lineages don’t lose against his, have proved by having those periods of excitement which Aster didn’t experience either.

And while as of current it is unknown whether Nerissa’s power originates in a constitution or a lineage, since the only hint so far was that blue crystal on her forehead where her manual is kept, what it is clear is that she doesn’t lose when compared to the white-haired girl, in the innate talent aspect at all.

"Mmm, it does feel a bit weird, but it did the trick, I triggered my unique mission with that~", happily said Nerissa.

In case you wonder how that happened if she just beat an enemy, and not even a really strong one, it’s because of how she did it.

Think about if for a second, what did she use to knock out the enemy, yeah, not her sword but her hand, as she smacked him against the ground to defeat the vice-leader.

Of course, if it was as simple as that, then she would have triggered her unique mission a long time ago and it would honestly not be a unique mission which is known to be damn harsh to trigger as well.

For it to work, Nerissa had to put her sword in second priority unconsciously and then defeat an enemy not in her usual way and that’s what just happened, she blocked the attack with her sword which occupied it with dealing with the bone knife, therefore she couldn’t use it to attack the enemy.

And she did so by reflex, it wasn’t planned which means that she has progressed in breaking out of her usual fighting style, it’s worth mentioning that this was because Nerissa was restraining herself.

If she didn’t do so, well, she could have fiercely pushed her sword frontwards and hit the enemy on the face with the lateral side of the blade even while blocking his attack, as a proof of it, the dual blue tone haired girl casually took out the meter sized wood container that the vice had unearthed and placed it under her arm to then grab onto the fainted vice from the collar of his shirt with the hand of the same arm and after erasing the fighting traces left on the ground, she left this refuge.

So, as you see, strength-wise she could have overwhelmed the vice head on with her sword, destroyed the bone knife and then hit him on the head with the lateral side of her sword, but instead used her other hand to smack him against the ground to defeat him.