453 Chapter 453: Sensei

After the awards ceremony, and the end of the tournament, we returned to Jing Tian City in triumph. Principal Vincent Violet delivered a speech, informing everyone how very proud he was of us, and we had a couple days of holidays for the whole school to celebrate the progress we had made. From rank eighty-second last year to third, that was a massive jump of seventy-nine ranks and showed remarkable improvement.

Even Feng Hai returned to offer his congratulations. Since he was our instructor who organized an entire training camp to kick us into shape, he was welcomed with wide, open arms. Once again, there were celebration all about…

…and before I knew it, life returned to normal. The euphoria of getting third in the national tournament gradually faded after a couple of weeks, and because we knew we couldn't become complacent, we returned to our rigorous training. The second year students, in particular, knew that our third-placed team would be broken up by the end of this year. Harrison, Pearl, Cody and Theodore would all graduate, leaving the rest of us behind. That was almost half the team, and without Harrison's leadership and tactical genius, it was going to be more difficult for us to compete.

And stop looking at me. I was not leader material, and I sucked at tactical and strategic setups. I wouldn't know who to send in a team match. Honestly, I don't know what you guys were expecting. If you want a genius Mary Sue protagonist who could cleverly outsmart all his opponents as well as was invincible in combat, go read Battle Frenzy instead. I was not Wang Zhong, and I was never going to be as intelligent as him. Hopefully I could be more powerful than him…no matter what Oscillating Fist or Ghost Steps or accurate arrows he fired or whatever infinite crosswheel skills he possessed or whatever techniques he unleashed, as long as I could nuke him with Scorpio's Antares or Draco's Thuban, I should theoretically be able to win.

Then again, Wang Zhong was literally protected by plot armor, and besides, he was smart enough to defeat me before I could cast those spells. Damn, I couldn't defeat him, after all. I give up. Good thing he was a fictional character, and no such perfect person existed in reality. Everyone would have a flaw or two, but that guy was literally god with no weaknesses. And such god mode Mary Sues didn't exist in reality, thankfully, or the world would be a boring place to live in. Even Albert Einsten was eccentric and had things he couldn't do. He was no soldier, that's for sure.

I was aware that we weren't the only ones to resume training. Over the Internet, I heard rumors that Lililth Porter had intensified her own training schedule, along with those of her teammates. Their defeat to us had been a blow, and almost a humiliation. Obviously, since this was reality, there was no nonsensical "how did we lose to trash?!", delusional denials, simmering resentment and then attempts to "right" the whole thing by sending assassins after us like in ridiculous Chinese web novels. Seriously, those authors were…mentally challenged if they had to resort to absurd, unrealistic and contrived plot developments like these. And of course, even if you send professional assassins, the main character and his ridiculous plot armor would somehow survive the attempts and even defeat the assassins, before going to destroy the family that sent them after him.

Have you ever heard of such things happening in real life? Seriously? Where did these Chinese authors get all these weird ideas from? Oh, right…power fantasies and wish fulfilments. There was no need to think too much over the strange logic at work in these sort of stories. I would never be able to find anything.

In any event, Lilith's training inspired my own, and my own aim involved…well, not a repeat of this year's fairy tale run, but at least I wanted a rematch with Pendragon Academy…and to win over them this time. No matter how far we progressed next year.

"Ugh…too bad Charles Lacroix will not be participating next year."

It was a pity, but Charles Lacroix was a third year like Harrison and the rest. He would be graduating at the end of his academic year, and I would never be able to compete against him again. At least not in this year's tournament. Then again, there was the university-level tournaments, and even if I somehow end up in the same university as him, I could still challenge him inside the university itself. Of course, it was pointless to challenge him to a duel until I had improved myself.

"Then there is the ice magic stuff that I need to deal with too," I reminded myself as I raised my hand and conjured a frost rune. My ice magic still wasn't perfect. Absolute Zero did not work on Charles Lacroix, and that meant I hadn't reached the same level as him. Whether it was his holy magic that countered it or he was simply stronger didn't matter. I needed to become more powerful than him.

The question was…how? Yeah, training…but he was bound to continue his own training too, and honestly training alone wasn't going to help me close the gap. I needed something more drastic, or more combat experience somehow, as if Charles wasn't going to get combat experience of his own. Pendragon Academy was famous for sending its knightly students out into the field. Noblesse oblige and all that. The knights of Pendragon Academy were taught that it was their duty to protect the commoners and civilians from monsters, just like knights of old.

Man, I wanted to be a knight as well. In my previous life, it was my dream to be an Imperial Knight and pilot those towering, 9-meter-tall suits of ceramite and adamantium armor, and stride across the battlefield – except that such technology didn't exist back during my previous time period, but then again I loved my tabletop game that featured miniatures duking it out in the 41st millennium.

For now, I focused on developing my ice magic, to supplement my Constellation magic in ways that my wood magic failed to do so. One of the things I realized was that, other than Green Dragon, none of the Greek Constellations were of the wood attribute, so it was difficult to simply apply any of them to the advanced wood magic I had learned. This sucked, but…whatever.

On the other hand, because of the water attribute present in many of the Greek Constellations, I could substitute it with ice. Even Hydra and Draco benefited from advanced ice magic. However, since I was a year behind on ice magic, when compared to wood magic, I had a lot of catching up to do. And since I wasn't able to do much in Jing Tian Academy, considering the classes had already been filled up and I had already chosen my lessons. So most of the ice magic I learned was from self-study. Borrowing whatever books I could from the library, I headed home to begin.

"Really, now?" Dad was staring at the pile of books, bemused, when I returned home. "You're learning ice magic? Why ice magic?"

I understood his consternation. Dad was a fire mage, so his element was the polar opposite of the element I had selected. He wasn't that bothered with wood magic because I didn't bring tomes and grimoires of wood magic home like I was doing with ice magic, and so wasn't that aware of it, but now I had no way to hide my attempt to study ice magic from him.

"Uh, well…I had an encounter." I wasn't sure if he would believe me, so I told him what happened at the Den of Dragons during the tournament, and how I ran into the thousand-year-old ice essence and the accumulated mana of pure frost. "So it might be more beneficial for me to learn ice magic now, after absorbing all that essence and stuff."

"I see." Dad mused for a bit, before he nodded helplessly. "So you're going to learn ice magic instead of fire magic. Oh, well."

"Sorry." For some reason, I felt as if I had disappointed him somehow. But hey, fire magic was the first element I learned, and Vermillion Phoenix the first Celestial Guardian I successfully summoned, so it wasn't as if Dad didn't leave his mark on me.

"Nah. It's fine. Do whatever you need to." Dad straightened himself up. "You are not me. I can't possible expect you to become a clone of me and master fire magic." He then forced a smile. "And I certainly don't expect you to make a contract with a spirit either."

"No, I won't." I didn't want to lose anyone precious to me. That would be horrible. Speaking of which, I still hadn't heard anything back from Feng Hai concerning Anastasia. Last I heard, Ling Dan was working on a medicine to alleviate her symptoms, but he hadn't succeeded yet. The Silver Wolves had to go around collecting ingredients for that medicine.

I hoped they succeeded.

"Anyway, get your ass in gear. Don't tell me you forgot what day today is."

"…eh?"

It took me a few minutes, but I finally remembered. Oh, right. Today was the day Melina Franklin was attending our dojo for lessons. I grinned at the memory, having asked her to come to the dojo for training. What a brilliant idea, considering that I planned to palm her off to my dad. Since Dad was the one who agreed to Duke Fergus Franklin's request on my behalf, he could take responsibility and train her himself.

Don't get me involved, that's all I was asking. If you wanted to train her, don't ask me to do it for you.

Dad didn't seem to realize my plan…at least not yet. But I had to make sure he was there, so I feigned innocence.

"You'll be going to the dojo too, right?"

Dad glanced back at me in an almost lazy manner, shifting his gaze from the holographic screen.

"Me? Well, I guess. I need to work my muscles. Can't spend the whole day watching anime, after all. It's not healthy."

Geez, I couldn't believe he actually said that without any sense of irony. I was sure that Dad did some training on his own now and then to keep himself in shape, but all I had seen of him so far was him lounging on the couch and watching anime. Obviously that wasn't all he did, or he would never be able to accomplish all the missions he carried out so far.

Honestly, I had no idea how he did it. Well, it was none of my business. I just needed to focus on the training today.

After spending a couple of hours reading the ice magic grimoires and tomes I had borrowed from the library, and practicing some of the spells, I then proceeded to the dojo and practiced some more. Within moments, the wooden interior of the dojo was coated in a thick layer of ice. Twirling my swords about, I tried to remember the moves that Charles Lacroix unleashd against me, and shadow-dueled against him.

That guy was honestly the most powerful opponent I had ever met.

"Sensei?"

A crack resounded across the dojo as someone tried to open the door, which was frozen shut. I sheepishly hurried over and sliced through the ice with my swords, and then sheathed them. Pulling the door open, I welcomed an apprehensive Melina into the dojo.

"Welcome, Melina! This is the Huang family's dojo. We'll be training here today!"

"I will be counting on you!" Melina bowed almost ninety degrees at the waist, her golden blond hair falling on either side of her head and veiling her cute face. She then straightened up, and then cupped her hands. "Please, Sensei!"

Yeah, of course she wanted to begin as quickly as possible. I glanced around and caught sight of Dad. Waving to him, I beckoned for him to come over, but Dad didn't approach.

"Uh, Dad?"

"She's your student, Richie. Of course you're going to have to train her on your own."

Damn. Dad saw through my plan. He was chuckling as he folded his arms, watching my dismayed expression in amusement. Dad knew me too well, and had anticipated that I might try to palm the teaching duty off to him.

"You're the one who agreed to this on my behalf, you have some responsibility too!" I complained. Dad snorted.

"It's for your own good, Richie! You're going to take over this dojo one day! So the best time to begin learning how to be an instructor is now!"

Damn him…

"Um…am I causing trouble?" Melina glanced up, her eyes wide in anxiety. I gulped and quickly shook my head.

"No. I was hoping my dad would join us, but seems like he just wants to slack off. We'll be doing the training on our own today."

Hoping that she wouldn't see through my lies, I strode over to the rack and grabbed a wooden sword. Spinning around, I tossed the shinai to Melina. She caught hold of the bamboo sword and stared at it for a moment before holding it in both hands.

"Yay! Swordsmanship!" she cheered. I wondered inwardly why she was so enthusiastic. "I'm finally going to learn swordsmanship!"

Oh, right. Back in her household, her cousin, Kureha, and all her relatives refused to teach her swordsmanship. They claimed that she didn't have the talent for it, despite her clear gifts in magic. I partly wondered if some sort of family politics were involved – perhaps they didn't want her, the daughter of Duke Franklin, to learn swordsmanship because they were afraid that she would indisputably succeed as the true heir. No one would be able to challenge her position or status then.

However, Duke Franklin obviously wouldn't allow such nonsense to hold him back from teaching Melina himself. So there might be some truth to the rumors. Whatever the case, I was about to find out, so I decided to begin right away and run her through the basic kata and stances. Reviewing the lessons that Dad drilled into me over the last five years, I took a deep breath and pushed my glasses up my nose. Smiling to provide Melina some amount of comfort, I tilted my head in a friendly manner.

"All right, let's start!"

"Osu!"

And so we began.