Shirou didn't care about the underestimation and sarcasm from the swordsmen of the Holy Land of Swords. He didn't even know what the swordsmen in the Holy Land thought of him. He just kept doing his own thing.
Although the Sword Saint test was coming up soon, Shirou quickly got used to the heavy armor that the Sword God had given him in these past few days.
Even though he still couldn't swing the Longsword of Light while wearing the armor, he was already able to do normal sword swings even with the armor's limitations. He could even barely use Soundless Sword.
After getting ready, Shirou didn't relax. Instead, he tried his best to study all the sword skills he had learned in the past. He also started to remember the scenes from his fight with the Dragon God.
For some reason, Shirou couldn't forget the Dragon God's fighting style ever since their battle.
Every time he closed his eyes, every move and every pose of the Dragon God would appear in his mind like it was burned there.
Shirou didn't understand why, but his body instinctively started to imitate the Dragon God's fighting behavior after that.
Not just Sword God Style, but also Water God Style, North God Style, magic, fighting energy, weapons, armor...
Like the Sword God had said before, as a normal person and a fake, he shouldn't try to master just one thing. That was something he couldn't do.
If that was the case, he would just give up on focusing on one thing. Instead, he would study every path until he reached a certain level, just like that Dragon God.
Even though doing this would mean that nothing was real, just like Servant Emiya was a fake Servant, what he needed to do was to become the best at imitation and being a fake!
With this idea, Shirou started to study the Dragon God's fighting style intently.
He kept remembering the Dragon God's movements, thinking about how he should learn to combine and unify skills from various styles like the Dragon God did. He would also add his own special skill of projection forging.
As he continued to think and improve his skills, time passed quickly.
Before long, the day of the Sword Saint trial officially began.
...
Ghislaine woke Eris and Shirou up early in the morning and took them to the training grounds of the Holy Land of Swords.
The training grounds of the Holy Land of Swords, where the disciples of the Holy Land of Swords trained, were located next to a cliff. There were countless rocks sticking up from the ground, forming a strange stone forest.
It's worth mentioning that you could see all kinds of sword marks and cracks on the stone pillars in the stone forest from time to time.
Those were the marks left by disciples of the Sword God Style, and even Water God Style and North God Style disciples, as they trained here.
Just looking at these marks could help swordsmen improve their skills.
This was one of the reasons why the Holy Land of Swords was so important.
Ghislaine took Shirou and Eris to an open space in the training grounds. A large number of swordsmen training in the Holy Land of Swords had already gathered there.
There were not only disciples of the Sword God Style, but also students of the Water God Style and North God Style.
Because the Sword God Style had no requirements for advancement, as long as you passed the test, you could get the Sword Saint title. You didn't even need to learn Longsword of Light.
This was also why Eris hadn't learned Longsword of Light yet, but could still participate in the test.
"There are quite a lot of people."
Eris glanced around at the people, then crossed her arms, not caring at all, acting like she was going to smash everyone there.
Eris's attitude undoubtedly angered the other swordsmen present.
For a moment, the looks around her seemed to want to pierce her through.
But Eris didn't notice at all and stood there proudly.
At the same time, the Sword God quickly appeared in front of the training grounds. Behind him were a group of Sword Kings and even Sword Saints.
At the very back of the group were Nina and Jino, the two youngest Sword Saints in the Holy Land.
Even in the Holy Land of Swords, the concept of seniority still existed.
"Okay, in this Holy Land of Swords, there are no complicated procedures like in the kingdom. There is only the sword and the person who swings it."
The Sword God said frankly, "There is only one thing you need to do: find a Sword Saint here and beat him with your sword. If you win, you are a Sword Saint. Of course, if you are confident, you can directly challenge a Sword King. If you beat a Sword King, you can directly become a Sword King."
The Sword God's easy words surprised many swordsmen who had just arrived at the Holy Land of Swords.
The simple rules were really unexpected.
Of course, the people here were all swordsmen, and they all had some talent in swordsmanship, at least reaching the upper level. So they didn't care at all and immediately started challenging.
Among all the Sword Saints, Jino was obviously the youngest and looked the most inexperienced.
So he faced the most challengers.
The swordsmen all chose to challenge this swordsman who looked the youngest.
However, the swordsmen quickly regretted their choice.
Although Jino was only fourteen years old, his Longsword of Light was faster than that of ordinary Sword Saints. Besides the problem of age, which led to a lack of experience, his strength was also top-notch among Sword Saints.
The swordsmen who tried to challenge Jino quickly failed. Some of them couldn't even last three moves before being defeated.
In the end, most of the swordsmen even gave up on challenging Jino and turned to find other opponents to challenge.
For example, the Sword God's daughter Nina, and the other Sword Saints.
Of course, in reality, Jino was one of the weaker Sword Saints. He was just skilled enough at Longsword of Light and had great talent, but he lacked combat experience compared to the other Sword Saints.
This led to almost none of the challengers being able to complete the challenge, defeat an active Sword Saint, and pass the Sword Saint test...
"Just need to beat him?"
When the situation reached a stalemate, Eris came out.
She pointed in Jino's direction and asked.
"That's right."
The Sword God personally responded to her words with a faint smile.
So Eris went straight to Jino and said, "Come on, let's fight. Don't cry if you lose, you little kid."
"..."
Jino was still a young man, so he couldn't help but feel a little angry that Eris would look down on him so much.
He grabbed his sword and stepped forward, planning to show this ignorant girl a thing or two.
"Then, we'll get ready to start..."
"Aaaaaaa!"
Before Jino could finish speaking, the sword in Eris's hand was already swung!
Her movements were as fierce as a wild dog and as fast as lightning. Although she hadn't reached the level of Longsword of Light, her aura was even more ferocious than an ordinary Longsword of Light.
This was undoubtedly the murderous intent that Eris had developed during her journey in the Transfer Incident.
As a swordsman, murderous intent was the most important and the most difficult to develop.
Only long periods of bloody battles and killings could gather a true murderous aura.
Eris had developed a murderous aura like a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood through long periods of fighting with monsters, and even with humans and demons.
Combined with her already violent nature, it completely erupted, like a wild dog pouncing on someone!
Jino, as an elite swordsman who had been trained in the Holy Land of Swords since childhood, could be said to be an ignorant child growing up in an ivory tower. He had never felt such terrifying murderous intent.
Just Eris's movement of rushing towards him made him panic so much that he couldn't even get into the stance for Longsword of Light.
If he could have used Longsword of Light in time, he probably could have easily defeated Eris.
But Jino was too rushed and couldn't swing his sword properly at all.
And Eris had already seized the opportunity and rushed directly in front of him, and the first strike was a powerful blow that sent Jino's sword flying.
Then, before Jino even had time to say he gave up, Eris directly hit Jino with her wooden sword and completed a combo.
After a beating, Eris's released murderous aura even gave Jino the illusion of being killed by a real sword, and he fainted on the spot.
"What!"
Seeing Jino's defeat, everyone present was speechless.
Ordinary swordsmen couldn't even understand what had happened at all.
After all, in the eyes of ordinary people, Jino seemed to have suddenly panicked and become like a headless fly, unable to block Eris's sword at all.
However, Eris didn't use Longsword of Light at all.
If Jino had used Longsword of Light, he should have been able to win easily, right?
Some swordsmen who had come to participate in the Sword Saint test looked suspicious and even began to suspect that Eris had cheated in some way.
Even the Sword Saints of the Holy Land of Swords mostly thought so.
They were all sure of Jino's strength. Even if he wasn't as good as a veteran Sword Saint, he wasn't too far behind.
Nina also thought so. She couldn't feel the murderous aura that Eris had released at all, so she thought that her cousin had been taken down by the opponent using some kind of bad method, catching him off guard.
Only the experts at the Sword King level and above realized the reason and showed appreciation for Eris.
"Jino is still not good enough. He has the talent, but he needs experience."
The Sword God said.
"Yeah, this guy is completely useless."
Eris replied.
Eris's words directly angered the Sword Saints present.
They felt that the Sword God was just being polite, but Eris was even degrading Jino after getting an advantage, which was simply too terrible.
Especially Nina, as Jino's cousin, couldn't watch her brother suffer such humiliation, so she stood up directly and said to Eris, "I don't accept it. Something must have gone wrong in the last match. If you have the ability, then you can fight me too!"
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