Grandfather Darius probably didn't pay much attention to me. In his eyes, my arrival was merely an insignificant move. Without seeing him, I still finished breakfast and went to the Water God Style Dojo for my daily lessons.
Contrary to what I thought, today I was still in the Noble Beginner Class. They didn't place me in the Intermediate Knight Class, nor did they assign me to a very powerful teacher. I had been a little excited last night. However, today, there were only 6 students in the class instead of yesterday's 8.
It seemed that due to the harsh training environment, three students had already dropped out after just one day. Why do I say three students dropped out? Because a new girl with blue hair and big, gentle-looking eyes arrived in class today.
This was also a rare sight; it was unusual for a noble to send their daughter to study at the Water God Style Dojo. This was different from commoner knights. Daughters of noble families could be used for political marriage.
Theoretically, a daughter was more useful than an illegitimate son. Illegitimate sons were only assigned to manage the family's properties, just like my father's two older brothers who were sent to manage other cities.
But daughters could be married off to other nobles, and a good marriage could bring huge benefits to the family without causing other instability to the family structure. Therefore, learning Water God Style swordsmanship was something that noble daughters would almost never do.
The most they would learn were etiquette, dance, literature, and some skills suitable for a mistress of the house, such as financial management. No wonder Alice was called the Red Lion in the original work and was disliked by most nobles.
This girl has long blue hair. Would she be called a Smurf? No, this world has the Elf race, so perhaps 'Blue Monkey' would be more fitting. Teacher Urie didn't have us introduce ourselves. After the usual exercises, we proceeded to the daily sparring.
Today, I was paired with that new girl. While exercising, I noticed that this girl had excellent stamina. During the running drills, everyone except her couldn't keep up with my pace. She was a girl who looked only about four or five years old, not much older than me, which meant she had excellent athletic potential.
She looked quite pretty too. Maybe we could become good friends. Every little girl is a potential asset before she grows up. Perhaps we could even become childhood sweethearts. Haha, I got a bit carried away. But the actual result was that I underestimated her; I really held back a bit.
During the sparring match, she attacked me first. Just like yesterday, I used the Water God Style's basic move, 'Reverse Scale Lure.'
I tried to lure her into attacking my left side, but she saw through the opening I presented. As she attacked, her left horizontal slash turned into a left downward chop. The sword form that should have easily parried the attack followed the angle of my block all the way down and struck my leg.
Ah, my leg was struck by her bamboo sword. It felt like it was almost broken. This woman didn't hold back at all. Even though I was wearing armor, my leg wasn't protected. I took the full force of her chop with my flesh.
When I sparred with my other classmates yesterday, I intentionally struck the armored parts. At most, they were knocked down and fell to the ground, sustaining no injuries. Today was different. My leg still ached faintly, and even a slight touch caused pain.
Seeing me clutching my leg, the girl showed no intention of coming over to comfort me. Instead, she looked at me dismissively, an expression that seemed to say, 'Is that all? Can't even take a hit?'
Teacher Urie also shook his head regretfully when he saw me injured. He walked over to me and said, 'Do you want to call it a day and rest at home?'
I glanced at the girl's expression, became very annoyed, and said to Teacher Urie with a pleasant but strained smile (gritting my teeth), 'I'm fine, I can continue. This lady is truly formidable. She has taught me a lot, and I will definitely learn from her.'
Then, I casually cast an Intermediate Healing Spell on my leg: 'Holy power is rich grain, grant the strength to rise again to those who have lost their vigor - [Healing].'
I don't know why, but among all the magic I learned, only the Healing Spell couldn't be cast without incantation. This was exactly the same situation as Rudeus. I tried meditating and visualizing the body healing scene to practice casting without an incantation, but I just couldn't learn it.
Is this a common issue for Transmigrators? Or perhaps, since we all soul-traveled here, our bodies aren't truly ours, leading to insufficient physical compatibility, thus preventing casting without incantation for spells requiring high compatibility? I won't dwell on this; I have too many things to study to force myself to understand things I barely grasp.
Seeing me stand up without injury, Teacher Urie didn't force me to rest aside. The match continued. Just now, I was defending while the girl attacked. Now, it was my turn to attack while the girl defended.
The girl seemed less contemptuous after seeing me use the Healing Spell, but she certainly didn't show respect either. This is the Water God Style Dojo; it's not about whose magic is stronger. It's about whose sword is faster and whose weapon can strike first.
The girl adopted the Middle Stance, not using any flashy tricks. Her left hand tightly gripped the end of the sword hilt with her little finger and ring finger. Her right hand similarly held the upper part of the hilt near the guard with those same two fingers. Her tiger's mouth formed a straight line with the blade, and both hands pressed down on the hilt, creating a twisting tension with palms facing each other. Her right foot was forward, left foot back, with about a 15-centimeter gap between them, toes parallel, forming a parallelogram.