Tournament Preliminaries (2)
Tournament Preliminaries (2)
"Hoo..."
Aiden let out a long breath. As if steadying his breathing, he relaxed his tensed body and raised his sword upright.
I stopped walking. Aiden's Aura had changed.
Truthfully, I could have ended this from the very beginning.
The gap between Aiden and me had widened even further than I'd thought.
I could have gone all-out with Aura techniques and crushed him immediately. If I had fired off magic indiscriminately, I would have taken him out long ago. If I had used the newly learned Spirit Arts on top of that, it would have been even easier.
I deliberately chose not to.
Even if this is a tournament, and a preliminary to decide who advances to the main round, there's still such a thing as courtesy.
In a spar like this, you normally don't reveal your full strength from the start.
One reason is to keep your cards hidden, and even when there's a disparity, there's meaning in exchanging strikes with your opponent so you both grow.
Aiden had held back his full strength against me back then with the same intent.
Shrrring. The sensation of a blade being drawn resonated. My sword and Aiden's were already drawn—there was no sheath left to scrape against.
Aiden stood his sword straight upright. His Mana didn't change. His Aura didn't swell. Instead, his spirit steadily boiled over. Not a tangible power like Mana or Aura, but an intangible heart-power surged.
In response, I also tightened my grip on my sword.
'Swordsmanship Arts.'
Unique Ability ｢Swordsmanship Arts｣
Aiden's Innate Talent.
In the original, it was a fairly common unique ability.
Unique abilities are extremely difficult to categorize.
But if I had to classify Swordsmanship Arts... it belongs to the Technique Category, a swordsmanship-type unique ability specialized in the realm of 'the sword'.
A Technique Category unique ability doesn't have as many distinctive, flashy points compared to other categories.
Swordsmanship Arts specializes in handling the sword.
Other cadets can also handle a sword.
Having that Technique Category unique ability might let you handle it better, but that doesn't mean other cadets can't handle a sword at all.
While someone is spewing flame from their hand that burns karma and reduces it to a heap of ash.
While someone manifests water that heals wounds and ice that freezes all things solid.
While someone manipulates the earth, the symbol of life and strength, as they please, and even drags out dead souls to command as their own limbs.
In many ways, the talent for handling a sword is honestly plain.
Spears and blades, fists and legs.
The reality is that talents for equipping and wielding armaments can't help but feel ordinary compared to all kinds of supernatural abilities.
In other words, the Innate Talent was faint.
"...Hoo."
But that doesn't mean people dismiss Technique Category unique abilities.
Even if there are those who dismiss them, even they do not dismiss a superhuman who has elevated a Technique Category unique ability.
Handling a sword is not special.
However.
Splitting the distant sky with a single slash is certainly something special.
If a single thrust pierced through a mountain and carved a ravine, it would be special.
If a single downward strike caused the earth to collapse, that would be a specialness that could rival or even stand out among all other special things.
Technique Category unique abilities have particularly easy manifestation of an Expansion Ability. Moreover, they practically assume the manifestation of an Expansion Ability.
Aiden lifted his sword. The spirit he had drawn up, his Innate Talent, was infused into the blade.
Then he swung the sword downward.
His Innate Talent expanded.
The tip of the blade struck the floor, and a deep slash followed, streaking across the ground.
* * *
His insides were nauseous. A repulsion as if his entire internal organs were being twisted wracked him.
"Grrrk..."
His insides rebelling. Aiden collapsed with a thud, a faint wisp of light trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Expansion Ability, Severing Iai.
Although being a Technique Category made the manifestation itself easier, wielding it well was another matter entirely.
Aiden couldn't yet wield it freely, and he couldn't handle the burden either.
He couldn't even catch his breath. His blurred vision couldn't make out anything past the wildly swirling dust cloud.
Before long, the dust settled, and his blurred focus sharpened a little.
On the floor of the sparring hall, a scar large enough to fit several adults side by side was carved. That mark had even reached the far wall's Mana barrier, and right beside it, Lee Ha-yul was standing perfectly unharmed.
'He dodged it after all.'
It was a speed his own eyes couldn't even properly track, and Aiden let out a drained laugh.
Aiden had talent.
Among the awakened in his age group, he had stood out for it, especially alongside Attila.
Even at the academy, through hard work, he had seated himself in the upper ranks.
But that didn't mean there were no cadets with better grades than Aiden.
For one, Attila had better grades than Aiden and was also stronger in actual combat.
There were over a dozen such cadets above him. Even within his own academy, it was the same.
There were plenty of cadets stronger than Aiden at other academies, and if you widened the scope to the whole world, that number grew exponentially.
He had talent. But there were many who were better than Aiden himself.
Yet surpassing such people, Aiden had become a cadet of Siyoram.
All he had was a question about that.
When there are this many cadets stronger than him right now who look more talented, why exactly was he the one chosen?
- I saw potential in you, not in them. That is all.
The professor who'd recommended Aiden had just brushed it off like that.
What is talent in the first place?
Learning things earlier than others? Learning what others couldn't? Growing stronger faster and further?
Even after entering Siyoram and receiving an education qualitatively different from his academy days, Aiden's question hadn't disappeared.
Then one day, he met that special admission cadet standing before him.
In this place where all sorts of talents gather together, he was a cadet said to possess unprecedented potential.
He felt bewilderment.
Everyone Aiden had met while attending Siyoram shone with talent. Aiden could recognize them at a glance. He could distinguish them.
But Aiden couldn't recognize the specialness of the special admission cadet.
Looking at his outward appearance, he seemed terribly frail.
His frame was small, his limbs were gaunt, and there wasn't a hint of muscle to be found.
He wondered if he was a mage, but the Mana he possessed was exceedingly meager.
His unique ability was apparently a detection type... as far as Aiden's common sense went, a detection type was a support role ability, not a combat one.
Of course, he knew it was a flawed appraisal. Supposedly, the cadet hadn't even been a superhuman for more than a month. It was only natural that his level was negligible and hadn't matured yet.
But he was curious.
What was special? What was so special that he received the appraisal of 'unprecedented' even amidst such rampant talent?
Aiden had heard since he was young that his actions moved ahead of his thoughts.
Speaking positively, he was a man of action with the courage to see it through.
Speaking negatively, he was dim-witted, thoughtless, and couldn't fully consider the aftermath.
So he charged headlong into it.
He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but when he looked back calmly later, it was still an idiotic thing to do.
A match where you gain nothing even if you win, and look even more like an idiot if you lose.
And in the end, he was thrashed like a dog in that match.
It was shameful dark history.
- Step.
The sound of footsteps drifted into his ears.
After briefly prodding the scar carved into the floor with his toes, Lee Ha-yul stepped forward.
He had lost.
He had used up all his Mana, and his body wouldn't move properly.
"Tch..."
But if he was being honest, it was a bit too embarrassing to just immediately declare his forfeit. Still, this was a spar of sorts, so he thought he ought to be eliminated by being struck by his opponent's sword.
With that thought, he raised his body.
"...Huh..."
His eyes blinked without his volition.
Lee Ha-yul raised his sword.
It was different from Aiden. It was a sword held in one hand; his frame was different, so his posture couldn't help but change.
But why... did he get the feeling as if he were facing a mirror.
The moment he thought that, spirit blazed up over Lee Ha-yul's sword edge.
A colorless spirit, neither Mana nor Aura.
An Innate Talent blazing up.
The sensation of facing a mirror...
"...Huh?"
Bewilderment spilled from his mouth again.
An unbelievable hypothesis surfaced in Aiden's mind.
It was an unbelievable hypothesis. Of course it was. Originally, Innate Talent is not a concept that can be imitated simply because you want to.
It is special. It is Innate Talent because it distinguishes a person from others. Even if the process is similar, the result differs, so it is Innate Talent.
Therefore, it is individual and independent. They are different concepts, and hard to share; that is what a unique ability is.
Aiden's common sense had been like that. He had learned it that way. Moreover, that was the general common sense of the world.
'All-Rounder.'
And.
'Expansion Ability.'
As if to defy even that, Lee Ha-yul's sword was swung downward.
'Myriad Transformations (千變萬化), Severing Iai (切斷巨合).'
The wind split apart, stirring a gust.
Beside the existing scar that ran across the floor, a new line was drawn so they lay parallel to one another.
Then Lee Ha-yul pulled his blade out of the tail end of the newly carved scar.
All-Rounder.
A unique ability of the All-Round Category, which is included in the Technique Category.
Thus it shall excel in all manner of fields.
In other words, hurray for the All-Rounder.