Chapter 9
"Ha!"
With a shout, Ingritt raised her wooden sword high, stepped forward, and poured all her strength into the sword as she slashed down at the armor stand in front of her!
Crack!
With the sound of the armor stand shattering, Ingritt's wooden sword stopped at the edge of the ninth ring.
Ingritt pulled back her wooden sword and resud a stance of vigilance, using the breathing techniques taught at school to expel a cloud of white mist, quickly recovering her energy.
'At this rate, I should be able to summon my first sword spirit this month,' Ingritt thought.
As a mage academy with hundreds of years of history, Swordflower College had various guiding techniques for training mages. Training props like these armor stands in front of Ingritt were specially made to teach novice swordsn.
The armor stands looked like wooden posts on the outside, but had a hard core with ten rings marked on them. When a student could cut into the tenth ring of the core with one stroke of their sword, it ant their swordsmanship was good enough to summon their first magic spirit.
Generally speaking, swordsn could summon three types of primary magic spirits - the 'Slash Sword', the 'Thrust Sword', and the 'Cut Sword'. Ingritt, who was training in slashing techniques, naturally wanted to summon a 'Slash Sword Spirit'.
Ingritt took a second or two to catch her breath. By now, the armor stand had recovered to its original state, as if Ingritt had never cut into it at all.
This was the power of Swordflower College's training grounds - no matter how badly damaged, all the training props would quickly recover. As long as you had the energy, you could keep attacking the stands. After all, it wasn't the stands that would eventually crawl out of the grounds on shaky legs.
Boom! Just as Ingritt was continuing her slashing training, she suddenly heard the doors of the training hall burst open. She couldn't help looking over, distracted. Although the hall echoed with the shouts and exertions of the trainees, this was normally a very orderly place, and it was rare for anyone to make a scene here.
Anyone who dared to cause trouble here would promptly have several dozen swordsn trainees with pent-up fighting spirit looking to have an 'intimate chat' with them.
In the previous term, Ingritt had a few persistent suitors, but they never dared approach her in the training hall. After all, any behavior that disrupted training, Ingritt only needed to frown slightly for the hot-blooded trainees around her to imdiately step in to uphold justice.
Hot blood, reticence, pugnacity, full of male hormones - these were the hallmarks of the training grounds.
There was a famous joke at Swordflower College: "So guys co to train the sword at first to pursue girls, but later end up training just to compete with other guys in swordsmanship. Maybe it's not that love loses to power, but that compared to complicated love, simple power is easier to pursue?"
But tonight, complicated love had strode unbidden into the domain of power.
A silky ponytail the luster of a ruby appeared in the doorway, skin so fair it dazzled, features so exquisite they seed sculpted by an artist, a slender waist you could circle with one hand, long straight legs.
A rose that by all rights should have blood at a soirée had abruptly blossod here amidst the forest of swords.
But what caught the trainees' attention most was what she held in her right hand - a wooden training sword.
"Sonya?"
As Ingritt watched Sonya cross half the hall and take up position at an unused armor stand, raising her wooden sword to begin training, her mind was full of questions.
Although she didn't harbor any ill will toward Sonya, in her understanding, Sonya was the kind of person who would never touch swordsmanship.
Unlike the elegant, floating female swordsn portrayed in the "Fantasy Epics" and "Knight Dramas" screened on the Cineramas, real-life female swordsn had to train their physiques to be even stronger than males in order to summon spirits, master spells, and acquire techniques.
Calloused hands from swinging swords were a given, and their arms, legs, even waists would beco more muscular and developed from the training. Like those beautiful actress with their pretty little hands performing dazzling swordsmanship on the Cineramas, they simply did not exist in real life.
Even magic spirits would never acknowledge physically weak mages. Stories of magic spirits escaping when swordsn grew old and feeble were ubiquitous in Ingritt's childhood.
Although so said female swordsn possessed a 'powerful beauty', in Ingritt's observation, the number of male students pursuing watermages like Sonya and Iris far exceeded those pursuing female swordsn.
She had to admit, delicate watermages like Sonya and Iris just looked better and more refined than masculine female swordsn like herself.
But she wasn't dissatisfied with this. After all, while Ingritt trained, Sonya and the others would be putting on makeup and skincare. Everyone obtained what they pursued.
So Ingritt was very surprised now - if Sonya was just beginning swordsmanship training at this point, wouldn't she be abandoning all her previous efforts? Not only would it set back her progress in the watermage disciplines, it would also affect the looks she took such care to maintain.
However, when Ingritt noticed a handso youth not far from Sonya, still in full training gear despite the heat, wiping away sweat, she imdiately understood.
Felix Vlozrada, a first-year like them and genius swordsmanship trainee.
Without a doubt, Felix was trying to summon a stronger spirit than Ingritt's basic 'Slash Sword' - the Vlozrada family's secret spirit, the 'Vibration Sword'.
A mage's first spirit was of utmost importance, potentially deciding the path their training would take. Noble families who could, would find suitable cultivation thods to have their prodigies summon the strongest, most suitable first spirits.
Even country nobles like Ingritt's family had secret cultivation thods for summoning family spirits, just not suitable for her.
The 'Vibration Sword' was undoubtedly stronger than the 'Slash Sword', and Felix's cultivation undoubtedly surpassed Ingritt's - his swordsmanship and training intensity were far beyond their peers, earning him the reputation of #1 genius swordsman of their grade.
In the final swordsmanship competition last term, Ingritt had lost to Felix, but she accepted it sincerely. Her opponent was not only more talented, but worked harder than her too. Felix fully deserved the title of genius swordsman.
But even more than his talent with the sword, what set the girls gossiping was Felix's background.
Even though Ingritt was from the countryside, she knew the Vlozradas were top nobles on Twinstar, one of the Five Pillars of the Twinstar Assembly.
Duke Vlozrada, also known as the "Starforger Duke
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