Sword aura wasn’t something that could be achieved by just anyone, as Ariel had said on the sidelines. It was only something that could be obtained once the swordsman had either managed to understand a swordsmanship style to perfection, or the swordsman had managed to create their own swordsmanship.

The second option was much harder to achieve since you needed to create all of your techniques on your own. However, creating your own techniques also made it easier to perfect them and understand them on a deeper level.

Anyways, both methods were extremely tedious, and sword aura was most likely obtained by less than 1% of the entirety of swordsmen, and even then, it would be something that only swordsmen with YEARS of experience would attain.

However, Art, who was currently on stage, was defying all expectations. Sword aura at the age of 18 was unheard of. Even I never achieved such a feat at that age.

I no longer had any doubt in the back of my mind, Art surely was that lazy monster’s son.

As the sword aura formed around his sword, Alex didn’t know how to react. He knew that he couldn’t block an attack like this; his only choice was to dodge the attack. It was a good thing that Art was moving around very slowly and in quite unnatural movements. Otherwise, the fight would have ended much more quickly.

At least, that’s what I personally thought.

Nevertheless, I continued to watch from far away as a smile was slowly creeping up on my face. As Art was about to release his attack, Alex, who had been trying to come up with a way to dodge the strike, got on his knees as they gave out on their own because of the pressure Art had been giving off.

“I—I give up! I don’t want to die in this stupid tournament!”

Lurok, who was right beside me, clenched his fist, clearly fuming from the inside when he saw such a scene happen before him.

“I don’t allow it. Either fight, and you might survive, or give up and die later for certain.”

Lurok said those words in public, and no one was doing anything or saying anything to him whatsoever. It seemed people were used to such behavior, and it seemed that this man truly ruled over the city. No one dared to touch him at all. It seemed Finn hadn’t lied to him.

Alex, who was about to leave the arena, suddenly had no choice but to continue fighting.

Art just shrugged and released his attack as he slowly moved his sword downward without any sword technique whatsoever, which was what truly surprised people. However, while everyone thought he hadn’t used a sword technique…I could only laugh at their stupidity.

However, I couldn’t blame them. None of them had seen that style of swordsmanship in their entire life, which is why it seemed so…unimpressive.

But there was no doubt in my mind. Art was using the same swordsmanship as his father.

‘The Lazy Swordsmanship.’

I know, what a shitty name. However, it does represent the essence of this swordsmanship quite well.

‘Still, I had no idea that you had a son…you lazy bastard. You even went as far as to teach him your ways…’ I thought, clearly surprised that he had decided to teach his son.

Maybe that’s why he had managed to achieve sword aura at such a young age. Actually, scratch that, it simply had to be the reason because nothing else made sense whatsoever.

As Art moved his sword down, a wave of energy came off from the sword and headed toward Alex. That was one of the properties of Sword Aura, being able to attack from far away with a sword.

The wave of energy moved extremely fast, and within a moment, it was already at close range to Alex, who had no ways to dodge it whatsoever.

“UGH!” He squirmed out of pain as a large injury appeared on his body.

Art yawned again as Alex fell unconscious. “Next one.”

Silence.

Everyone in the stadium couldn’t believe what they had just seen. A child no older than 18 years old had a sword aura and brought down a member of the Ocean Outlaws with a single strike. How was this even remotely possible…it simply made no sense at all.

“What’s his background?” Lurok asked me right away when he saw what happened, losing his mind.

“I wonder…” I said with a smirk. “If you win our bet, I’ll answer you. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep guessing.”

Lurok wasn’t the only one shocked as the students also couldn’t believe it. The loner, Art, the one who just kept sleeping every day, had managed to become so powerful, but how?

And more importantly, how did their teacher even know about his potential when Art had never once participated in any of the tests for the special curriculum he had made them?

All of them had a lot of questions in their minds for me, I could feel it. However, I wasn’t planning on answering those questions anytime soon. Either way, even if I told them about Art’s father, none of them would even know him. He wasn’t a person that was quite known to the public despite his strength; he was somewhat similar to me in that sense.

However, the reasons for our lack of popularity were quite different.

Then, someone else from Lurok’s team walked up to the arena. However, he shook even standing still, knowing that he had no chance of winning against sword aura. Hell, Art wasn’t even giving his all, and he had brought down one of their best fighters in a single strike. It was only normal for him to be scared out of him.

And he was right, within seconds, the match was over, and the same words came out of Art’s mouth again with the usual yawn.

“Next one…”

…he would defeat his opponent in a single strike. Then, the same thing would happen again.

“Next one…”

This continued until he had defeated Lurok’s team.

Art had won all of his duels, and the craziest part about all of this was that he hadn’t even taken the slightest amount of damage in terms of physical injury.

No one had managed to land a single strike on him.

***

Author Note (doesn’t cost coins): Mass release opportunity. I’m currently trying to hit 1000 Unlocks to obtain some benefits as an author on webnovel.

If any of you can join my privilege this month to help me reaching that goal, it would honestly be great. I am at around 600 unlocks and there are around 10 days left. So, I’m counting on you guys.

If we manage to hit the target, I will make a mass release from 5 to 10 chapters, depending on the time I have. However, the mass release will only happen after having reached the target and once I’m done with my midterms (27 october).

Anyways, do consider reading ahead by joining the privilege!

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