The next morning.
"I think you are wrong on this part." Tristan pointed at the rune Livia drew before correcting his words right after. "Ah, I apologize. There is nothing wrong."
Livia couldn't help but furrow her eyebrows. When she checked the rune and confirmed it with the book Noel gave them, it was clear that she had made some mistakes.
So, Tristan's action wasn't wrong. That was why Tristan's action piqued Livia's interest as there were several reasons for it.
Livia observed Tristan's face, who looked extremely uncomfortable. She asked, "Tristan. You don't need to answer this, but are you still considering yourself a slave? Or is it because you are uncomfortable that I'm a princess?"
Tristan looked away, not daring to answer that question. But there was a glimpse of his lack of confidence, which was enough for Livia to understand what was happening to him.
"I see. So, you're still considering yourself as a slave." Livia sighed. "I guess everything that has been ingrained into you is hard to change. Even Sandra is still like this. However, I'm going to tell you this. Owning a slave in the Muivell Kingdom is forbidden in this kingdom. Are you trying to get your teacher in trouble?"
"That's…" Tristan looked down. If Tristan continued considering himself as a slave, that meant the enemies could use it as a reason to strip Noel's power. And Noel had told them from the start that they were not their slaves. Tristan was the student of Noel Ardagan and Sandra was the maid of the Ardagan Family. "I'm sorry."
"It's not something you need to be sorry about. However, you have to let go of the past and live as a proud member of the Ardagan Family. If you can't do that, then everything he has done will be useless. Of course, you don't have to change right away. Just make sure you know about this and keep improving until you overcome all your troubles."
"Yes, I know." Tristan nodded with a serious expression before hearing a clicking sound echoing from the garden. The two of them became curious since they had never heard anything like this in the past few days.
When they checked on it, they saw Noel and Anna sparring.
They hadn't used their ability or Spiritual Energy. It was just pure swordsmanship.
However, everything soon changed when Anna said, "I think that's enough. Let's step up our game for a bit and test the rune."
"Indeed." Noel sheathed his sword and started raising his stance. On both hands appeared a different rune.
"That's the Rune Blast?" Livia frowned, observing the rune on his right hand.
"If I'm not mistaken, the other rune is a Rune Strike. It's not as powerful as the Rune Blast, but its purpose is to penetrate the enemy's defense."
Anna shouted, "Let's go!"
"I'm coming." Noel nodded and leaped forth. He punched forward with the Rune Blast.
Seeing the Rune Blast was about to be activated, Anna covered her body with Spiritual Energy before waving her sword downward.
Boom!
The Spiritual Energy erupted, creating a shock wave that would launch Anna, albeit the latter actually cut through the shock wave and split it into two. The Rune Blast ended up getting redirected to both sides while Anna remained in her position.
After that, Anna formed a Rune Sword, shooting the sword toward Noel.
Noel calculated the trajectory of the Rune Sword and shot a stream of light through the Rune Strike, knocking the Rune Sword away.
"Is it something like this?" Noel asked.
"I don't think so. Though, I won't tell you anything about it since I want to see if you have come to another conclusion." Anna shrugged her shoulders.
"I know." Noel fell silent. "Instead of focusing on one, should we just explore all the potential? For example, we can just focus on a normal swordsman where the person only uses runes to boost their physical ability. It's different, like when you fight with a sword and summon a rune at the same time."
"Yeah. There is also a close combat rune like what you did earlier." Anna nodded in agreement.
"Oh. How about this…" Noel pulled out his sword again, but this time, he put his left hand on the front as a Spiritual Barrier Rune formed, acting as a shield.
"I think that's the same as what I'm doing. Besides, it's better to use equipment that has been enchanted with Rune Enhancement, don't you think?"
"Fair enough. But can we categorize the Rune Magician to be the same as what I did earlier? I mean, both fight with only runes."
"That's rather confusing." Anna shook her head helplessly. "Anyway, we're only testing the runes for a bit. So, let's test a few other runes."
"Alright." Noel raised his hand and a big rune appeared in the sky. After that, the rune shot out numerous streams of light and rained Anna down with it. However, the latter only jumped back to avoid it.
The impact of each stream was massive as it created a small hole in the ground. If one tried to guard it, they would either be knocked down or just get crushed by the Rain of Light Rune.
"Then, let's check the Energy Concentration Rune." Noel formed another rune on his back. All of a sudden, the spiritual energy began to flow toward Noel as if it was being sucked into the rune.
Noel then controlled the rune to gather the energy right in front of him.
"That's… probably terrifying if you use your element, no?" Anna asked.
"Let me test." Noel chose to pour his ice element into this instead of the undying flame since it was dangerous.
Afterward, the concentrated energy started to blow out white mists and shrouded the area.
Anna shot out her lightning dragon just to push away the mist, only to find that the mist froze even her power. "That's quite powerful. It's kind of enhancing one's power."
"Yeah. There are several runes that can enhance the power of an attack. They might be called an Enchanter since their job is only to boost everyone's attack power in a party."
"Their support would definitely level up the entire party. And there would be a lot of requests to those who master these runes, right?"
"I can see that happening in the future. So, we have five combat types for now? Rune Master, Rune Enchanter, Rune Magician, Rune Fighter, and Rune Physique?"
"Yeah. That's probably five of them for now… until we get a new detailed version later." Noel nodded.
"In that case, let's continue with the sword. I've gotten a good grasp of your sword, so…"
Before Anna finished, Noel waved his hand and said, "Wait."
Noel suddenly jumped into the air and landed right in front of Tristan and Livia, who were watching them from the second floor. Yes, Noel was actually standing in the air. There was a rune beneath his foot, but it wasn't possible for him to stand on the rune unless it was designed for that.
"T-Teacher!" Both of them panicked and hurriedly greeted him. Livia explained, "We didn't mean to spy on you. We were just curious about the sound coming from the garden."
Considering they were living in a two-story house building that was considered a temporary mansion for Noel and all people related to him like Anna, Livia, Tristan and Sandra, he should have expected them to be able to hear it.
So, Noel said, "I don't mind if you're going to watch, but don't tell anyone about what you saw, alright? It's still a secret."
"Y-yes!" Tristan didn't think much about it. It was his duty to protect his teacher's secret after all.
Meanwhile, Livia realized that Noel could easily come up with a few runes. If he had time to think more about it, there would be more and more amazing runes appearing in the future. It wasn't wrong for her to become his student.
And with the power of the Rain of Light Rune and the Energy Concentration Rune alone, she could see that the rune would definitely revolutionize the entire power system that had been established for hundreds of years.
She would be the first to witness it as his student.
After warning them, Noel jumped back, but this time, instead of one big jump, Noel used the Platform Rune to do multiple small leaps.
He just got another idea and asked, "Say. Won't it be good to have our scout learn this Platform Rune? They can reach a point where no one would realize and just observe everything."
"You have to consider their range of vision though."
"Fair enough."
Seeing how hardworking their teacher was, Livia and Tristan felt a bit ashamed for not pushing themselves a bit further. Though, Tristan felt a bit more confident because he could proudly say that Noel was his teacher. If he was going to overcome his past status, he would have to work hard for it.
With that determination in his mind, Tristan said to Livia. "I think we should go back."
"Y-yeah." Livia was a bit surprised by the sudden change in Tristan's expression, but it seemed that Noel had intended to use that opportunity to teach Tristan this.
…
Meanwhile, Anna continued with her observation. "Alright. There are two problems with your current swordsmanship. First of all, people have their own swordsmanship to create a foundation for them, right?"
"Indeed."
"I could say that your foundation is already solid. It's just… you don't know what to do after that."
"Hmm?" Noel frowned. "Is it a special ability from swordsmanship? Incorporating one's Spiritual Energy with the sword or something?"
"No. You have the Ardagan Swordsmanship, but don't forget that you also have a specialized one, which is the Everchanging Emotion Sword Style. What's the basis of that Everchanging Emotion?"
"That's…" Noel fell silent for a moment, realizing that a few emotions had changed or disappeared. The anger toward Anna had vanished and there was only the feeling of joy and interest in her. "Do you mean that the Everchanging Emotion Sword Style is flawed?"
"Yes. But it can be solved with a simple solution. You simply have to define that emotion and direct it to yourself. For example, why do you get angry to create that sharpest swing? It was because of me in the past, but how about changing it? Like… You got angry because you didn't like the person or whatever. The deeper the meaning, the better it is."
"I see." Noel nodded in understanding since he had done the same with his Undying Fire. It wouldn't be much of a problem to define that meaning for him. "I can fix that, so I want you to take a look at it every day."
"I'm looking forward to it." Anna paused. "As for the second one, what is a sword to you?"
"Hmm? I don't think I follow you there."
"I mean, for me, my sword is a tool that will allow me to achieve that goal. It's because it's a tool that I can easily utilize to conjure my spiritual energy, lightning, and anything else. But yours is different, right? Do you want to treat it as a spirit? Can it channel your emotions? Or can you boost your fire because it grants you that power? I need you to define that sword."
"…" Noel couldn't say anything to that question. Ardagan was a Spirit indeed. However, was that all?
The moment that question entered his mind, Noel fell into deep thought.
Ardagan had been accompanying him since the beginning of his journey. He had shared what he felt and saw with Ardagan, meaning that Ardagan might be the person who understood him the most. And more importantly, he achieved all this because of Ardagan.
So, there was no way he could consider Ardagan as a mere sword. But that also begged the question: was Ardagan a good sword?
A spirit and a sword were two completely different things. So, what did Noel actually see in Ardagan? What if Ardagan was just a normal sword that didn't give him Undying Fire, Rune, or a System?
Noel couldn't help but close his eyes, contemplating his answer.
