Supreme Ruler: Reincarnated as the Emperor's Bastard Son

'When will he start going all out?'

'He had the opportunity to send my sword flying just now, but he didn't.'

'He's definitely doing this on purpose. But why…'

While Merina racked her brain, Ashoka continued swinging his wooden sword with a composed expression. Even when Merina twisted her body in order to escape his sequence of basic attacks, he still adhered to the fundamentals.

'Is he looking down on me?'

Ugh!

Merina ground her teeth and stomped on the ground in order to stabilize her stance.

"Fine, allow me to entertain you, Young Master!"

Once Merina fixed her posture and gripped her wooden sword tightly, her worries vanished. She also began using only the most basic of attacks in order to face Ashoka.

Soon, all the fancy techniques and complex movements completely disappeared from their duel. They were each taking turns attacking and defending. It had become an extremely simple fight.

A simple battle of brute strength.

Merina was quite confident and proud of her physical strength. She wasn't being conceited, as she had learned the basics of aura manipulation back at her family household before coming to the tower of wisdom.

Bang, skrrrt! Boom!

Explosive sounds echoed throughout the training ground as the two fighters' wooden swords hit each other. This battle of brute strength had already lasted for over five minutes. The other cadets could only watch the duel with wide eyes.

Huff, huff.

Someone was now out of breath. It was the sound of Merina panting.

'I'm… being pushed back in terms of physical strength?'

Even Merina knew that she couldn't win against Ashoka in this spar.

But she believed that her physical strength surpassed his, if not equal. Merina couldn't accept that she would get pushed back by someone younger than her.

She was still not aware of the gap between ordinary people and people who were called geniuses.

There was a reason they would be distinguished from the rest and Ashoka was someone who was called a monster even among the geniuses.

She failed to recognize his power.

"Haaah!"

Merina suddenly shouted loudly as she swung down her wooden sword. She was attempting to regain full control of her emotions, but it ended up being the cause of her defeat.

Ashoka didn't avoid the strike containing the entirety of Merina's strength, and received it head-on.

Merina had expected him to step back in order to dodge her attack, so she was planning on swiftly dashing forward to deal the final blow after her swing.

But even if Ashoka received her frontal attack head-on, Merina had a backup plan. She would let go of her sword at the last moment, grab his sword arm, swing her legs upwards, and catch his neck and shoulders in a front triangle choke.

In other words, this was Meria's trump card. Even Karguel who was spectating the match, judged that her plan was reasonable.

However, the situation didn't develop the way Merina had been expecting.

Crack!

"Eh…?!"

The wooden sword she was swinging downwards with all her strength shattered as Ashoka's sword hit it in an upwards swing.

'How come? It's not like Young Master Ashoka used aura just now…'

As Merina asked herself the question subconsciously, Ashoka's wooden sword had already reached her neck, waiting a few millimeters away from her skin.

Phew…

Ashoka  exhaled deeply and fixed his breath.

"...It's my loss, Young Master."

"That was a great duel, Merina."

While he replied calmly, Ashoka's forehead was drenched in sweat.

Merina then shifted her gaze down to her broken sword. This was neither a trick nor an illusion. Ashoka hadn't used aura either. So why was her wooden sword the only one that broke?

'Dammit!'

As she watched Ashoka head to one side of the training ground to get a new wooden sword, Merina finally realized the reason behind this phenomenon.

"I can't use this one anymore."

Every onlooker believed that the duel between Ashoka and Merina was one of brute strength with no intricacy or elaborate techniques.

However, there was one hidden truth within the battle.

While Ashoka and Merina were exchanging blows one after another, the boy had aimed for the center of Merina's blade each time.

On the other hand, Merina's attacks had affected the entire surface of Ashoka's wooden blade.

Ashoka's resolve to break Merina's sword, versus Merina's resolve to face him in a head-on battle. Merina's wooden sword breaking was by no means a coincidence.

She had believed that this was a battle of 'brute strength', but in reality, it was a battle of 'accuracy'.

There wasn't a big difference in their strength and stamina. However, the cause of her loss was the difference in their accuracy and persistence.

'Is this even humanly possible?'

Merina asked herself as she bit her lower lip.

A few seconds later, she came to the conclusion that it was indeed possible to achieve such a feat. As long as one was more skilled than their opponent and predicted the development of the battle, it would be easy to achieve.

However, she had never thought it would be possible to pull it off right here, right now. Despite being in the renowned Tower of wisdom's knight's training class, it was still the 'beginner' training class. No one was supposed to be skilled enough to pull this off.

'So, is this what it means to be a genius? I'll have to devote myself to my training, and next time, I'll definitely…!'

Merina returned to her seat.

Even if one was expecting to lose, actually experiencing the defeat always left a bitter taste in the mouth. Merina's heart was filled with pain from the defeat, but also gratitude for having learned an important lesson from Ashoka.

Following his duel with Merina, Ashoka faced the remaining six cadets. However, he was able to win without much difficulty. No one else faced him head-on like Merina. Therefore, none of them could steal control over the flow of the battle from Ashoka.

When the final opponent fell before Ashoka, the other cadets all gulped audibly.

In their eyes, Ashoka had easily defeated all the challengers after Merina.

However, it wasn't as easy as it appeared to be.

Having faced ten extremely talented cadets one after another, Ashoka was somewhat out of breath after his final battle.

'Great, I still have some energy left.'

Ashoka hadn't made an example out of Merina just to save his energy as much as possible because he feared he couldn't defeat all ten cadets.

Even if he hadn't planted a misconception in the other challengers' minds by breaking Merina's sword, he could've still defeated them all.

"Excellent work, Young Master. With this, you shall be permitted to leave the tower of wisdom by the end of this year. Congratulations."

"Huff, huff… Thanks, Karguel. I'll be in your care until next year."

"Should we end the morning training session now? It's almost time for lunch."

"How long until lunchtime?"

"There's about ten minutes left. Is something the matter?"

"There's one more person I want to face."

Karguel froze at Ashoka's words and stared at the boy's eyes.

"Who do you have in mind?"

Ashoka  slowly turned his gaze to the cadets.

In one corner of the group was a boy sitting with a blank expression, scratching his head.

"Paul. Jean Paul."

All the cadets' gazes turned to Paul in an instant.

Karguel's eyes opened wide as the name escaped Ashoka's mouth.

'...Has the young master seen through Paul's hidden talent?'

The person in question was looking around, dumbfounded. He and the other cadets had no idea why Ashoka had chosen him.

He was just sitting in the corner minding his own business and the prince suddenly called him to have a spar?

He did not want to believe that.

"Get up. Come on over and fight me."

Ashoka lightly threw a wooden sword toward the startled boy.

"Y-Young Master? I… Um, I'm—"

"Jean Paul!"

Ashoka suddenly yelled his name, to which Paul instinctively stood up.

"You cannot survive within this cruel world if you continue acting like that. Get over here. I'll knock your sleepy head awake."

Ashoka would soon leave for the royal palace to receive the land that he would have to look after and he didn't know if he would see any of these people again so he wanted to make sure that Jean's potential would awaken by then.

I just couldn't leave such a diamond to rot in the soil.

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