Chapter 52 - 51: 2-days Training.

51-1

(Grey's POV)

"About the question, you asked earlier about me not being human, how did you figure it out?" asked Rin, curiously.

She was done beating the shit out of robbers and later she warned them to run away. Taking her warning they ran for their life.

I opened my mouth to answer her question "How do I say it, ----Ummm" I thought for a second, finding the right word to describe it.

"If I had described it, I would say that your energy signature doesn't feel like human and even your mana core is different from that of a human," I replied, after finding the right way to put it into words.

"You can read people's energy signature?" she asked, fascinated.

Without waiting for my answer she continued "That means you have the owl seal marking?".

It's scary that how her guess was on the mark.

"Yes," I replied as I pulled up the sleeve of my t-shirt revealing my seal marking of Minerva. I don't mind showing people my seal marking of Minerva since there is not much information about this seal marking that they can abuse.

"So that is your seal marking…." Said Rin as she walked up closer to me.

She took a closer look as she said "I have never seen a marking like this before, neither it is mentioned in books."

"It is Seal marking of an owl," I replied.

"It is an owl, but it is different from other seal markings.", she continued " Anyways about your question---- yes I am not human, I am from Siren race. Well, I am half Siren and I don't know what is my other half."

That explains her beauty...

"Oh--- which type?" I asked.

"Fish type." Replied Rin.

{Author: There are three two types of Siren Race.

1) Bird type: this type of Siren race has bodies like humans and wings like birds, some of the bird type Siren even have feet like birds.

2) Fish type: this type of Siren race has the body and head of a human and in place of the leg they have a fishtail. }

"Anyways I need to get going." Said Rin as she walked away.

She turned to face me as she stretched her hands with her palm facing me, "That's right, I need to let you know something. If you ever face me again-------- I will kill you. If you don't join our organization and if I find you in the way of our organization-------- I will you. Don't accept my duel from next time and if you do-------- I will kill you."

In her palm, shined a symbol. A symbol of sea wave in a shade of light blue color, that was her seal marking.

It was the seal marking of Thalassa, a marking that usually grants power related to water. But I am not sure about the specifics power of her Seal marking. It's a pretty rare seal marking.

But more than that, the way she stated the desire to kill me, she was serious...…

"Oh, one more thing." She said, pausing in her track once more. "I have news for you--- Not many people know this, but I will share it with you since you agreed to duel with me. There seem to be special guests participating in the competition."

"A special guest?" I questioned.

"Yes, the guest is the member of the royal family --------------Your cousins."

58-2

Maybe a vertical hit from the right will work.

Standing in the backyard, I swung my polearm from right aiming towards the shadow. It was parried by the shadow in the smooth circular motion, leaving polearm away from my body.

With a single swift strike, the shadow slashed its swords through me.

"Another failure!" I was frustrated.

I closed my eyes again and went back to fighting the shadow in front of me, it was the shadow of Rin.

Its been two days since my duel with Rin, I couldn't possibly accept the outcome of the duel, I was completely overwhelmed by her. She was able to parry my attack and retaliate with her own counterattack, with a minimal set of movements.

The most frustrating part was that she wasn't even serious while facing me. She could have been able to finish me off at any point in the duel if she would have decided to get serious.

I imagined her shadow with my eyes closed, this time I thrusted my spear straight into her chest, which she was able to evade.

With 27 exchanged between me and Rin's shadow, I was still not able to touch her even a single time. At 28th exchange, she was again able to perform her smooth counter attack slashing her sword through me.

{ Author note: Rin's shadow is actually Grey's imagination of how Rin would fight against him. If i had to describe it better, i would say that it is a type of shadow fighting where Grey is imagining his opponent in his mind, in this case, the opponent being Rin.}

Being breathless I gasped for air.

After taking a short break to catch my breath, I again closed my eyes to fight the shadow.

But before I could do that, a voice called out to me "You have been going at it for 2 days non stop now. Without taking any break you even ate and slept in the backyard."

I opened my eyes and looked in the direction of the voice, I saw Mark's head popping over the balcony.

"What are you training so hard for, did something happen?" he asked.

"Nothing, much."

"Are you preparing for the competition today? No even if you are preparing for the competition, training for 2 days straight is going overboard."

"Oh right, today is the competition."

I totally forgot about the competition.

"And it will start in an hour. So, hurry up! If you reach their early, you will also get the information about what kind of competition will be held."

It is true, if I reach their early then I might get the information about the competition. But I had something to do before that.

I walked towards the fence as I asked Mark "Are you coming?"

"Of course I am coming, I will be cheering you up from the audience."

For some reason, the words that came out of his mouth brought a smile to my face. I would want my uncle to be like Mark.

No, Mark is my uncle.... and I am the reason he lost his legs.

With that thought, my smile retracted back as if it was never there before.

51-3

In the outskirt of the forest near the Goldberg city, a girl swung her sword in the air. She has been practicing inside this forest for two days.

She danced with her sword elegantly, on her face she wore a gentle expression. Her long smooth blue hair fluttered with the cool breeze of the forest.

If one were to see her, they would describe her sword dance as "Refined" and "Elegant.". But as refined and elegant it was, it was also deadly.

The thought on the girl's mind was only a feeling of frustration unlike the gentle expression on her face.

The name of the girl was Rin. Being thought directly under the king of swords, she held great pride in her swordsmanship.

And there was no opponent in her life that could overwhelm her, with the only exception being her boss.

But recently she fought with Grey and the moment she started fighting him, The realization hit her that sword was not Grey's main weapon of choice.

The way he held the swords, it was obvious that Grey had mastered different weapons.

The frustrating part for her was that his opponent wasn't even adept at using a sword. Yet he was able to stand on par with her and at a certain point, he was able to overwhelm her.

She was frustrated with the fact that she had been training for years under the guidance of the king of swords, she had been working hard for years and yet she was overwhelmed by a kid who wasn't even adept with swords.

{Author note: King of swords is a character that I will introduce in the future and of course as the name suggests, he is arguably the best swordsman.}