Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 176

Chapter 176: Hidden skill
“N-nice to meet you, I’m Clara.

Uhm… I’m sorry for the sudden question but… are you perhaps…

Hans Ri-”

Her voice was interrupted by Hans’s movement as he grabbed her hand and shook it.

“Nice to meet you! I’m Hans Jensen”

Said Hans nervously.

‘Of all the surnames I know how come this one came up?

Well, dead man, I’m going to borrow your surname for a bit.’

Interrupting the awkward exchange between the two was Master Henry, who was happy his students had shown up.

“Come on Hans, this is a perfect chance to see how good it is, try it out against them”

He said, referring to the skill {ghostification}.

“Try out what?”

Said one of the girls.

“It’s no fun if you know it”

Replied the blonde guy, who was supposedly her lover.

He picked up two wooden daggers before stepping on the mattress.

“I request a spar”

He said bowing towards Hans.

The other young man watched doubtful Master Henry, trying to understand if he could accept the challenge.

As soon as the Master nodded in agreement, Hans replied: “I accept”

They took position one opposite to each other, while the seven spectators were already already trying to guess who would win.

“How much should we set our stats at?”

Asked Hans.

“Thity”

Said the other, considering that Hans, being a beginner, wouldn’t have more than that.

“Since we’re playing in my favor here, I’ll let you have the first strike”

“Alright then.

Here I come”

For the first time ever since he awakened, Hans had the chance to go toe to toe against someone his age.

He looked forward to seeing how the spar would unfold.

Hans attacked first, swinging his sword horizontally, but the blond young man easily parried by crossing his daggers and using them as shields.

He then tried to close the distance between them, since having a shorter weapon, he was at a disadvantage in a normal-range battle.

However, Hans, who had noticed this attempt, punched the young man straight in the chest, making him fall back.

“… that… is quite cowardly, isn’t it?

I thought we were competing to test out weapon mastery.”

“I thought so too, but just a few minutes ago your master told me something interesting…”

Said Hans with a smirk.

“… he said he teaches you how to fight with weapons, not how to wield weapons.

That’s what I need a weapon for, I have no interest in showing off my swordsmanship, I just need it to be strong, the stronger the better.”

“I see you’re quite straightforward, I’m sorry for underestimating you.

I’ll come at you again, and this time, I’ll use everything I can”

Hans prepared himself, readying his body for battle once again.

This time, it was the opponent coming to him.

The blond young man threw his daggers in the air flipping them, before rushing toward Hans.

‘Here he comes!’

The boy attacked from the right, slashing his dagger with the aim of reaching Hans’s throat.

He initially thought of parrying this attack with the sword, but after noticing his opponent’s left hand was free and ready to attack in case he did, he decided to take a step back to avoid it instead.

But the opponent, unwilling to leave any chance for Hans to attack, decided to continue his attack, swinging again and again, forcing the other to continuously avoid by moving backward.

Seeing that Hans’s feet were moving closer to the edge of the mattress, Master Henry announced:

“You cannot let your movement be controlled so much in a real fight, many enemies could be around you, if any of you falls off the mattress I’ll have to declare the other the winner.”

‘Damn, I can’t find a single opening.

If I were to attack with a single hand, he would just brush it off, and if I swung my sword with two hands he would be able to deviate the attack with a dagger and attack me with the other.

I need to think something quickly otherwise I’ll lose before I can even attempt to retaliate.’

The mattress edge was now dangerously close to his heel, and the opponent still hadn’t stopped his attack spree.

‘Now’

Thought Hans.

He held his sword with both hands before thrusting it forward.

‘The reason why most people don’t use swords to pierce instead of slashing is clear:

The movement is quite slow and easy to avoid, it also leaves most of the body exposed….

Thought Hans as he watched the guy avoid his attack by crouching.

‘…but…

If the opponent is focused only on your sword.

It won’t be difficult to catch them by surprise.’

Hans jumped forward to strike the opponent’s head with his knee.

“Did you really think… that I would forget about your body for the second time?”

The blond guy parried the hit with one of his daggers and then proceeded to attack Hans’s defenseless body with the other.

“It’s my win”

Announced proudly the boy, but Hans replied to him by saying:

“Just because you might think I’m cheating: it’s your master who told me to try this”

As he said those words, the wooden dagger passed right through his body as if he had no physical presence.

“What?!”

{ghostification}

“At least this time, I think it might be my win”

Said Hans.

He didn’t even have to do anything, the young man fell down from the mattress after losing his balance to attack Hans.

He put his hands in front of his face to avoid falling on his nose, and then turned his head toward Hans, perplexed by what had just happened.

‘Did my weapon just… pass through his body?

It was like fighting a ghost all of a sudden.’

“Phahahah, that’s some broken skill I tell you”

Said the Master laughing, however, unlike him and all the witnesses, Hans found it quite bad.

Just to let a wooden blade pass through his body, he consumed almost one percent of his stamina.

And since the technique’s stamina consumption was based on the damage the attack would inflict on the body if it did hit it, that meant an attack received from a real dagger would’ve taken up at least twenty percent of his stamina, if on top of that, someone was to use aura and a bigger weapon like a sword, it could’ve taken almost all his stamina just to block one attack from a C-rank awakened.

It wasn’t bad, but when compared to the effortlessly cast seventh-tier barrier it was outshined.

“That was good, wasn’t it? If you can use it to let a dagger pass through your abdomen it means it can also protect any of your limbs or fingers, it’s a skill that could also save your future other than your life.”

‘What the old man says does indeed make sense, with this, I could avoid all kinds of attacks on my fingers without casting a barrier that has a relatively wide area of protection.’

“What a… peculiar skill”

Commented Christina.

And all the others agreed with what she said.

“Alright, that was it for the spars, Hans, go and do what I told you to do, limit your stats while you clear the gates, but of course, at the slightest danger you sense, make sure to go all out, training is nowhere nearly as important as your life.”

“Yes, then… I’ll see you again”

Said Hans to the other guys before leaving the training hall.

“Master, who is he?”

Asked the boy who had just lost.

“I don’t know, he came here yesterday night because he wanted to learn the way of the sword, that is all he needs to deserve these teachings.”

The young man sighed before replying:

“Well, I see the way you think hasn’t changed from when you took us in”

“Of course, if my way of thinking changed so frequently, what kind of Master would I be?

Now, let us begin today’s training, in four hours the hall will be officially opened, so everyone else will also arrive”

“Yes!”

All the students replied in unison.

In the meantime, Hans was having trouble with something:

He had to raid a gate, but to do that he either had to reserve a gate and reveal his location, which could result in quite a headache just like the previous time, or enter an unregistered gate.

But Hans didn’t want to wait, who knew how much time it would’ve taken for a gate to appear, and someone else could also enter before him.

Instead, he wanted to book a gate without having to run from the reporters afterward, and since all the information given to the gate raid app passed through the association, he headed towards the main building.

When he entered, he was immediately recognized and greeted by one of the workers at the main desk.

“It’s a pleasure to have you here Mr. Hans.

What can I do for you?”

The man said in a serious tone, even though on the inside, he was doing his best to keep his body from shaking.

‘Hans Richter…

the youngest seventh circle magician in the world has come here to San Diego…

What does he want?’