Even in such a situation, Sonia did not lose her composure and shout. Instead, she calmly complained to the Observer, “You forced me to practice my swordplay and asked me to fight Felix. What exactly do you want me to do? To infiltrate the society of the Astra nobles and become your spy?”
“It’s not as complicated as you think,” said the Observer. “It’s just to arrange a battle for you, and the strongest person here is him. It just happens to be so, that’s all. It has nothing to do with whether he’s a noble or not. Of course, it’s even better if he’s a noble. I especially like to see a noble get beaten up. If possible, can you step on his face after you win… Forget it, I heard that some Astra nobles are very perverted. You should just spank him… Forget it, pretend I never said that.”
[Can you change it to someone else? I don’t want to have anything to do with Felix!]
“Why?”
[I’ve researched him a little,] said Sonia. [He’s very strange, and very dangerous.]
As the most approachable young noble in Sword Flower University, Sonia had naturally counted Felix in her list of potential targets. However, after some intelligence gathering, Sonia gave up on this seemingly tempting option.
It had nothing to do with his playboy attributes. Sonia did not think that being a playboy was her obstacle. What really stopped Sonia was Felix’s family situation and his band of ex-girlfriends.
Although rumors abounded out there that Felix was a walking reproduction machine that could sleep with ten women a day, after simple observation, Sonia discovered a secret—Felix had never actually taken a girlfriend out for the night.
Felix lived in a villa outside the school. Every night, after training, he would drive away from the school. His car, the “Sprinting Silver Tiger”, was one of its kind in the school, and Sonia would occasionally find it at night. He never took his girlfriend out of school at night, and he always went home alone.
Of course, it was also possible that he preferred daytime. However, Felix changed girlfriends every three days, and there were many noble ladies among them. Sonia did not quite believe he could wipe someone out in three days.
He acted more like he was collecting stamps than being lascivious.
Secondly, as the son of the Duke of Vosloda, it was hard not to think that he was involved in some political dispute to lower himself to attending Sword Flower University.
Sonia was not interested in growing up and fighting by his side. She was more interested in catching the young master of a newly risen upstart noble in recent years, so that she could enjoy the fruits of his labor and have a lot of room to maneuver. If her methods were good, it was not impossible for her to split the family assets.
With all these factors combined, Sonia could be said to be uninterested in Felix.
She had an entire forest, so naturally, she did not need to hang on this tree, and even had to stay far away from him—part of the reason was that Sonia had never come into contact with nobles, and her knowledge of them came from novels.
As for the traditional nobility in the novel, other than the male protagonist, all of them were villains who bullied the good and abused their power. Those who were not evil enough would even be kicked out of the nobility and become commoners.
Sonia, who had always been cautious or pessimistic, naturally did not think that she would meet a good noble. Naturally, she kept her distance from Felix, who obviously appeared more like a villainous classic noble.
“Does that mean that if you were to fight him, you would very likely get into trouble?”
[Exactly!] Sonia quickly said, [I don’t know what you want me to do, but I’m really weak now, so I have to develop properly first. I should keep a low profile as much as possible, and I shouldn’t—]
“This couldn’t be better.” The Observer said, “Causing trouble is exactly what I hope you’d do. I hope that you can keep a high profile and destroy all the enemies in front of you… Besides, isn’t this also your wish?”
“How could I have such a childish and arrogant wish!” Sonia roared.
“In that case,” The Observer bowed and said, “I wish you the best of luck in your first battle. I wish you luck in beating up that swordplay genius and trampling over the Astra nobility.”
[No, I will never—]
“Felix Vosloda. A genius in the School of Swordmastery.”
Sonia raised her wooden sword, pointed it at Felix, and said in an arrogant tone that she would never use, “You are the only one qualified to be the stepping stone for summoning my spell spirit.”
“Do you dare to fight me?”
The training ground was in an uproar, and the swordplay apprentices all had expectant looks. Celia almost bit her lip until it bled—as expected, her target was also Felix, and she even used such a cliché but effective method to directly establish a relationship with Felix!
Ingrit was stunned. “Sonia, you’ve just trained for two hours. Even if you want to compete in swordplay, you should wait until tomorrow…”
“No, it should be now.” Felix stepped out of the crowd and stared hard at Sonia. “Two hours, three thousand and six hundred swords, straight from beginner swordplay to the mastery of swordplay. You’re the most talented person I’ve ever met, and the second person who terrifies me. If I don’t take your challenge now, when I wake up tomorrow, I won’t even have the courage to draw my sword in front of you.”
“Right now, this might be my only chance to defeat you. Even if others think that I’m taking advantage of you and bullying you for your lack of stamina, I can’t care anymore—at least after defeating you tonight, I’ll still have the right and courage to try to catch up to you!”
“And you are right. I am the only one worthy of your challenge in this vast Sword Flower University. Those Illusory Realm Swordmasters who are older than I can only draw upon the knowledge of the Illusory Realm through time and perseverance. They cannot compare to you and I. So… Come!”
As they spoke, a large empty space was cleared in the training ground. The two of them held their training swords and stood on both sides.
Sonia was using the most common mid-stage stance, while Felix was holding a sword in one hand with his body raised to the side. It looked like there were flaws everywhere.
“Wave stance…” Even though Ingrit was a little worried about Sonia, she could not help but look forward to their match.
The Vosloda family was famous for their swordplay. They had four secret techniques that could summon a spell spirit. The wave stance was one of them.
In the School of Swordmastery, the sword stance was a cultivation technique, a summoning technique, as well as a combat technique.
Or rather, the reason why a swordmaster could summon a sword spell spirit was because he had sufficient comprehension of the combat training of this sword stance. Thus, he could invoke the resonance of the Illusory Realm and turn the knowledge of the Illusory Realm into a spell spirit of the sword.
The basic spell spirit summoned by every swordsmaster autonomously would mean perfect mastery over the corresponding swordplay stance.
Felix had also competed with other people before, but because Ingrit was too focused on her studies (not very popular with people), she was not able to get any information. This was the first time that she had seen the legendary wave stance. She couldn’t help but feel tempted and started thinking about finding an opportunity to compete with Felix too.
At this time, Ingrit noticed that Sonia’s face was red, and she kept giving Ingrit purposeful looks. Ingrit was a little confused, but she quickly understood. Sonia was showing off to her that she could see the wave stance first!
Although you are geniuses, I will definitely catch up to you!
Ingrit clenched her fists and made a gesture of cheering Sonia on.
Sonia was at a loss for words. Was the distress signal in her eyes not obvious enough? Why didn’t Ingrit hurry up and carry her away?
[What’s the point of controlling my body like this? Even if you win, you’re the one winning. I’m just a bystander.] Sonia said inwardly. [If you only want to control my body, that’s up to you. I can’t resist anyway.]
[But you made me accept the trial in the dream world last night, and you made me train in swordplay, so I would be able to grow, right? How about this: you let me regain control of my body, and I promise to fight with others. If one is not enough, I can fight two, okay?]
“Do you think you’re doing arithmetics? One plus one equals two?” the Observer standing next to Ingrit said. “Also, who told you that I’m controlling your body to fight?”
[If it’s not you, is it supposed to be me?]
“Precisely.” The Observer walked to her side and raised the tip of her sword a little higher. “Do you really think that I will randomly choose someone to fight with you? Do you really think that I can ignore your will and forcefully control your body?”
“Why do you train in swordplay? Because you defeated me last night in a dream. You realized your talent for swordplay. You know you have the chance to gain power. And you know you’ve already wasted too much time.”
“That’s why you came here. You worked hard to squeeze out every last bit of your strength, just so that others and your roommate, Ingrit, can see that besides your appearance, you also have talent that you can be proud of!”
“Why did you challenge Felix? From the first time you saw him driving the Sprinting Silver Tiger through the school roads, seeing him being sought after by everyone, and seeing him become the hot topic of the school, you already felt jealousy, envy, and hatred towards him. You can’t blame your mother for raising you through bitter hardships, so you can only resent someone whose family background far exceeds yours.”
“Why are they born with everything? Why are they better than me in every aspect?”
“Don’t lie to your heart, Sword Maiden,” the Observer said. “You want to defeat him. You want to prove that you, Sonia Sevey, are not inferior to anyone else!”
“You are the one who came to the training ground, you are the one who grip the wooden sword tight, you are the one who want to be dazzling! Everything came from your heart!”
“Actually, I’m curious as to why you think that I’m controlling you. After all, no one can see me except you. Don’t you find this strange? Don’t you suspect… whether I’m a real observer, or a phantom that you entrusted your soul to?”
“I’ve finished talking. Now, you can put all the blame on me, then…” The Observer stood beside Sonia, and pointed at Felix. “…enjoy the thrill of trouncing a genius! ”
Thud!
With an explosive sound, the two raised their swords at the same time and clashed!