The Failed Swordmaster - Chapter 45

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 45 21. A Genius Who Transcended Walls (1)

“Huff, huff, huff.”

His breathing was rough.

His muscles, accumulated with fatigue, were stiff as if sand had been stuffed into them. It seemed like they were screaming for mercy from everywhere.

But Cal Krone couldn’t rest.

If he stopped moving his body even for a moment, that day’s sword would come to mind. Lumian’s sword that had completely shattered the confidence he had built up until now.

“Huff, gasp!”

Whiiing!

“How many hours has he been doing that?”

“Doesn’t he get tired?”

He could hear people chattering around him, but Cal Krone didn’t pay attention. It was more important to swing his sword even one more time in that time.

To reach that guy’s sword, to reach Lumian, this much wasn’t enough.

No, perhaps.

‘I might never measure up to that guy.’

Cal Krone smiled.

It was so distorted that it was hard to insist it was a smile, but he smiled nonetheless.

In fact, he knew it too.

What he was doing now wasn’t training.

Unlike before when he concentrated on each movement and sought improvement, his current movements had no soul. They had no weight either.

It was merely struggling to suppress the constantly rising impatience and misery. It would be appropriate to call it abuse for forgetting, not training for advancement.

But then.

“Draw your sword.”

Lumian Calard appeared.

In front of the very person who had plunged him into the pit of despair, he couldn’t say anything.

He could only watch with a blank expression as he took his stance.

‘What the hell is he doing? Wasn’t the match already over?’

That was right. After seeing Lumian’s sword, Cal Krone had already accepted defeat deep in his heart.

For a while, perhaps for his entire life, he might not be able to challenge Lumian to a duel. He was far from ready.

However, Lumian didn’t wait for him.

After swinging his sword a couple times in the air, Lumian immediately rushed at Cal Krone.

Clang!

“What is this!”

“Shut up, let’s just have a match first.”

With those words, Lumian closed his mouth.

Cal Krone was furious.

Was this to toy with him?

Or was it to humiliate him?

If not that, was he planning to feel superior by tormenting an opponent whose spirit was already broken?

Whatever the intention, he didn’t like it.

Tremendous anger burned through his body. It was an intense emotion that made him forget even the fatigue he’d felt until now.

Cal Krone’s sword shot out quickly. It was a terrifying speed that even Academy graduating students couldn’t follow.

Clang!

Clang! Clang-!

But unfortunately, his opponent was Lumian Calard.

Lumian Calard who had sliced five statues like tofu. The very guy who had shattered even his will and pride, the one he had considered his rival until just two weeks ago.

However, he was no longer his rival now.

What does rival mean? Isn’t it a term for an opponent of similar skill, someone you must do your best to defeat?

By that standard, Cal Krone himself was disqualified as a rival.

Sure enough, he gradually showed signs of being pushed back by Lumian.

“This can’t be, Cal Krone is…”

“Being pushed back?”

“That’s Lumian Calard, right? How did his skills improve so quickly?”

‘Damn it, damn it!’

Cal Krone’s expression became severely distorted.

Unlike during training, he could hear everything people around him were saying. It meant his concentration was broken.

No, in fact, he hadn’t been concentrating on the confrontation with Lumian from the beginning.

Filled with a sense of inferiority, he had already accepted his defeat as a foregone conclusion, and the sword he wielded was merely a last resistance to save some face.

He crumbled little by little, little by little. Like a ship sinking into the deep sea, he was slowly falling into a swamp of despair.

Then, a completely different energy flowed from Lumian’s entire body.

Chill-!

Cal Krone snapped to attention.

The atmosphere changed completely.

It was as if he had entered the middle of a battlefield.

The feeling that sharp blades were constantly targeting him. Cal Krone looked toward Lumian with a dazed expression.

Sharp attacks poured down on him. They were attacks with the same power that had struck the statues.

Claaang!

“Urgh!”

Cal Krone looked into Lumian’s eyes.

He could no longer feel despair. He couldn’t even feel defeat.

The current situation was too urgent to feel such luxurious emotions.

Forgetting where he was and what he had been doing, he unconsciously continued swinging his sword.

Because he judged that was the only way to survive.

Clang, clang, clang!

The sound of real sword clashing against real sword echoed endlessly.

Everyone in the hall quietly watched their sword dance. In the midst of it, Lumian thought quietly.

‘As expected, a talented guy is a talented guy.’

Right now he was using his Aura image to recreate the atmosphere of battlefields he had experienced in his previous life.

Suffocating pressure, tension as if his neck would fall off with the slightest mistake.

For ordinary people, such an atmosphere would have acted as poison, but he thought Cal Krone would be different.

By stimulating survival instincts to awaken dormant instincts, and sharpen talents that had rusted due to despair.

If those two created synergy, he thought explosive growth might be possible, going beyond just shaking off the slump.

‘No, it’s not might be possible. It definitely will be!’

Lumian’s thinking was exactly right.

Genius originally refers to beings who create miracles.

And Cal Krone was a genius who ranked among the top talents he had seen.

There was no way such a person couldn’t overcome this level of trial. Lumian, who let out a faint smile, swung his sword even faster.

Then Cal Krone’s sword facing him also became faster.

Dead sharpness came alive, and power was added. Like a soldier thrown into a battlefield trying to break through, incredible potential began bursting from his body.

Bang! Crash!

Craaash!

From some point on, the sound of sword clashing against sword echoed even louder.

Both Lumian Calard and Cal Krone unleashed their swords more powerfully. Everyone held their breath watching the storm-like intense offense and defense.

One minute passed like that, then five minutes.

Finally, when Cal Krone’s concentration reached its peak.

A tremendous swift sword burst forth from Lumian Calard’s side.

Whoooong!

A sword blade flying so fast it felt like it would burst the air!

Cal Krone’s eyes opened wide. He had seen this once before.

‘Yes, that’s definitely how it was.’

Back then, when he had gained new enlightenment and confidently searched for his rival while carrying two swords.

His sky-high pride crumbled, and for the first time in his life, he tasted frustration and defeat.

When he faced that enormous wall that seemed impossible to overcome, one that would block him for life!

‘No, that’s not right!’

Cal Krone gritted his teeth with a grinding sound.

Power surged through his entire body. A dragon’s strength that he never knew existed, that had been sleeping all along, awakened. His eyes snapped open.

Then Lumian Calard’s sword path began to appear clearly.

Not only that, but the sword path he needed to draw also began to appear clearly.

He thrust his sword without hesitation.

Cal Krone’s sword, extended in a state of selfless absorption, curved sharply through the air.

And struck down fiercely against Lumian Calard’s sword.

Kwaaaaang!

A tremendous collision sound echoed throughout the training grounds.

While everyone covered their ears with surprised expressions, Cal Krone and Lumian Calard each stepped back several paces.

A sudden lull arrived.

To Cal Krone, who was staring at him with intense focus in his eyes, Lumian spoke casually as if it were nothing.

“Come to your senses now?”

“….”

“Were you really going to look half-dead over something this trivial? Over an obstacle you can overcome with just one sparring match?”

Cal Krone knew well what obstacle he was referring to. It must be that single strike he had delivered to the wall.

That’s why he was even more surprised.

Lumian, that guy had just done his absolute best to help him escape his slump.

Without any compensation whatsoever.

Cal Krone wore a dazed expression.

Regardless, Lumian continued to pour out what he had to say.

“There will be dozens more incidents like this in the future, so if you’re going to lose your composure over something like this, how ridiculous would that make me look? Huh? I crawled my way up from dead last to here, you know? Huh? I’ve overcome obstacles like this dozens of times.”

“….”

“Do you understand? Or don’t you understand?”

Cal Krone couldn’t argue back.

His words were certainly correct.

Now Lumian had realized talent similar to his own, no, surpassing his own, but until last year he had such terrible skills that he was called the Academy’s disgrace.

‘And he probably received even worse treatment than that.’

Despite all that, he didn’t break.

He didn’t give up in frustration, didn’t collapse. And finally, he even surpassed himself, who was called the greatest talent in the Academy’s history.

Compared to that steel-like will, his own mental strength was pathetically inadequate.

Of course, this was Cal Krone’s misunderstanding.

In fact, Lumian had never experienced being at the bottom. It was natural since he had been reincarnated from this semester.

But Lumian didn’t think his words were 100 percent lies.

He too, as someone of lowly eunuch origins, had to overcome all sorts of obstacles and walls.

‘There were physical penalties, but more than that, the prejudice and contempt were harder to bear….’

Lumian let out a breath with a “hmm.”

Having broken through all of that and stood at the top, he thought he could certainly say this much.

‘It’s been a while since I played the senior role.’

Of course, such meddling might not have been necessary.

To say it again, Cal Krone was a genius of the ages. Especially what he showed after the Swordsmanship Competition was comparable to the Knight King. Maybe even beyond that.

‘Still… it definitely helped. So it wasn’t a pointless thing to do.’

Lumian Calard nodded his head, reaching that conclusion.

Swoosh, he threw his sword.

The sword flew spinning and stuck precisely into the weapon rack.

“Someone said that life is a long-distance race.”

“….”

“It’s a pretty cliché saying, but I don’t think it’s wrong. Well… for us, swordsmanship is life, so, um, so… ah, you know what I mean? Just get the gist of it.”

With those words, Lumian quickly left the training grounds.

No, he added one last comment.

“Do well.”

Lumian Calard finally disappeared.

Watching his retreating figure, Cal Krone wore a serious expression.

All sorts of thoughts filled his head.

Shame, patheticness, gratitude, exhaustion….

However, the strongest emotion among them was a feeling of respect for Lumian.

Thinking of him who, despite being the same age, seemed to have accumulated deep experience and had awakened him from his narrow thinking, Cal Krone swung his sword again.

A completely different movement from just before, when he had been repeating meaningless actions without motivation.

Life began to return to his dead eyes.

And one week later.

Tarasan Academy’s final evaluations began.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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