“I… didn’t expect you’d have that type of hobby, no shame,” Joana said, a frown clear on her face.
“No, no, not that,” Ludwig sighed as he showed her his wrist. He twisted his hand and the chain released itself from his shackles and fell on the ground hanging by one end.
“Oh… that’s a unique item,” she said, “Relic?” she asked.
“Yes, something like that,” he replied.
She went up to Ludwig and took a glance at his chain, “Looks sturdy, but why do you want to learn this? Is the sword not enough for you? You shouldn’t be too greedy,” she said.
“I suppose that’s fair,” Ludwig replied disappointedly.
“Also,” she said, “Chain wielding isn’t that simple, especially when your chain is lacking… weight, or a sharp edge to it, it’ll just be usable for pinning down enemies, which is fine and all, but if you’re facing something with more strength and power than you, then you’ll be the one trapped with them, not the other way around… follow me,” she said.
She headed out of the room and deeper into the academy, to sections Ludwig never visited before.
Soon she arrived in an empty hall-like room. Massive in size it was made of gray thick stones that covered the ceiling ground and walls.
“This is where you’ll be spending most of your training time when you’re junior, right now we’ll be using it for a small test,” she said as Ludwig walked past her to spectate the room.
“Now,” she said, “Pull your chain out, and try and land a hit on me using it,” she said.
Ludwig nodded and unruffled his chain, a small part of it hung down where he began twirling it with one hand.
Suddenly he threw the chain forward, to which the teacher simply sidestepped, grabbed with one hand, and yanked at Ludwig pulling him all the way to her where she had her sword edge right up his neck.
“Convinced yet?” she asked.
“Can I try again?” Ludwig said.
“Sure…” she said, sounding a bit disappointed but allowed him to try again never the less.
‘Going head-on against her is probably not the smartest plan, so what if I try and use some of the chain’s abilities themselves,” Ludwig noted that he still had a soul he obtained from the Knight King, he never used them to upgrade any of his stats, but he needed them to use the chain’s abilities.
‘Use {Brave Soul}’
[You obtained 10,000 souls.]
‘Wow, that much?’ he was surprised at the amount, that’s enough to empower him greatly.
For now, he’ll think about the usage and assignment of the souls later. So after he put distance between them, Ludwig began twirling his chain and then sent it flying at the teacher.
“The same trick won’t work twice,” she said as she dodged and went for the grab, only this time the chain curled away from her making her miss the grab. But for a veteran, that wasn’t much, as she simply dashed at Ludwig.
Ludwig knew she was far faster than he could probably react to, but her current dash was slow, slow enough for him to understand she was trying to mimic his current power level.
Ludwig twisted his wrist, making the chain that was flying away to dive at the back of the teacher.
Like a predator, the teacher’s eyes widened and she dashed to the side, the chain dove onto the ground in a blast of sparks where she was supposed to be.
The chain then slowly hung from Ludwig’s arm like a coiled snake and began following the teacher with its tip.
“That’s a neat trick, but not enough,” she said as she dashed at Ludwig again. The chain dove down at her, but she simply raised her arm up parrying the chain away and went for a grab with her other hand to Ludwig’s face.
What she didn’t account for, was Ludwig immediately summoning his broken sword shard in his other hand and thrusting it forward.
Regardless, anyone else would have had their chest penetrated by the shard, but the Swordmaster only smiled as she saw Ludwig’s action, her grasping motion fluidly transitioned to a hand chop that struck Ludwig’s arm which held the sword.
Ludwig got disarmed immediately, as the shard began rolling on the ground, Joana then ducked under the chain that was coming once again at her back, dodging it and then with a sweep of her leg, toppled Ludwig completely off his feet to the ground.
She smiled as she rose up and then gave Ludwig a hand.
“That was humiliating,” Ludwig replied as he grabbed her hand and stood up.
“No, that was actually interesting,” she said, “You lack experience in fight, but you’re making up for it using your head. It’s smart to use multiple attacks at the same time, and if you used your magic with the combination you would have had a better chance at landing a hit,” she said then walked up to the fallen shard.
She picked it up, “Where did you get something like this?” she asked.
“You know what that is?” Ludwig replied
“No, but this looks interesting, it’s quite the piece of metal, sharp too… extremely so, and heavy, makes one wonder how something like this was even broken,” she said as she looked at Ludwig’s chains and then back at the shard.
“Ludwig,” she said.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Do you know what a Kusarigama is?” she asked.
“Not really, no,” He shook his head.
“It’s a type of weapon, that originated from a kingdom far in the east. I should have a manual on how they use that weapon. It’s basically a sickle linked to a chain. How about this, instead of using the chain’s head which is a normal chain link as the offensive tool, try and wrap the chain around this shard and then use it,” she said.
Ludwig thought for a moment then commanded the chain to wrap tightly around the bottom of the shard.
“Now, try again, I’ll be attacking you,” she said.