After taking a break after lunch, the rain just stopped, and the two of them prepared to practice swordsmanship according to yesterday's plan.
The two of them did not have swords with them when they were being chased by church spies. When they fled to Poni City, they prepared to enter the rain forest. In the rain forest, weapons like long swords were basically useless, and it was a burden to carry them.
They only purchased two machetes and hand axes, and two daggers for self-defense. The rest were equipped with no other weapons.
At this time, if I wanted to practice swordsmanship, I had to go to the firewood shed built next to the house to find two suitable wooden sticks to use as swords.
Steven shouted in the firewood shed: "Kate, come here and see what I found? This should be the branch of the wuluo tree, right? I didn't expect that we also cut down a wuluo tree to use as firewood!"
"
Kate walked over, looked at it and touched it: "It is indeed a branch of the Wuluo tree. I probably didn't distinguish it carefully at the time, but it's just right. This kind of wood used by the Saiman people to make hunting bow arms is very suitable for making wooden swords!"
"After some processing, two tough and straight Wuluo branches became two wooden sticks that replaced steel swords.
The two stood in the middle of the yard, with their bare feet in the mud and their trousers rolled up to their knees. One of them held a wooden stick about one meter long. They made a salute gesture at the same time and then started to stab each other.
.......
As the crackling and banging sounds continued, a few minutes later the two figures suddenly separated. They each stood back and began to breathe.
Kate panted and said with a smile: "I haven't practiced swordsmanship for so long. Your technical agility and reflexes have not deteriorated but have improved. What surprises me is that your weak areas, especially your strength, have made huge progress!
It seems I have to be a little more serious!"
Steven also gasped: "Really?! Your progress in all aspects is also not small! And I didn't use my full strength just now! You will see my real progress next!"
After saying that, he quickly approached Kate with a few steps. He first stabbed Kate in the face with the wooden stick in his hand. When he raised the stick to block it, he suddenly withdrew it midway. Then he stabbed Kate in the abdomen with the wooden stick, and saw that the tip of the stick was about to reach her.
It hit Kate's belt, but suddenly lost its target.
It turns out that at this time, Kate had suddenly turned sideways to avoid Steven's thrust, and used the middle position of the wooden stick to bounce Steven's wooden stick away, and took advantage of the force exerted by Steven's wooden stick to be carried away.
He swung away to the outside, and while he was unable to turn around for the time being, he turned around and came to Steven's side.
At this time, Kate's body was almost side by side and facing in the same direction as Steven. However, he did not rotate his body anymore. Instead, he used the strength of his waist to twist in the opposite direction. When he stopped rotating, the wooden stick in his hand had blocked his waist.
Sweep towards Steven.
At this time, Steven had no time to turn the stick to block, so he had no choice but to push his body backwards. When his back was already tens of centimeters above the ground, he used his left hand to push against the ground, slowing down his body movement.
At the same time, the wooden stick in his right hand had slowed down and spun around, and then the tip of the wooden stick was stabbed towards Kate's right chest.
Kate had no choice but to turn the stick upward to block Steven's stick, but Steven relied on the upward force from the stick in his right hand and the reaction force of his left hand to stand up straight, and at the same time stepped sideways to avoid Kate's stick.
Thrust.
Kate took a step forward and sprinted. At the same time, the wooden stick in her hand swept across Steven's upper body from the outside of her left shoulder. Steven raised the stick to block to the right. The force from the opponent's wooden stick was so huge that he had to step back.
In this way, Steven had to block and quickly retreat while Kate used her strength to establish an advantage and kept attacking. At a certain moment, Kate deflected Steven's wooden stick with a stick, and he had no time to fight back.
Then he took another sudden step and gently tapped the end of the wooden stick in his hand on Steven's chest.
Then he stood back, made a salute gesture, panted and looked at Steven and said: "Steven, your swordsmanship has indeed improved a lot. If you can catch up with me in terms of strength, then I will definitely not be yours."
Opponent!"
Steven in the front gasped with a wooden stick and said: "But it is very difficult to increase strength quickly unless very professional training is carried out, and the barbaric environment we are in now does not have these conditions. This is just like the academy."
Those weaklings on the Fighters will never beat the Bordeaux Blackhawks!"
"Those two teams are really not on the same level! One is a semi-professional team for adults, and the other is an amateur team composed of students. It's not fair at all to compare."
"But in a battle, especially a battle between life and death, it doesn't matter whether you are a professional or an amateur! There is no rule that both sides need to be at the same level! Only the side with stronger overall strength can survive... Alas,
If I had had enough strength at that time, maybe Field would not have been assassinated..."
Kate knew that he was still feeling guilty about what happened that day, and she couldn't help but comforted: "That's not your fault! Steven, you don't have to blame yourself, think about it, we are just students who have just graduated from the academy, even if we have been together since childhood
You trained swordsmanship under the guidance of William, but how could you be the opponent of those two professional killers who taught you?! If you had impulsively gone out with Field at that time, you would have only added one more corpse! And you didn’t know those two killers.
Just stay outside, right?!”
Steven nodded and said: "I know! It's just that I still can't let go. If I have the opportunity in the future, I will try my best to avenge Field, no matter what method I use!"
"Okay! We still have a long future, and we can plan slowly in the future. It's getting late now. This fight has made us covered in mud. It's time to take a shower and have dinner."
After dinner, he returned to the room. Steven took out a deck of cards from the locker. The two sat at the table and started their regular entertainment time under the light of the oil candle lamp. After playing a few games, they went their separate ways.
Get into bed and get into your sleeping bag to sleep.
The next morning after breakfast, Kate started making tea by the stove on the porch as usual and listened to the rain, while Steven returned to the house.
He was still a little unwilling to accept the scroll, so he came to the table. Steven arranged the scroll as he had done the day before, lit the oil candle, closed the window sash, made the room quiet, and then began to focus on the flames on the first painting of the scroll.
Gradually the flame began to swing and burn, and Steven entered the same state again as last time!
The surroundings were extremely quiet, without any sound, only the flames burning quietly in the boundless dark void...
When he came to his senses, he looked at the oil candle on the table that was about to burn out. He quickly stood up and rushed out of the room, shouting to Kate: "Kate! I just entered that state again! It's so amazing!"
That flame was jumping and burning right in front of my eyes, it was so real! I couldn’t tell if it was an illusion or reality, but that situation that felt momentary but actually lasted a long time was real!”
Kate raised her eyebrows after hearing this: "So you just saw the flames on that painting again? And you entered that magical state again?"
"Yes!"
Kate took out her pocket watch, looked at it and asked, "When did you start looking at that painting?"
"I didn't time it, but I started immediately when I got back to the room after breakfast."
Kate looked at her pocket watch and said: "It's 12 o'clock now. It should be around 8 o'clock after we have breakfast. If you start watching the flames after 8 o'clock, according to what you said, you will only feel that you wake up after a short while."
It’s been nearly 4 hours?”
"The contrast in the sense of time is one aspect. What is even more magical is the flame, which is burning quietly in front of my eyes. At this time, the whole world is extremely quiet. This feeling is so magical..."
"Okay, I can't understand your feeling. I can only understand it from the contrast of the passage of time. This situation is indeed incredible, but why didn't I feel any strange feelings when I looked at that painting yesterday morning?"
Steven said: "This can't be explained! In short, I feel that this scroll is not simple. Think about it carefully! Why did Field risk his life to give it to me? He said it was obtained from the church.
Something, judging from the fact that he was chased by church assassins, it was obviously not obtained through normal channels, and the style of this scroll painting is not the consistent artistic style of the Glory Holy Church, right! Coupled with its material,
I have never seen a material so thin yet so strong!”