Roa grabbed Est's hand, looked at the delicate face close at hand, Roa reached out and pinched it, the touch of skin that could be broken with a puff made Roa couldn't help but pinch it a few more times.
Est maintained a blank expression throughout, staring at Roa.
Roa's skin was thick enough, and he didn't feel anything from the girl's death stare.
Est finally sighed, her small face full of sorrow.
Roa was slightly stunned. Her expression was as if she was waiting for him to ask what was wrong.
Roa didn't disappoint the girl's expression and naturally asked, "Est, what's wrong?"
"Master needs to grow up faster."
That's what Est said, the coldness on her face faded, and she said to Roa with a serious expression.
Roa: ???
After chatting with Est again, Est also disappeared into the dojo in elemental form, leaving him alone in the arena again.
Weighing the wooden sword in his hand, Roa began his daily training.
Time flew by, and half a month passed.
He sparred with the Old Sword God in the morning and practiced on his own in the afternoon. Of course, he didn't practice for too long on his own. Occasionally, when he was bored, he would call Eris and Rudeus over to teach them a little and see how they were progressing.
Some time ago, Roa had curiously asked Eris how her dormitory relationship was going.
Eris simply said, "I apologized, but I don't know if Nina has forgiven me."
Roa nodded and didn't ask any further questions.
However, the girl looked very calm, as if the other party was just a small character and didn't need to be cared about at all.
After that, Eris would run over every week and pester Roa. Roa didn't refuse, but simply picked up a book and told stories to the girl.
Telling stories was just one part of it. Roa would also ask Eris how many friends she had made or how many people would talk to her.
Eris's answer was also straightforward: "Compared to arguing all the time before, it's much better this time. Basically, they all go around me when they see me, and there are no more ignorant guys who come over to talk to me."
Roa translated it and twitched his lips.
Good heavens, Eris was being treated with cold violence.
But the girl didn't seem to see it and was very satisfied with it.
Whatever, it's up to her. Roa didn't expect Eris to change her personality directly.
Life was as plain and simple as ever.
Eris didn't make any trouble, and everyone's training was progressing steadily.
Roa had made great progress. To some extent, Roa had gradually adapted to the Old Sword God's swordsmanship.
The Old Sword God's speed was very fast, but Roa wasn't an ordinary person either. After half a month, the two had fought more than thirty times.
In the first ten or so fights, the Old Sword God crushed Roa, but in the last ten times, the Old Sword God showed a clear decline.
Roa was constantly improving himself. The high-intensity battles were also constantly promoting Roa's learning of the Old Sword God's swordsmanship. With the blessing of the Transparent World and the Sword Heart, Roa could see the Old Sword God's sword-holding posture and habits clearly.
Naturally, thanks to this, Roa took the opportunity to correct some of his bad habits, such as the sword-holding posture or the small breathing techniques.
It might be a little uncomfortable when changing, but after training a few more times, Roa's discomfort quickly faded, and Roa could indeed feel that the speed of his sword swing had improved.
Of course, the real increase in speed wasn't just this, but Moment.
Moment's influence on Roa was beyond Roa's imagination.
The activation of the Word Soul wasn't one-sided. Sparring with the Old Sword God also promoted Moment's progress.
Whether in terms of thinking or body, Roa could feel a clear improvement.
To make an analogy, it was like watching a movie, from the original 1x speed to 1.2x speed.
This subtle change would only accelerate as the Moment stage climbed.
For a moment, Roa didn't know whether to be happy or sad.
At that time, he might have another title.
The fastest man in the world.
As always, the Old Sword God stood opposite Roa, holding his sword in one hand, his face full of caution.
This was in stark contrast to the Old Sword God's frivolousness when he first confronted Roa.
The reason was that Roa's progress was too fast, so fast that Gal even wondered if this guy had been constantly honing his swordsmanship since he was in his mother's womb to be able to achieve such a high level at this age.
Gal was truly convinced by Roa.
Gal's tolerance for geniuses was actually very high. After all, he was a genius himself, so even if someone suddenly realized something and was reborn, directly breaking through from an Advanced Swordsman to a Saint-level or even, boldly speaking, reaching the King-level, Gal wouldn't be surprised.
But learning swordsmanship couldn't be calculated like that. When a strong person reached a certain level, it wouldn't be so easy to improve further.
In other words, for an Advanced Swordsman, you could say that his room for improvement was very large, just like a guy who usually scored three or four hundred points on a test suddenly got enlightened and scored five hundred points on the college entrance examination.
This wasn't impossible. Although the cases were rare, they did exist.
But Roa's situation was like a guy who scored around six hundred and fifty points on the college entrance examination breaking through himself and reaching seven hundred points.
Don't look at the fact that the score only increased by fifty points, but in reality, it was even more magical than the guy who scored five hundred points.
Friends who have taken the college entrance examination know that in the later stages of review, the more points a student has, the more effort they have to put in to increase each point.
This is because the basic questions of the knowledge points have been completed, and the rest are the high-difficulty problems.
Learning is like this. The further you go, the harder it is to improve.
Practicing swordsmanship is also like this. The further you go, the harder it is to find shortcuts to cross.
This is why some beginners learn swordsmanship as if they are playing around, breaking through as easily as eating and drinking, but they can be stuck in one realm and never be able to cross that threshold in their entire lives.
Especially when it comes to Gal's level, the so-called "going further on the top of a hundred-foot pole" is just wishful thinking.
Gal has taught many disciples, such as Gino's father, who is a Sword Emperor, but in reality, Gal hasn't seen his disciple improve for a long time.
And he also knows his own situation and has always wanted to become stronger urgently.
But the fact is that no matter how he asks himself for advice, that threshold always stands in front of him, becoming a high mountain that he cannot cross.
In comparison, Roa's talent can only be described as monstrous.
Gal can only say that there is also a gap between Sword Emperors.
People are such creatures. Some people are born with the favor of the goddess, and all the favors are showered on one person without costing money.
Gal sighed with emotion, wondering how long it would take for the other party to defeat him.
Maybe in another month or two, after the other party is completely familiar with his swordsmanship, he will no longer be his opponent.
This can't be helped. Even if Gal doesn't want to admit it, he is indeed not as good as before.
His brain has become dull, and it is difficult to keep up with the thinking of young people. Gal has deeply understood this from the recent battles.
The slowness of thinking is fatal. Gal has now reached the peak he can reach in his life, and he cannot move forward any further.
Roa is different. His young and energetic body and his unparalleled talent give Roa a calm confidence.
The towering mountain is in front of him, and the traveler on the journey keeps moving forward.
Maybe the mountain is steep and daunting, but the mountain is there. As long as you are willing to climb, you can always reach the end.
With some emotion in his heart, Gal exerted force with his right hand, took a step forward with his right foot, lowered his center of gravity, held the wooden sword tightly in his right hand, and tried to look calm on his face.
Gal no longer uses the Iai stance. He is now in the front-end stance, which in a sense is also one of Gal's best.
Ending the opponent with extreme speed, posing in this stance means that Gal will take the lead instead of waiting for the opponent to attack.
The two of them took their stances, and their movements were almost identical. Neither of them spoke, and the atmosphere became heavy.
Without probing, Roa took the lead in drawing his sword, and the wooden sword in his hand turned into a moon circle. An invisible slash suddenly swung out, and Roa's figure disappeared in place. The next moment, Gal suddenly swung his sword and slashed to the right.
The clash between the two attracted the attention of the crowd. Although everyone couldn't understand it, it didn't stop them from making a fuss.
When they realized that the two wooden swords had collided, the crowd shouted loudly.
The wooden swords did collide. In fact, a better way to deal with Roa was to use Light Reversal, but using Light Reversal might be noticed by the other party, thus avoiding that fatal slash.
Once the slash couldn't interrupt the opponent's attack, then he would be in danger.
Strangely enough, although Roa's speed couldn't keep up with his speed, his 'eyes' were surprisingly good. From the many characteristics Roa showed, he was the type who, although his body didn't react, his eyes did keep up with Gal's rhythm.
The Sword God Style pursues a one-hit kill. Neither Roa nor Gal were very satisfied with this sword they swung.
Roa took the initiative, but it had already been blocked by Gal.
For Gal, he had only blocked Roa's slash, and he hadn't thought of a counterattack method yet.
The Sword of Light might not be able to end the opponent, and Light Reversal could only be used if the opponent wasn't fooled. It suddenly became troublesome.
With a quick thought, Gal quickly thought about how to deal with Roa. Gal exerted force with his right arm and flicked Roa's sword away. The two tacitly sheathed their swords.
Since one sword couldn't end the fight, then the second sword would do.
That's what both of them thought.
The veins on Gal's right arm bulged, and the exposed blood vessels were clearly visible. The gray-white hair stood up, and his ferocious face lost its usual frivolousness and arrogance. If the previous Gal was like a rude beast, giving the first impression of being a musclehead without a brain, infinitely equal to Ghislaine's level.
But when Gal became serious, people would realize that the old man in front of them was not as wild as they imagined. Gal was the type who was rough but meticulous. You could say that Gal didn't have many tricks, but if you thought Gal didn't have any tricks, the little old man would give you a hard time at a critical moment.
Gal's movements didn't stop at all. He moved his body a small step to the right, and then relied on his brute force to retract the wooden sword. After completing this action, without building up momentum, he directly thrust out the long sword, and the wooden sword slashed towards Roa's right arm.
The slash was extremely swift, and the wooden sword easily separated the atmosphere, rushing towards Roa's position at an extremely exaggerated speed.
This was the Sword of Light.
Gal had hidden a move and placed the killing move in the second move.
The wooden sword was silent and without any warning, it appeared on Roa's right side. The speed of the wooden sword was very fast, so fast that it was almost unbelievable. Even if Roa had dealt with this sword many times, he was still a little surprised by Gal's speed.
Time slowed down at this moment. Roa didn't have Gal's speed, and sheathing his sword was still a little slow. If it were a normal match, Roa would definitely only be able to deal with Gal's slash in a hurry.
Even if he could withstand this slash, it would have laid the foundation for failure later on.
But now, Gal's slash slowed down in Roa's eyes. Although the speed was still very fast, Roa was already able to react.
Roa didn't hesitate and swung out his sword suddenly at the moment when Gal's right arm was raised to the highest point and the long sword was about to fall.
Roa's speed still hadn't broken through to the speed of light, and the Sword God Style was still only at the Sword Emperor level.
But relying on Moment, he was able to crush guys like Gal who relied on speed to win, so that they couldn't even lift their heads.
Roa's slash caught up with Gal's slash. Under the old guy's incredulous gaze, Gal's right arm hurt, and the Sword of Light could no longer be swung down.
"Light Reversal."
Successfully interrupting the opponent's slash, the remaining result was self-evident.
The slash that surpassed the speed of light came to Gal's face in an instant. Before Gal could react, his vision had already been reversed.
Gal's right arm trembled a little. He was still holding the wooden sword in his hand, and the astonishment on his face directly showed the shock in his heart.
The crowd's noise and clamor mixed together. Everyone thought that the battle between Roa and Gal would be like the past, and the two would be in a stalemate for a while, and finally it would end with Roa being slightly inferior and being knocked to the ground by Gal.
At this moment, Gal would wipe the sweat from his face and say a few words of encouragement to Roa, pretending to be relaxed.
Words like, "There's no need to be discouraged, you have plenty of time, you're still young," and finally, he would pat Roa on the shoulder, pull him up, and scold the surrounding people, asking if they could wait like the senior disciple.
They were already used to it.
But the current scene was different from before.