Doggone Academy

He didn’t use a sword for ten whole days.

All he did was find trees, cut them down, roll them, and stack them.

It wasn’t a waste of time, but he had gained several calluses. Although his muscles didn’t grow enough to be visible to the naked eye, he definitely had more stamina than before. His balance had also improved.

The potions had great merit. He was able to do heavy work for days at a time because he recovered quickly the next day. By the ninth day, he had enough capacity to complete all his assigned tasks shortly after noon.

It was precisely for this reason that he became interested in alchemy. Alchemy could create potions as powerful as magic. At night, he would read the alchemy books he took from Sylverine’s bookstore until he fell asleep.

On the eleventh day, Sylverine nailed pieces of wood to the vacant lot as if they were a pillar. They were nailed every two steps until a row of six was completed. She made four rows with 24 pillars in total.

The pillars came up to his thighs.

Sylverine spoke after doing something he couldn’t understand,

“This is your training camp.”

He turned his gaze to the pillars, then back to Sylverine again.

She nodded.

“Get on a pillar.”

“……?”

“Come on.”

Many questions arose in his mind, but for now he did as Sylverine said. It wasn’t spacious enough on the surface to place both feet.

“You’ll do your sword training there.”

He couldn’t believe what he heard. It was hard enough for him to keep his balance here, but he had to train with the sword? He would fall with any mistake.

When he wondered if all knights trained this way, Sylverine spoke as if she had read his thoughts,

“You don’t need this training if you’re just going to spend your life competing in tournaments like other knights, but collecting trophies doesn’t guarantee your life.”

“……”

“Enemies on the plains won’t care about your situation. They won’t fight kindly against you. You have to adapt to any circumstances.”

He immediately focused on training.

First, he wanted to try to get used to moving between the pillars. He made not only forward movements, but also moved sideways and backwards.

Sylverine corrected his postures as she watched him.

“Don’t look down, look forward. Move as if you have an enemy in front. Or do you intend to look at the ground when a sword is pointed at you?”

He tried to move without looking down and fell several times.

“You must move with your intuition. Don’t look at the pillars to move.”

His skill gradually increased, as did his bruises.

This training continued the next day.

Sylverine increased the difficulty as he improved. When she waved her hand, the maids placed a basket beside her. It was filled with pebbles.

“It’s easy. You have to catch the pebbles I throw.”

He thought it would be easy.

When she threw the pebble in a parabolic line, all he had to do was move to the intended drop point. But it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Posted only on NovelUtopia.com

If he worried about stepping on the pillar, the pebble would fall on the ground, and when he worried about catching the pebble, it would always fall because he stepped wrong.

This training required not only coordination but also great concentration.

His falls doubled.

On the first day, he could catch three out of ten pebbles thrown. On the third day, he could catch seven out of ten, and on the fifth day, he could easily catch all the pebbles.

Sylverine didn’t stop at that point.

“You seem to have gotten used to the training.”

She pulled out three pillars at random. She created a new environment for him.

In addition, she asked the butlers to change the training camp every day. They would change the height of some pillars, or make the pillars thinner.

Gradually he adapted to the constant changes. At some point, moving between the wooden pillars became as comfortable as moving on the ground.

He could catch all the pebbles even when Sylverine was throwing faster.

Finally she said,

“Enough.”

“……?”

“Congratulations. You’ve passed the first stage of the Zelda Heart test.”

She pulled a scroll from under her arm. He received it.

When he read it, he realized it had the same instructions from the training he had done so far. And at the bottom was Zelda Heart’s signature.

“You finished earlier than Zelda Heart said, so you’re pretty good, at least according to the person who wrote this. It’s only the first stage though.”

“…But who is that guy?”

“……”

“You don’t know Zelda Heart…?”

“No.”

Sylverine looked at him with a regretful expression on her face.

“Master?”

She left first.

***

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