A weight lifted off Ketis after she tacitly admitted her unusual ability to utilize the Annihilator Sword Style without actually mastering it. She increasingly felt guilty about misleading Fred and everyone else about her dedication to another sword style.

She felt like a fraud.

​​

"Luckily, the worst hasn't come to pass."

Fred had lived over ninety years and invested at least half of it into mastering the sword style and propping up the associated sword school. He had turned from a powerful right-hand man to an expert pilot and swordmaster to a destitute old scammer who went deep into debt in order to keep the remnants of the school alive.

A swordsman who had spent years while enduring the lowest point of his life no longer clung to any illusionary values like pride, honesty and order.

He just wanted to make sure that his life's work was not in vain!

Therefore, Fred turned out to be surprisingly understanding of her unique conditions. No matter what unusual methods Ketis utilized to exceed Fred's ability to exhibit the Annihilator Sword Style, it was all fine to him as long as she used her unconventional power for the good of the sword school!

Both of them had come to an understanding after the match against Horvast Trion.

Ever since then, they began to work together to explore Ketis' unique advantages. At this point, she had only scratched the surface of what her upgraded mind could do. Her mind, will, design philosophy and most importantly Sharpie had all undergone drastic changes that caused her to become a lot less familiar with what she could do in her current state.

"We will need to remedy that." Fred stated as they entered a practice yard in the evening. "The essence of swordsmanship is to leverage your strengths in the most efficient and effective fashion in order to achieve your goals in combat. The precondition to this is that you must thoroughly understand your own capabilities. What are your advantages? What are your limitations? You must understand them both in order to develop your battle methods, or otherwise you will always be several steps behind from the likes of true sword initiates such as Ivan Reid."

The seeded competitors in the tournaments had undergone a lot more focused training than any of the Swordmaidens, Ketis included. The systematic structure of a sword school was simply too good at transforming average sword students into elite swordsmen with exquisite skill.

That wasn't all. The schools were not only good at imparting technical proficiency, but also excelled at molding the mentalities of its disciples. Strong pressure and constant training rapidly polished the wills of these aspiring swordmasters. To those who were tough and motivated enough to complete the harshest training, their willpower had long exceeded that of an average soldier!

Even if these swordsmen and mech pilots lacked the talent to transcend their mortal limits, they still represented the cream of the crop in their respective professions!

Just like how the Life Research Association's biotech industry ranked at the top in the star cluster, the Heavensword Association objectively trained the best swordsman mech pilots across an even larger region!

The state was so famed in this aspect that many foreigners who aspired to enjoy the best possible swordsman mech pilot training even went on long exchanges.

This was also one of the main 'export' products of the state. Wealthy foreign scions regularly paid the equivalent of billions of hex credits in order to receive some casual tips from an astute and insightful swordmaster.

Although Fred Walinski was nowhere near a swordmaster, he had at least eight decades worth of expertise under his belt.

His talent may be lacking, but his persistent hard work allowed him to develop a mastery of the basics that was impossible for youngsters to exceed.

All of this soon became clear as Fred earnestly began to tutor and help Ketis explore her new combat abilities.

Ketis looked emptily at the practice yard. "All of this is great, but I can't make use of the facilities here. I'm still aching everywhere and my previous bout against Horvast has already expended most of the energy in my body.

Her will might be abundant, but it was very hard to rely on it to prop up her depleted body. It acted more like an amplifier. It was hard for it to act on a shambling wreck.

"It's fine. We don't have to burden your body any further. You are already a trained swordswoman so there is not that much benefit to exercise your moves. My plan for today is to go over the fundamentals of the Annihilator Sword Style."

"How?"

"By starting with here." Fred smiled while tapping the side of his head. "Like any serious fighting discipline, swordsmanship is both a mental and physical journey. This is even more important for true sword styles because the mind and will are essential to make them work. Don't forget where they came from. Every swordsman who trained in one of those styles is essentially tracing some of the footsteps of the original sources."

While many founding expert pilots and swordmasters partially developed their extraordinary abilities on an instinctual basis after they broke through, by organizing their insights and mental evolution in a systematic format, it was possible for them to pass on their abilities to others!

In practice, this was not a common practice in the mech piloting community. Part of it was that the will and obsession of every expert pilot was deeply personal and unique. The MTA conducted many studies on this approach, and eventually came to a consensus that it led to the emergence of less expert pilots.

Even if training programs tried their best to deconstruct a mech pilot's original personality and reconstruct it in the image of an existing expert pilot, the process was always incomplete. Every human still retained enough unique aspects that they still had to develop their own way to transcend their limitations, something which they were not very good at due to lacking practice in individual expression.

However, there were still advantages to the model adopted by the Heavensword Association. The Cloudstrider Sword School clearly illustrated the advantage of having multiple expert pilots or swordmasters inherit an existing style and continue to build on it over the generations.

Some of the most renowned sword schools in the Heavensword Association actually maintained an uninterrupted inheritance that went back millennia!

The continued development of human civilization had always been rooted on passing on knowledge and allowing subsequent generations to learn from their predecessors.

Yet when this approach was applied to mech piloting and swordsmanship, the issue of compatibility began to become increasingly more problematic!

It was already bad enough that it was harder for individuals who inherited a legacy to become expert pilots or swordmasters.

The biggest conclusion the MTA had made was that it was very hard for even the most talented ace pilots to complete the final step and advance to god pilot!

Of all of the known god pilots in human space, the overwhelming majority were singularly unique! Hardly any of them trained in a systematic inheritance!

This conclusion alone was enough for most people to abandon this approach. Even if the benefits of training in a systematic inheritance produced some of the most powerful expert pilots and ace pilots in the galaxy, few mech pilots wanted to lose their path to god pilot!

As Fred explained all of this to Ketis, she thought that the Heavensword Association's insistence on passing on its sword styles must be one of the main reasons why its citizens were exiled to the galactic rim.

"To sum it all up, the power of a swordsman is rooted in the mind rather than body." He said. "We Heavensworders aren't ignorant of the importance of fostering individual development. The newer sword schools like the Cloudstrider Sword School have been able to rise up because they allow for much greater individual development than the old and traditional sword schools. We have to adapt to the times as best as possible in order to avoid falling behind."

In fact, this was a major contradiction in the Heavensword Association, but this had little relation to Ketis right now. It was enough for her to know that a sword style did not have to be rigid.

Fred then uttered a very Ves-like statement.

"Sword styles are alive, Ketis. While they prescribe a single recipe, who says that you have to follow it to the letter? If you like your food to be a little spicier, then you can throw in a few chilis. If you are in an environment where you don't have access to wine, then use vinegar instead. Do what is best for you. Even if you have inherited my brother's work, don't assume you have to turn yourself into his clone. Instead, take what you have learned and use it to develop your own style."

This was essentially the same advice that Venerable Dise had given to her. True swordsmen and swordswomen were supposed to go beyond what they learned!

"That… sounds a bit too far to me. With the time that we have, I think I can deepen my proficiency in the Annihilator Sword Style, but I don't think I can make much progress in forming my own style."

In a way, Ketis was also a product of an inheritance, if only a shallow one. She lived and breathed the Swordmaiden Sword Style. Even if she had already developed a few moves that she felt comfortable with, it was not enough of a difference.

"I see. You aren't wrong. Let me pass you my own insights on the Annihilator Sword Style in order to get you up to speed on how it is supposed to be practiced. In order to break the rules, you have to learn them first."

This was a rather risky prospect, but Fred believed that Ketis was wise enough to stick to her own guns.

He unsheathed his own weapon and held it out. After a lot of effort, he managed to evoke the power of annihilation to slightly cover the blade.

"The heart of this sword style is the unquenching will to destroy any obstacle in your path. This does not just describe the method in which it works in a fight, but also the mindset that is necessary to drive it forward."

Ketis nodded in understanding. Sharpie already took care of that when he entered annihilation mode and infected her mind with its altered presence.

Now that she thought about it, this was actually a form of cheating. Since her 'pet' already took care of the hard work, Ketis previously thought it was unnecessary to make this switch herself.

She realized that she was wrong. Rather than rely on an improper solution, she should be altering her mentality by herself!

If she was able to adopt a destruction mindset by her own merits, then Sharpie's transformation into annihilation mode might achieve even greater results! After all, instead of fighting against her original state, it would complement her current form!

Perhaps she might even be able to achieve another form of resonance in this fashion!

Her eyes lit up as she felt this was a viable way for her to quickly improve her battle prowess. She had worked with resonance long enough to know it was a fantastic way to achieve greater results with limited resources!

She earnestly listened to Fred as the old man elaborated on his personal approach and philosophy towards the Annihilator Sword Style. The insights that had allowed a talent-less swordsman like him to become a pseudo-sword initiate were worth their weight in exotics!

Since a part of Fred's teachings were not exclusive to any single sword style, Ketis gained more than she expected. Some of the lessons she learned could easily be applied to the Swordmaiden Sword Style as well!

As long as she digested what she learned, her combat performance would inevitably take a substantial leap forward!