The young men standing before Talia were shocked at the sight of the young lady staring challengingly at them.

As young talents of the Kingdom which have been conscripted into this division, they had long heard of the true condition of the Princess.

So they couldn't quite believe that the supposed severely ill Princess didn't appear at all like the rumours they had heard, instead of the crippled, mindless Princess they had heard off was replaced by an energetic, lively young girl which appeared to be full of life.

Not to mention that the eyes of the Princess did not resemble what a dull, slow-witted person would have, instead Talia's bright blue eyes gleamed with intelligence and craftiness as they observed the group of young men.

They were truly astounded at the sudden revelation of the princesses true health, but instead of feeling happy and delighted about it, their interpretation of the Princess which they had possessed before discovering the truth behind her condition couldn't help reappear as they became suspicious of Talia's sudden appearance.

Maybe the drill sergeant which had been training them lied about her condition to save the face of the Royal Family?

Before the King and Queen of the Kingdom died, the Royal Family had been greatly respected by both commoners and noble alike, not only did they both possess great combat strength, but they were wise, selfless rulers who cared greatly for the Kingdom.

The commoners' lives were great, the nobles made excellent profits, which were not at the expense of the common people and the entire Kingdom lived in harmony with it only continuing to thrive growing further in prosperity by the day.

However, this all started to go down-hill after the abrupt illness of the Queen, the mysterious condition was unheard of as for some strange reason her cultivation began to degress by the day, and not only this but her body continually grew weaker.

The King had employed a multitude amount of Doctors, Alchemists in an attempt to save her life, but despite the great reward offered tempting many great healers to come in an attempt to save the Queen, all had failed.

As the Queen's illness continued to worsen, the King became desperate and the appearance of an unknown black-robed man who promised a cure had tempted him greatly, showing some unknown methods to make the King persuaded he left for an expedition with his strongest soldiers, including Sir Gregory to search for an ingredient that the black-robed man said was a viable cure, only it was protected by a Seventh Tier Beast.

The King remained undaunted by the appearance of such a powerful beast so travelled to the location with his best men, however, they ended up entering the lair of not just a mere Seventh Tier Beast, but an Eighth Tier one.

Although this sounded like a small difference, it was a huge one, already a Seventh Tier beast was stronger than a human expert on the same rank, and although the King was also a Seventh Tier warrior he would be greatly troubled even with the help of numerous strong warriors helping him to fight a Seventh Tier Beast, never mind by an Eighth Tier Beast.

This Eighth Tier beast, in the end, proved to be far too formidable as it was no ordinary beast but a Wyvern a descendant of Dragons, so the expedition party was massacred, the only unusual thing was that the King should have possessed the ability to escape, but in the end, the only survivor was Sir Gregory who's strength dropped and became crippled as a result becoming stuck as a Tier 4 Warrior for the rest of his life.

That leads to the Kingdom experiencing the greatest calamity in its history as not only had it lost numerous experts, but their King, the greatest genius and strongest expert in its history had perished.

The Queen was left alone to fend for the Kingdom herself but after a year of struggling with her illness, she soon had lost her life as well leaving the only eligible heir Princess Talia to rule the Kingdom at the young age of twelve.

Yet, further crisis struck as it was found that the Princess had seemed to pick up the strange illness of the Queen, causing her to no longer be able to train as a Mage again and as her body became too weak she couldn't even become a Warrior also.

This leads to their heir not even being able to cultivate, and as the strangeness of the situation continued, the Princess seemed to turn brainless as eventually, it got to the point were she barely speak sentences never mind run a Kingdom which lead to the Governor's political power to increase greatly since the time of her absence.

Everyone in the Kingdom knew most of this story, only what truly happened to the young Princess was new to the young men causing them to change their initial disdain to her becoming more sympathetic instead.

Nonetheless, now seeing the Princess was in perfect health, could what they heard about her be true instead?

Before they were told from gossip and rumours that the Princess was a useless person in comparison to her parents, instead of being knowledgable and benevolent rulers like her parents, she was a spoiled child who spent most of the budget on trivial decorations on the palace.

She even forced the Governors's and nobles to raise the taxes to exorbitant prices which she spent all on expensive decorations in her Palace, as the commoners had much goodwill towards her parents they doubted this at first, after all, in the end, she was just a young child who had just lost her parents.

But, as the Governor with his son Edward often leads the Princess outside of the Palace they could see exactly how entitled she was, as she was dressed in lavish and expensive clothing whereas the Governor and his son are only wearing a bunch of average, inexpensive ornaments which supported exactly how much of a spindrift she truly was!

They only felt sympathy for her before as they had learnt after joining the guards truly just how pitiful the Princess was, but now they could only feel sceptical as didn't the Princess appear here in perfectly good health?

What part of her seemed brainless, or badly ill in any way?

Seeing the look of wariness from the young men directed at him, the middle-aged man couldn't help but let out a cough as he said, "Alright boys, I can tell you are overthinking things, I was informed that the Princess has only recently recovered from her illness, and Sir Gregory believes that it would be beneficial to her if she can accompany this training session."

The young men calmed down a bit after hearing the middle-aged mans words but that still didn't completely dispel a tad of scepticism which remained.

After all, they had grown up for the past few years with the awful reputation of the Princess repeatedly mentioned numerous times, so it was hard to remove all of their doubts with just a few words.

Talia couldn't help but stare at befuddlement at the weird looks she was receiving from the young men wondering what did the previous body even do to possibly offend them?

However, Sir Gregory quickly answered this question as he whispered, "Don't worry your highness, just a few unsavoury things were said about you over the years, we could not suppress the rumours about you as to when we tried to deal the source over and over again, it would only make the situation worsen as it appeared as that we were trying to hide something. Due to your poor health, we didn't want to risk revealing the truth, as many people are eyeing us at the moment so we just let it slide thinking that those pesky rumours will soon be dealt with once you recover."

The realisation of what must have happened filled Talia as she inwardly thought, 'So they have decided to ruin my reputation, right? Must be to make the change of rulership go more smoothly, even with my brief time here I can see that the parents of this body must have much goodwill from the people, likely leading the Governor to ensure that he thoroughly trampled the Princesses reputation before he made a move. After all Sir Gregory wasn't the only reason why he must have been waiting this long. Ah well, with time the truth, in the end, will be revealed.'

Talia did not feel disturbed in any way about the young man's thoughts on her at all, so she remained unperturbed by different looks the men were giving her.

Discovering that Talia seemed fine by the behaviour of the trainees, the stern middle-aged man nodded at satisfaction by the calmness of the Princess, as he said, "Alright then we'll begin right away and if any of you are unsatisfied with the princesses participation then just prove it in this training session, you'll get your opportunity to compete with her."

The young men seemed to become even more vigorous upon hearing the middle-aged man words as they stared at Talia aggressively, not all of them believed the rumours completely, but the ones who's families were particularly affected by the harsh raise in tax and living expenses were especially looking at Talia scornfully.

On the other hand, Talia remained unaffected by the hostile stares of a few of the trainees, in fact, she welcomed them to try something towards her as she was confident just from Sir Gregory's assessment of her alone that her current abilities did not lose out to any of them.

"Alright let us begin straight away with a warm-up, for those who are unable to complete this will leave the building right away." The middle-aged man said looking at Talia especially when he finished the last line of his sentence.

After that, they began a drill of exercises, which to the former Talia on Earth would be considered extreme torture, a hundred press-ups, a hundred burpees, a hundred squats, all sorts of different types of exercises which thoroughly worked the whole body was completed one after the other.

In the beginning, the young men were paying Talia with a great deal of attention as they wanted to catch her struggling with the exercises heavily as she barely kept up with the rest of the group before eventually quitting, but they were soon disappointed as Talia kept pace with them for the entire time.

In fact, she completed the exercises just as quickly and efficiently as the top trainees in the class without even a hint of fatigue all the way through greatly shocking those present, it got to the point were when they were completing the third set of the exercises, the group of young trainees stopped even paying any attention to Talia as each of the majority were already beginning to sweat and began to feel the exertion of their muscles, so they were no longer carefree enough to pay Talia any attention.

The young trainees were not the only one impressed by Talia's physical condition as even the drill sergeant was shocked at the sight before him.

Being an elite high ranking soldier within the army he, of course, new the true condition of the Princess was not lies at all but was the truth!

So, when Sir Gregory announced he was bringing her today for training, he thought that he must have misheard him and that he was growing senile, but to his amazement, Sir Gregory truly meant what he said.

Initially, he believed that the Princess would arrive only to fail at the first hurdle, but still kept a degree of expectation as he knew that Sir Gregory was not the type of man to overestimate anyone's capabilities even if it was the Princess who he served loyally.

However, he did not think that Talia would come close to competing with the best members of his class, even if this was classed as a warm-up for these trainees, it was still an impressive display.

Even Talia felt a tad astonished at her performance, as even though she knew that her physique had greatly strengthened as a result of having her stats increase greatly, for a former couch potato who would struggle to previously even do ten push-ups before on Earth to now being able to perform hundreds of different exercises with ease was a major difference.

She didn't even feel the slightest hint of tiredness as she completed her last push up and assembled alongside the group of trainees, awaiting their next task.

The young men now stared at Talia with a completely different look than before, as even the most stubborn among them couldn't help but look at her with a hint of respect from her performance.

"Now that we have completed our warm-up, we will move straight into combat drills, so we will be organising you to face against someone which we deem to have equal or a close combat strength to yourself. James, you will be sparring Ben…" As the drill sergeant continued listing possible opponents, she soon found that she was the last on the list to be announced and the only young trainee left which she presumed was going to be her opponent stood across from her with a look a dumbfounded look on his face.

"Sir who will be my opponent then?" He asked not even thinking that he would be paired with Talia.

"Ah! I was getting to you now Ritson, according to Sir Gregory your opponent will be her!" The drill sergeant announced leading to all of the trainees in the room to have a look of complete bewilderment on their faces.

"They want to pair Ritson with the Princess, that is a death wish." One of the young trainees couldn't help but exclaim as the others nodded in agreement clearly dumbfounded by the result of the selection.

Even Ritson himself looked astonished at he stared at her and then the drill sergeant as if believing he must have misheard something.

"Is there some sort of mistake…" Ritson was about to say but was interrupted by the drill sergeant.

"Lad, I did not announce incorrectly, according to Sir Gregory this lass at least matches you and can even be better!" Even he felt a hint of disbelief upon saying that out loud himself because as one of the trainers interesting with the trainees he knew exactly how capable Ritson was, as he was among the top three in this class!

Ritson did not know what to think about what the drill sergeant said, as he did not know if he was underestimated by Sir Gregory or that the Princess was truly capable, in the end, he does not usually look down on his opponents yet when he stared at Talia's petite body he felt it was impossible that she could match his strength.

He felt that he would snap her like a twig even if he threw his most basic strikes, but because he was matched with her like the drill sergeant he just said, "Alright then let's just get this over with, I want to see exactly what Sir Gregory must see in her."

Ritson walked off in a huff to one of the arenas as he awaited Talia to stand across from him to the young man it was an insult to be paired with a person who he deemed as greatly incompetent no matter what status they had.

Belonging to one of the poorer families within the Kingdom, the tax increments and other factors had greatly affected his small family who had suffered substantially since the passing of the rulers.

Although he knew deep down this was probably not the princesses fault, he couldn't help but deeply blame the girl as he was reminded by the pain his family went through.

Talia just wordlessly stepped in front of the young man, as they were each handed two-hard wooden swords from the weapon rack in preparation for their spar.

Holding the sword she knew its weight was not inferior to any other weapon of a similar type, but the damage it would inflict would be far lesser of any weapon of steel with it at most being able to cause a few bruises and scrapes.

Standing across from the boy staring angrily at her, she knew that he clearly was not planning on being lenient in the duel which she was previously worried about thinking that the opposite person may try to go easy on her as result of her status.

Smiling gratefully at the heated gaze of the boy it seemed to only serve to annoy him more as he couldn't wait to charge at her, and the time he was waiting for finally came upon them as the drill sergeant said, "Begin!"

Ritson swiftly headed towards her as he straight away swung his weapon with a great deal of force which Talia easily parried as with a surprising degree of strength sent the young man flying back from the unexpected resistance.

The young man who was a full head taller than her stared in shock as the seemingly tiny girl before he was far stronger than he thought possible for her petite build.

Believing that it was just a mistake from him underestimating her, he once again throwing strikes dextrously at the girl, but each time Talia seemed to easily match him and in fact, she even looked to anticipate his moves extremely quickly, trying to use his strength to bully Talia to submission, he soon found that he could not overpower her at all and in fact, he felt that she was even stronger than him!

Since young he possessed a great physique for his age which only continued to grow stronger as he became older, he found it to be a great asset in becoming a Warrior as he found his bodily strength to be superior to anyone he had ever sparred before, but now he found that Talia seemed to actually possess an even more outrageous physique than him.

But, not only this she had the speed to match, as he found that Talia was far quicker than him, and until now the only thing keeping him in this fight was that his sword skills were slightly superior to hers.

Talia parried another incoming strike from Ritson, getting a feel for the battle until now she had been going fairly easy, as she found as a result from her great increase in stats, that the boy before that she would have definitely found challenging to fight before she entered the world for the second time now seemed far to slow for her.

She could detect that his swordsmanship was above hers, but it was not too surprising as she had only gotten the skill a few days ago and for talented individuals who had been training for years it was impossible for her to already be superior to them.

However, even though she completely outmatched the young man before her in terms of attributes and was beginning to suppress him at the moment, she still thought that the duel was useful to her.

Before Sir Gregory who had was far superior to her constantly suppressed her in both swordsmanship and physique, even if he tried to intentionally lower his skill level it was still difficult to gain much battle experience from their spars.

Therefore, fighting someone close to her skill level was a great help to her, if only his physical attributes was a bit higher, then she felt that the sparring session would be perfect in allowing her to truly battle someone with a similar combat level.

Both Sir Gregory and the drill sergeant stood at the side watching the battle with different looks on her face.

The drill sergeant had a look on surprise evident on his face and said, "Wow, I will definitely not doubt you again brother, this girl is every bit as formidable as you said she was!"

Sir Gregory just stood on the side nodding in agreement, not telling the drill sergeant that even he himself was surprised, as he could clearly tell that Talia was evidently more powerful than a day ago.

He did not know what happened, but he could tell it was not because she was suppressing her strength from before as he knew she did use her full capabilities yesterday.

'What are you hiding Princess?' He thought inwardly, he did not know what is happening to Talia since she had recovered from her illness, but he still wasn't going to pry into her business at all.

To him, it was only a good thing that the girl he was protecting was growing stronger.

'It looks like I can fulfil your wish in the end.' He thought as his mind drifted to the form of a beautiful figure who resembled a more mature version of Princess Talia.

'I promised you, Elena, that I will protect your child with my all until death, and I will do just that.' He swore as he continued to watch the spar between Talia and Ritson.

Ritson began panting with tiredness as he batted away another one of Talia's moves.

'Is this girl a magical beast in human form?' He thought as he saw the unflinching gaze of Talia who did seem to have barely any form of exertion on her face as she continued to charge at Ritson unfazed.

Eventually, he could no longer continue to defend himself as he was struck squarely into his chest sending him flying to the ground.

A hushed silence descended within the training room as they stared at Talia in awe.

Ritson felt completely defeated as he laid there on the ground, but his thoughts were interrupted when a delicate hand appeared in front of his face.

"Need a hand?" Said Princess Talia as Ritson saw the beautiful face of the princess staring down at him.

"Sure." He said as she easily hoisted his body weight up.

"Want to go again?" Talia said eagerly with excitement in her eyes.

'Looks like this is going to be a long day…' Ritson thought as he once again began being thrown around the ring by what later would be known as by the trainees as the monster in human form.