Novel Full Chapter 219: What Kind Of Swordsmaster Would She Be?
Chapter 219: What Kind Of Swordsmaster Would She Be?
After training, the sun had already slipped low enough to stain the windows amber.
Luke and Min Tu had found themselves fortunate to end up under the tutelage of the Ironwill Knight. Astensia had pushed them through correction after correction, showing Luke how to stop forcing his transitions, teaching Min Tu to tighten her timing, and making Lancet fix every bad habit he kept hiding behind speed and borrowed strength.
Even now, the ghost of her voice still seemed to hang in the room, reminding him where his feet should have been, where his shoulders should have turned, and how badly he still needed to improve if he wanted to stand in front of Renan Falconhart and survive long enough to matter.
That was how training was like with Astensia. She was incredibly stern when it came to teaching combat, but she wasn’t stern without compassion.
Luke was the only one who wanted to keep learning even though he was sulking in frustration. But Lancet needed to save his Grace.
In the end, they all left—Astensia returned to his Summon Space—leaving Lancet sitting in the silence with Radiant Guillotine across his knees and the ache of the day settling into his shoulders.
The training room felt too quiet after all that movement, too wide after all those voices. He stared at the floor for a while, thinking about the duel with Renan again, thinking about Black Gale, thinking about that awful, effortless certainty the Heavenly Knight carried like it belonged to him by birthright.
Lancet did not want to lose to him again. Even though losing meant nothing, because as expected, Renan was the strongest. But now, almost like Luke, he had something to prove to not just himself... but Renan too.
Renan believed that Lancet had a lot of potential. But he didn’t believe this because he thought Lancet was better than him, he just wanted Lancet to be strong enough so that defeating him would mean something more.
He thought of Lancet as someone that could challenge him, not someone that could defeat him. Well, Lancet planned to give him the biggest surprise of his life because he was going to get strong enough to defeat him.
But with Renan’s sword skill it would be impossible. Even though Lancet was better at combat, Renan’s skill and power together was more than enough to overwhelm that advantage and the gap would only get wider the stronger Renan became.
So, to attain the level of swordsmanship Lancet needed to narrow the gap, he was going to need a teacher; a Swordsmaster who could tutor Lancet on the way of the sword, train him to become a grandmaster, and even better : they would have overpowered Sword magic Skills that Lancet could borrow using the Phantom Ring.
Lancet sighed as he leaned back against the bench and let the thought take shape.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became that the heroine he needed could not be a disposable summon, someone useful for a week and forgotten the next.
With the war coming, she had to be pretty powerful. Pretty useful. The kind of person who could help him now and still be worth calling again later, long after this tournament and long into the upcoming battles.
’Alright then. What kind of swordsmaster would she be? And why would she help me?’
This was usually how Lancet began creating all of his heroines. What are their powers and why would they want to help him?
Whenever he answered that question, he usually had a rough idea of what the character’s Class and abilities will be, their motives and even their background and lore.
He thought of a name for this Swordsmaster and after a few options, he decided on Kestrel.
He exhaled once and summoned the system.
⸢ Name: Kestrel Highcastle ⸥
He stared at that line for a moment.
Highcastle was one of the families that fell during the Era of Rebirth. In the original webnovel, it had been mentioned in a list without much information given about that.
That was an opening.
Lancet used that opening to create the story of how the Highcastle family actually fell. Kestrel would be part of that story.
For her appearance, Lancet sat there for minutes thinking and sketching on a piece of paper.
Kestrel would need an appearance that made sense for someone who had been raised among those wall. She would look like a princess, yes, and she would carry that traditional flair that the Crescent City citizens had at that time.
But she also had to look dangerous.
Lancet typed in his design carefully.
⸢ Appearance: Emerald-green hair worn in braids, elegant yet practical eastern-style fitted milk white gown with golden and green patterns, twin blades crossed behind her back ⸥
That looked right. Better than right. It already felt like someone people would stare at in respect.
Then he paused, because the next box mattered even more.
Personality could not be just "strong." It had to explain why she was strong and what kind of person she would be in a conversation, in a duel, and in the middle of a war.
Lancet stared at the screen and thought about how he wanted her to be. But first, he had to decide on her lore because that was what shaped her personality.
He wrote the birthplace first.
⸢ Family/Birthplace: Born in the Era of Rebirth, in Crescent City, one of the first bastion cities erected to protect humanity from Demons and Gehenna. A lesser branch of House Highcastle. ⸥
Then he moved on to the ⸢ Event ⸥ tab.
Kestrel’s backstory had to align with the lore and impress the system enough to reward him for narrative depth. And with the new pricing for Characters after that damn fairplay policy, he really needed to impress the system.
[ New Creation Cost: ]
* ⸢ Silver Rank Heroine: 1500 - 2400 CP ⸥
* ⸢ Gold Rank Heroine: 3,000 - 4,500 CP ⸥
* ⸢ Platinum Rank Heroine: 6,000+ CP ⸥
It had to feel like the world had grown Kestrel instead of Lancet merely inventing her. It was even more difficult because Lancet was pretty much coming up with everything now.
With other Summons, he had more time to prepare and come up with something for their background and personalities. But with just 5 days left until the one-on-one combat tournament, Lancet couldn’t bet on time.