We have hardly been walking for 3 minutes after leaving the priestess’s room/ meeting hall. And regardless, it should be pretty close considering that Lena is her disciple.

Could it be… I look at my surroundings and the path a bit more carefully now. This hallway has one window a little damaged. Around 20-30 seconds later, I spot the same damaged window. We’re going in circles? What does this girl want?

I stop walking and Lena stops too.

“Tell me the path and I’ll lead the way.”

Blaming her here would do no good.

She slowly turns towards me, and while trying to avoid my eyes, says,

“W-we’re here.”

No need to get so worked up. Maybe she had some reason. Perhaps she was feeling shy about me seeing her room.

Seeing a blush slowly creep up on her face, I think that maybe we shouldn’t go to our rooms and instead go somewhere else for now. Not that I was tired at all in the first place.

“I wanted to see the sect a little better. Could you lead me there?”

“S-sure.”

It’s odd for a priestess to stutter so much and be shy. They’re supposed to be public figures, right? They should have good speaking skills, even for a priestess-in-training.

Yeah, as if. We’ve hardly met for a few minutes, and haven’t even talked yet.

“How about we start with the sect training grounds?”

I feel that way I’ll get to see at what level their abilities are. And perhaps spar with someone too, to know the extent of my abilities here.

“O-okay.”

With me giving her a way out, she starts heading towards another direction than where our rooms were.

Well, this is just postponing the problem though.

Stop it with your terrible life advice.

It’s still fairly early in the morning. The system shows the time as 7:45 am. I’m curious to ask them if this is the only way they travel inside the buildings. Cause it sure takes a while to get from one place to another by just walking. But I doubt asking Lena would yield any results other than getting her flustered.

Find something new to say.

Quest added.

Side quest

Young man, as someone proficient in the martial arts from your world. Defeat at least 5 disciples in a spar at the training grounds.

What are you trying to make me do? Pick a fight with them?

Why would I do that?

It doesn’t even tell me what rewards I’ll get.

The quest rewards are calculated after completing a quest. And the rewards will always be appropriate for the task accomplished.

I suppose that’s true. Well, nothing wrong with a friendly spar.

During the while we were having this conversation. The girl led me outside the temple and then into fairly open fields with buildings strewn about randomly.

Did they at all plan for the placement of the buildings in advance?

Agreed. It looks like they just built the buildings as the need for them arose. And didn’t plan anything in advance. Well, speaking of that, the buildings are actually not that bad in appearance.

Ignoring that previous statement, I continue my train of thought. They have the aesthetic of how I believe the ancient Chinese architecture used to look like. Though I don’t have much knowledge of its history and culture and why it is this way. Like why they have curved roofs. But I still find it very charming in its own right.

After a few minutes of walking, we reach what I believe is the training grounds. It wasn’t that far away from the temple. People are exercising and practicing amongst each other here, though in my eyes their movements are pretty basic.

They’re practicing unarmed fighting.

It’s a practice dummy, not a pole. Have you really never seen this?

Hmm. It would make sense that they don’t use it in battle too much if their way of fighting isn’t unarmed. And if there’s anything here like magic, as it was in my world, a difference in magical strength would play a bigger part in the outcome of the battle.

Now if I think about it, it makes sense why their movements aren’t that refined. Because rather than refining their martial arts, it would be better to just increase their magical abilities.

As we were having this chat, Lena gets greeted by a muscular middle-aged man, and guessing by the clothes he’s wearing in comparison to the rest of the people here. He’s probably some kind of training instructor.

Perhaps he could help me find sparring partners.

I walk up to him as he’s talking to Lena, and introduce myself.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Gray, the priestess’s disciple.”

It’s just a polite greeting. Don’t think too much into it.

“Hello Gray, I’m _____, the training instructor for this morning. I teach these kids here how to fight properly.”

Why didn’t I hear his name?

What?... Okay if you say so.

“Could you help me find a few sparring partners, to test my skills?”

“Sure. I was just about to hold a little competition. Why don’t you join too?”

“How does that competition work?”

“Simply a person steps onto the arena. Other people can challenge that person and step on the arena themselves, they fight and the victor gets to stay on the arena. The last person on the arena till the others are unwilling to challenge him, or everyone is already defeated, is the final victor. Also, all the competitors must be at the mortal realm.”

It is unfair. One way to win would be to intimidate everyone thus preventing other people from challenging you. Or the other way would be to simply wait till the last and then challenge that person who should already be tired.

“Okay, I’ll participate in it.”

“Great! I’ll start in a few minutes, please wait here.”

Just as he walks away. I think to myself.

Wasn’t he too polite?

But he didn’t seem like a normal person. He seemed more like a battle-hardened mercenary type who only respects people stronger than him.

No, that isn’t it. His actions didn’t seem like that until I introduced myself…

I suppose it is… Hmm….

Lena seems to avoiding me while at the same time staying near me and not letting me out of sight.

Wait, now that I think about it, the girl who was staring at me just as I woke up this morning. Wasn’t it Lena?

You didn’t tell me anything other than make a random guess that maybe she’s fallen for me.

A little far away, near the arena as the instructor called it, a bunch of students are gathering. Seems like the competition has started.

As I walk there, 2 people are already fighting in the arena.

I’m able to see the fight even through the crowd, since the arena is elevated a bit.

Both of them seem to be using some sort of technique. But mostly it’s only brute strength that they’re competing with.

Wait, now that I look more carefully, isn’t their strength quite high?

The strength gap is a bit too large. I wouldn’t be able to beat them just because of their brute strength.

Ability added

Gaia’s Chosen One

As the one that Gaia has chosen to support. As long as you’re in contact with the ground, physical strength increases by 5 levels, Healing rate of injuries dramatically rises, stamina increased dramatically.

And that isn’t cheating?

I let out a sigh.

As the 2 in the arena are just about done with their fight, I start walking towards the instructor.

He notices me, then while gesturing towards me says in a loud enough voice for all the students to hear,

“The next challenger would be the high priestess’s disciple, Gray.”

It’s odd that he needed to introduce me to everyone here.

Wait, I feel a faint aura of enmity rise among the students, could it be…

“Hey! The high priestess only had one disciple, and that one is highly talented too. But she refuses to take in any other disciples, but then you came here and she accepted you as a disciple of her.” The instructor explains to me.

“So, perform well in the arena, I have very high expectations from you. Also, injuries are common while sparring, don’t worry, we can easily fix a broken bone within a few minutes”

That explains it. Why he was polite to me before.

Yeah. Maybe she’s a bit different from how she was when I met her. The instructor sure seemed to fear and respect her.

It might also explain why I felt enmity among the students.

If you know it then why ask?

This all is stuff that you should already know.

I let out another sigh as I start walking towards the arena. The student who was at stage 8 mortal realm eventually beat the other one relying on just strength.

I’m wearing these wooden flip-flops like thing. It’s actually traditional Japanese footwear called ‘Geta’, it makes a nice clack-clack sound while walking. I feel like a samurai.

Let’s rather not go there.

It’s just my first time fighting while wearing such footwear, so it’s a little uncomfortable.

And be barefoot? No way.

I take position in front of the other student. He performs a traditional bow before fighting and I return the courtesy.

He starts by instantly rushing forward with a straight punch. To which I retaliate by performing a textbook judo throw.

Instantly defeated.

It’s one hit knock out, not kill.

But it’s odd. I don’t get any Exp. For defeating opponents?

I let out a sigh. Maybe levelling up would be harder than I thought.

He was also fairly tired after the last fight. And he underestimated me too much by just going for a straight jab.

Before he even has a chance to completely leave the arena. Another student jumps up.

“I’m ____. Please exchange pointers with me!”

Another nameless guy. What is with this?

We perform the ritual bow, or was it traditional bow? And then we start with the sparring.

He takes a stance, not too unlike Wing chun, and how it was being taught earlier.

I take my stance too, though it doesn’t belong to any particular style.

It’s a way of fighting, an ideology. Not an actual set of rules and movements like in other martial arts. It’s about collecting the best of other martial arts, and partly being aggressive.

I make the first move and while making an action as if I was going for a punch, it was a feint and I kicked him in the legs, thus knocking him over.

He accepted defeat and dejectedly walked out of the arena.

I made him lose his balance and knocked him onto the floor. The fight was basically over as soon as he fell on the ground.

Another guy, this time one acting quite haughty, jumps up on the arena to challenge me.

I just perform the bow without waiting for him to say anything. He follows back and as soon as he’s ready, I quickly dash towards him.

He instinctively moves back and kicks out towards me. I stop just before the kick hits me, stopping all that momentum as if I had planned to do it from the beginning, and the while grabbing his outstretched leg, pull it towards me, making his stance unbalanced.

From there it was a quite simple knee to the stomach and he was knocked out.

“Just the impact knocked him unconscious, don’t worry, he’s completely safe.”

“As expected of the high priestess’s disciple.” The instructor comments.

It would have still proceeded the same way. Staying balanced is very important in a fight, armed or unarmed.

This time, a student who seems to be quite muscular shows up on the arena. Unlike the other 3 who had nothing special at all about them.

He too does a bow and says that he wants to ‘exchange pointers’ whatever that means.

He also gets defeated in one move.

And finally, the last one required to complete my quest. A student whose aura is completely different compared to the other people, shows up.

An effective 3 levels difference. So, he has 8 times my physical strength. This could be troublesome.

The other students are cheering him on. He seems like a quite famous student?

“I’m ____. I’ve been seeing your fighting for a while. You didn’t actually defeat any of your opponents using strength. I’d like to test that.”