Alice came back to the entrance wearing simple pants and a long sleeved shirt. Good. She realized what kind of clothing she would need for sword practice. Actually, we have no practice swords. That might be a problem.

  “You seem ready.” I said to Alice.

  “Yes, let’s go.” She said as she took my hand and pulled me outside.

  “But if we are going to practice sword skills, we need some practice swords. And I don’t have any.” I told Alice.

  “Don’t worry. We just py around with some sticks.” She said as we walked to the backyard.

  Sticks? Hopefully that won’t end up with us getting something like a blunt on skill.

  (It’s not about the on, it's how you use it.) Laura told me. (Using a stick like a bat and bludgeoning things will eventually you the blunt on skill, but wielding one like a sword with stabs and sshes will still help to gain the sword teique skill. But I still reend finding some wooden practice swords for ime.)

  Yeah, add that to the list of things I need. Practice swords. I could use some cards to make us swords, but that just sounds like a great way to get one of us hurt badly. Well at least I could get us some teachers.

  I activated my DiaDhank and pulled two cards from the colle.

  “Performance of Sword. St. Joan.” I called out their o summon them. We don’t have that much time and I holy think a two hour session will be more than enough, so I just summohem at the same time instead of oer another. And I’m sure I find someone else to take their pce if we keep going after the two hours.

  “Hey you two. We need some practid I was hoping you would help us.” I told the two of them.

  “Master. I knew you’d e around and join the way of the bde.” Performance of Swreeted me.

  “I shall imprint all of my knowledge about swords onto Master.” St. Joan said.

  “Ooh. You have access to such good teachers Brian.” Alice said as she looked at our teachers.

  “Yes I do. Lucky me.”

  “Master, keep your arms closer to your body and keep yravity tered better. You’ll fall over if you stand like that.” St. Joan was instrug me. I was actually wielding her sword for the practice as I wasn’t sparring or anything. I was just swinging a sword around.

  “You o keep your feet moving. Don’t stop. Stopping means you are an easy target.” Performance was showing Alice how to do a basibat dance. Alice wasn’t holding any on at the moment, but was just fog on footwork.

  “Master, are you even trying? You are just swinging at random. Focus on every strike.” I heard my drill sergeant call as I took a sed to look at Alice.

  I did as instructed as I really rather not get on her bad side. I also don’t want to give up before Alice. Training like this will be a lot harder ohan me, as she has lower stats than I do.

  We had been practig for about half an hour wheook our first break. Alice was tired but also excited to keep going. We were currently snag on some cookies I still had from our date, and some cool juice that Jenna brought us. At least the cookies haven’t gone bad yet.

  “After the break we will switch. Master will go with Erza to practice footwork and Alice will be with me practig sword teique.” St. Joan told us as we were downing our drinks.

  Erza was the name Performance of Sword wao go by after I asked her about it. Her full card name isn’t really suitable for day-to-day use.

  Thump.

  I was smacked onto my ass, again. I ractig a good bat stah Erza and she would just knock me over every time she thought it was mediocre.

  “Master, you suck at this. Alice was way better.” She was taunting me.

  “Grr. I’ll get aeacher if you are like this.” I threatened her.

  “And they would just say the same. If you don’t even try, you will never learn. We just call it quits, but that would mean losing to Ali stamina aermination.” She kept pressuring me.

  Fuck, I regret this. I’m the ohat ordered them to really train us and not just py around. I gritted my teeth and got back up.

  After another half an hour of training, Alice couldn’t keep up anymore. Her legs trembled any time she even tried taking a step and the only reason she wasn’t falling over was St. Joan holding onto her.

  “I think this is enough for the first day.” Our two teachers agreed.

  I pletely agree. I could still stand fine, but my legs will hurt tomorrow. I think I could have gone for just a bit more sword practice, but at this point I won’t say it out loud, or another half an hour of sword swinging with Joan would be waiting for me.

  “Brian, is Alice alright?” Jenna asked as she was looking at the wobbling Alice.

  “I’m fine.” Aliswered. “My legs just hurt.”

  “I think our training was just a bit much.” I told Jenna. “You might o help Alice move around at least for the rest of the day.”

  “’t we just heal her with magic?” Jenna asked.

  “It’s better if we don’t.” Joan said. “Her growth will be faster if she recovers naturally. But if she is still having muscle pains two days from now, some healing magic is in order.”

  “I see.” Jenna said to Joan.

  “Jenna, I think you should go get a bath ready for Alice.” I told the maid. “Actually, I would like one as well.” I added.

  “I’m sorry, but filling two baths that quickly is a little much for Nicole.” Jenna apologized.

  … What? You mean they use magic to fill the baths? I thought that they might, but I wasn’t sure.

  “I see. Well I use one of my summons to do it.” At least I assume I have something that do that. Actually, I got that summon water spirit skill. I could try that out.

  “Well then there is no problem.” Jenna said.

  I hahe card of St. Joao Alice so that Joan could carry her to her room. Then I unsummoned Performance of Sword, after thanking her for the lesson.

  I walked bato my room aered the bathroom. I looked at the empty bathtub before I thought about what my skill would do.

  “Summon water spirit.” I called out the skill name.

  … ion. Why didn’t it work?

  (Master, there is no water for the spirit to form from.) Laura told me.

  … Excuse me what? So I need water to summon a water spirit. Well that sucks.

  (You could use a water attribute monster as a host for the spirit.) Laura told me.

  I see. Well, that doesn’t really help. I want that bath first.

  But for that, I need a mohat help with it.

  (Laura, give me a reendation.)

  (How about Aqua Spirit? You will have to sacrifie water moo summon it, but it will gain a free sleeve when summohat way.) Laura told me.

  (Sure, that sounds fine.)

  I took out two cards from the colle. Aqua Spirit and Penguin Knight. The penguin was going to be my tribute.

  “I summon Aqua Spirit.” As I called that out, the Penguin Knight in my other hand disappeared and turned into small particles of light that gathered around Aqua Spirit and made a sleeve for it.

  Spoiler

  Additional picture.

  [colpse]

  Then, from the card that appeared on the floor, a cute dy with short blue hair and turquoise skin. She was on the shorter side, standing at just around 150cm. She was dressed in an aqua blue dress and had cute little mermaid style ears poking from her head.

  “Oh Master, what I do for you?” She asked.

  “I need a bath. you make one for me?” I requested.

  “Of course. May I wash you Master?” She asked.

  … I guess that would be fine. She isn’t underage or anything, right? She is small, but she doesn’t seem like a child. And she speaks like an adult, so it’s fine.

  “Yeah, I guess you could.”

  “Thank you, Master. I’ll make you shine.” She said as she used water magic to fill up the bathtub.

  “You don’t o polish me. Just ing me up is more than enough.”

  I enjoyed my bath, getting washed by a pretty dy. Or I would have if an intruder didn’t interrupt it.