"The martial arts of the Japanese people, especially the two-handed long knife technique, have quite a lot in common with Rigal's long sword swordsmanship in terms of starting style, grip and basic structure. Henry, with a stick of his own height, stood at the edge of the vacant field and said to the two men standing in the middle of the field.

Proper relaxation is a good thing, but for a combat professional, if you are in a comfortable state for too long, your muscles and battle instincts will not function well like rusty weapons.

Therefore, when they find an opportunity, they will fight and practice internally, learn from each other, and sharpen their senses in high-speed fighting.

It's better to sweat on the training ground than to bleed on the battlefield, but the competition of pure individual martial arts, although it is the development of today's topic, is not the core of what they want to discuss.

"Huh-" A man and a woman in the center of the field exhaled at the same time from a distance of two or three meters, and then they all took the same posture.

- This is already an old pair.

The little young master Yajiro and our Luoan girl have had some intersection in combat since they met, and the most recent battle against the ghouls happened more than half a month ago.

Although it is mainly from Yajiro, it is indeed not surprising that there will be such a subconscious competition between the two.

Mira was the same age as Yajiro, and at most the girl was a few months younger than him. And although the training time was longer than Yajiro's—the samurai of Wato began training at the age of 8—the level of hard work, the level of instructor, and the actual combat experience were superior to the Luoan girl.

Mira is slightly taller, but Yajiro is stronger as a male general.

Age, skill level, and physical ability are very close in all aspects, so even if they don't talk about it, the two will more or less see each other as competitors and the like.

And it's true that it's hard for the rest of the team to meet these conditions. Either they were adults like Henry and Narumi who weren't on the same level of combat power as teenagers, or they were ordinary people like Kaleva or Oiran and Miss Doctor, who weren't good at fighting and were untrained.

Lulu may be a subtle existence, although she has not received any truly systematic combat-related training, but the hunter's instinct and ingenuity that she has cultivated over the years of walking in the mountains and wilderness make her not too weak in actual combat. But this is limited to actual combat, and she can't find an opponent who can compete.

- All in all, Sage chose Mira and Yajiro as candidates for the drill because they were similar in many ways.

"Let's go. Henry waved the stick in his hand, and Mira and Yajiro, both holding wooden knives of the same length, pressed their center of gravity forward at the same time, and then took a step forward almost at the same time—the Roan girl took a simple vertical slash with a wooden knife raised high and slashed downward—this was an attack that could take advantage of the length and height of his arms, and Yajiro correspondingly put his elbows together in a more stable stance, and used his stronger body to take a defensive stance to block with a horizontal sword.

"Smack!" the smooth wooden knives bumped into each other, making slight dents, and the whole thing slipped on contact, so that Mira frowned and had to use more force to control the weapon, but she immediately withdrew the knife and pulled away again after realizing that she couldn't break through Yajiro's defense.

"Whew-"

The cautious and restrained first encounter ended in an even.

The onlookers such as Ashigaru and missionaries, as well as the young samurai who were still young, forgot to close their eyes. But in the eyes of the more senior Narumi, Old Joe, Okami, and our Mr. Sage, such a result is not surprising at all.

Both Mira and Yajiro moved again, this time the girl chose another attack that could play to her advantage, she decisively stabbed the wooden knife into Yajiro's armpit while stepping forward - both were wearing lightweight monolithic breastplates as protective gear - but the young master's previous defense did not change, he quickly deflected the wooden knife to block Mira's thrust and pushed the wooden knife in her hand outward.

"Boom-" "Click-" The girl released her left hand and slid forward to grasp the back of the knife, creating a more stable structure by spreading her hands apart for a wider grip instead of just holding the hilt—a technique that Rigal called the half-sword style—through which she was able to exert her strength more steadily, and the white-haired girl, whose arm strength was slightly inferior to Yajiro's, gained the upper hand in the fight against the outward block.

——!After resisting Mijiro's movement of pushing the wooden knife in his hand outward, Mira then used the place where the two wooden knives crossed as a fulcrum to rotate the weapon so that the tip of the knife turned inward, and stabbed Yajiro's torso again with the force of her calf.

"Snap ——!" Luo'an girl's abundant combat experience makes her react smartly, but the little young master is not a weak hand, because Mira adopts a half-sword grip because she is close to the combat distance of a short soldier, and this distance is also the best distance for the joint skills that a short soldier cannot do without, so Yajiro relied on his body to be stronger and directly let go of his left hand, and after dodging Mira's thrust sideways, he reached out to her armpit that raised the open air because of the use of the spike, and directly used his elbow to resist the end of Mira's right forearm.

"Tsk!" Yajiro used his arm to jam the Roan girl's armed hand so that she could not swing the knife downward, and then tried to push it up to make the Roan girl shift her weight backwards and lose her balance, but Mira noticed it in time.

"Heh——!" Just as Yajiro didn't bother with attacking with a wooden knife but used a joint technique, Mira immediately chose to let go of her right hand, and then held the back of the knife with her left hand and stabbed the end of the handle of the wooden knife directly at Yajiro.

"Click——!" The little young master blocked the blow, but he failed to destroy the center of gravity of the Luo An girl.

"Ha-huh——,-ha-huh-"

It was another round of evenly matched encounters, although it was short, but because of the high intensity, both of them showed a slight fatigue and embarrassment. They came close to winning on several occasions, but were also blocked and counter-attacked on several occasions.

"Fine, wonderful!" one of the young high-ranking samurai couldn't help but shout, but Narumi looked at the sage—for he knew that this was clearly not all that Henry was trying to show.

Although there is an element of activity in this martial arts, the more reason is that the samurai discussed with the sages, wondering what they had learned about the martial arts and the lack of struggle with the human society for more than 4,000 years.

Their questions were not unfounded, including the kind of faltering that Yajiro felt when he first saw blood in a battle with the gangsters. All Japanese samurai, even if they are arrogant on the surface, unless they are outright brainless and arrogant fanatics, will have more or less inconfidence in their hearts.

Henry's answer was that actions were more intuitive than words, and that they did need to move their muscles and bones to avoid laziness and slackness, so there was a contest.

So what did he want to show?

People with less qualifications watched it with relish, and felt that it was as exciting and back and forth as the finals of the strong ones in the national martial arts competition, but many of the older people were silent, and most of them held their chins and rubbed their stubble, thoughtful and real.

"It was a really good game because there were back-and-forths. It looks like every moment is on the verge of crisis, and it looks like either side can win, doesn't it?"

"Do you know why?" he looked at Yajiro and Mira, both of whom lowered their knives as Henry poked the stick out, a sign of intermission.

"Because/We are equal. In unison, the sage nodded in satisfaction.

"Peer, yes. ”

"Fitness. He held up a finger, and Henry had this habit every time he got to the point: "It's the basics, something that everyone has, height, weight, endurance and explosiveness can all be summed up in it." It's innate. ”

"Technique, which is the sum of the accumulation of daily training and actual combat or confrontation experience, etc., are all things that can be learned. ”

"Equipment, although many people prefer to brag about their skills, good equipment can really help you win. ”

"These are the three advantages you can get before the battle begins. Henry put away his erected fingers, and then looked at the great god who was holding his arms, Old Joe, Narumi and the others.

So the fair adversarial rule is itself an unreasonable existence. Narumi's expression was a little complicated, to a certain extent, he was very dissatisfied with Henry's statement that he despised the entire martial arts culture of the Japanese samurai society, but on the other hand, the sage's words were indeed too reasonable to refute.

"The competition in the country of the moon is to be divided into heavyweights, right? The sage shrugged.

"Use equipment of the same size and weight. He pointed to the wooden knife in Mira and Yajiro's hands: "The contestants are also strictly limited in physical fitness, so they choose players of similar age, height and weight. Then he raised his finger again, pointing at Yajiro and Mira, who gave her teacher a blank look.

"In this way, after all other instability has been ruled out—" he elongated the tail note.

"The winner is completely determined by the contestant's own sword skill level, I see. Narumi nodded.

"Participants are restricted from using public equipment at the same level of physical fitness. The two sides of the competition are equal in these things, so the victory or defeat reflects the pure skill level of the contestants themselves. Henry held up a finger again, and shook it again.

So it's no wonder that every year the dojo represented by the winner becomes famous all over the world. We didn't catch a glimpse of it, but it was dark under the lamp. The great god nodded.

"Then, if you are at the same level as the little girl and the young master, you will fight evenly between the top and the bottom, so it is. Old Joe also understood.

"Everything is the product of the goal it pursues, the product of its inclination. ”

"The pursuit of defeating the enemy on the premise of self-preservation has led to the lengthening of weapons. Henry shook the nearly two-meter stick in his hand.

"Even developed into long-range weapons. ”

"The quest to defend against a specific attack, or to use it in a specific environment, led to the creation of different types of armor. ”

"And the pursuit of enlightenment, the pursuit of proving the strength of the pure skills they have learned, and finally born is the Japanese samurai competition that tries to eliminate other factors and only uses martial arts to discuss success or failure. He raised the stick in his hand and swung it lightly a few times, changing it several times with dizzying speed and skill, and finally when he landed again, it seemed to be unchanged, but the sharp-eyed person could see that it had changed from a positive grip to a reverse grip - if the stick was also positive and negative.

"That's where you fall short. ”

"What the competition with people wants to prove is only the skill of the several major elements of victory. ”

"The pursuit of competition is fairness, and the battlefield. ”

"It's about pursuing unfairness as much as possible. Henry shook his hand and slid to the end of the stick, and then raised the two-meter-long stick with one hand, and with a "boom", he stood more than two meters away from Yajiro and Mira and swung it at them.

Both young men instinctively reacted, but before they could raise their wooden knives, the sage lightly struck them on the top of their heads.

"The advantages of the equipment. He pointed to the wooden knife in the hands of the two of them, which was more than a meter long, and then to the wooden stick in his hand, which was nearly two meters long.

"The physical advantage. Then he pointed to Mira and Yajiro and himself.

"Cut. The girl of Loan threw her contempt again.

......Narumi and the others fell silent as the Sage reinserted his weapon back into the ground.

"But this, it's dishonorable. The young warrior who had been applauding before was obviously also very confused by Henry's words, and with the instinct of a combat professional, he could understand that these words made sense. But the culture he has received since he grew up, and the objects he longs for, have taught and guided him to do his best to act honorably, to win the honor, to win the level.

All hope that when their deeds are told, they will mention that they used "painstakingly honed skills and calm hearts" to achieve victory. And not because he is taller and stronger, and he has a better weapon to win.

Even ordinary people will think that the latter is obtained with the help of external forces or talents, which is a bit of cheating, not to mention the samurai class that is everywhere in culture and education.

The society is a mature society, but there are rules and exquisiteness everywhere.

In a way, they are powerful, but this power is extremely constrained.

The starting point of the samurai class was the samurai, the elite military force of this society. Their dogma led them to be loyal to the monarch, to hone their skills, and not to kill innocents. The spirit of the samurai made them a trustworthy and safe class in this society. The pursuit of honor and fairness prevents them from starting wars and bloodshed.

But it was precisely this order that limited the samurai to the "waiter" class.

As the Lamanites said, their pattern is limited.

This kind of limited is certainly respectable, and at least most samurai are true to what they say when they are full of honor, riding on horseback with swords and chasing fleeing peasants for spoils.

But they represent the military power of the Japanese society.

They were not gentle townsmen, and it should be the duty of witches, nobles, and doctors and scholars to pacify the people.

The samurai is the sword of the land of the moon.

If this knife is only an ornamental ornament, it will not be possible to make people feel its danger.

So what's the difference between it and decorations?

Narumi wonders what she lacks.

But when Heng uses his usual point-to-the-point approach to the point by pointing out the aspirative tendencies that exist in the rules of jousting, he goes on to the point and indirectly denies the rules that their entire class has embraced for thousands of years.

He regretted a little that he shouldn't have asked.

Some things are happier not to know.

Regardless, after arousing the thought or dissatisfaction of many people, the sage shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the fire.

He continued to drink his tea.