It was the turtle monster who made the next move. Spears made of water appeared behind it and were launched toward Tomoe with great speed. Normally Tomoe would have tried to cut some of them down with her sword as the numbers of the spears were a lot. But it was not possible for this S rank monster as it was way stronger than Tomoe. If she tried to cut the spears head on, the most likely outcome would be her death.

So she did her best to dodge the attacks. She was successful in dodging most of them but still three of the spears slightly grazed her and that was enough for her to suffer some injuries. Luckily those were not serious injuries and Tomoe was still in a fighting condition.

But with this interaction, it was clear that just a slight mistake in Tomoe's part could lead to her death. So Tomoe was forced to give more than 100 percent to this battle. She still had the elemental advantage so whenever she was able to land a hit on this monster, the amount of damage she was able to deal to this monster was significant.

As she was focusing hard, she suddenly started to see some images in her mind which were explaining the slight flaws in her techniques and a general outline of the process to solve them. She had no idea why these images were appearing in her mind but she was unable to investigate deeper about it as doing so would scatter his concentration which would be very dangerous against this monster.

So she started to follow the instructions and soon she was happy to witness that her swordsmanship had slightly improved just with these while it did not advance at all in the last decade with all her training. She was happy about this improvement and focused more on the battle on hand.

...

After a valiant struggle of over 3 hours, the turtle monster finally went down. Its whole body was covered in various marks because of sword slashes and thrusts. Light blue blood was oozing out from those wounds and had created a pool around it. Loss of blood was the most probable reason for this monster's demise.

Tomoe was also badly hurt. She was able to dodge most of the attacks made by this monster but she was caught off guard once and it took a bite from the right side of her belly. Not only that, she was also unable to dodge one of the water spears when it suddenly changed direction for the first time and went through her left leg. Tomoe was barely able to get this victory because her endurance and stamina was slightly better than this monster.

She was a little bit sad though as after getting so badly injured, she would not be able to continue with the challenge anymore and she would not get her hands in the secret technique of sword forging that she was looking forward to. But she was still happy as her stagnant sword art had improved after this battle.

...

Just as she was thinking about these things while trying to heal her wounds, a bottle filled with a clear green liquid fell before her. She looked all around her but was unable to see anyone. She then cautiously took the small bottle and opened it. A very refreshing smell hit her nostrils. Tomoe felt her injuries getting better just with the smell.

There was no doubt that this was a healing medicine and a very powerful one at that. She gulped the whole bottle down and her serious looking injuries all immediately got healed. After taking a little rest she would be able to fight in her full power again. Now she was very sure about what was happening as she was not a dumb person. She now also knew who had shown her all those images in her head in the middle of that battle.

She was very grateful about it and showed her gratitude by deeply bowing once. She had no idea where her benefactor was but she was sure that Elena was definitely watching over her. Then she closed her eyes and focused on replaying the last battle in her mind while she was resting. She had two more tougher challenges to face after this.

...

For the next challenge, she went to a place where she knew the monster called Cocolucis could be found. That area was their nest. She wandered around that place and found three groups of them. Two of those groups had five Cocolucises and only one group had three. So it was very clear to her about which group she should challenge.

Cocolucises were plant type monsters that looked like mushrooms but a very ugly looking ones. It has tentacles growing out of its head which was also its main mode of attack. This monster was also a slightly tough matchup for Tomoe as they used their tentacles to surround its enemy so that it would not be able to use too much space to move around. So for Tomoe who liked to do exactly that, this monster was definitely a bad match up. The only silver lining was the fact that individually these monsters were not very strong and one of the weakest among the S ranks. So she would not need to worry that a slight graze by it would be the end of her.

...

Her objective for this battle was to badly injure at least one of the monsters. It was something she was able to easily do if she used a surprise attack on one of the monsters. She would have done just that just a few hours before but after learning that it was all a training for her, it was not something that she wanted to do.

So instead of starting the battle with a sneak attack, this time she attacked those monsters from the front. She fought against them with all her concentration and at the same time she was making sure to not make any of the mistakes she was making beforehand. That way her swordsmanship also showed signs of improvement.

Not only that she was also able to come up with new maneuvers and techniques after she was able to get rid of all the flaws. Her sword art was almost on the edge of getting completed for her current realm, which was her long time dream.

These opponents were definitely tricky for her but as individually they were not as strong as her previous opponent, she had an easier time here. Her improvement and gain in power was also one of the reasons. So she was not only able to injure one of the monsters but actually she ended up killing one, which was a big deal. Then the remaining two monsters became way too ferocious, so she timely withdrawn.

This second challenge became quite easy for her with her improvement but the last one was still going to be hard. Now that was the only thing left between her and her reward.

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