God of Time System: Harem in the Zombie Apocalypse

"It's hard!"

"Keep going!"

"Please be gentle!"

"No!"

"Is that the best you got?"

Holding my sword between her hands, she smiled as she spoke,

"This isn't enough. You will be killed in an instant. You need to swing it harder. Faster. Better."

For the past two weeks, Rhea has been teaching me how to handle the sword movements. With the time ratio of 6:1, It would have been only 2 days in the outside world.

Getting the weapon was actually quite easy

[Practice Wooden Sword(Common)]

[A basic wooden sword to hone your skills. Nothing more special about it

Cost: 500 Cronas]

With the 2700 Cronas I had, I could easily take one of the swords. The best part was that I didn't really need to buy it as I could just practice in the trial room for as long as I wanted.

"Just how can a person make so many mistakes at once?" spoke Rhea in annoyance as she looked at me with a glare and disdain.

Her previous 'honorable, gentle and nice' girl aura was gone. All she looked like was...

"Demoness..." I muttered silently.

"Did you say something?" she asked as if she would kill me if I repeated my words, so I just chuckled dryly as I answered,"haha.. No.. I was saying... you are a really good teacher... who made you one?"

'Like who gave you the permission to become one?' I asked with a bit of irritation, but didn't show it in front.

Hearing my words, she answered,"that you need not to know."

"Now. Practice standing in that form and make another 1000 perfect swings. That is your next task now that you have more or less adapted yourself to standing the right way," she spoke, and I sighed before nodding at her.

Legs two and a half feet apart, with my hips a bit lower. Holding the wooden sword, with my arms spread a bit away without going lower than my shoulder length. My forearms were a bit more bent down and my wrist was just a bit up. Bending my spine only about a few degrees, I concentrated on the empty space at front.

Raising both my hands up, without letting the form go, I raised the sword slowly and slowly up before bringing it down.

According to Rhea, I need to first learn how to swing the sword properly before actually swinging it. Posture and correct form is the key to make a perfect swing, bringing out the complete power out of the swing.

It took me about 5 minutes to move the sword up and another 5 minutes down, making it one swing. Though according to Rhea, it was still slow and my form broke about a 1000 times when I tried to raise my sword up and another 1000 times when I moved it down.

'Sigh... this is too hard,' I thought before concentrating on the swings once again.

Next time, I concentrated with extreme focus and raised the sword much slower than before. This time I focused only on the form and not the actual swing, so I didn't count on the time...

'Focus on the posture. Focus on yourself... your body is your weapon... it's yours to command... make it work the way you want,' I repeated the words that I used to whenever I failed to learn something during college days.

It helped me concentrate on only one thing, ignoring everything else that was taking around. It helped me block all things from the outside and not get distracted by it. Soon.. after an unknown amount of time passed... I finally brought the sword back to its original position.

Once I was done with that..

"Phew... so how was this one? Don't tell me it's still wrong..." I spoke with a tired smile and she was looking at me without speaking anything. For the next few moments, she just kept quiet as she observed me...

"You made 7 mistakes in going up and about 19 when coming down," she said in a monotonous voice. There was slight disbelief in her voice and she was trying to see through me.

"Eh? I still made mistakes... let me try again then..." I spoke with a determined face before I took a deep breath and concentrated again..

Time passed again... this time I applied all my energy, concentrating on everything I could. Watching each single move that I was making, I just kept going extremely slowly and slowly before I was finally done with it.

"Damn! My shoulder hurts," I spoke as I let the weapon go and held my shoulder with my hand as I fell on the ground. Just how long had I been holding that position for? "2 mistakes in going up... and... and... 0 mistakes in coming down..." she spoke with pure disbelief as she observed me. For the next few moments, I just looked at her with pure disbelief before a bright grin appeared on my face.

"Just 2, huh? Not too shabby, I guess," I said, rubbing my nose with my finger and smiling from ear to ear.

Though...

"How long did it take? I believe it should have taken about 30 minutes or something?" I was a bit curious. Though she just kept looking at me with disbelief as I asked again, "Rhea?"

"Huh?!" she came out of her stupor as she observed me... before she asked,

"Michael... let me ask you a question... are you really a human?"

'Hmmm? What kind of question is that?' I questioned as I observed her before speaking,"yeah... is there something wrong?"

"No... nothing... "she muttered before I asked again,"so? How long did it take? For me to make that swing, I mean," I asked and she, looking at me, closed her eyes for a few moments before speaking,

"2 days."

"Huh?" My face turned blank as I observed her for a few moments before confirming again,

"Haha! Sorry, I think I heard something wrong. Can you repeat it again?"

She then took a deep breath before speaking,"you took 2 days to make that complete swing. And the previous one you took 6 hours."

"Eh?!!!!" Pure stupefaction appeared on my face as I observed her. It didn't seem like she was... joking...

"Continue doing that... try to make as many perfect swings as you can. Prioritize form and stability," she spoke with a half blanked expression and I could only nod at her before waiting for a few moments to heal myself and then stretching out a little and then continuing to swing...

And just like that, about 12 weeks passed... that should be about 84 days in total....

"Hmmmm... I still need a lot of time to make sure I get enough practice to make a faster swing, huh?" I asked, as I saw the amount of time taken to make that last swing.

"You should be proud of what you achieved," I would say. To reduce that time to less than half without losing your initial form within 3 months isn't something that is normal in any way, you know?" She spoke as she looked at me in disbelief, and I just smiled with a bit of joy.

The last swing took me 20 hours to complete. In that last swing, I made less than 10 mistakes in going up and about 12 in coming down. I felt like there were a lot of mistakes, but Rhea spoke that it was really enough.

Believing her, I then returned to my white room as I looked at that object I bought on the 4th day here.

[Tree of Crona(Uncommon)

Effects: Generates 15 Cronas per hour.

Limitations: Can store only 2500 Cronas

Special: Evolvable(Require 50,000 Cronas to evolve)]

Taking out the 2500 Cronas from the plant I looked at the amount of Crona I had in my storage

[Total Cronas: 14345]

In the beginning, I got an offer on the [ Lesser Tree of Crona(Uncommon)] item which, normally costing 25,000 Cronas, was on a 90% discount at 2,500 Cronas.

Just looking at it, I knew that I needed to buy it so I used the 2500 Cronas to buy it.

What I didn't expect was that it was upgradable. It was really a nice bonus to it.

Took about 10,000 Cronas to upgrade the [Lesser Tree of Crona] to [Tree of Crona]. I was hoping to upgrade it once more but I guess that is still going to take a lot of time.

"Should I buy something?" I questioned before I decided that I should save it for that [Warp] skill that Rhea talked about.

Also, I made a point to check the daily sale at least once in a while, hoping to find something interesting. Though sadly, I never got an offer similar to that one again.

"You should concentrate on upgrading that plant, I would say. If you can find an [Item Evolve] stone then I suggest you use it as fast as you can on it. What you receive is really a blessing to be honest. I could be your direct ticket to getting stronger faster," she emphasized the stronger parts as she looked at me from top to bottom before continuing,

"I guess you would be leaving now."

I nodded at her as I spoke,

"Will be returning every night for training though. I want to make sure I make that perfect slash within a few seconds at least. Someday... hopefully."

She nodded at me as she asked,"when are you going to attempt that dungeon?"

"Tonight. I want to get a class of my own fast, you know?" I spoke with a bit of excitement and she sighed before speaking,"just be careful. Dungeon works a bit differently from normal."

// The rest of the chapter is in Author's note //