Zeke's cousins, including the stern girl Reina Torin, sat down to a meal together in preparation for the swordsmanship duel that was coming up. One of them, Owen Zieman, teased Leon about how much he needed to eat, and it thoroughly annoyed him. Owen told Leon that he was only trying to be nice, but Leon's inferiority complex was obviously affecting his judgement.
Leon got angry and rose from his chair as though he wanted to fight, but a stare from Reina put him back in his place. The topic soon shifted to Zeke and what they were going to do about him. Reina admitted that Zeke had been impressive during the Pankration, but she was fairly sure that he would struggle when it came to swordsmanship.
Owen smiled and said that Zeke was going to be totally useless, because he would not even be able to hold up a sword properly. Leon supported the point, saying that Zeke was such a weakling that he had needed a customised sword made for him, since the basic ones were too heavy. Leon added that Zeke had only beaten him through a stroke of luck, but Reina angrily cut in, telling Leon that he had no right to be called a knight of the Draegar household if he seriously believed Zeke had won by luck.
After saying this, she got up from the chair in a temper and walked out of the room, to avoid surrounding herself with a bunch of fools.
In the sword duels, the participants used real swords, which was why most of the serious incidents in the cradle happened during them. It was also where the differences between the cadets' skills were openly revealed. A month after the duels, the blessing rite would begin. The blessing rite was the event at which the Draegars awakened their aura.
On the day of the duel, the instructor called Zeke to come to the stage, and he walked up confidently with his big sword resting on his shoulder. It immediately sparked grumbling among the students, who believed that Zeke was acting pompously by wielding such a large sword.
It turned out that Zeke would be going up against Reina, and Zeke was happy to have her as his opponent. Reina was surprised to see Zeke lifting the big sword so easily, and that was when it dawned on her that Zeke was not the same boy she used to know. A load of questions flooded her mind about why Zeke might be so confident, but it soon dawned on her that she was already being intimidated by him.
Reina tried to burn off the fear creeping through her body, since she was the one who had challenged Zeke in the first place. At the same time, Zeke was also being careful, because Reina had been known as the Lightning Knight in her past life. She was one of the knights who had made a name for herself during the continental wars, and she had also been counted as one of the greatest of the next generation of Draegars.
The reason she was regarded that way was that she had awakened her aura before she ever went through the blessing rite. Zeke worked out that Reina's aura should already be active years ahead of schedule, and that she simply had not used it in the cradle because she claimed she wanted to improve her basics. Just then, the instructor declared the fight open, and Reina made the first move.
She swung her sword so hard that Zeke was forced to jump backwards to avoid being skewered. Zeke had to admit that Reina was quite talented, but he still did not feel threatened. Reina kept coming hard at Zeke, and the spectators believed she was toying with him. They urged her to teach Zeke a lesson and stop messing around with him, but Owen was smart enough to know that Reina was not messing around at all.
Even though Reina had the heightened senses to locate and navigate through tight gaps, she still could not take advantage of the situation, because no matter where she moved, Zeke's sword was already there to meet her. Reina started to realise that Zeke was moving as though he were applauding her efforts. The moment he did it, he opened another gap for her, making the whole thing feel like a training duel meant to teach her something.
Reina kept running around the arena trying to catch Zeke, and it had begun to strain her, with a clear indication of it in the way she was sweating. Zeke was finally seeing how Reina had fought when she was still in the cradle, and he was not impressed. Even though her sword appeared to be honest, he had expected more from someone who was always so obsessed with her basics.
At the same time, those fundamentals were the very thing holding her back, and Zeke decided to help her break out of the tight shell she had put herself in. Zeke then dropped into an extremely low stance, and Reina worked out that he was trying to close the gap between them in a single leap. Reina was confident that she had what it took to block Zeke, because she was incredibly fast herself.
Reina was still riding on that confidence when Zeke suddenly reached her, sending a wave of fear through her body. It took an incredible amount of flexibility for her to dodge the strike. She jumped backwards and concluded that she could still react to Zeke's strikes as long as there was a bit of a gap between them. Just then, Zeke did something shocking by using his sword to throw pebbles at her.
The pebbles hit her in the face, letting Zeke close in while she was still struggling with the pain. Reina opened her eyes to see Zeke breathing down her neck with his sword. Reina realised that she was done for, which forced her to resort to something extreme. In the blink of an eye, Reina knocked Zeke's sword away, and the students started celebrating that Reina had won.
However, the instructor was left in awe, because none of the cadets had noticed what had actually happened. Just as Zeke's attack closed down on Reina, she had been forced to use a bit of aura, so little that it was barely visible. Reina was the one who had promised never to use aura until she got into the academy, and Zeke had forced her into breaking that promise.
Reina was also aware of what she had done, and while she was still sulking over it, Zeke dashed in and punched her in the throat, making her cough up blood. She fell to her knees, holding her throat, and the students erupted in anger, condemning Zeke's decision to use his fist even though they were in a swordsmanship duel.
The students started saying all sorts of trash about how Zeke was not worthy of being a knight because he had abandoned his sword. Zeke did not really care about their outcry, because he had won in the end, and that was what mattered. Reina managed to get back on her feet, and Zeke asked her whether she was willing to continue the fight.
In her head, Reina was going over the whole scenario, and she wanted to believe that Zeke had only been able to strike her because she had let her guard down. Then it dawned on her that she was only making up stupid excuses, because if Zeke had held a dagger in his hand and hit her with that instead, she would have been dead meat.
Because of this, Reina had no choice but to accept that she had lost the battle. The students were left in shock and disappointment when they heard it, because Zeke, who had been known as trash only a couple of days earlier, had managed to secure a victory over one of the most talented children in the cradle.