Shirou didn't know who the Sword God's friend was, but he himself really wanted to stay in the Holy Land of Swords to train for a while.
After all, he finally came to this highest holy land of swordsmanship, and if he left now, he didn't know when he would be able to return next time.
Shirou hoped to take this opportunity to improve his swordsmanship as much as possible and raise it to a higher level.
Unfortunately, the Sword God was unwilling to teach him any swordsmanship until he could swing the Longsword of Light while wearing that heavy armor.
Therefore, Shirou could only figure out the secrets of swordsmanship on his own.
Coincidentally, the training grounds of the Holy Land of Swords had a large number of sword marks left by past Swordsmen, and some places even had treasured swords left by some Swordsmen.
Although those treasured swords had weathered due to time and lost their true function, and were meaningless to ordinary Swordsmen except to admire the remains of their predecessors, for Shirou, these swords that once belonged to some strong people were like priceless treasures.
After all, for Shirou, he had the heaven-defying ability of projection loading.
Although the effect of projection loading on weapons other than Noble Phantasms was quite ordinary, and it couldn't allow him to directly obtain the original skills of the wielder, even so, by using the ability of projection loading, Shirou could gradually understand the skills that the weapon's wielder once possessed.
By understanding the structure of the weapon, he seemed to be able to talk to the weapon's wielder.
Most importantly, since the Holy Land of Swords was not only the holy land of the Sword God Style, but also the target of various swordsmanship schools, the training grounds inside the Holy Land of Swords almost stored the sword marks and weapons left by the strong predecessors of all swordsmanship schools up to now.
Not only the Sword God Style, Water God Style, North God Style, but even some unknown schools also had weapons left behind.
Shirou was like a hamster entering a rice store, starting to absorb the skills and abilities possessed by the swordsmanship masters of various schools as much as possible.
Although he couldn't completely master every skill and swordsmanship, each time he understood one more, the corresponding skill would be understood, strengthened, and improved.
First was the Sword God Style's skill.
Shirou's own Sword God Style had reached a bottleneck. With the Longsword of Light mastered, it was almost impossible for his swordsmanship to improve further.
Shirou originally felt that his swordsmanship could no longer improve, but when he studied the swordsmanship of the holy land, he unexpectedly discovered a swordsmanship called Light Return.
The so-called Light Return was a swordsmanship that a past Sword God tried to create when researching the Longsword of Light, wanting to break the swordsmanship invented by the first Sword God.
Although countless Swordsmen had tried to break and suppress the Longsword of Light since its birth, very few people had actually been able to do so.
Most people simply couldn't cope with the swordsmanship that was too fast for the naked eye to catch.
This even included the past Water Gods and North Gods, who couldn't truly break the Longsword of Light.
And that Sword God, since he himself was a master of the Longsword of Light, when he wanted to research the secrets to break the Longsword of Light, he easily found a solution.
That was the secret called Light Return.
The so-called Light Return was essentially based on the Sword God Style's quick-draw technique, and was a counterattack aimed at the Longsword of Light's most common upper-level slash.
Since the Longsword of Light had a certain acceleration at the moment of being swung, and it took time for the sword's speed to gradually reach a state infinitely close to the speed of light, all that was needed was to find the right time difference, and at the moment when the opponent's Longsword of Light was drawn but had not yet accelerated, to burst out all the power and speed in advance, and the subsequent action of the opponent's Longsword of Light could be ended one step earlier.
And how to end the opponent's subsequent actions?
Simply put, it was what the Dragon God did to Shirou in the beginning, cutting off the hand of the Swordsman wielding the sword.
Whether it was cutting off the arm, cutting off the finger, or severing the meridians... any method was fine, as long as something was done to make the opponent unable to move, the opponent's life could be directly ended.
However, the Light Return still had many problems.
The biggest problem was how to seize the time difference.
Since the Longsword of Light was itself a skill of extreme speed, once the Longsword of Light was swung, the speed of the sword would reach its peak in an instant.
It was difficult for ordinary people to keep up with the Longsword of Light's movements, let alone swing their swords at a speed faster than the Longsword of Light.
After realizing this problem, that Sword God researched many skills, and then found a solution in the techniques of the North God Style.
Compared to the Sword God Style, the techniques of the North God Style had always been diverse, including techniques that could burst out sword energy in a short time, and even surpass the speed of the Sword God Style in an instant.
However, this technique also had flaws.
Although that move of the North God Style had a speed comparable to that of the Sword God Style, it also resulted in an infinite weakening of the power of its own moves.
For example, a slash that could originally destroy a monster with one sword could only barely pierce the monster's skin after using that move, and a slash that could originally tear armor would have its power reduced to the point where it couldn't even pierce the skin.
Because it was too useless, the North God Style itself abandoned this meaningless sword move, because if the attack couldn't even hurt the enemy's body, then no matter how fast it was, it would be useless.
However, after learning about this move, that Sword God instantly realized the special advantage of this North God Style's ultimate move against the Longsword of Light.
Since the Longsword of Light itself relied too much on speed, almost all the slashes in the process were straight and to the point, and there wouldn't be too many changes in the movements.
Therefore, as long as it was possible to damage some parts of the Longsword of Light in advance, or even directly injure the arm of the person releasing the Longsword of Light, the Longsword of Light could be directly interrupted.
After researching a lot and conducting various experiments, the Sword God confirmed this point, and thus developed the skill against the Longsword of Light - Light Return!
Shirou learned this technique by projecting that Sword God's sword, intending to use it to fight against Dragon God Orsted.
Yes, since Dragon God also used Sword God Style and Longsword of Light, Shirou had been thinking about how to counter it.
He originally wanted to ask the Sword God for advice in person, but he didn't expect to get such a surprise here, and it could be said that he obtained a trump card against the Dragon God out of thin air.
Although Light Return was useless when dealing with moves other than Longsword of Light, it was indeed the best move to break Longsword of Light.
In addition to Light Return, Shirou also learned many skills.
For example, the Water God Style's secret, North God Style's technique, and various other schools' moves.
Shirou's own swordsmanship also gradually grew in the process. In the end, he completely achieved the Saint level of the Water God Style, the Saint level of the North God Style, and in addition to the fact that he was originally the Saint level of the Sword God Style, he became the Saint level of three schools in one breath, achieving an even more exaggerated achievement than Paul.
But Shirou didn't have any arrogance about this.
Whenever he recalled the Dragon God Orsted's God level of three schools, and far more than these three schools' moves, Shirou would feel great pressure from the bottom of his heart.
Under such great pressure, Shirou began to train his body more and more, trying to complete the goal given to him by the Sword God as soon as possible.
He ran and jumped on the hills of the Holy Land of Swords every day, using methods that almost squeezed his spirit, to further adapt to the armor on his body.
And although he was still doing the same things as before, the Swordsmen of the Holy Land of Swords no longer looked down on him, and some Swordsmen even tried to imitate Shirou's behavior and train with him.
This was undoubtedly the result of the strength Shirou showed during the Sword Saint assessment, which was recognized by many Swordsmen.
Although Shirou had almost never used the Sword God Style's techniques in the process, the Swordsmen of the Holy Land of Swords were not so repulsed by other schools, but simply respected the strong.
Shirou was strong enough, and they were willing to recognize and respect Shirou.
It is worth mentioning Nina, the daughter of the Sword God.
Logically speaking, she should hate Shirou very much after being defeated by Shirou in the duel, and harbor dissatisfaction with Shirou.
But in reality, Nina didn't have this idea. Instead, she was very regretful about her actions against Shirou at that time, and tried every means to apologize to Shirou.
It just so happened that her own personality was not straightforward, and it was impossible for her to go to Shirou to apologize openly.
Helpless, Nina could only pretend to run into Shirou on the mountain road where he trained every day, hoping to find a chance to talk to Shirou. Even if she couldn't improve their relationship, it would be nice to find a chance to apologize.
But even when she saw Shirou, Nina couldn't find any chance to talk to Shirou because the latter was too focused on training.
The girl was helpless, but unexpectedly found that Shirou's training was very focused. The appearance of the other party sweating with all his might gave people an indescribable feeling of heartbeat.
Especially Shirou, in a state of extreme exhaustion, still tried his best to climb to the top of the mountain, he clearly looked out of breath and had no energy to move, but he still didn't give up and insisted on climbing until the last moment.
Without knowing it, Nina watched Shirou train like this all day, and when she came back to her senses, she found that it was already late.
When Nina returned to the dormitory, she met a Sword Saint she knew.
The Sword Saints asked her what she did during the day.
Nina mysteriously stammered, and didn't say anything about what happened during the day. When she returned to her room, she found that her face was as red as could be, and her heartbeat had become faster than usual.
The next day, Nina didn't go to secretly run into Shirou again, but instead, she began to spend more time on her swordsmanship.
Everyone else thought that she was stimulated by Shirou, a strong peer, and had an urgent need to become stronger.
Only Nina herself knew what kind of complex emotions she was based on when she devoted herself to swordsmanship training.
But there was one thing that she could confirm, and that was that she wanted to become stronger and swing a stronger sword, so that she could have the ability to talk to Shirou on an equal footing.
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