Although Shiwei Hall has strong teaching resources, Zhouzhu, Kondo, and Chokata all possess exceptionally powerful talents.
However, the quality of the apprentices... is sowhat lacking.
Aoto has now sparred with almost all the apprentices who usually show up at Shiwei Hall, but no one has shown any special talents...
Nevertheless, although Aoto couldn’t replicate any talent from the apprentices at Shiwei Hall, in recent days, Aoto managed to replicate three brand new talents from three visitors all at once.
These three visitors are Arima, Inagawa, and Ushiyama.
The officials at the North Guard Station are now all on paid leave—naturally, the three of them are no exception.
They happen to have no urgent cases on hand, allowing them ample ti to visit Aoto, who now has no ho and can only stay at Shiwei Hall.
These three visited Aoto together on February 2nd.
This day is precisely an important festival in Japan: Setsubun.
Setsubun, as the na suggests, is the day to distinguish between seasons; the day before the beginning of spring, sumr, autumn, and winter is called "Setsubun," with spring being the start of the year and particularly important, thus in Japan, "Setsubun" specifically refers to the day before the beginning of spring.
In Ancient Japan, people believed that seasonal changes easily attracted evil spirits, so to drive away the evil spirits, the tradition of "bean throwing to drive away demons" gradually erged.
On this Setsubun day, people take out roasted beans and, following specific rules, scatter them throughout the house and outside.
On this Setsubun day, Aoto and others also participated in the "bean throwing" activity.
Aoto joined Zhouzhu and others to shout "Demons out, Fortune in" while scattering roasted beans all around Shiwei Hall.
At first, everyone was normally conducting the "bean throwing."
However, when the event concluded, Chokata, feeling playful, took the remaining beans in his hand and started a "bean throwing contest" with Aoto and Kondo to see who could throw the beans the farthest.
Seeing this, Zhouzhu not only didn’t stop Chokata but, being sowhat of an old child himself, joined the contest.
As expected, Aoto and the group were fiercely scolded by Abi.
"Who do you think roasted all these beans with great effort?! Don’t use them as toys! Pick them up now!"
Abi’s loud shout left Aoto’s eardrums slightly aching even now...
After finishing the "bean throwing," in the afternoon, Arima, Inagawa, and Ushiyama ca to Shiwei Hall to visit Aoto, to see how he was faring at Shiwei Hall.
Aoto was quite happy to see the three of them arrive.
Firstly, he was happy because the elders cared deeply about him and were really considerate of his affairs.
Secondly, he was happy because he finally had the chance to assess whether they had any talents.
Aoto was already "eagerly looking forward" to these three elders.
He had long wanted to try and see if he could copy any talents from them.
But unfortunately—they had always been busy working, so only now did Aoto finally have the chance to replicate talents from them.
If he directly told Arima and the others: I want to spar in swordsmanship, it would be very abrupt, making them feel weird.
Because Arima, Inagawa, and Ushiyama aren’t well-versed in swordsmanship, suddenly expressing the desire to spar in swordsmanship with them would surely leave them puzzled, wondering what Aoto was up to, and why he found these guys who know nothing about swordsmanship to practice sword?
Thus, Aoto used the move he once used to "deal with" Saito—
Pa! Pa!
Aoto pulled hard on the hemp rope he held.
"Lord Arima, Mr. Inagawa, Mr. Ushiyama, you’re here at just the right ti. I’ve recently practiced a new Rope Capture Skill technique. You could be my sparring partners and help point out the flaws in this new technique, wouldn’t you?"
Using the excuse of "helping to guide the new Rope Capture Skill technique" to find Arima and the others for "sparring"—it’s both natural and reasonable.
Being officials of the Fixed Town Patrol, Arima, Inagawa, and Ushiyama all have remarkable skills in the Rope Capture Skill, so Aoto finding them to "practice the Rope Capture Skill" wouldn’t strike them as strange or doubtful.
Moreover, Aoto wasn’t actually lying—he indeed had incorporated so new techniques into the Rope Capture Skill.
By integrating so capture techniques from his past life’s Capture Techniques into the Rope Capture Skill, Aoto intended to find soone to test the power of his new technique.
Arima, Inagawa, and Ushiyama readily agreed to Aoto’s request to "practice the Rope Capture Skill" and each sparred with Aoto.
Judging from the results... the outco was quite delightful.
Arima, Inagawa, and Ushiyama all had talents, and after sparring with the three of them, Aoto acquired three new talents in one stroke!
However... the three new talents Aoto obtained... were sowhat subtle...
Aoto first sparred with Inagawa, and from him, Aoto replicated the talent: "Skillful Hands."
[Talent Introduction: Fingers are far more flexible and forceful than ordinary people.]
When Aoto replicated this talent from Inagawa... it wasn’t really a surprise to him.
He actually had prepared himself ntally beforehand.
After all, he knew clearly... Inagawa and Ushiyama were both known in the Flower Street of Edo for their titles "Silver Finger" and "Golden Mouth," respectively.
Inagawa, with just his pair of hands, had countless won in Flower Street utterly infatuated with him.
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