Capítulo 17: Volume I - Chapter 16: First Steps of Development

I walked in without saying anything and the training room I had seen countless times was nostalgically in front of me.

It looks exactly as I remembered it... A full rectangfular space of almost one hundred and fifty square meters, a huge opening in the middle, and countless weapons on the sides. There is no difference...

"You're late."

"I'm sorry, professor. I had a very small errand, but I was only three minutes late. I'll try to be more attentive from now on."

The professor frowned and looked at me. I glanced at him, not averting my eyes, and then the professor gave up with a sigh.

"Anyway... why didn't you take your sword?"

"Because I don't have a sword of my own."

The professor paused after I said this indifferently. Then his eyes widened as if he realized something.

"Are you... or... Is that why you didn't take a stance during the duel?"

I smiled bitterly at these words that made me feel bad when they were said to my face.

"Unfortunately, yes. I don't know anything about the sword."

"Ah..."

The professor put his hand to his face and smiled, just like me.

I think I'm the first person to appear before him with zero sword knowledge, but it's really absurd given the current state of the world. So I can't say anything.

"Then I have to ask. How confident are you, Aiden?"

The bitter smile on my face gave way to a determined and wider one.

"My goal is to come out of the academy first. At worst, I plan to come second."

There was a short silence between us, and then I heard the professor muttering 'Crazy people always seem to find me'.

If you're going to mumble it in the first place, why do you say it so I can hear it?

"Anyway, take a sword from the side and stand in front of me."

The professor moved to the opening in the center of the room and I stood in front of him as he said.

"The report says you have swordsmanship even at an F grade, did it come from your awakening?"

"Yes."

I don't really have the slightest idea, but I don't think he's going to look into it... Anyway, considering Aiden's frail body, I'm sure he hasn't trained, so I'm about eighty percent sure I'm not lying.

"Then you must have some skill... Can you swing your sword vertically?"

I raised my sword as I was told, but as soon as I did, the professor stopped me.

"Swinging a sword standing up straight will do nothing but waste energy. Don't stand too straight, relax. Also, spread your feet a little. Adjust your balance so that you can swing your sword and take your stance as much as possible."

Without questioning him, I did as he said. Then raised my sword again and swung it.

"Again."

The sword came down again.

"Spread your feet a little wider, again."

My sword sliced the air again.

"You're staggering, keep your balance as steady as you can with the support of your feet."

I don't know why, but strangely my blood literally began to boil.

"You're holding the sword too tightly. You'll lose your flexibility if you do that. Relax your grip, but don't overdo it, or your swing will become weak."

Every time I swung my sword incorrectly, the professor corrected my mistakes. Each time I came closer to swinging my sword correctly, I began to feel a strange excitement spreading through my body and I began to withdraw from the world.

Swinging a sword... It seemed miraculously fun to me, but I was someone who hated physical labor. Using a sword... Was it really that much fun?

Correct your mistakes, raise the sword in the air, put your weight where you're going to do the swing, and swing the sword vertically.

I swung like this for at least fifteen minutes, guided by the professor, but then he suddenly stopped me.

"You're grinning, kid. Is sword swinging fun?"

Am I grinning? I... I didn't even realize it.

The professor burst out laughing at my surprise and a sour expression appeared on my face.

What... Is it really that funny?

"So you didn't even realize it! It's good that you like the sword, but you must stop now. Because your body is starting to strain."

My eyebrows rose at what I heard.

Indeed, my muscles ached strangely, but only now did I realize it.

"Your body is so weak that fifteen minutes of swinging a sword did this to you. Your vitality was an F grade, right? And you've never exercised... That's why you're so weak."

"Isn't it good to push myself? That way my stamina will increase faster."

"That's true, but there are more efficient ways to improve your stamina than just swinging a sword. When you use a sword, Aiden, you use every muscle in your body. Your legs, buttocks, arms... In short, every muscle should be developed and unfortunately, yours are not. So I'm going to set you up with an exercise program and you're going to stick to it every day."

Without asking my opinion, the professor nodded slightly, as if approving himself, and then looked me up and down.

"You are also lanky, so increase your meals in a 'healthy' way."

I nodded without saying anything because it made sense.

This guy has been an instructor for years... what are the chances of something illogical coming out of his mouth?

"Good if you understand. Now, since I don't want to put any more strain on your body, let's stop swinging the sword and switch to mana control. Don't let go of the sword though."

The professor sat cross-legged on the floor and told me to do the same. I quickly sat across from him.

"Close your eyes, hold your sword tightly, and focus on your mana. Then visualize it moving into your hand and transfer your mana to your sword."

Excited that I was about to learn a skill I wanted, I focused on the mana flowing through my body and then my mana began to flow slowly toward the sword, but what I had intended was not happening. Something seemed wrong, but I wasn't sure what.

"You are only transferring your mana to the sword, the mana itself is not going to do the aftermath. That's why the mana just dissipates. Even when it leaves your body, try to control it, don't stop imagining it going into the sword, but imagine it being absorbed there, making what it is absorbed into stronger and more powerful."

As my mana slowly flowed into the sword and began to be absorbed by it, a holographic window appeared in front of my closed eyes.

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Congratulations! You have learned the [Mana Transfer(F)] skill. Your mana capacity has increased slightly because you learned it by experimenting on your own.

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An involuntary smile appeared on my face, but it was not because of this skill I had learned. The reason for my smile was the notification that would come next.

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Congratulations! The [Mana Boost(F)], [Mana Transfer(F)], and [Sense Enhancement(F)] skills have been combined to create the [Mana Expert(F)] mastery!

With the new mastery you have learned, your mana capacity has increased slightly.

With the new mastery you have learned, your Mana Efficiency stat has increased to F+ grade!

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Finally!

I had already tried to get the Mana Transfer skill that the professor had just taught me, but unfortunately, I had to give up after a while because I missed the last point. Still, I really wanted this skill! Because mastery is far more important and useful than skills.

Skills use the mana drawn from the body to cast spells through the system. Masteries, on the other hand, work both actively and passively independently of skills and have much broader ethics than the singular function of skills.

For example, Mana Expert.

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Mana Expert(F)

One can move their mana much more freely and fluidly than they normally would. Likewise, one can transfer mana to objects or living beings as one wishes to strengthen them, gain sensitivity to mana itself, and increase efficiency.

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Even though the only function of this mastery in the game was to increase mana efficiency, for me, in real life, it was a very important thing. Because Mana Expert was a very easy mastery to learn for every human in the world and was often seen as the first step of development.

Not to mention the features that come with it as the grade increases.

"You can open your eyes now."

Excited by the professor's words, I opened my eyes and the first thing I noticed was that the sword I was holding was glowing slightly.

The mana had definitely given the sword a different look. The sword felt sharper than before, more pleasing to the eye.

"You are learning quite fast, so let's try one more thing before we finish training for today..."

The professor stood up and then told me to stand up too.

"Now I want you to spread your mana around your body."

I immediately realized what he was trying to get me to do. I stood up and did as he said without losing any of my excitement.

As the mana slowly left my body, I focused on it, but I didn't stop there. I tried to feel the mana, even if it was outside my body. I put it in place of my other sensory organs, and then the surroundings of my body suddenly unfolded before my eyes in three dimensions.

For a moment I felt like I was going to lose my balance, because I normally see with my two eyes at the front of my head, and to suddenly switch to a third-person point of view, even though I wasn't really 'seeing', it was so strange that I felt dizzy.

My field of vision was a sphere barely a meter radius from my body, everything else was pitch black, but it was still enough to make me feel nauseous.

I tried to get used to the feeling, and I resisted it even though I felt nauseous, but then I was suddenly overcome by extreme fatigue. I gritted my teeth and tried to resist the fatigue, but only seconds later, my three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field of vision suddenly went black.

My mana reserves had hit rock bottom.

When I opened my eyes in frustration, I locked eyes with the professor again. For some reason, he had a dirty grin on his face.

"You're really great... If you can increase your stats properly, you can become a monster in the future, you know?"

A monster?

A slight smile appeared on my face.

Just a monster? No, my goal is not to become a 'monster'.

As a simple monster, I might be able to survive the big events that are coming, but there's no guarantee that I can protect Clara and those who will be close to me in the future.

What I need to do if I really want to achieve everything I have in mind is to become a being that surpasses common sense.

Being a 'monster' is not enough.

"Thank you for the motivation. See you tomorrow, professor!"

So I went to put the sword back where I took it, but when the professor noticed this, he stopped me.

"You said you don't have a sword, you can keep the sword if you are going to work independently of practical training. Besides, the last thing I taught you is not something that is used very much. It seems to be very useful, but it has many disadvantages. So use it only in emergencies."

"Ah... Thank you."

An involuntary smile appeared on my face. I was already aware of his last warning, but ignoring it, I couldn't buy a sword for myself because I had no money, so it was a good thing I could keep it.

"It's okay, I expect really good things from you, Aiden."

With the praise I received from the professor, I left the training hall with my sword around my waist and started walking toward my dorm room.

When I left the building, I felt relieved by the sunlight hitting my skin... The weather was neither too hot nor too cold for September. On top of that, I had just come out of training which had exhausted me, I was really relieved.

Smiling, I walked back to my room and in the meantime, I turned on my watch and sent a text message to Adrian, one of the three people in my contacts, telling him that I was available right now.

There was no response for a long time. I guess the history professor is giving him a hard time... I hope this won't cause me any difficulties later on.

So far, though, I haven't sensed anything bad about Adrian's personality, so I think there's nothing wrong with his development for now... I hope so.

After entering my dorm room without any trouble, I took a short shower and changed into comfortable clothes. Then, as I always do, I lay on my bed and took a deep breath.

Today, even though not much had changed in my body, I felt that I had improved... I knew that if I kept going steadily, I could eventually get stronger, even if the change was not even a speck in the grand scheme of things.

Still, that's not enough.

No matter how hard I work, I can't get stronger just by exercising. That's why I need some tricks, and my next goal is to get exactly one of them.

I took the coin from the orange-haired man in the training building out of my pocket and smiled slightly as I looked at it. This simple-looking coin was the thing that would help me get the cheat I wanted.

~beep

When my watch beeped while I was looking at the coin, at first I thought Adrian had read my message and got back to me, but when I looked at the screen and didn't see the name 'Adrian' I knew that wasn't the case.

Frowning, I double-clicked on the screen so that I could switch to the larger and more comfortable holographic view of the watch to check what the notification was about. Then a nasty grin suddenly appeared on my face and no matter what I did, I couldn't make it go away.

Because what I was seeing on the screen was something that could really shock a normal person.

<<------------------------------

20,000,000W has been transferred to your bank account.

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They finally sent me the money I earned from the theory I presented.

Now I'm really, really rich.

*(A/N: As I said before, I posted six chapters for three days, and the chapters after this one will come once a day. As for the hours... the time zone where I live is UTC+3 and according to this time zone, I'm thinking of publishing at 19.00 (7.00 p.m.). I'm not sure how convenient this time is for publishing chapters on Webnovel, so it may change according to the situation.)*