บท 17: Trial of The Holy Crown

"The first thing you need to learn about mana replenishing is how to breathe. Breathing is your gateway to the world around you. With each breath, you get enough oxygen from the surrounding air to live.

Why not mana?" Master Ronin took the chance to demonstrate. He took a deep breath, and Arthur could feel the creation of pressure. Master Ronin then exhaled, and he released blue air from his mouth.

"The color you see is due to mana. The key is to keep that mana inside, condense it, and assimilate it into being yours. Mana is attracted to more mana. That means with your current mana, you could attract lesser amounts of mana with your breath. At the start, it could be negligible.

However, as you go further down the path, you could replenish your mana in a matter of seconds. Remember that just breathing is not enough, you need to use your mana to attract the mana outside your body." Master Ronin concluded his lesson and left Arthur to do his training.

Left alone, Arthur began practicing the mana replenishing technique. As he tried to get the mana inside his body, he failed on the first try. The second, then the third. After ten times, he decided to think about Master Ronin's words one more time.

As he remembered Master Ronin's last words, he started rotating his mana inside his body. He wanted to create an attraction force for the mana outside his body.

[Lesser-Mana Breathing Skill has been acquired. Current level: F (0%)]

The message his legacy showed proved he was on the right path. He didn't care if it was a lesser technique as long as it proved useful for him. He kept practicing until he got a better hang of it.

After the lesson ended, Arthur went home after a long day. He went to Master Ronin's house straight after school, so he was exhausted by now. After he got into the house, he saw his family eating dinner.

"Welcome back, how was the academy?" His mother, Sarah, asked.

"It was fine. I joined a club and it was fun." Arthur began to tell his day while keeping the fighting out. As the three started eating and talking, Arthur enjoyed a warm atmosphere for the first time in a while. Their mother finished and went on her night shift. Only Oren and Arthur remained, and the latter proceeded to ask.

"Why didn't you call me today?"

"Oh, he didn't show up today. I don't know why. Brother, be careful, he's a lot stronger than most students."

"Don't worry, I'm not planning on overdoing it."

As the two talked a bit more, each went to their room to sleep. Arthur practiced the Mana replenishing a bit more before heading to sleep.

***

The sun was high in the sky as their day at the academy just ended. Arthur decided to skip his club as he had more pressing issues to solve. That was money, plus getting stronger.

He wore his leather armor and carried his sword before setting out toward Furlair's dungeon. As he was familiar with the dungeon now, he planned on hunting other monsters since he wouldn't absorb the fur monsters anymore.

Although it was called Furlair, it had several other monsters, although they made the smaller population of the dungeon. However, he would have to go deeper in to find them.

He wasn't too worried, though, as he would first hunt a fur monster to use its core for a permanent agility rune.

After he got into the dungeon, Arthur showed his ID and got inside. He then started looking around for a tunnel that was less populated. There was a tunnel with only a group beginning to head inside. As he looked at the group, he felt a sense of familiarity.

They all wore black robes adorned with silver engravings. Some of them held swords others were unarmed, but all of them wore hoods covering their face. The group went inside, and Arthur instinctively followed behind them. As he entered the tunnel after them, they were gone.

Although weirded out by the sequence of events, Arthur kept going deeper into the tunnel. As if to welcome him, a fur monster bounced from another tunnel on the sideway.

It seems to have starved as it rushed toward Arthur with bloodlust. Too bad Arthur was calm as he activated the [Protection-I] rune and deflected the attack effortlessly. He then went ahead to slash the monster ending its life.

As he picked up the core, Arthur headed to an isolated tunnel and started making the permanent rune for agility. After another enhancement, It rose to 26.

[Agility has increased by 5.]

He could also use the temporary rune to get his agility to 31. As he ventured further into the dungeon, Arthur hunted as his mind had several thoughts. He wondered what would happen if he wanted to make a permanent rune of the other runes. He had Detection, Absorb, and Protection. That's when his thoughts shifted to another place. Skills.

Logically speaking, if he created a permanent rune out of Detection, he would develop skills similar to the rune itself. He would probably still have to use mana to use the detection skill. He didn't know if the mana cost would be the same or if it would decrease. However, it wouldn't hurt to try. After all, he could create skills using runes, and maybe he could sell them to others.

After taking down another fur monster, he brought its core to fuse it with a detection rune. Unexpectedly, he received a failure message.

[Materials used are insufficient. Other materials or a higher level of ability are needed.]

"I see." Arthur nodded in understanding. It seems using an unranked mana core isn't enough for this. Increasing his stats was one thing, but creating skills was another. After all, They were expensive and only dropped from ranked monsters. It seems to create the skills he would need a core of a ranked monster.

As he pocketed the core, Arthur looked around. He was now deeper into the tunnel he entered. Other monsters lived in the side-tunnels, so he picked one and started using his [Detection-I] rune.

As he went deeper inside, Arthur began sensing the surroundings to be empty of any monsters. He went out of the side-tunnel and headed into another one. As he kept using the rune and replenishing his mana, he realized there was something wrong.

There were no more monsters in the deeper parts of the dungeon. Logically there should be more, but now there was none. He started looking around until his skill detected some lifeforms.

As he started inching toward their location, Arthur could feel the lifeforms beginning to fade. Soon, all the signs of life disappeared from his senses. He peered through the tunnel and saw the group he saw earlier. They were standing in front of a massive door with several goblins lying dead.

As the group inched closer toward the door, they went inside, and the door closed behind them. Arthur walked hesitantly and inspected the surrounding. He looked at the five goblins on the ground and used his legacy.

[The Legacy user did not slay the monster, unable to absorb.]

He expected this as the rune clearly stated that he had to slay the monsters to absorb their essence. As Arthur looked at the door, the runes on the door felt familiar to him. In his eyes, each rune was distinct from the other he reached out his hand and touched the door. The runes began to glow as a voice appeared in his head before he disappeared from the dungeon.

[Guardians' Bloodline has been detected. The first trial of the Holy Crown shall begin.]