The Star Of Annihilation

The Star of Annihilation

Chapter 39 – Flaws (5)

Written by : eleven

* * *

Bam!

“Weak.”

“Dammit!”

The wooden logs that were tied to the tree kept moving as Roy cursed.

Another log had hit him as multiple logs were swinging from their tied locations on the tree next to Roy.

The logs were swinging from tied vines and Roy was currently restricted in his movements with his feet, as he was tied to a certain distance with a rope between his own two feet.

“Focus, if you can find where and when people move, you can always react the proper way if you can see it. Remember, this is just the beginning, but finding the ‘flaws’ will help you to reach much higher levels of swordsmanship.”

The training that Roy had been enduring was a new type of training that Lucius had started to implement recently ever since the end of that night at the campfire.

It was already 4 weeks into the new training regimen.

“Huuuah…huaaah….huaaah…”

Roy’s breathing was scant.

He remembered the conversation that he had with his master once they had finished their business with the tails of the Serpentine Family.

‘We’re here for a few more months unless anything else happens.’

Lucius had brought Roy far into a remote part of the Demon Territory, the Mareot Mountain Range.

The steep climb up to the mountain was only part of the arduous and daily training Roy had to go through each and every day.

His training regimen started from six o’clock in the morning when he woke up and was forced to run down the roughly one-thousand meter long slope to the base of the mountain without any use of mana, and then was to pick up weights from the base of the mountain where Lucius would wait for him, and give to him.

He would climb back up the mountain with these weights that weighed an extra forty-five kilograms in total, and was allowed to use mana for the rest of the day.

He was to also focus on balancing and circulating his mana in the most efficient methods, allowing his circuitry to become smoother, and allow for him to cast magic much faster.

That was something Lucius had said was critical to a swordsman that walked the path of magic to achieve mastery, rather than a swordsman who walked the path of ki. It was crucial for Roy to become a very fast thinker, and be able to cast his magic in advance for any kind of situation that may arise.

Later, he would have lunch and then they would focus on his balance, sense with the sword, and working towards the next level.

This was what the training he was doing was towards.

Finding the ‘flaws’, was something that was something that only few swordsmen knew of when it came to those underneath the level of a First-Rate Swordsman, and when they reached the peak of becoming a Transcendent level swordsman, a Swordmaster, they took it even further, and found ‘grains’.

This was a completely new task for Roy, and was what Lucius was constantly trying to have Roy see.

The training with zero explanation up until that point, was for Roy to go against a much stronger opponent in pure swordsmanship, and realize what it felt to have to try and find any kind of way to break through their defenses.

Now, he was ready to start enhancing his body’s strength to not only increase his stamina that was incredibly weak, but also to allow him to build a much stronger vessel so that he could break through to the next realm of 3-stars and possibly even 4-stars at the end of these two years.

“Breathe. Focus less on your body’s presence. You know your own body inside out, better than anybody else ever will. That being said, let your body relax. Let it become a tool.”

Lucius’ words resounded out in the forestry of the mountain range towards Roy.

“A tool that only needs to cut down what comes towards it. Swordsmanship styles are not something you need to worry about right now. Just focus on feeling the things around you before they come.”

A log swung from a tree branch as Lucius flicked it with his monstrous ki.

Whoosh-


Roy felt the air change suddenly, and moved his body reflexively as he leaned his back.

The log brushed by him, as sweat trickled down the side of his forehead.

Roy was restricted with a bandana to blindfold him and to experience what it meant to not rely on sight.

Sight was only a crutch, Lucius had told him.

“Good. Allow yourself to position well. A flexible body is of a sound mind. You can’t always necessarily think your way into always finding a path to victory, but you can move your body to force your opponent’s thoughts and actions. Move first, think later.”

Who-Woosh!


Two different logs swung forth at Roy from different angles.

‘One in front…. And the other two seconds behind it on my right…!’

Roy felt the air movements as he dodged the first log cleanly by simply taking a single step to the side, and then rolled on the ground, abandoning any kind of dignity a swordsman might think of in order to dodge the second.

‘A tool…. A tool….’

Roy kept repeating these words like a mantra.

In life-or-death scenarios, dignity and chivalry was a blessing no knight could afford to have.

Rolling on the dirt to avoid a strike was ultimately something that was all he could do at the moment.

However, Lucius did not berate him and rather smiled.

Although Roy couldn’t see that Lucius was smiling, he was sure that he wouldn’t be mad for listening to his instructions properly.

But Lucius still made the training more difficult.

Whoo-Bam!


“Ack!”

“What are you doing laying around on the floor? Get up, your opponent won’t give you things like rest in that kind of situation!”

Lucius purposefully infused more ki into the log that just hit Roy at a much faster pace than before, but Roy didn’t retort or complain.

Biting his lips and spitting out a wad of phlegm mixed with blood, Roy stood up and picked his saber back up.

Whoosh-Whoosh- Whoosh!


Three logs moved towards Roy at a fast pace.

Quaddeuk!

Roy sliced the first log in half as he didn’t see a way to avoid all three.

‘Left and below.’

Roy spun to the right and dodged the log coming from his left and jumped up.

Spinning mid-air with his feet tied, made it incredibly difficult to balance and land appropriately, but Roy managed to do it nonetheless.

He hadn’t been training for nothing.

“Good, let’s finish up here and get started on the last stretch for the day.”

Lucius’ words echoed out in the surroundings and Roy let out a sigh as his feet buckled below him.

“Ahhhhh….”

Taking a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, Roy felt truly appreciative for nature being able to support his exhausted body.

* * *

Later that evening…

“….”

Roy was sitting cross-legged in a lotus position, as he was circulating and cultivating his mana.

After exhausting his body to its complete limits, it was dry as a sponge and was able to take in copious amounts of mana if he was only able to cultivate more.

At that moment, Roy was facing a bottleneck.

His body was slowly expanding it’s ceiling, allowing for him to take in more amounts of mana each day to improve his vessel.

He could have already quite possibly become a 4-star magician at this rate, possibly getting closer to his level of his previous life with all the ambient mana we could currently store in his body due to the new formulation of the improved mana core that he had modeled after the Dragons, and the breathing method along with it.

As well as that, he had also absorbed a huge amount of latent mana, that wasn’t quite there, but there at the same time.

‘It feels weirder and weirder every day.’

Roy thought to himself as he explored the inner circuitry of his body with his mana.

He felt a huge source of ambient mana laying dormant in his core ever since he absorbed the fairy tears in a raw form, yet he couldn’t access or directly feel any of it.

It tickled his senses whenever he tried to reach down into his core and draw from this reservoir of power lying in his body, but his body could only take in certain amounts of mana each day as he trained to his limits to slowly increase his own potential.

‘I’m so close.’

“….”

Lucius sat across from him, doing his own training while circulating his ki.

Lucius was silent the entire time during these sessions after the physical training was over. It was the period of the day where they reviewed Roy’s new style of swordsmanship they wanted to develop, and then cultivated their mana and ki respectively.

They had just finished the review of the new style of swordsmanship Roy was aiming to create, and were now sitting down to cultivate.

Lucius could feel the natural energy of the air slowly changing these days, and felt that his disciple was close to breaking through to the next level as a magician.

3-stars was incredibly impressive for someone that was ten years-old and was practically unheard of in the kingdom.

‘If I can teach him properly, I will have raised a monster amongst monsters…hahaha!’

Lucius chuckled to himself as he thought.

His disciple was someone that knew of hardships, and had a commoner status like Lucius’ past.

It was something that almost felt surreal to him, as he never expected himself to raise a disciple, let alone one that walked the path as a magic swordsman, a position of power that was often scoffed at inside the Empire and entire continent, as their ceilings were quite limited and only those who had potential could truly perfect.

Only the Second Swordmaster of the Empire, was a magic swordsman who had attained mastery over aura and Transcendent levels of swordsmanship, and he was a person that Lucius knew he would not ever be able to defeat, as the Second Swordmaster, was someone that even pushed Trent, the First Swordmaster, nicknamed the Sword Saint, quite often to exhaustion in their spars.

‘He could do it…’

Lucius brushed away the thought as soon as it came.

For his disciple, who was still very early in his training as a magic swordsman, becoming stronger than someone called a Sword Saint, was quite a long shot.

There would be a lot of turmoil and hardship before then.

‘And then… There’s also tensions between the different kingdoms and the annual tournament of the Young Lions that is coming in the next three years…’

Lucius had a lot on his plate already, as a Swordmaster of the Empire, and one who had to constantly worry about the safety and wellbeing of the Imperial state of Affairs.

The other Kingdoms, Coalitions, and territories within the Northern Continent, were not on the best of terms, and tensions had been growing at an all-time high ever since the end of the war against the Demons and undead that had ended over five years ago.

The Young Lions tournament, was established as a way for the other races, and territories in the entire continent, to gather together and show off the potential of their strongest developmental talents, and get to socialize with the others in an amicable fashion.

But the last tournament, as it was held every four years, had happened last year, and Lucius had attended it as per his duty as an Imperial Swordmaster.

‘Perhaps…’

Lucius thought of his disciple Roy.

As a magic swordsman, many would look down on him. Even further would they look down on the fact that he was of common birth. This fact would not change no matter who was judging Roy.

Nobles of the other kingdoms and coalitions would think of him to be a fool.

‘Yet, even the Emperor seemed very happy with his development. Perhaps he could be the key to the future…’

Lucius stopped his thoughts there as suddenly, a massive storm of mana started to erupt in the surroundings.

Like a vortex, the ambient mana surrounding the man-made cave Lucius had created for their closed training, started to swirl around Roy as the center.

“Incredible…”

Lucius’ jaw dropped in awe. 

His disciple Roy, had been meditating on their trainings for only two weeks, yet it was already a time of growth.

Inside Roy’s core, his mana was fluctuating and expanding like a bungee cord.

“…”

Wordless as this process was going on, a third star started to form itself in Roy’s nebula; his mana core.

In the dark of the night, unbeknownst to anybody, a red star that floated in the night sky started to shine brighter than ever before.

Chapter 39 – Fin