”It seems this part of the training will be easy for you,” Nathan said, not surprised, as everyone knew that Asher’s intelligence was high from a young age.
“Use the circulation technique while duelling with me now,” Nathan said, holding his sword towards Asher.
“Okay,” Asher said, taking a deep breath and focusing on controlling the flow of mana. It was a bit difficult because his Mana Flow was only rank C.
Asher changed his stance, shifting his body weight to his right leg instead of his left. His crimson-red eyes were focused on his sword and Nathan. He made sure to keep his killing intent locked inside him. He would not be able to explain why his bloodlust was so high to an experienced person like Nathan.
*SLASH*
“Focus on your sword’s momentum, brat!” Nathan struck Asher, who tried to dodge but the wooden sword grazed him, leaving a wound due to the force behind the strike. Nathan’s control prevented the sword from breaking.
“Momentum,” Asher repeated Nathan’s words as he tried to understand what he meant.
After three moves, Nathan allowed Asher to attack. Unlike his previous attempts, Asher changed the tempo of his sword, mixing different tempos. He was starting to grasp what Nathan was explaining, but still didn’t understand how Nathan shifted the momentum without stopping it. His mind explored all the possibilities as he changed the way he swung his sword.
“What your eyes may see might be an illusion, brat!” Nathan deflected his sword, pushing Asher back.
“Illusion?” Asher muttered to himself, knowing Nathan wasn’t talking about illusion magic.
“What if your whole strike was a feint attack?” Nathan dropped another hint.
“Hmm…” Asher tried to swing his sword, trying various imitations. Even small things like this were increasing his sword expertise. Nathan was a little surprised to see Asher’s growth in such a short time.
Nathan was a prodigy in sword and nobody could claim the title of a Sword God instead of him. Even Asher’s talent for swords was less than Nathan but because he regressed into the past, made Nathan assume that Asher was a bit more talented than him. Even a regressor like Asher only seemed a bit more talented to Nathan when he compared him with Asher. Nathan was a true monster and this was the reason nobody in the world wanted to fight him. Although Nathan could not claim the title of the strongest human alive, even the strongest would avoid him if they could.
Asher’s area of expertise was his comprehension skills. He could walk the path of sword and mage at the same time, excelling in both. His talent made him unstoppable in many fights, but what was even more terrifying was his way of doing things.
He used mana to dope his body beyond his limits, filling the gap between him and those far stronger. He slowly killed himself to gain power. Asher’s mental and pain tolerance was very high, and even Nathan did not expect him to remain conscious the whole time. Arthur and Ivar had lost consciousness many times during this training and unfortunately could not complete it as they were not able to handle what was about to come next.
“Alright, it seems like you got the gist, but this one technique did not earn me the title of Sword God,” Nathan said, demonstrating his second technique.
He took a greatsword from the training grounds, which had all kinds of weapons to train with. He started swinging the greatsword, but what shocked Asher was that Nathan was cutting through space itself without using a space spell.
“How? This should be impossible, your main element was wind not space!!” Asher was surprised but his calmness did not break.
“Exactly but who said only space magic could cut through space itself?” Nathan questioned Asher,
“What if I create a vacuum and remove the very space around my sword, what will it pass through then?” Nathan spoke.
ƥαṇdαηθνε|
“But doing it as a spell might be possible but adding it to your sword swing is not possible,” Asher replied with what he knew from his knowledge.
“In theory, if I did such swings normally within 12 such swings even my brain would explode into a paste.” Nathan looked while he smiled listening to Asher’s reply.
“But runes can do it.” His smile grew bigger as he said those words.
“But normal runes can never achieve this-, No way Ancient Runes!?” Asher’s eyes widened as he got what Nathan was implying.
“Remember the secrets only we Elite Families know?” Nathan continued,
“Yes, the only person with such a rune is the Principal of the World Academy, who is known for his spear arts,” Asher also knew what the rune did as the disciple of this person was someone who he knew well.
“Exactly, but that spear bastard is not the only one who has it. Only he was stupid enough to let the others know to open that Academy.” Nathan laughed.
“But this rune is different from what he has, it was something my father found when he cleared an SS-Rank dungeon.” Nathan removed his shirt and channeled his rune, revealing a black dragon-like tattoo wrapping around his spine to the neck.
“This is one of our biggest secret brat, and although I cannot teach my Sword art to you if you can handle this rune, you might create a sword art that is even more powerful than mine.” Nathan channeled the rune and a small blackish orb appeared on his fingertips.
“This orb will make you fight your inner demons for your whole life whenever you rank up and it will grow with you,” Nathan explained,
“But this rune is sentient and it might not accept you like it rejected Arthur and Ivar.” The dark orb had some small tendrils coming out of it.
“You will go into a coma after you absorb it, but if you don’t come out of this state even after two weeks, I will forcefully remove the rune from your body before you become comatose for your entire life.” Nathan continued,
“The first part is a test of mental fortitude which I believe you can do but this rune will make you go through multiple mental trials. Although Arthur and Ivar failed but I did it and I believe you can also go through it,”
“But if you somehow were successful to gain the rune let me warn you, every time you increase your mana core’s rank you will go through an intense illusion of your pasts but it will be fine because from a young age you don’t have many hateful memories.” Nathan did not think that this small thing would be a major obstacle for Asher who had the memories of his previous life.
“So what do you want to do? This is a curse and blessing at the same time and the choice is yours.” Nathan looked at Asher to know his wish.
‘I didn’t know there were other ancient runes but I might not get another chance like this,’ Asher thought in his mind.
‘I can handle a little more madness if that’s the price to get stronger.’ His enemies were not weak and even in his previous life he was only able to kill half of them.
“I will go through it.” Asher agreed to assimilate with the rune.
“Hahahaaha spoken like a true Greville,” Nathan was glad.
“It could have hurt my old bones to beat some courage into your mind if you have denied this,” Nathan acted weak.
‘Is this how the rune affects your mind?’ Asher could not help but think of it.
“Clear your thoughts you ungrateful brat!” Nathan stopped his act.
“Eat this pill, this will provide you with all the energy so you don’t need to consume anything for two weeks,” Nathan gave him a nutritional pill and Asher immediately swallowed it. It was something that Hunters carried when they went into a dungeon.
“Sit down and clear your thoughts, when I give you the rune don’t give up fighting it.” Nathan instructed him as Asher sat down and closed his eyes clearing his thoughts.
Nathan took the dark orb near Asher’s forehead. The dark orb got absorbed through the skin and a strange black mark appeared on his forehead.
<Warning, External energy detected!!>
<Identifying….. [ Source – Runic ]……[ Rank – Not Detected ]>
<Does the host wants to continue(Y/N)>
Asher agreed when he saw there was nothing wrong in what the system detected.
Suddenly Asher felt his whole body getting surrounded by cold liquid, the rune got absorbed into his brain and many unknown letters started appearing on his body. He felt like he was getting trapped inside a dark place with no source of light in it. He lost his sense of touch and could not even feel anything around him anymore.
“Good luck brat, I hope you succeed…” Asher could faintly hear Nathan’s voice as he lost consciousness.
