On The Way Back

After spending the rest of the day before driving the carriage, Leo only stopped the carriage at nightfall to get his daily sleep.

'Back to the 'lovely' rations…'

Having lost the comfort of his bed, Leo's first night outside after so long wasn't celebration-worthy. Moreover, as he remembered what he would have for breakfast, Leo's morning wasn't the best either.

However, it wasn't like he could complain about it. If anything, Leo could only be thankful for having lived in relative luxury for close to half a year, at the very least, he was able to get a faint taste of the palate he had greatly missed.

Looking back at the experience of living with Rain, Leo couldn't help but let out a deep breath. No matter how one looked at it, this was the most abnormal cohabitation situation that he had read about if not lived through it.

On one side was an elderly man with a shady background, always speaking in hints and puzzles without revealing much about himself. While on the other side, there was a transmigrator teenager living in the body of a child, simply accepting every abnormal thing about Rain because he more or less knew everything about him.

The synergy was one thing, but anyone who observed the last half a year was bound to be plagued with confusion.

"Well, at least I can get back to training with you buddy."

After washing away the negativity with freshwater, Leo started his day with some training on horseback according to his old routine.

Following that, Leo went ahead with his physical training which he hadn't executed normally in a while… or at least he tried to.

"I guess these weights are useless now."

After experiencing a long period of physical growth in Rain's terrace house, the 5 kg weights that accompanied Leo during his long journey no longer proved useful, only some more complicated training that required low weights could barely be done.

In a sense, after the last push that he received during his 'ascendance', Leo's current body had already caught up to his original body before he started going to the gym. Even with no indicators on it, it was a good guess to say that a value of 1 matched the physique of a normal grown human.

Although it seemed useless with Arthur's early death, one advantage Arthur had against all of his advantages was that his body responded surprisingly well to physical training.

"Is it about time I did some light close combat training?"

It wasn't exactly necessary for Leo to replace the weight training until he got Crane to make him heavier weights, in fact, he could just replace it with the light exercises that he did for warming up, but Leo had something else in mind!

All this while, he was striving to acquire the one thing that made this world special, but now that he attained it, he was finally able to look beyond it.

While Sword Breath was an unimaginable power, it had one basic flaw, it could only be used with a sword in hand. Whether it was daggers or sword-bladed spears like naginata, none of them qualified to receive the enhancement of Sword Breath. Most importantly, Sword Breath didn't follow the popular concept of being able to materialize 'Energy Blades'.

Considering that Leo didn't know when he would encounter a situation where he would be left swordless, getting familiar with a combat method other than swordsmanship was something that he only stood to gain from.

'This one seems like it would take a while as well.'

Unfortunately, even after an hour-long training session using what he read from mixed martial arts books, 'Skill Reading' didn't manage to activate just yet. Similar to 'Horsemanship', it seemed like he required some time to properly execute the moves and digest his preliminary 'Reading'.

However, Leo wasn't disappointed, rather, he was engrossed in thought towards the deeper mechanics of his ability!

So far, of all the things that he had trained, it was only when it came to 'Swordsmanship' and 'Universal Sword Breathing' that 'Skill Reading' and 'Ability Reading' were instantly activated. This specific pattern made him consider more than a few possibilities before narrowing them down to two.

Both the skill and the ability were the very first things he tried before the attributes were unlocked, but at the same time, Leo couldn't ignore the nature of this world. Since it was his ability that brought him here, could its 'branches' be affected by the world's emphasis on 'Swords'?

The first possibility was the safest bet considering it couldn't be refuted as of now, while the second was nothing but speculation. In the end, Leo knew that only time would tell…

'A preliminary confirmation is possible though.'

Having already decided to do a mix of two different routines, Leo didn't directly start his daily 'Breathing'. Instead, he proceeded to follow his traveling routine, doing an upgraded version of his normal sword training!

No longer being in a hurry to pass the powerless 'Accumulation Phase', it was finally time for Leo to start his advanced sword training! It was finally the moment that Leo awaited, hoping to advance his 'Swordsmanship' that remained stuck for almost half a year!

However…

"So it isn't specifically sword-related 'Reading'?"

Despite spending an equally long hour trying out the sword technique that he held back on for so long, 'Skill Reading' didn't directly activate according to his speculation…

However, at the same time, Leo knew that through this hour, he hadn't connected his sword movements correctly. Furthermore, he failed to pair it correctly with the footwork that he could execute with relative ease.

In the end, he couldn't really confirm whether he failed to re-enact the technique correctly, thus disallowing the 'Sword' specialty of this world from triggering, or if it was because it wasn't the first activation.

Regardless, Leo wasn't exactly in a hurry to know, rather, he enjoyed the process of linking everything together according to Rain's book. He might fail now, but he awaited the moment of successfully activating 'Skill Reading'!

If the technique was as hard as to be incorrect despite his preliminary 'Reading', then he was looking forward to his skill after fully mastering it!

"I have got a long way home anyway."

In contrast to being disappointed, Leo immediately sprung into 'Sword Breathing'. While it was hard to do the same number of sets after sword training, doing six sets over the next hour seemed doable.

Just like that, Leo's journey continued as the days passed, drawing closer to his destination and training results all the same…

On the day Leo finally caught the town's shadow from afar, a new change took place in his 'Personal Book'!