Two

Before starting, Leylin took a look at his stats.

[Stats Window

HP: 100%

SP: 100%

MP: Locked

STR: 0.4

AGI: 0.5

VIT: 0.4

Life span: 100 years

]

HP should be the health points, while SP should be stamina points... Everything looks very self explanatory, but what about this life span thing? Why is it showing up on the stats screen?

Seeing as he wouldn't get any answers, he could only keep his doubts to himself. Making sure to remember those numbers, he started practicing the breathing technique.

First, start by holding your breath for about a minute. After that release all the accumulated air slowly enough so that you almost suffocate at the end, when that happens, take another large mouthful of air. Rinse and repeat.

Funnily, life force was very difficult to stimulate, knights who had experience wouldn't have trouble with it, but newbies would have a hard time doing it, with less fortunate people never being able to. The idea is to simulate a possible death repeatedly till your life force was stirred so much that its presence inside you becomes palpable to the point that you can feel it.

Although you can become stronger without feeling the life force, you would never surpass the level of a preparatory knight since you can't use your life force in conjunction with your killing arts.

The issue with doing that, is that it causes severe damage to one's organs, specially the lungs, heart, and the brain due to continuous deprivation of air.

Rich noble families could just spend hundreds of golds monthly with expensive medicine to offset the damage of the first years of training. The weaker ones could only do with training their breaths for a small amount of time and being very careful at that, or they risk getting their bodies damaged permanently.

Another addition to it, is that one can increase the chance of feeling their life force by standing in some specific position. It's like pretending to be a Jojo character to get stronger. Well, better than shaving one's heads.

The Farlier's technique required one to adopt the horse stance while practicing. And so, after practicing for what felt like a million years, Leylin coughed up blood and collapsed on the ground. With trembling hands, he put his hand on his chest and felt shivers crawling up his skin as he felt his heart beating like crazy.

On his stats screen, it was even clear how dangerous that action of his was.

[Stats Window

HP: 50% (Time to recover: 50 minutes)

SP: 89%

MP: Locked

STR: 0.405

AGI: 0.505

VIT: 0.405

Life Span: 100 years

]

His HP had been reduced by half and he wasn't even sure how long it took. Was he beaten half to death by just training?! Leylin couldn't help but feel scared!

Just as he stood up, he noticed that the sun was already rising from the east.

"Shit... did I train all the way till morning?" Thinking about his memories about the book, he couldn't recall exactly but the improvement of the original Leylin was about the same as his. What made this even more amazing was the fact that he was still a complete newbie who couldn't even feel his own life force. When he gets more proficient at it, he will definitely start improving faster than him.

Smiling foolishly, he limped back to the camp.

On the way there, many people looked at him and his bloodstained clothes and misunderstood something.

"Hey, look at him. Do you think he was beaten up again yesterday?"

"Of course, why would there be blood on him and his clothes if not? Moreover, seen how hunched over his back is? He can't even walk properly, I'm pretty sure they decided to beat him again."

The people who originally beat him up all looked at each other in confusion. What is this? Did any of us do that?

Although nobody said anything, the others thought that at least one of them went and gave Leylin another lesson.

Truthfully, they had been talking about beating him up again today but since someone already did it wouldn't be right for them to do it again, least they kill someone and get punished by the black cloaked people.

Not knowing the benefits of almost killing himself, Leylin hopped into the carriage and took a seat in the corner as they would depart very soon.

When the magi and their Knights announced that they were leaving and everyone went inside their carriages, the kids in the same carriage as Leylin couldn't help but frown and cover their noses.

What the hell is this smell? Did the person who beat him also throw him on a pile of horse shit?!

Feeling like vomiting they all gathered on the other end of the carriage while disdainfully looking at him. The smell was bad, but it must be even worse for the source of it. Right? Wrong, Leylin didn't even notice it.

On the other hand, he couldn't help but give them a confused stare. What happened?

Half a day later, during their next stop. Leylin was about to leave the camp to take a bath in a nearby river when he was stopped.

When he turned over, he expected to see the scarred man as he thought that things would be like the books, but to his surprise, it was actually Lady Angelia!

"Brat, what are you doing? Sneaking under our watch?"

Feeling the anger in her voice, he felt shivers going up his spine as his body shook with fear. "N-no, Lady Angelia! I wouldn't dare! It's just that I'm dirty and need to clean myself!"

"Dirty?" Taking a sniff from afar, Lady Angelia instantly recognized the smell and nodded. "Indeed, you smell like shit. Whatever, if you go too far, good luck on coming back alive, we won't help."

Turning around, Lady Angelia left without thinking much.

The knights that had been following her, however, couldn't help but give the kid another look. He was so old but could still expel impurities? What a talent!

Little did they know that it was Leylin's first time training. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been surprised.

Thanking his lucky star, he hurriedly left to search for a river.

...

Leylin quickly noticed how abnormal the Recovery talent was. It's almost as if your body was forever and ever pumped with all kinds of medicines. Headache? He could beat his head against a tree and wouldn't feel shit. Cuts? Recently he fell from a large rock and had cuts all over his body, they disappeared in ten minutes. Bruises? He couldn't remember the last time they appeared in his body. Moreover... He could also train much more than just once per day!

Ever since that day, he has trained so much that he could even stop just before getting injured to the point of coughing up blood.

After a month of training all of Leylin's stats had undergone a massive change.

[Stats Window

HP: 100%

SP: 67%

MP: Locked

STR: 1.9

AGI: 2.0

VIT: 1.9

]

Unfortunately, as all of his stats neared 2.0, it soon became clear that they wouldn't advance any more than that. Maybe it was a matter of the limit of his family technique, or it was because he had yet to ignite his life energy.

If he was to precisely describe the issue... hmm, it was like being a saint of Athena of the Bronze rank. I have cosmos energy and can do some interesting shit, but I don't have the seventh sense so it isn't worth shit against those that have.

On his talent screen there was also a new addition.

[Talent store:

TP: 9

Recovery [Rare] Lv 1

Cost: 1000

Revision [Rare]

Cost: 30

Knight Lv 1

Cost: 10

]

For some reason the description of the talents disappeared after his first purchase. He tried everything but they wouldn't come back no matter what he did which led him to think that maybe it was only for the first purchase.

Other than that he also spent 1 point to acquire the Knight talent.

Thanks to it, he has been improving rapidly on various aspects.

One of which being his mastery of the cross blade technique.

During the night, in a place where they couldn't be seen by the other acolyte candidates, the sound of metal colliding could be heard.

A sword swept down and was parried to the side as both warriors kicked the ground, jumping away from each other.

"Heh, you're getting quite proficient at this."

"Well, if not for having a good teacher, I would still be swinging wooden sticks stupidly on the forest."

Laughing, the two of them rushed at each other with their swords ready. George struck from the side and Leylin sidestepped, using the rebound to strike back with even more force!

George, however, had years of experience and wouldn't be defeated by just that, pulling back his arm, he held the sword with both hands, making the two swords slide against each other with enough force to produce sparks before the cross guard stopped them both from moving any further.

Seeing this, Leylin couldn't help but feel disappointed. He thought that this killing move he came up with would be enough to defeat George, but alas.

Seeing the disappointed look on his face, George smirked. "Why are you so disappointed? If I hadn't seen your moves a month ago, I'd think that you were tricking me just so you could give me a beating."

"Tsk, I tried so hard to come up with a sure win move but you countered it just like that!" Leylin complained as he pulled back his sword and sheathed it.

George did the same but shook his head in the process. "I already told you, I have years of training. I already fought with people who used similar techniques. It's not that I predicted you or something, I just already knew how to fight that move."

Nodding, Leylin couldn't help but take his hat off for the boy. He doubted people of his previous life would have been able to win even a fist fight against him. Unlike the peaceful times of modern society, this medieval world was plagued by the threat of death and so, people here had to know how to fight for real and that meant they had to know how to kill people and survive in the process.

What's the use of MMA when a spear head pierces your brain or an arrow pierces your lungs? Before you could make any fancy movement, you would already be dead in some gruesome way.

"Still, are you sure it is a good idea to trade your things for a sword?"

By things, George meant the expensive cloth and some jewelry he brought with him.

"Of course... I was so dumb not to practice cross blade techniques since I was young that I didn't even bring one with me. Now that it's clear how dangerous it is without one, I don't mind becoming poor if it means I can protect my life."

George snickered hearing those words. "Protecting yourself? More like enacting vengeance on the weak."

Leylin also smiled at that.

Although a month had passed, the plague known as Bessita had managed to make most of the acolyte candidates still avoid him and give

him looks of disdain and disgust.

Among which there was a group of five that was especially keen at messing up with him. Ourin, their leader, was even among the group of people that gave Leylin such a hard beating that someone could transmigrate into his body.

To enact his revenge, Leylin had made sure that there would be no issues by training till reaching the absolute limit of his abilities. With the body of a peak preparatory knight, he doubted that he would fail even when facing the five together. But, of course, he wouldn't be playing against them on even grounds. Against enemies, all that mattered is to win.