Chapter 41. A month in the village

Although when it came to training it might seem like it at first, my days in the Buena village weren't just wasted time in comparison to training in Roa.

Now that I was back in the village, I had an opportunity to do silent magic that I restrained myself from doing in the manor with everyone's eyes on me. For example, large areas of effect silent freezing magic or wind blasts. Or large area Telekinesis practice and also Stone Cannon practice that I minimized back in the manor to not damage things.

I went out to the forests, to the hills, and experimented with my magic freely.

One of those days I was slashing at mud statues with the steel sword that I received on my 5th birthday, with Paul watching over me.

Although it might sound weird, mud actually made an excellent material for dummies for sword practice.

Using solidified hardened mud like slightly-hardened clay, I created a few dummies with pillar shapes.

They offered perfect resistance. They were not easy to cut through, but they also didn't bounce the blade like wood and didn't shatter too easily like ice.

After you cut through a clay statue cleanly, it would also show the result of the cut cleanly - whether you did it well or not.

The only problem is that the edge of the sword dulled quickly, but that was the price for having a chance to practice sword slashes at something with strong resistance.

Holding a real sword, I practiced the [Longsword of Light] slashing technique basics that I learned from Ghislaine.

Before this I have already talked over the matter of my magic tutor job with Paul.

It was decided that I would stay in Roa for 3 months at a time, then come back home for 1 month.

There is no concept of a week in this world, so perhaps that's why people prefer to deal with months. Travel is also long, annoying and tiring, so it was likely another aspect why I wouldn't travel back and forth very often.

Paul seemed a bit anxious at first when he proposed that, but I agreed without a fuss. After all, the opportunities in the city are in the end better than in the village, without a doubt.

My salary is supposed to be 2 Silver Coins per month. I guess it's only something like a small monthly allowance for the sake of formalities.

I didn't complain, since as a compensation I would already be receiving an all-inclusive stay in the manor, training under Sword King Ghislaine, as well as a sponsored stay and a home tutor for Sylphiette.

…

One day, Paul told me, "It seems there were some movements in the forest! Come with me! Seeing a live scrimmage is a good learning experience!"

And so I grabbed my two Stone Cannon wands with a 5x speed modifier that I brought and went with him.

Laws reported when we got to the watchtower, "According to the marks left in the forest, it's a Terminator Boar that's been causing a disturbance recently. It also seems to have some Assault Dogs in its pack." 

"Got it. So it's a standard," Paul said. He then turned to me. "Seraph, these are the most common monsters in the Asura Kingdom. Nothing special. Just stay in the back and you'll be safe!"

"Yes."

…

Laws followed the tracks and led our group deep into the monsters' forest. The other men stayed to keep watch in the watchtower.

It seemed that the monsters did not hide their presence, but instead clearly marked their territory.

We eventually reached what seemed to be their nesting ground.

The monsters detected us and rushed out to meet the intruders.

"Grrrrrr…"

"Rrrrr…"

Two large crazed-looking muscular doberman-like dogs, growling. They're the Assault Dogs, common E-rank monsters. 

And amongst them was a huge boar-faced creature standing up on two feet similar to a gorilla. Terminate Boar - viewed as D-rank alone, but his danger level can be ranked as C or even B depending on the size of the monster pack it leads.

"Two Assault Dogs. It's good we have a chance to take them out before the pack grows," Paul lightly commented while smoothly drawing out his sword.

"We have to kill them, right?" I asked.

Laws, previously slightly anxious, looked at me as if I was retarded.

Me: "..."

It isn't that I'm slow, but I felt I had to ask first before proceeding to decimate these things into pieces!

"Y-yeah," Paul replied after a moment's lag.

Cool.

Then it's time to test my babies on real targets! On real monsters!

"Then I'll do it! Cover me!" I said, then raised my two wands at the pack of monsters. "...Fire!"

With this command, my magic power poured into the Magic Tools and my bullets immediately started raining down.

One after another, two bullets shot out from my wands.

First Assault Dog, second Assault Dog. I shot one after another in the head while they were still stationary.

Concentrating on a single target at a time, I first shot out my bullet from the first wand, then immediately after from the second wand.

One of the wands shot out spherical bullets, the other cylindrical, but both had velocity cranked up to 5x your average Stone Cannon. Both were extremely deadly.

The bullets shot out from the wand soundlessly and mysteriously made no sound as they tore through the air. The only sound that could be heard came from the target being hit and their skulls shattering.

"Grrrrrr!"

Each wand took no more than 0.5 second to power up a bullet. One second after taking out the two Assault Dogs, I switched to the huge boar which started becoming restless and began rushing at us on all fours with a grunt, then inwardly targeted a round of two bullets into its skull.

Bam, bam!

My bullets landed at the Terminator Boar's skull, and whilst beginning its four-legg charge, the monster bore to the ground head-first, carving out a small line in the earth with its heavy body before stopping.

All targets eliminated.

'Clean.'

As the boss was confirmed dead, I lowered my wands and looked at the men around me.

Paul and Laws stared at the scene with frozen expressions.

"..."

"What the…" Paul muttered.

"Huh, what just happened?..."

Before they realized it, the two monsters were already dead! And Seraph had barely seemed to have put effort into it.

"Seraph,right? What did you do?... What are these Magic Tools?" Paul asked with a faint voice, looking down at me with an expression as if he not certain how he should react.

"I made these with my Master. They're great, aren't they?"

At the two still confused men, I smiled like a kid expecting praise.

I saw Paul's excited expression before this. It seemed that he wanted to show off in front of his son.

Sorry... In my eyes the fight was a bit anticlimactic, but for the other two men they only looked at me as if scard by this killing potential; I guess this is what medieval soldiers would feel after witnessing the deadliness of a gun for the first time.

Following that, both the boar and the dogs were brought back to the butchers at the village to turn into meat that would be sold off.

Even for Paul the elephant-like Terminator Boar would be too heavy to carry, but he managed it when I surrounded us in a low-gravity zone.

Paul dragged the boar back while from time to time cutting the trees on the way, meanwhile Laws carried back the two Assault Dogs over his shoulders, also within range of the low-gravity field.

Meanwhile I focused on maintaining the Gravity Magic around us as we walked.

As we entered the village, some villagers began to stare with wide eyes at Paul who was dragging the humongous boar without a sweat.

"Good job, Seraph. Thanks for this! This way we don't have to bring butchers into the forest to cut it up and transport it piece by piece."

Paul thanked me afterward with a grin.

"No problem." I gently smiled.

I might have asked for compensation, but I'm a nice and perfect son, so of course I didn't.

Just kidding. If I was broke I might have asked, but I'm good. Back in my room in Roa I still had more than 90 gold coins left over from the reward I claimed for saving Eris.

Since we were already in the village, after dropping off the monsters at the butcher, we visited Zenith at the clinic.

Paul and Zenith immediately started sloppily kissing in public right after meeting, and Paul started grabbing her butt.

I ignored this with a heavy sigh and began to talk to the herbalist instead.

I began to read through the botanical encyclopedia these days. I didn't bother going out into the world and searching for the plants and I was only interested in learning the effects of herbs that seemed useful.

Apart from recovery herbs, there seemed to also be some other endurance and vitality boosting herbs that should not be useless for training, though I didn't get my hopes up for feeding medicine that can boost Battle Aura - if those existed, they'd have to be a heavily guarded secret.

***

Perhaps because of that one time in the forest, Paul started taking my method of training more seriously. Instead of simply moving the weights and viewing it as a play, he began training for real.

Over the month that he trained in my gym, he became a little stronger for sure. He brought more steel poles from the blacksmith and asked me to make him heavier and more weights.

His usual training so far consisted of pumping up over a hundred sit-ups or push-ups in a row, thus I attempted to drill it into his head that my training is based on doing 'low reps'.

That being said, my 'low reps' still went up to 15. It is just that in this world it's the norm to do ridiculous amounts of repetitions on exercises that are normally not a challenge to the swordsman at all.

I also considered whether it is how it's supposed to be done here, pumping up hundreds of reps and perhaps I'm the one who's in the wrong, but I rejected the idea.

Even if high-rep training works, I believe my training should be more efficient.

At a certain level of strength, like the superhuman Paul who can lift hundreds of kilograms and rival a horse in speed, a push-up is simply too easy and light! Not quite, but it could be compared to a normal person bending their arm with no weight at all for hundreds and thousands of repetitions until they become tired - just how can you train like that?

This kind of high rep training should have come from swordsmen who are used to swinging their sword hundreds of times to practice their technique, and in the end become stronger, perhaps thanks to accumulating muscular fatigue, but it doesn't mean it's the most effective.

There should probably be at least a little more resistance there.

Perhaps the weights don't need to be heavy, but I feel they should have *some* resistance.

I viewed my training ideology around this and centered my training around the hypertrophy range of 8-12 repetitions for the most part, and now I even bumped it up to 8-15 repetitions. If I end up wrong, then I'll simply have to adjust my training and increase the amounts of reps, but my training shouldn't be useless either.

As Paul took his training seriously, I also thought of taking HIS training seriously.

And that's because I became curious.

Paul was a talented swordsman during his youth and had reached Advanced rank in three different Sword Styles.

So why is it that he cannot progress further? Why is it that he never after years became a true Saint rank swordsman and never grasped the [Longsword of Light]?

According to him, he traveled with Ghislaine for years and she had already taught him the basics. He knew the stances for the Longsword of Light and how to perform it. He already had all of the know-how, but was simply unable to do it.

When I asked him, he brushed it off saying that his talent is simply not that great.

But if he had a lack of talent, then how did he reach Advanced rank at 11 years old, which should be similar to Eris in canon?

Since he asked to train with me, I put him on the ground and against a wall, and tested his flexibility. I also tested his strength using unilateral exercises.

And I think this way I discovered the reason why he failed to reach Saint rank.

Basically, Paul was pretty strong, but he was screwed up.

According to Ghislaine, in order to perform the [Longsword of Light], the young practitioners of Sword God Style from a young age are always made to practice the same amount of sword strikes with their left hand as with their right hand. The reason for that was that the strength of their two arms needs to be balanced, so the sword's tip would remain steady when performing the technique.

This is how she trains me and Eris as well.

And it's exactly this point where Paul is screwed up - his body was imbalanced. There was an imbalance in the strength and flexibility of his limbs and muscles.

It's probably something that Paul acquired during his life as an adventurer. People training routinely in a Sword God style dojo from a young age should not have these problems.

Actually, would that be the reason why there are so many North Saints and North Kings, but so few Sword Saints? [Longsword of Light] is supposed to be a straightforward technique, but very few are able to pull it off in the end.

Either way, even though the difference in the strength of Paul's two arms was not too great, which Ghislaine might have picked up otherwise, there was a difference in flexibility when the rotations ranges of both shoulders were compared.

There was also a large difference in flexibility comparing his two legs when bent at the knees and a strength difference when comparing his two legs. These affected his hips, his spine and the rest of his body.

Unless he corrects these imbalances, he would never be able to bring out the most strength out of his body. It might also be what's preventing him from executing a perfect [Longsword of Light].

Things like lack of flexibility and poor posture are very common in the modern world, so I knew just the right exercises to fix him up thanks to my experiences as a personal trainer.

I gave Paul exercises to help him return balance to his rotator cuffs, to his knees and hips.

It was a long, annoying to do and painful full-body routine of stretches and corrective exercises that took around 45 minutes if performed properly, but it was for sure effective.

I also told Paul to train his lower body unilaterally for some time to bring up his weaker leg.

I wonder if it might help him.

If it does and he reaches Saint rank, he'd owe me big time.

Actually, I kind of owe him from bringing me into this world and giving me all kinds of opportunities while I, secretly an adult, acted as his son, so let's just say we'll be even.

I gave him a billion gold coin advice that he wouldn't get from anyone else in this world. I at least hope he will take this training seriously.

***

Another time.

After learning Advanced rank Healing Magic, and after studying all kinds of Detoxification magic, I tried to give a shot at curing Lilia's injured leg.

Lilia didn't seem convinced it would work, but I told her that because I can do it silently, my Healing magic is special.

She eventually rolled up her skirt a little and allowed me a good look at her thigh…

With full professionalism, I placed my hand on her leg and tried to use silent Advanced healing magic to cure her injury.

After trying things out for a while, I was honestly not sure of the result, so I asked Lilia to stand up and try it.

Lilia stood up, then lightly stomped with her foot. Her facial expression turned into a pained grimace.

Restraining her expression after a while, she gently smiled at me and said, "Thank you, young master. It helped a little, but this kind of injury isn't easy to heal."

I let out a sigh.

I gave it one more try, but it failed again.

It seems that Advanced rank Healing magic is not enough.

I assume that the injury from the poison should have already become a part of her body.

I read in the Advanced rank Healing book that in the case of Saint rank magic, as long as the bones are in one's possession, the flesh can be fully regenerated. Perhaps Saint ranked Healing magic would do the trick.

Unfortunately I doubt I'll have a chance to learn it anytime soon.

***

Days passed by.

I did my daily strength training, sword training with Paul and with Sylphiette, teaching Sylphy magic, magic training in the woods, Magic Circle studies back at home and so on.

I often simply taught Sylphy magic in the garden, but because I often went out to practice my magic in the wild, we sometimes did it outside - that's when I taught her my 'secret knowledge'.

Using it as a chance to practice my Earth magic, I created a house for the two of us near the large tree to hide from any rain and just for some privacy and comfort.

Burying into the side of the hill and with most rooms being underground, reinforced with thick stone walls all around, it was more like a military base.

However, even though it was a military base, Sylphy still loved it. She loved the concept of 'playing a house with me', even though I didn't quite participate.

I slowly began to feel a bit bad. There was obviously no way that Sylphiette would not fall in love with.

What then?

I guess I'll have to take responsibility!

In that case, I'll have to make her do squats daily and begin to work that booty.

It sounded a bit wrong… But that was the reality. If I rejected her, I would surely completely break her heart and I feel she might never fall in love again.

Without the Mana Disaster she might also keep her green hair and be discriminated against forever. In the original timeline of canon, she was alone for her entire life, just like Roxy.

But she was cute and talented, so why not accept her?

I'm a man of culture. I like cute girls of all types and sizes.

Either way, all this was something to consider in the future.

As I trained Sylphy, I eventually also managed to teach her Disturb Magic.

But there was a small complication. Unlike me who could grasp it intuitively after one try, she had to take her time separately practicing how to disrupt each different spell.

Since it was the only difference between us, I explained it with the difference in our Laplace factors. My talent for magic was simply greater, cheat-like even.

I tried teaching Sylphy how to dual-cast spells as well, but there was no progress with it all.

For this, I didn't know any good training method, as it was the result of my natural talent, so I simply hoped that she might figure it out herself by trying to do it at a young age.

As the days passed, eventually a full month flew by…

…

[Paul's POV.]

During the month that Seraphim was gone, I played around and trained in his 'gym'.

When Seraph returned, tested me and compared with my results a month before, I became clearly stronger.

In comparison, I've been doing my usual training for years, but if you ask me, I can't really tell you whether I was improving or not… Probably not really.

I never counted my repetitions and simply did my training for the sake of doing it and staying in shape, simply pushing myself every time I trained. I did the things others told me to and what I thought was right, but I never quite put much thought in my own training myself.

Seeing that Seraph's methods were clearly effective, I decided to take my training more seriously.

I seriously asked my 5-year old son to guide me in my training once again.

Perhaps the usually proud me wouldn't be able to lower his head and do that, but I can no longer deny Seraphim's talent and shrewdness after the time in the forest.

The boy is a monster.

It isn't just smarts that he has for the sake of learning useless stuff and never putting it to use like those noble bastards, but with the things he learns, he always finds ways to use them in practice, and to a terrifyingly effective degree.

Even when it comes to physical training, his foresight shouldn't be completely wrong. 

The stretching routine that Seraph gave me was painful and annoying as hell to do, but I've got to give it a shot.

For years I have been stuck at the Advanced rank. Although my combat experience and strength rose, I've been unable to rank up.

As someone Advanced in three different sword styles and with rich combat experience I'm sometimes called to have strength 'comparable to a Saint rank', but in the end it's only 'comparable to'. I'm not a true Sword Saint.

I'm not sure how far I can advance, but if I give it my all for once, reaching Saint rank should be possible.

My son isn't conceited, so I think that if he sees his old man giving it his all, he won't laugh at me even if he ends up stronger in the end.

In the meantime, as I trained with Seraph and Law's kid, the scheduled time came for the two of them to leave for Roa.

In the letter Philip had asked me to come over because he wanted a talk with me about Seraph. Although I had my duties as the assigned knight of the village, since the town's mayor himself allowed me two days off, I guess it is fine.

Hehe, I could see it in the letter. Philip was blown away by how amazing my son is.

I can't wait to see his reactions in person.

***

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***

(AN: Because I feel that things will be getting too boring going forward and not much will happen after Eris meets Sylphy, it seems I'll make a 1 year time skip soon. I would welcome ideas when it comes to the story's development around this time period of the next ~2 years.)