The First Awakening

A battle cry echoed through the forest. Andrew had slain yet another beast, one of hundreds he had kept in his storage ring. A month had passed, and slowly but surely, he felt himself getting stronger. Still, his storage ring was almost full already, and he decided to go back to the border town to exchange beast cores for silvers.

He went back to the forest and continued to slay the beasts, undergoing his intense training. Yet that day, as he fell into a deep sleep, something unusual happened.

Andrew awoke in this middle of the night, finding himself in a red world. It expanded outwards to infinity - as far as he could see, it had no limits. Yet observing the scenery was the least important thing to him right now, as flames were dancing on the ground of this red world, scorching his legs. Andrew screamed.

The ground shook. A large, godly figure appeared in front of Andrew, exuding undefeatable might. Its mere presence gave out an aura that forced Andrew to instinctively kneel, making his knees scorched by the flames as well. The giant figure looked at Andrew, and in that moment, Andrew noticed his red, furious eyes. Those eyes were the same as his when he used his innate divine art.

Upon making this observation, Andrew felt his body melting. The fire was getting too hot. He blacked out.

Back in the real world, Andrew woke up in a cold sweat, hyperventilating. He had never experienced death before. Questions poured in his mind - who was that giant? What was that world? Why are his eyes so similar to mine?

But Andrew suddenly felt strong. A surge of power coursed through his body, and he felt the urge to swing his sword.

"Arrgh!!"

Andrew's sword slammed against a tree, and felled it cleanly with one strike.

This sword technique…Whistling Sword…

The second level of Whistling Sword appeared in Andrew's mind. He had already learnt the first level, and this past month, his progress on the second level was quite small.

Yet he understood it now. The second level was to create phantom afterimages of sword strikes, faking the opponent out, while putting more power into the original three strikes from the first level. It was multiple times as lethal.

Andrew practised this constantly throughout the night, in maniacal enlightenment. When morning came, all trees within a fifty metre radius were completely felled, left with just their stumps. Only then, Andrew collapsed to the ground.

He awoke two days later. Thankfully, he was unharmed and no beasts had approached him.

What the hell happened to me…Andrew thought.

When I was in that frenzy…my stamina and strength was insane. And I couldn't stop myself as well.

Trying the second form of Whistling Sword, Andrew found that he had already mastered half of the second level - that was a mind-boggling result in one day, given that he had made little progress with one month.

Hmm…I think it has something to do with my innate divine art. Let me try using it on a strong beast, Andrew murmured to himself.

He creeped deeper inside the forest, to where the Tier-2 Magical Beasts were. He had tried using the innate divine art before, and found that it would kill Tier-1 Beasts instantly, while stunning Tier-2 beasts for quite some time. Besides that, its other use was to allow Andrew to see in slo-mo all the weak points of the opponent. Of course, there were downsides to it - after using the divine art, Andrew would become completely exhausted. If his opponent was not dead, his only choice would be to retreat.

Andrew was very cautious this deep into the forest - he knew Fredrick was not here, and if he expended all his energy, he would have to rely on the last resort - his amulet - for protection. That was something he did not want to do.

After silently sneaking for a while, he found a rhino-type beast. Its defence looked to be quite good, even for Tier-2 beasts. This would be Andrew's first guinea pig.

Activate!!

Andrew's eyes turned red. A chilling aura was sent towards the rhino, and it turned its head, trying to spot the enemy. It managed to do so quite easily, as Andrew purposely made himself obvious. The rhino stared in his eyes, and was stunned.

Andrew made a mad dash for the rhino, using the second level of Whistling Blade to penetrate its hide. After all, it was completely without resistance now. However, Andrew's strongest blade strikes only made small wounds on the tough rhino, even when his divine art allowed him to see the rhino's weak points.

Dammit. I bit off more than I can chew. This rhino's probably a peak Tier-2 beast.

Andrew fled into a nearby bush, wanting to see how long it took for the rhino to break out of the stun induced by his divine art.

Five…six…seven…

The rhino shook its body angrily, and its prey nowhere in sight, it simply went about its day.

Seven seconds for a peak Tier-2 beast!

This stunning skill was strengthened by leaps and bounds. Andrew was now 100% confident that he had an awakening the night when he awoke in the red world. Seven seconds was enough for experienced swordsmen to deal hundreds of strikes.

Andrew also noticed that since then, his talent also improved considerably - he attributed this to the divine art's evolution. What else could it be? This eye-type innate divine art…this was not a simple one. All the more, Andrew knew that he could not reveal this to anyone else.

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After a few more months, Andrew had made enough money to pay back the "debt" he owed Fredrick. From then on, he was a free man.

After eight months passed since the beginning of his training, Andrew had finally managed to slay a Tier-2 beast by himself. He had completely mastered the movement technique, able to use it without any exertion now. He had finally advanced past his naive Sword Novice self, and entered the Sword Apprentice realm, just one step of the thousand-mile path to getting stronger.