Chapter 63: Learned a Body Technique

Before Alaric could think more about this issue, the Marchioness spoke.

"I heard you broke through yesterday," she said after examining him for a while. "I want a serious assessment of your current strength."

Alaric nodded, he couldn’t really deny that right? Because even if he did, it would likely be of no use.

The two of them went to the private training hall which had somehow become the busiest room in the mansion during the past few days.

Rowena removed the cloak she had been wearing and walked to the centre of the hall. "Use your weapons and fight with your full strength. I will remain on the defensive."

"You only returned today," Alaric reminded her, since he knew that her old injuries restricted the strength she could display even if she remained far beyond him.

"You cannot kill me, so stop worrying about my condition and attack properly." There was no arrogance in Rowena’s voice because she was only stating a fact.

That was enough for Alaric. He took out all twelve Starsteel knives, circulated mana through his body and threw the first one with his full strength.

Rowena moved her head aside, allowing the knife to pass close enough to disturb her hair before it buried itself deep inside the reinforced wall. Her eyes changed slightly when she heard the force behind the impact, but she said nothing.

Alaric continued with three more knives from different angles.

Rowena avoided the first, knocked the second aside with just her bare forearm and stepped around the third without leaving the small area where she had been standing.

He increased his speed and began moving around her, using one knife to restrict where she could step before sending the next toward the opening he expected her to create.

Rowena recognised his intention every time, but Alaric continued changing his attacks and forcing more mana through his arms.

Even though she defended against all the knives, Rowena’s expression gradually became more serious.

Alaric eventually closed the distance with one Starsteel knife in each hand, since continuing to throw from afar would soon leave him without weapons.

He slashed toward her side, changed the direction when she raised her arm and attempted to drive the second knife toward her shoulder.

Rowena blocked his wrist with one hand, but Alaric released the knife and caught it with his other hand before attacking again.

Her free hand moved to seize his other wrist at a speed he could barely follow.

Alaric understood what she intended and twisted away before she could catch him, then used the movement to throw the knife from less than two metres away.

Rowena caught his wrist just after the knife left his hand.

The blade passed beside her cheek and struck the wall behind her, while Alaric found himself completely unable to pull his arm from her grip.

"Enough." Rowena released him and looked around at the knives buried across the training hall. "Your throwing knives have reached Minor Mastery. Right?"

She then looked directly at him before continuing. "Your physical strength is far beyond what it should be after a recent breakthrough, and your reflexes are even more exceptional."

Alaric was pleased by the assessment, but he also noticed something strange.

Rowena had shown the same surprise toward his physical strength that she showed toward his Minor Mastery and enhanced reflexes, which meant that she hadn’t known about it.

If his unusual strength came from the treasures she had fed him while raising this body, Rowena should have expected the effects to appear after his breakthrough. Since she hadn’t, the reason had to be something else.

Alaric couldn’t think of any answer. It could be related to the System, his soul or another change he had failed to notice, but standing before Rowena wasn’t the time to investigate it, so he pushed the matter to the back of his mind.

Rowena waited until he had collected and stored the Starsteel knives before approaching him.

"Before we leave, I’ll teach you a Body Technique," Rowena said. "It is simple enough for a newly advanced Knight, and it should be useful with the way you fight."

Disregarding Alaric’s shock, she raised her right hand and began circulating mana through several channels around her forearm, wrist, palm and fingers.

The circulation pattern wasn’t very long, but the mana gathered inside her hand became so dense that Alaric could feel the pressure coming from it.

Body Technique — Mountain Grip

Rowena placed her hand around the edge of a reinforced metal target and tightened her fingers.

She didn’t appear to use much strength, but five deep impressions were left upon the metal when she released it.

"This technique concentrates physical strengthening entirely upon one hand. It will also increase your grip and finger strength to a ridiculous level, but it won’t strengthen anything beyond your forearm."

"Really? You’re going to teach it to me?" Alaric asked in disbelief. He knew how important Body Techniques were especially in this region of five kingdoms where there was barely any inheritance of Body Path.

Rowena shrugged. "No matter who you are, you did help my House Orlen tremendously. Even if I personally don’t care much about the House, your merits are still something I must recognise."

Alaric nodded thoughtfully when he heard her reasoning, and began practicing the circulation method.

Rowena repeated the circulation slowly and corrected Alaric whenever he sent too much mana through the wrong channel.

The pattern was much easier to understand than he expected, and after practising it several times, he successfully activated the technique.

Alaric grabbed the same metal target and tightened his hand. He obviously couldn’t replicate what Rowena had done, but the metal still bent slightly beneath his fingers.

This is considered a simple Body Technique?

Rowena appeared to understand his confusion. "The amount of power a Body Technique produces doesn’t decide its complexity.

"Mountain Grip does one straightforward thing, and that is strengthening your hand, so it only occupies a small amount of space within your mana channels."

She continued explaining that someone could learn many simple Body Techniques even if each of them produced powerful effects.

Complicated techniques occupied far more space regardless of their strength because they required longer circulation patterns, affected more parts of the body or produced several effects at the same time.

"You’ll feel a growing fullness inside your mana channels as you approach your limit.

"Once that happens, forcing another complicated technique into them could damage the existing patterns or prevent you from using any of them properly."

The same restriction applied to Mages and their spell models, although their limit came from the mana core instead. A Mage could construct many simple spell models or use most of their available capacity upon a few complicated ones.

"So the configuration is entirely up to you," Rowena concluded. "You can learn many specialised techniques which each perform one task, choose a smaller number of complicated techniques with several uses, or maintain a balance between both."

"Also, removing the imprint of Body Techniques and Spell Models get more difficult the more you use them, so if you don’t want to use the body technique I taught you, use your mana to wash over its imprint."

Alaric nodded while looking at his hand with satisfaction.

He had gained his first proper Body Technique, and its low complexity meant he still had plenty of space left for whatever he found at the Academy.

I’ll keep it for now.

After giving him a few final instructions, Rowena left the training hall to handle the numerous matters awaiting her attention.

Alaric returned to his room once he had practised Mountain Grip several more times, and now that no one was interrupting him with another shocking revelation or strength assessment, he could finally sort through the fucking mess he had been thinking about.