Chapter 61: Skill Training

Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Skill Training

The official holographic acceptance letter arrived the following morning, bearing the embossed academic crest of the Central Research Institution.

The formal decree was unequivocal: the autumn academic term would officially commence on the 1st of August. With the calendar currently hovering in the middle of June, Eric was granted an unallocated window of roughly six weeks before he was required to report to the provincial capital’s gates.

"A month and a half..."

Eric leaned back into his wooden chair in the quiet attic, his fingers drumming a steady rhythm against the desk.

"Venturing back into the jagged crags of the Parva Mountains won’t yield much value at this point. Low-tier Soldier beasts barely challenge my instincts anymore, and we’ve already secured enough beast cores to sustain Coal’s core for the next three months. The real bottleneck is my personal combat mastery."

Yet endlessly swinging an iron practice blade in the packed dirt backyard of Sunshine Home was yielding diminishing returns. His physical vessel had completely consolidated at Soldier Stage Level 2, and unweighted forms felt entirely too sluggish against his refined nervous system.

"I need environmental resistance," Eric murmured, his eyes narrowing with intent. "A gravity chamber."

Tapping into the commercial district directory via his silver smartband, he filtered through the private combat centers scattered across Riverdale’s outer perimeter.

To his pleasant surprise, he located a specialized conditioning facility that maintained heavy-density kinetic suites at an accessible private rate. With the modest personal allowance he had retained after transferring the five-million-credit foundation fund to Emily, leasing a private 2.0x gravity suite for an entire month was well within his means.

"Less than half the operational fee of a double mana-infusion room," Eric noted with satisfaction. "And with my Rank C Skill Comprehension, that extra physical strain might be the exact catalyst needed to force my techniques across the bottleneck."

After spending the remainder of the evening at home playing tag with Alex and Lily and helping Emily reinforce the cedar garden fence, Eric checked into the training facility early the next morning.

The leased gravity suite was vast, austere, and built like a subterranean bunker. Reinforced obsidian-alloy plates lined the floor and walls, fitted with heavy weapon racks holding blunted practice arms and a central circular dueling platform etched with kinetic-dampening runes.

Eric approached the pedestal console, authenticated his access token, and keyed the dial directly to 2.0x Earth Gravity.

*HUMMMM.*

The atmospheric pressure dropped in an instant. A suffocating, invisible weight crashed down upon his shoulders, compressing his spine and grinding the soles of his boots hard against the alloy tiles. Every single inhalation demanded deliberate exertion from his intercostal muscles, and lifting his arms felt like dragging them through cooling tar.

"Perfect," Eric exhaled, a sharp, hungry glint flashing in his dark eyes.

He retrieved a weighted ironwood practice blade from the rack, shifted his center of gravity into a grounded stance, and began.

For thirty grueling days, Eric practically lived inside that pressurized chamber.

Every dawn, he entered the room, threw himself into the suffocating double-gravity field, and drilled his footwork sequences and cutting angles until his muscle fibers tore and his lungs burned like dry tinder.

Whenever his physical stamina bottomed out, he would drop into a lotus posture under the crushing pressure, circulating his dense liquid mana to rapidly knit micro-tears in his tissue before immediately hauling himself back onto his feet.

By the final week of July, the scene within the gravity suite had altered completely.

Under double the planetary weight, Eric no longer moved like an overburdened novice struggling against lead weights.

He moved like a dark phantom.

*SWOOSH—!*

His boots barely skimmed the alloy floor. Activating *Shadow Steps*, Eric’s silhouette dissolved into three overlapping afterimages of dark mist, carving erratic, unpredictable angles across the sparring platform. There was zero friction, zero mechanical drag, and zero wasted kinetic force.

Mid-glide, the heavy ironwood blade erupted from his centerline.

*SHING! SHLICK! WHIRR!*

The dark wood transformed into an unbroken blur of lethal geometry. Piercing thrusts morphed seamlessly into rising diagonal parries; defensive edge-deflections transitioned instantly into decapitating arcs. The air within the chamber shrieked under the compression of his swings, whipping up localized shockwaves that snapped like whip-cracks against the reinforced alloy walls.

It was fluid. It was instinctive. It was devastatingly efficient.

Eric smoothly arrested his momentum, dropping into a low, motionless finishing guard that didn’t kick up a single grain of dust.

He exhaled a long, thin plume of superheated white vapor into the chilled air.

"Status Panel," Eric commanded softly.

│ STATUS PANEL

│

│ Name: Eric

│ Race: Human

│ Cultivation Stage: Soldier

│ Level: 2 (3%)

│ Talent: Appraisal (Rank D), Skill Comprehension (Rank C)

│ Skills:

│ - Shadow Steps (Rank D) [Mastery: Major]

│ - Advanced Swordsmanship (Rank D) [Mastery: Major]

│ Contracted Beast: 1/2

"Major mastery... both of them," Eric breathed, a wide, triumphant grin breaking across his face.

The difference in performance was night and day.

At Minor mastery, his skills had been rigid, conscious techniques that required deliberate mental triggers. But at Major mastery? It felt as though his skeletal frame, nervous system, and tendons had been fundamentally recoded.

The blade arts flowed as naturally as drawing breath, every step and cut was sharper, faster, and required less than half the liquid mana expenditure.

"Looking back, what I was using during the entrance trials was essentially an unrefined rough draft," Eric chuckled softly, resting the wooden blade against the weapon rack. "If I had Major mastery back in that forest, that wind-dagger candidate wouldn’t have lasted three exchanges before eating dirt."

Wiping the sweat from his collar with a linen towel, he paused.

*If I could push these Rank D martial arts even higher... an upgrade token from the system would be invaluable.*

His eyes suddenly snapped wide.

"Wait. The gacha ticket!"

In the whirlwind of nursing his wounds, celebrating with Emily, and securing his academy admission, Eric had completely sidelined the quest reward earned from annihilating the Kharntuft swarm.

"System Inventory," he commanded mentally.

A shimmering bronze token materialized in his spiritual sea, pulsing with chaotic, multicolored light.

"Let’s see what kind of luck I’m working with," Eric grinned eagerly, rubbing his palms together. "Roll the wheel! Show me what you’ve got!"

*WHIRRRRRR!*

A colossal, spectral wheel spun violently across his consciousness. Elemental beasts, forgotten bloodlines, legendary cultivation arts, alchemical blueprints, and ancient relics blurred into a dazzling kaleidoscope of flashing hues.

The wheel’s velocity gradually decayed, ticking past Manuals... clicking over Weapons... and finally locking with a heavy click over a radiant, deep-emerald sector.

*Artifacts.*

*DING!*

│ [GACHA REWARD CONFIRMED]

│

│ Congratulations, Host!

│ Obtained: Mid-Earth Grade Artifact: Ring of Tranquility!

│ Item deposited into [System Inventory].

Eric froze. The air in his chest seized as his eyes locked onto the glowing script.

"M-Mid Earth Grade...?" Eric choked out, his voice cracking with shock.

Earth Grade! Above the common Mortal tier and standard Soldier-rank equipment lay the Earth Grade, a tier of artifacts normally hoarded by General-rank powerhouses, high-tier commanders, and noble houses. To pull an Earth-rank relic, and a Mid-tier one at that, from a bottom-tier Basic Gacha Ticket was nothing short of an astronomical stroke of fortune.

A simple, unadorned ring carved from deep cerulean jade manifested smoothly into the palm of his hand. It was cool to the touch, sending a soothing, liquid chill rippling through his skin the instant his fingers closed around the polished stone.

Eric focused his vision, pulling up the appraisal data:

│ [Ring of Tranquility]

│ Rank: Mid-Earth Grade

│

│ Properties:

│ - Mana Regeneration Rate: +50%

│ - Stamina Regeneration Rate: +50%

│ - Passive Calm: Continuously purges cognitive fatigue, disperses hostile psychic suppression auras, and neutralizes emotional agitation, preserving absolute combat clarity.

"Fifty percent mana regeneration... fifty percent stamina recovery... and an absolute ward against psychic aura suppression?!"

Eric slid the jade band onto his right index finger without hesitation.

The instant it settled against his flesh, a wave of pristine, crystalline coolness washed through his cerebral meridians. The lingering lactic burn in his calves vanished, his pulse settled into an unshakeable rhythm, and the steady circulation of liquid mana within his heart surged with astonishing vigor.

Eric stared down at the gleaming jade band, thoroughly stunned.

"Holy shit... What an absolute game-changer."