Chapter 234: The Strength He Couldn’t Use

The training ground was quiet one moment, then—

Bam!

A thunderous impact rang across it as Ravian’s fist struck Karius’s open palm. He had not held back this time. The force ran up his arm, and he felt it pass into his master’s hand without driving the man so much as a step backward. His wooden sword remained in his other hand, momentarily forgotten; this blow had been meant to answer the question Karius had asked in his office about the strength of Ravian’s body.

Ravian sprang back and studied his master’s expression. It was almost exactly what he had expected: Karius’s eyes had widened with a trace of shock and confusion, and he was staring at the palm that had received the blow. Only after a moment did his gaze rise to Ravian.

"What was that, Ravian?"

Ravian tilted his head, wearing a smile deliberately chosen to annoy him.

"Come on, old man. Don’t tell me that already hurt."

Karius showed neither anger nor the irritation Ravian had expected. Instead, he looked down at his palm again, then back at his disciple, as though one more glance in either direction might explain the force he had just felt. He did not invite Ravian to strike a second time, which told Ravian more about how seriously he was taking the first blow than any compliment would have.

"Ravian," Karius said.

Ravian heard the change in his voice and welcomed it. He did not enjoy concealing his strength from everyone, and he especially needed his master to understand its limits; otherwise, Karius might keep him away from places Ravian could now survive. If revealing too much provoked an unexpected reaction—unlikely as that seemed—he wanted it to happen while there was still time to return to the beginning of the day and choose different words. Once the next day began, the chance to undo this conversation would vanish.

That was the calculation behind his decision: test what he needed to know now, even at a risk, and avoid spending more than one regression correcting it. It did not make Karius’s silence pleasant, but Ravian had come to the camp prepared for a worse reception than this.

"How did you obtain this power, Ravian?"

A faint white gleam returned to Karius’s eyes. His disciple’s loyalty was no longer in question; he had settled that at the gate. What troubled him now was the possibility that Ravian had paid a terrible price for his strength, one that a young man determined to appear unharmed might choose to conceal.

Ravian saw the white and understood what the question sought. He looked down at his fist, closing it slowly while he considered the simplest answer he could give, then met his master’s gaze.

"Don’t worry, Master. I didn’t rely on anyone else for this. It’s all the result of my own efforts."

The gleam faded from Karius’s eyes once more, leaving their natural color behind. What Ravian had said was true, and a broad, proud smile spread across his master’s face. Ravian was glad to see it, though the return of the white light had done little to ease his private questions about where Karius’s ability had come from.

"This is sheer madness," Karius said. "If we’re speaking of physical strength alone, that blow could crush an Eighth-Rank opponent."

Ravian nodded, but he heard the condition clearly. The Eighth Rank was not measured by physical strength alone, and the bodies of the Awakened had never been the deciding factor in most fights. The power they could call upon from within—mana or aura—usually mattered far more.

He knew it from experience. His new body could deliver a blow capable of mangling an Eighth-Rank enemy, but reaching that enemy was another matter; an aura-clad blade or a sufficiently powerful fire spell from a Soul Liberator could still inflict grave injuries if it struck him directly. The orc commander had already shown him how little good strength did when he could not choose the moment to use it.

That made him want an answer from the person standing in front of him.

"In your opinion, Master, who would win if Malrik and I fought?"

His eyes shone as he spoke, and Karius recognized the look. It was hunger for power, sharp enough that a simple assurance would never satisfy him.

"You would lose."

Ravian waited for an explanation that did not come.

"Huh?" He frowned. "Why are you so certain? I’m confident in my strength. If my fist connects, I can seriously injure anyone at the Eighth Rank."

Karius let the outburst pass. He turned the wooden sword in his hand, studying it with such concentration that Ravian began to suspect he was being ignored on purpose.

"You’re right," Karius said at last. "You’re undoubtedly stronger than Malrik."

"Exactly. That’s what I was trying to—"

"But you would still lose," Karius cut in.

Ravian stared at him flatly.

’This old man is making fun of me on purpose, isn’t he?’

"Hahaha. Before you give me that look, boy, let me explain."

Karius advanced until barely a meter separated them and raised the wooden sword before his face. It was a simple movement, yet the weapon came to rest with an ease and certainty that made Ravian pay closer attention. Every part of his master seemed ready to move without first having to settle into place.

"What the hell am I looking at now?" Ravian asked.

"Try to copy my stance."

Ravian studied Karius’s feet. One stood ahead of the other, and the rear foot was planted to support a drive forward without surrendering balance. He followed the angle of the knees and the way the shoulders aligned with the raised sword. Nothing about the posture looked elaborate, yet it bore the mark of a man whose hair had grayed through battles and the soldiers he had killed. An ordinary eighteen-year-old could not hope to reproduce what years of fighting had made natural to him.

Ravian, however, could at least reproduce what his eyes could see. With Absolute Focus, he fixed each visible detail in his mind and shifted his feet, straightened his shoulders, and raised his sword until his stance matched Karius’s almost exactly. From where he stood, he could see no difference in their positions.

Karius watched him work. Ravian had copied within seconds a posture that had taken Karius days to learn and years to make his own, and a faint smile touched the older man’s lips.

"Damn genius."

Yet there was no triumph in his voice, and Ravian could tell that his master still thought he had missed the point.

’There’s more to it, then?’

"Now try attacking me from that stance," Karius said, smiling mockingly.

Ravian almost asked why he needed permission to do something so obvious. His sword was raised, his opponent stood within reach, and he could move faster than he ever had before.

...So why did he hesitate?

’What’s going on?’

He checked his feet and shoulders again. They were where Karius’s had been, down to the smallest angle he could observe, but when he tried to send his weight into the sword, the posture no longer felt like a place from which he could attack. His body wanted to straighten, his rear foot pressed in the wrong direction, and the moment he forced the swing, his balance slipped.

Clack!

His sword met Karius’s with a feeble strike, as though he had spent a month without food before coming here to swing it.

"Heh. That was terribly weak," Karius said.

Ravian felt the veins at his temples throb. He could have endured that sort of mockery from an enemy on the battlefield, yet hearing it from this old man made him want to swing again before Karius had even lowered his weapon.

He did. Then he tried again, and again, until he had attacked ten times. On the first attempts he lost his balance the moment he moved the sword; on the later ones, he began making small corrections before each swing. Eventually, he found a way to strike with enough force to make the wooden blades meet properly, but the power behind it still did not reach half of what his body could produce.

Worse, he could feel exactly where the rest of it was being lost. His arm moved before his feet could support it, or his feet drove forward while his shoulders held the sword back. Absolute Focus let him notice each mistake with painful clarity, but noticing it after the swing began did not recover the force he had already wasted. The posture he had copied was perfect while he stood still; he did not yet know how Karius moved through it.

"Fighting style," Karius said, finally giving a name to what he had been demonstrating. "You don’t have one, Ravian. What you rely on is overwhelming physical strength in its rawest form, without any real understanding of how to use it. If you had a fighting style suited to your body, your attacks could carry several times their present force."

Ravian looked down at the wooden sword, then at his hand. He had spent so much time thinking about how much stronger that hand had become that he had barely considered how much of its strength failed to reach whatever he struck. Now the failure had a shape he could feel every time he moved.

Karius lifted his own sword before his face and closed his eyes. His breathing settled, and Ravian held still to watch, aware that the lesson was not yet over.

Whoosh!

White aura spread around the wooden blade with lightning speed. Dense but calm, it trembled like a ray of light while forming an edge sharper than the finest metal. It extended only a short distance from the wood, but Ravian could sense how firmly Karius held it there; it would remain for as long as he willed it to.

The sword itself did not shudder by so much as a hair’s breadth. Aura raced over its surface and enclosed every part of it without tearing the wood apart or dragging its wielder’s arm out of position. Ravian remembered the sword in his own hand almost slipping when he had tried to use a fraction of his bodily strength from the wrong stance. Karius had brought another kind of power into his weapon while keeping even its smallest movement under control.

This was the Dmitri family’s Moon Knight Sword Art.

Karius opened his eyes, looked at Ravian’s wooden sword, and gestured toward it with his chin.

"Now, try copying this."