Chapter 19: The Source of Fighting Spirit
Two longswords clashed against each other at high speed. Wang Yu's opponent continuously moved about in a consistent rhythm.
Wang Yu handled his longsword deftly, as if it were weightless. Though he attempted to thrust it at his opponent at all sorts of difficult angles to block, his opponent's nimble, fluid movements allowed him to parry and sidestep with ease.
He didn't even need to move his body; deft footwork coupled with the slightest tilt allowed him to easily neutralize Wang Yu's attacks.
The most frightening part about Wang Yu's opponent wasn't even his speed, but his strength that shone through each and every motion.
The slightest flick with the tip of his sword was enough to forcibly halt Wang Yu's full-body attack.
"Not bad. The goal of swordsmanship isn't to transform all your actions into productive attacks, but rather to teach you how to block fixed attacks in the simplest possible manner. If your strength and speed were absolute, then simply reacting to your opponent's motions would be the simplest and most powerful strategy. It's precisely because no one has absolute strength and speed that swordsmanship is important. At any rate, well done. You're adept with what you've learned. Your arm can be a little more stable; as for strength, rather than your upper arm, move your entire shoulder instead for a faster and stronger attack."
Wang Yu's opponent was Garcia, a grand knight.
Sparring against a grand knight was an incredible opportunity for a squire.
Even if Wang Yu attacked at full strength, he wouldn't be able to harm the knight whose physique was at least ten times stronger than his own.
A month passed by in the blink of an eye. Garcia and Lilya, who had returned after completing their respective affairs, dedicated themselves to Wang Yu and Avia's training.
Lilya was responsible for mentoring Avia, but in truth she was rarely seen. She spent the bulk of her time in her laboratory, leaving Avia and Wang Yu to explore the art of wizardry on their own. They grumbled, but Wang Yu was confident that anyone bound to become a grand magician would have had to do so regardless.
Given Avia's talent, freeform exploration might well be the best choice for her.
Garcia was far more reliable a mentor. Not only would he spar with Wang Yu daily, he was happy to teach Wang Yu about the path of knighthood.
Garcia critiqued Wang Yu's training regimen as adequate for self-study but completely useless for a real knight.
He demonstrated to Wang Yu how to agitate and excite the muscles all over his body with just his fighting spirit alone. Wang Yu was shocked: the technique was multiple times more effective than the physical conditioning he had been doing to date.
Simultaneously, he realized that far more was possible in this world of might and magic than back on Earth, and that his past experience wouldn't be completely reliable.
Garcia, casually blocking Wang Yu's full-strength blows while giving Wang Yu pointers on his stance and swordsmanship, grew more and more satisfied with his trainee.
Wang Yu wasn't bad when it came to training as a knight. Though his intuition was hardly worth mentioning compared to Avia's monstrous talent, he picked up what Garcia taught him quickly.
Most importantly, Wang Yu dedicated himself to all aspects of his training.
His hardworking behavior gratified Garcia. Those squires who had the conviction and fortitude to work hard were the most likely to succeed in the long run, especially on the demanding path of knighthood.
Garcia flicked away Wang Yu's longsword and suddenly sheathed his blade. He rapped at Wang Yu's head with his scabbard—not with too much force, but his overwhelming physique meant that the attack occurred with frightening speed.
This was a little joke of sorts between him and Wang Yu—a sudden attack to test Wang Yu's ability to respond to surprises. Never dropping his guard was a key principle that Wang Yu had to learn to become a knight.
Wang Yu clearly saw Garcia's attack coming. His eyes widened, and he began to move his feet.
Even with his ripple ability boosting his reflexes, his lacking physique made the blow difficult to avoid.
A thought crossed his mind. In the blink of an eye, he decided to act.
Void energy brimmed as the water level of the glossy lake in his mindscape suddenly dipped down to its original height.
The scabbard whizzed by Wang Yu's ear and struck his shoulder. Garcia had controlled his strength precisely so as not to hurt Wang Yu, but the pain might remain for quite some time.
Upon witnessing Wang Yu's emotionless face, Garcia pursed his lips. Wang Yu's willpower was truly incredible.
Garcia couldn't help but be reminded of his own training, in which his mentor's sneak attacks had left him yelping and wincing in pain. Wang Yu's lack of emotion made the exercise far less entertaining from his perspective.
That said, he was interesting in his own right. He was pleased by the fact that Wang Yu had even managed to react in time; he had even sped up in order to strike Wang Yu anyway. One reason was to get him accustomed to taking hits—and another was that his mentor had done it to him, so he would do the same with his disciple.
Even so, Wang Yu had managed to dodge. Though Garcia wasn't using his full strength, Wang Yu's success was praiseworthy.
Wang Yu's body seemed to have shifted to a small degree, though one readily apparent to someone with Garcia's senses as a grand knight.
It was that small shift that had allowed Wang Yu to evade the blow. "You used wizardry, didn't you?"
Despite phrasing it as a question, Garcia was all but certain.
"I did. It was the first time I used that technique. Garcia, you really shocked me."
Wang Yu nodded as he recalled how he had felt while using the technique, both to memorize it and to figure out what he could optimize.
"Your reaction speed isn't bad. Knights who can use wizardry have a whole new repertoire of tools in their arsenal during a fight. Just what did you do?"
Garcia shook his head. Even as a grand knight, he was almost envious of Wang Yu's ability. The flexibility that wizardry offered Wang Yu was enormous.
Being able to execute all sorts of strange abilities in battle…
"I… stopped time?" Wang Yu frowned. Even he didn't quite seem to believe himself.
"You stopped time?!"
Garcia was astonished. After all, temporal stasis was an eighth-tier spell, one that would stop time for everyone but the caster for a single minute. Even a grand mage would have to chant for half an hour to use this spell that was on the level of a forbidden curse.
Though there were methods available to reduce the casting time, they would only make casting the spell even more difficult than it already was.
"For just a brief instant," Wang Yu clarified, after some thought.
Garcia nodded. He too thought back to what he had observed. As Wang Yu had stated, his "temporal stasis" was a far weaker version of the corresponding spell.
As far as he could tell, the effect had only persisted for perhaps a twentieth of a second, and it was incomplete at that.
"I set a lot of restrictions. It would only target you, and it would last only until my void energy was depleted. Even then, it only lasted for a brief instant," Wang Yu explained.
The power of wizardry to distort reality was doubtlessly impressive, though it required a commensurate expenditure of power.
Even a hundred Wang Yus working in tandem might not have been able to realize temporal stasis at the level of the advanced spell, but when Wang Yu imposed severe restrictions on the effect, the expenditure would decrease proportionally as well.
Though it had drained him of all his void energy, he had "succeeded" in truth.
"Only you can do something like this. No other wizard would dare, but what you've done is excellent. You're clearly thinking about how to integrate your various skills together." Garcia now had a good idea of what Wang Yu had done.
He had a vast library of knowledge thanks to his experience, and he had spent a long time with a mage and grand wizard like Lilya. As a result, he had picked up on a large quantity of information in fields not adjacent to his own.
Wang Yu's technique was something no other wizard could emulate. Wang Yu could easily drain his mental energy and void energy at will, but for any other wizard to do the same would be a death sentence. If they did so, the void would quickly corrupt them, resulting in virtualization or even death.
Wizardry lasted until its effect was complete or the wizard was drained of magical power.
Only Wang Yu was able to safely access the latter condition, allowing him to be much more cavalier in his use of wizardry.
Though his manipulation of reality was far weaker than the magician's spell of temporal stasis, that brief moment of respite had allowed him to avoid a strike to the head that would have been lethal in actual combat.
Wang Yu nodded to himself. He was satisfied with his version of the spell, at any rate. "Though it's far weaker, it's hardly useless."
As Wang Yu trained in wizardry, he would be able to increase the spell's effect or duration.
"Very well done. Your battle acumen is impressive. Your physique should have reached the 1.2x threshold required to advance, according to your standards. Can you still not condense a seed of fighting spirit?"
"Not yet. My body doesn't seem to produce fighting spirit on its own." Wang Yu shook his head with some exasperation.
"How can that be? You should have been able to after reaching your 0.9x threshold. Why is it that you still can't produce fighting spirit?" Garcia frowned. "It might be related to your body. I've heard of others having this rare issue as well, but I'll have to review the archives as far as finding a solution goes."
Wang Yu's physique had reached the 1.2x threshold he had been hoping to achieve a month after using the training technique that Garcia had taught him. He was quite a bit stronger than before, and he was officially at the level of a knight-in-training—save for the fighting spirit that he couldn't seem to produce.
Garcia mentioned that such rare cases did exist, but Wang Yu couldn't find any such mention in the archives.
It was commonly understood that, beyond a certain level of physique, fighting spirit would naturally condense.
Garcia's intention to "review the archives" really meant that he would consider Wang Yu's situation himself and reflect on it based on what information he knew. From this alone, Wang Yu had to admit that Garcia was an excellent teacher and mentor.
"How can this be? According to this world's principles, fighting spirit is essentially an upgraded form of stamina, and it should be something that the body automatically produces at a certain level of physique… Fighting spirit, qi, chakra—I still find it hard to believe that this sort of thing really exists. I don't know how to sense and feel it, either… How am I supposed to produce it naturally?" Wang Yu murmured to himself.
"But people who haven't manifested fighting spirit of their own can't sense it either. Just how did they do it? Hold on. What if people here have evolved to produce fighting spirit? If they really do produce it automatically after reaching a certain level of strength… I can't ignore this possibility. I transmigrated with my very own body, after all. If the problem is with my body…"
Wang Yu's body had been exactly the same as in his past life, albeit ten years younger.
As far as he was aware, it was no different from the body of his memories.
Fighting spirit didn't exist on Earth; even if his body was currently acclimatizing to whatever this world was like, surely it couldn't produce fighting spirit out of nowhere.
Synthesizing Wang Yu's own understanding, what he had read in the archives in the academy, what Avia had taught him, and Garcia's discussions on the matter, Wang Yu came to the conclusion that fighting spirit was an evolution of one's body that happened naturally upon reaching a sufficiently advanced physique. It was energy at a level beyond that of fat, sugar, glucose, and the like.
There was no need to put it in such scientific terms, in principle.
To the people of this world, fighting spirit was just a form of strength that could be unlocked after sufficient training. To Wang Yu, however, this wasn't a helpful interpretation.
"My body can produce fighting spirit. It just doesn't know how to do so yet." Wang Yu rubbed at his lower jaw as he considered how to resolve his conundrum.
"If I can just obtain a source of fighting spirit, I should be able to manipulate it easily, but…"
Internally, fighting spirit was produced in the form of a vortex within the lower abdomen.
A knight with damage to that part of the body would be unable to produce or manipulate fighting spirit. The first vortex of fighting spirit generated by a beginner was known as a seed, or source, of fighting spirit.
The core requirement for advancing from a squire to a knight-in-training was the production of a seed of fighting spirit.
Wang Yu's condition was rather special. His physique was well past the required threshold, but no seed had spawned.
"My body's acclimating to this world. If I can let it sense what fighting spirit is, perhaps it'll be able to produce it on its own… But how?"
Fighting spirit was somewhat like blood. Different people had different blood types, and you couldn't infuse fighting spirit from one person into another.
Doing so might result in death or crippling injury, and Wang Yu had no intention of allowing that to happen.
"It's a paradox. How can I sense fighting spirit without any of my own? And if I can't sense fighting spirit, I won't learn how to produce it, either. Doesn't that mean I'll be stuck without fighting spirit?" Wang Yu sighed in exasperation.
"Forget it. I can keep training my physique for the time being."
Despite the major setback, Wang Yu wasn't upset for long before he rallied once more.
"Hold on—can't I produce fighting spirit with void energy? I can distort reality to make it appear, at least for a moment. Then, while it lasts, I'll manipulate it within my body and learn how to produce it on my own! Isn't wizardry far too strong?" Wang Yu shook his head in amazement.
He quickly tossed such useless thoughts out of his head. The most important thing was to seize what strength he could.
He would start experimenting immediately.
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