Chapter 48

It’s hard to tell if my non-threat actually worked or if there was a change of heart, but Gloria granted permission.

Kara insisted she was fine and claimed there wasn’t much to learn anyway, but I dragged her along.

Again, she’s the type who gets really lonely the more she’s on her own.

We hardly have any friends besides each other, and the other students are nothing but barbarians in her eyes.

With such looks thrown our way, they didn’t even consider it. So I was determined to bring her along no matter what.

“Are you really okay? I don’t want to trouble you…”

Kara, who joined us in the Personal Training Room, expressed her worry, scratching her head as if to say she really felt bad about it.

“Not at all! It’s actually thanks to you, Princess, that the atmosphere feels lively!”

But Gloria acted like it was no big deal. For some reason, she looked really excited.

She kept glancing at Luna and me, definitely expecting something. What that was, I had no clue.

‘By the way, this Personal Training Room is huge.’

I surveyed the space I entered after following the secret couple. The shared Training Hall was already quite spacious, but this Personal Training Room was no joke.

There are several conditions for using the Personal Training Room, the most representative of which is the presence of magic power.

Using magic can break things or even injure someone.

That’s why they utilize this room to prevent accidents.

‘And you have to get permission in advance too.’

There are quite a few users, so you have to get permission from the staff. Especially on weekends, I hear it’s nearly fully booked.

Since no one enters besides the users, there are occasionally odd cases of it being used for strange purposes.

Gloria and Kronos even sneak in together to use the same Training Hall.

Now they have a good reason—teaching Luna and me—so they can enter openly.

“Alright. As promised, we will teach both of you. Before we start, is there anything you’re curious about or worried about?”

“Uh… I’m really lacking in basic techniques, is that okay?”

Luna raised her hand timidly, voicing her concerns. That must be what weighed most on her mind.

Currently, she was struggling just to get started. It would be a bit daunting to learn this too.

“You don’t have to worry too much. What we’ll teach you falls under basic techniques, after all.”

“Basic techniques?”

“Yes. It would be good for Princess Kara to learn as well.”

“Wait… I’m learning too?”

Kara, who had been preparing the punch bag, wore a reluctant expression.

It seemed she had intended to train separately without learning from the two.

“No way! I really don’t want to…”

“Think of it as an exchange with Tartar.”

“Uhmmm…”

Kara pondered that suggestion. If one were to nitpick, Kronos had a point.

In the past, Hector earned the title of Destruction King during the unification of races, but there was no bias.

But there’s give and take. Perhaps realizing this, Kara cautiously asked, “What do I have to offer you? I can’t think of anything.”

“Well…”

At that question, Kronos glanced at Gloria. It was her decision to bring Kara along.

Gloria understood the look and responded in her usual warm tone.

“I’ll let you know what that is after this training. For now, let’s concentrate on the training.”

Unlike Kronos, who was a bit stiff, Gloria displayed a fluid demeanor, which exuded a unique elegance characteristic of nobility.

Kara nodded along to her words. For now, it’s best to quietly learn.

“The two of us have different teaching styles. However, the basics are the same. That’s magic power.”

“Magic power?”

“Yes. You both have often infused magic into your bodies or weapons, right?”

At Gloria’s explanation, the students, including me, nodded. There were countless instances of that.

Magic is the power that allows weak humans to fight on equal terms with beasts or monsters.

The only condition to use magic is ‘intelligence.’ The ability to think and express that thought.

“Magic holds boundless potential just by its existence. It allows you to cut a huge boulder in one strike with a sword, bend steel, or even break them all apart. Magic becomes useless without magic power.”

“….”

“What we will teach you is about refining your magic power even more carefully. Just as various trainings can refine a person’s body, magic can be treated the same way.”

That was what we would learn during our training period. Sculpting raw magic power into something beautiful.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a warrior or a mage. Magic is not limited by classes.

“You might have already grasped this, Princess Kara. Weren’t you feeling that the power of the same amount of magic you infused felt stronger than before?”

“Yeah. It was a little hard to notice since I was growing slowly, but at some point, I began to feel that way.”

“Hasn’t the capacity to contain the lightning of Gulrak increased as well?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the principle.”

“Ah-ha.”

Kara nodded, looking enlightened. With her practical skills honed from real combat, she likely understood quickly.

Of course, she might not know how to acquire that skill. She probably got there herself.

Seeing this, Gloria raised her index finger and continued.

“But you don’t know how to obtain it. We will teach you that, and you’ll need to keep training consistently.”

“I see. Got it.”

“Great. First of all…”

Gloria trailed off, glancing at Kronos. She stared at him silently, saying nothing.

But those two were close enough to communicate with just their eyes. Kronos nodded and, in a heavy voice, said,

“I’ll go first. What I’ll teach is ‘Condensation.’ It’s literally the ability to condense magic power.”

“What kind of effect does condensing magic power yield?”

“You can significantly increase the durability and the amount of magic you can hold.”

That’s the ability you can obtain by choosing the Granada Empire. It has a general damage-increasing effect.

You can think of it like the quality difference in armor. For example, compare a person wearing leather armor to one wearing plate armor.

If two people were to headbutt, who do you think would take more damage? Obviously, it’s the latter.

“Condensation can greatly enhance the quality of magic. Furthermore, the consumption rate will slow down. When you need to input 10 units of magic, with condensation, you can get the same effect with just 1 unit of magic.”

“That should be very effective for someone using heavy blunt weapons.”

Just from the explanation alone, Luna quickly pinpointed which type of weapon would be effective.

As she said, condensation is a very effective skill for characters whose main stat is ‘strength.’

Strength increases overall damage, while agility raises dodge and critical hit rates.

However, even with a higher critical hit chance, it would be hard to make an impact without learning techniques.

You have to know precisely where to hit to trigger a critical hit. So strength characters typically have a lower reliance on techniques.

‘Strength characters are like the rice soup; agility characters are the gourmet dish.’

That’s how it tends to be classified. Then where do mages and faith characters fit in?

Mages need to use microphones, making them suitable for statistical gameplay, while faith characters are a mix of the two.

“Exactly. Here’s how condensation works…”

Wooh—

Kronos demonstrated by showing us a fist the size of a child’s head, infusing it with magic power.

Suddenly, blue magic power began to swirl around his fist. Then that magic power slowly condensed and re-entered the fist.

At a glance, it didn’t seem to change much. But that thought was short-lived.

“Just right.”

“…. Aim properly.”

Gloria, who had somehow brought an axe without us noticing, lifted it high.

Clang!

She brought it crashing down toward Kronos’s fist. There should have been a collision, yet the sound was deafening.

It sounded like metal against metal. Meanwhile, Kronos’s fist remained completely unharmed.

On the other hand, the training axe was utterly wrecked. I suppose that one will have to be disposed of.

“This way, you can harden your body. In some sense, condensation can be considered the most basic of basics.”

“Uhmmm…”

Luna looked a bit puzzled by Kronos’s explanation, as if it seemed incredibly simple.

Perhaps noticing this, Gloria smiled knowingly and pointed it out without words.

“You look like you think it’s super easy. Wanna give it a try?”

At Gloria’s suggestion, both Luna and Kara began their practice. Kara seemed quite familiar with it, even if Luna wasn’t.

They concentrated on compressing magic power into a solid form like a solid shield. It may sound similar to ‘hardening techniques’.

But it’s different from hardening techniques. Hardening techniques may involve layering several leather armors, while condensation is like upgrading the leather armor to plate armor.

Thus, the higher your proficiency in condensation, the higher the grade of hardening techniques you’ll naturally achieve.

“…. It’s harder than I thought. I’m not using hardening techniques, right?”

“Not at all. Just think of it as gathering up magic power rather than layering it over and over.”

“Like this?”

While Kara wandered a bit, Luna extended her fist. To the untrained eye, it looked like an utterly normal fist.

Kronos stared at her fist in silence for confirmation. Then he exchanged glances with Gloria.

Gloria nodded and began to touch Luna’s hand, inspecting it closely.

“…. Oh? It really worked?”

“Is it for real?”

“Yeah. It’s definitely condensed. Did it always come this easily?”

She was taken aback. After just one demonstration, Luna had grasped it easily.

Kara, too, belonged to the ‘genius’ category since she inherited Hector’s talents. But Luna’s abilities seemed on a completely different level.

‘Did the learning in the Soul World apply here immediately?’

Even though her fundamentals were lacking, her outstanding talent could cover that easily. Especially in fields related to magic, she’d show tremendous growth potential.

The protagonist isn’t the protagonist for nothing. As time goes by, her growth will likely increase exponentially.

“…. Did it really work?”

“Yes. Just condense your magic like this. As that happens, the condensed magic will flow inside your body, naturally enhancing the quality of your magic.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

Luna wore a beaming smile, exuding joy as if she had learned something magical. Honestly, who wouldn’t feel good about that?

In any case, I guess it’s my turn too. I concentrated magic power into my hand as Kronos had shown.

‘Not layering but gathering up magic power instead.’

Condensation is a basic skill. So even when I was living in the forest, I thought about obtaining it whenever possible.

But needless to say, I was too busy surviving day by day to remember how to acquire it. Instead, I ended up with Red Magic.

Just with Red Magic, hunting was pretty easy, so I didn’t even think about it.

When I say ‘thought,’ it was more about creating storylines or hunting plans I would draw on cave walls.

‘This is how it felt?’

If Luna had the talent to follow along just by watching, I could usually get by as long as I had a demo close by.

Thanks to my ‘Wilderness Instinct’, I could feel how the magic of the opponent changed. This allowed me to sense Hector’s attacks ahead of time.

‘But I think it’s going to be hard to feel it because my body is so sturdy.’

I looked around. Gloria was teaching Luna while Kronos was working with Kara one-on-one.

They weren’t neglecting me, just taking a moment since they saw me concentrating.

This was a good chance to see how well I could condense, considering I was at a high level of Steel King.

‘It might hurt a bit, though.’

I’m used to pain. I steeled my resolve.

Finally, I focused the power infused in my condensed magic fist and smashed it down.

Oh right. Where did I smash it?

Where else?

Crack!

Right into the middle part of my left arm, as solid as steel. There was simply no other way to confirm this properly.

After all, I could break wood and stone, and even steel, bare-handed.

Reflecting on the time when I broke a sword with just my teeth during my duel with Elvin makes it easier to understand.

*i / *Shuffle—*

The results were phenomenal! I stared at my left arm, which had flopped down like a wet rag after the break.

I had only condensed and hit, yet my bone, as dense as steel, had fractured. Quite the achievement.

“Wha-What’s going on, Sivar?!”

“What happened…? Y-Your arm, why…!? What is this…?!”

“Wh-What the…?!”

Of course, it was a bit too unfortunate that I got caught. Luna’s eyes happened to land on me.

The others only heard the noise, so they looked utterly perplexed, not having a clue about what happened.

But as soon as they caught sight of my floppy left arm, their expressions shifted to shock.

“Sivar just smashed his own arm and looks like that now!”

“He hit himself? Could it have been with his condensed hand?”

“How can it be so…?”

“Hmmm…”

Regardless of their bewilderment, I kept thumping my broken arm. For minor injuries like fractures, realigning them would suffice since I could regenerate.

It’s best to set the bone before using regeneration to minimize magic consumption.

*Crack! Crack!*

The moment I activated regeneration, my arm healed perfectly. People were astonished as they watched the fracture heal in an instant.

Luna and Kara knew about my regeneration ability, but they still looked a bit taken aback. Perhaps they thought a fracture was different.

In any case, it surely seemed I had learned condensation. With that, I proudly extended my arm and shouted,

“I learned!”

With that one word, everyone wore indescribable expressions.

The look on their faces was one thing, but Gloria’s ensuing reaction was even more priceless.

“Uh… Sivar student?”

“Huh?”

“Are you… trying to say we’re not caring enough?”

What is she talking about? Just as I started to squint one eye in confusion.

[Ability: You have acquired Condensation!]

[Wilderness Instinct activated!]

A familiar notification window appeared before me.

I wondered if it was going to raise my level like it did during the boxing match, raising my anticipation.

[Ability: Compatible with Red Magic!]

[Ability: Condensation has been removed!]

“Wait, what?!”

What do you mean?

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