Chapter 740

“…Movement that ignores inertia?”

Damien seemed to not understand what I meant. Probably because the word “inertia” was an unfamiliar expression to him.

So, I continued with a detailed explanation, using a simple analogy that even a child could understand.

“Hmm… If you’re riding a horse and suddenly stop, your body will lurch forward, right? And if you swing your sword downward with full force and then switch to a horizontal slash, the trajectory won’t be a right angle but a diagonal one, right? Everything that moves has a stubbornness to maintain the direction it’s going. That’s what inertia is.”

At this point, Damien should be able to understand what I mean. He’s not stupid, just emotionally detached and a bit slow on the uptake.

“But your technique is free from such constraints, right? Then you should make good use of that characteristic.”

“I kind of get what you’re saying… but what exactly am I supposed to do?”

As Damien tilted his head and asked, I laid out the improvement plans I had thought of after hearing about his Heroic Tale. From the most basic parts to the future goals he should pursue.

“The direction for improving your Heroic Tale can be broadly divided into three aspects: efficiency, power, and versatility. How little ‘feats’ you consume, how strong the power you display, and how many different ways you can utilize it. The gap between heroes usually starts here. Milia, you should listen carefully too.”

“Uh… okay, Ha-shal-leur.”

Facing the two with puzzled expressions, I continued with detailed explanations, giving examples one by one.

First, efficiency. Unless you’re aiming for a one-hit kill with your Heroic Tale, this is something you must pay attention to.

If you don’t learn how to exert maximum effect with minimal effort and waste your ‘feats’ recklessly, you might end up losing to weaker enemies due to lack of stamina.

In my case, I’ve practiced adjusting the output and range of Reversed Heaven according to the situation.

If there’s no need to move your entire body, you can compress the reach time of your slash like before, or adjust the duration and output of Reversed Heaven based on the opponent’s speed.

Other heroes are the same.

“Have you heard about Or-han’s Heroic Tale, Indestructible Body? That guy doesn’t keep Indestructible Body active all the time. He only activates it briefly just before the enemy’s attack hits his body, then retracts it to save energy. You should train like that too.”

Don’t keep ‘Sky Step’ active while flying through the air. After accelerating in one direction, retract Sky Step and rely on inertia to move, only activating it again when you need to change direction.

In Damien’s case, doing just that would explosively increase his combat duration. Milia, on the other hand, only manifests her Heroic Tale when shooting arrows, so there’s not much advice to give regarding efficiency.

—

“Moving on to enhancing power, the only way is to accumulate more ‘feats,’ so let’s skip that… As for enhancing versatility… I think there are two ways.”

I spread my thumb and middle finger as I spoke.

“Two ways?”

“My Heroic Tale, Reversed Heaven, isn’t limited to the blade but extends to the entire body, allowing for hyper-acceleration that shouldn’t be possible. Thanks to that, I gained versatility in ambush, evasion, attack, and defense—all actions.”

Well, to be honest, it’s quite far from actual acceleration.

If it were an acceleration-type technique, the power should quadruple when the speed doubles… but Reversed Heaven has no such power increase.

The essence of Reversed Heaven isn’t acceleration but the compression of reach time.

To put it in gaming terms, it’s like performing an action that normally takes 12 frames in just 5-6 frames.

The damage itself is no different from when Reversed Heaven isn’t used.

Other heroes might complain about the lack of power with such a Heroic Tale… but that doesn’t apply to me. When I swing my sword at full power, even Jin can’t withstand it and breaks.

Thanks to the Blessing of Divine Blood and immense ‘feats,’ my attack power is already sufficient, and thanks to Rotholandus’s blessing and Winter Armor, my defense is also sufficient.

So, for me, a support-type Heroic Tale like Reversed Heaven, which is efficient, is more useful than one that enhances attack or defense.

…I got sidetracked. Anyway,

“In your case, Damien, you can find improvement by narrowing the manifestation range of Sky Step, the opposite of what I did.”

“Narrow the range?”

“Yes. For example, remember the vertical-horizontal slash I mentioned earlier? You could do that. If you limit the manifestation range of Sky Step to just the slash, you can change the direction of your sword without any resistance.”

And it’s not just limited to slashes.

You could swing your fist forward and suddenly turn to strike the side, or while retreating, your sword swing could instantly turn into a thrust.

That’s what it means to ignore inertia.

“If you utilize this well, you could perform sword techniques that are unimaginably free and complex for an ordinary person, right?”

“Just hearing it, I can’t quite grasp it…”

Damien tilted his head.

“That’s normal. Improving a Heroic Tale isn’t something you can do overnight.”

It took me months to expand Reversed Heaven’s power to my entire body, so it’s impossible for Damien, who just awakened his Heroic Tale, to grasp it just from my explanation.

This is something you can only learn through trial and error, experimenting with your own body.

“Hmm… I’ll keep it in mind for now. So, what’s the second one?”

It’s a hundred times harder than the first improvement plan.

“You mentioned earlier that it feels less like flying through the sky like a bird and more like moving your body to the desired position, right? We’ll focus on that.”

If the first improvement plan maximizes the advantage of ignoring inertia during direction changes, the second one maximizes the characteristic of spatial coordinate movement.

“Your current way of flying… is like drawing a line in the air. Moving your body from the starting point to the destination in a straight line. Am I right?”

I drew a straight line in the air with my index finger as I spoke.

“Uh… isn’t that obvious?”

Yes, it is. For normal flight.

But a Heroic Tale is a technique that realizes the impossible, the unrealistic.

“Don’t be bound by what’s obvious. The core of a Heroic Tale lies in breaking away from that ‘obviousness.'”

Realizing the non-obvious as if it were obvious is the qualification and privilege of a hero.

Not being trapped by the world’s common sense, but believing in and acting on the non-obvious is a prerequisite for properly utilizing a Heroic Tale.

“Whether it’s a straight line or a curve, the movement of objects tends to draw a line. That’s the obvious thing. …But what you need to draw isn’t a line.”

I started poking the air with my finger again. Moving my arm slightly to the side, densely and tightly.

Countless dots forming a line.

“This is the direction you should go. Not moving by drawing a line, but by placing dots in the air from the starting point to the destination. And… gradually reducing the number of dots.”

“Reduce the number of dots…?”

“Yes. At first, it might seem no different from drawing a line, but later…”

I continued poking the air, drawing dotted lines of the same length, reducing the number of dots gradually.

If you place a thousand dots within a 10cm interval, it would look like a straight line.

But what if the dots are reduced to a hundred? To ten?

And finally… what if only two remain?

“So, Ha-shal-leur, you’re saying…”

“You catch on quick. That’s right. If you refine your Heroic Tale ‘Sky Step’ to its limit, you won’t even need to fly through the air. The moment you activate your Heroic Tale to go somewhere, you’ll already be there.”

Spatial teleportation.

That is the ultimate goal of the spatial coordinate movement ability.

“…Is that possible?”

“Why not? That’s how Heroic Tales work.”

Damien seemed skeptical, but I nodded with a confident smile.

It’s not impossible. I had absolute certainty in my mind.

Why?

No need to ask. Of course, I’ve actually done it, so I can be certain.

Among Damien’s Heroic Tales, which vary depending on the nurturing method, if he manifests a movement-type Heroic Tale… by the later stages, he’ll start moving by leaping through space.

Becoming a blink swordsman, so to speak.

Since he gave up on an attack-type Heroic Tale, without the Holy Sword or lacking control, he’d just be a no-damage blink spammer… but there’s no need to worry too much.

I can just give him the Holy Sword this time, and as for control… well, his skill level was already exceptional from the start. Except for that incurable leap psychosis.

—

Unlike Damien’s Heroic Tale, which was easy to point out improvements and goals for, Milia’s Heroic Tale was something I couldn’t quite advise on.

A Heroic Tale that compresses the volume and mass of an object in hand to the level of an arrow and shoots it, Eternal Rain.

Thanks to the characteristic of the shot arrow reverting to its original state just before hitting the enemy, the power varies greatly depending on what you turn into an arrow.

“…Can you only turn walls or pillars into arrows, or can you turn living beings into arrows too? Like people…”

If the latter is possible, it would be a powerful assassination technique that could instantly kill with just a touch. I wonder which it is.

“Uh… I’ve never thought about that, so I don’t know.”

Milia shook her head with a slightly disgusted expression. As if the idea of compressing a person had never crossed her mind.

—

The experiment concluded that Milia’s Heroic Tale is best used on inanimate objects without will.

Compressing living beings isn’t impossible, but since they can resist with their own will, it takes quite a bit of time to compress them into arrows, and the energy consumption is high.

Trying to capture and compress an enemy is inefficient and carries a high risk of counterattack.

If the enemy resists compression and swings a sword at you, Milia would have to block it with only one hand left. It’s an overly dangerous method.