A wooden sword collided with a Lúmen'Thyr stone, causing a small crack to appear on the sword. Then it thrust toward the center of the Lúmen'Thyr—when it made contact, a hole formed, but the sword shattered into pieces. The one training against that rock was Kai. With a sigh, he threw away the remaining piece of wood and picked up another.
"If I can cut this stone without magic or a real sword, my skills will improve"
This was a training Enrico asked him to do that morning when they met, and he also told him to train other weapons more seriously because of his unique ability.
"It's not that I don't take it seriously, I just like swords more…"
So far, Kai trained with other weapons, but he mainly used this ability to improve his handling and techniques with them. That might be why Enrico asked him to train his skills by trying to cut Lúmen'Thyr—something that made Kai excited about the new training.
Holding the wooden sword with controlled strength, he launched another diagonal slash, causing a crack in the sword that broke immediately. He had done similar training before, but now it was with an improved Lúmen'Thyr. Since they won the war, its resistance had increased. That meant their weapons improved, but at the same time it became harder to craft weapons from it. So what he was cutting now was something far superior to anything he had used for training before.
"From what I heard, Lúmen'Thyr now has the resistance of a diamond, but that's not the main problem"
The biggest problem was the wooden sword. If he used all his strength, it wouldn't withstand it and would break before even touching the Lúmen'Thyr rock. If he didn't use enough force, it would break like it was now. It was simply difficult for a normal wooden sword to break something with diamond-like resistance.
'If I used magic on the wood to increase its resistance, I could use the pressure of the strike to cut it without even needing the sword to touch it… though it would still break, even if it was still difficult'
The problem was that Enrico told him not to use mana. When the third sword broke in another strike, Kai tilted his head back, seeing thousands of wooden swords in the distance. Behind them were other weapons he would use for training with his War God ability.
"…maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way. What if I go level by level?"
Kai wasn't very smart when it came to other things, but when it came to training that required thinking, his mind seemed to move on its own toward possible alternatives.
'First, I'll try cutting this rock with the sword coated in mana to improve its resistance'
There were five Lúmen'Thyr rocks in that elf training field, so it was possible Enrico asked for that number so he could test different ideas or start at a lower level of training.
'Even so, it might still be difficult, since I don't plan to use much mana to increase resistance'
He wanted it to be real training, so his plan was to use magic to gradually increase the sword's resistance to see what level of mana would be enough to cut it.
At the same time he trained like this, another aberration was doing the same. Victoria was in the sky above the clouds, using spatial magic to float. In front of her was a blue sphere. From what Enrico mentioned, it was something he asked Skadi to make. That sphere had its own dimension inside it. What Victoria had to do was find a way to enter that dimension and create her own.
"The problem is that I'm still a sixth circle"
That was something impossible for a sixth circle to achieve—unless it was someone like her. Her spatial magic gave her possibilities that others wouldn't have at the same circle. Her magic could deal greater damage to stronger opponents, be used in multiple ways, and even evolve further.
"Creating a dimension… I don't know if any sixth circle has ever done that. I would be the first"
There was only one way a mage could have done this before: by using a zone similar to what Valença used—shrinking space around themselves and creating a dimension within that zone. But the problem was that it could cause mental strain, since they would have to maintain focus while fighting and sustaining that dimension.
"Now that I think about it, that fire mage is close to achieving this"
The fire mage was Valença, who had created one of the strongest zones Victoria had seen so far. Besides the massive area it covered, the atmosphere itself became hotter. If she focused enough, she could likely create a dimension without problems, especially due to her immense mana.
"She has almost as much mana as I do, and without a doubt Enrico must have mentioned this new magic to her"
There were three people with mana close to her level: Kai, Valença, possibly Ocirne, and Elaris. Since the new elf queen defeated her sister, her magic had been increasing constantly—possibly because something had been taken from her and was returning to its rightful owner. As for Ocirne, she showed an absurd amount of mana in their fight by creating those ice tower spells—it was incredible and made Victoria want to fight her again.
'I just won't, because Enrico seems to have gone to talk to her about training. That means she'll become even stronger'
She was excited to see what level Ocirne would reach in four months. That was the time Enrico gave everyone, as he planned to take the best on some kind of adventure, from what he mentioned. That made not only her and Kai train—everyone who wanted to go started pushing themselves even further. To increase competition, he sent letters to all his former companions from Astrong Academy, whom he hadn't seen in a long time, something that made Victoria want to be number one among all of them.
"Now that I think about it, that fire mage is one step ahead… well, it doesn't matter"
After all, she was a genius. Starting behind others didn't mean she wouldn't catch up later. That was the kind of mindset only prodigies like her—or idiots like Enrico—could have. At that moment, he had already said goodbye to his war companions as well as his friends and future wives. Leaving with a single thought—the world would receive the news of him becoming a seventh circle like a bomb in a few months, so he had to make that level become reality.