Chương 420: Chapter 419 – Training Methods

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Damion asked. The training idea Visault had to help Damion push his way to A Rank as fast as possible was plausible, he was just not sure it was safe. The cluster of S Rank Realm Breaches near where he had first encountered Straus were a great training environment, so long as he did not die. The S Rank mana density inside would make absorbing mana and thus compressing his mana easier, but an S Rank Realm Breach was not somewhere a B Rank would normally go.

"I'll be here the entire time, as will Straus."

"I will?" Straus suddenly asked. He was eager for a new challenge, especially since Visault had let him keep the sword and armor artifacts given to him during the fight with the Alfar, but going into an S Rank dungeon was not the challenge he had in mind.

"These Realm Breaches are not as dangerous as you think," Visault told them.

"They don't have an S Rank guardian?" Damion joked.

"Of course they do. What I meant was that they are routinely cleared out to prevent dungeon breaks."

"Why don't you collapse them?" Damion asked, a dozen S Rank Realm Breaches relatively close to a major city seemed like an unnecessary hazard.

"Collapse them? We moved them here."

"What? Why would your people do that?"

"Because they siphon the excess mana from the area, keeping Ardnet at upper A Rank levels, but not S Rank. Even the Iblis have difficulty reproducing once the density exceeds S Rank. These Realm Breaches allow us to continue to live here and not worry about the mana density affecting us."

"What was the mana density of the Mother World before the great war and humans being exiled?"

"The stories vary, and mana density fluctuated by region, but B Rank is the general consensus, where in B Rank, is what people debate. Now, are you ready to go in?" Damion's answer was a nod as he headed towards the shimmering portal of the entrance to the Realm Breach Visault had selected for them. Apparently, this one had the highest mana density of the entire group. Upper S Rank he claimed. Once inside the difference in mana density was clear.

He recalled the first time he was in a B Rank Breach and his first venture into an A Rank Breach. The feeling of being submerged in mana so thick that he almost felt like he was drowning. It took him a moment to center himself, but once he did, he began to acclimate to the higher mana.

"There shouldn't be too many Demonic Beasts in here, but just to be on the safe side, don't wander too far from the entrance," Visault warned.

"I'm going to take a look around," Straus announced. The knight then dashed off before Visault could object, but he was not overly worried for the knight. This was an S Rank Realm Breach, sure, but there were only so many A Rank creatures inside and most of those were routinely culled. The most Straus should run into would be B Rank creatures. At worst one of the A Rank Demonic Beasts might have respawned, but it was unlikely.

Damion sat down next to the entrance, shutting off most of his passive spells as he turned on Mana Absorption. The higher density of the dungeon coupled with not expending mana senselessly should enable him to close the gap to A Rank fairly quickly. Especially since he had already strengthened his body beyond what an A Rank mage usually had. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. As the mana flowed into him, Damion focused on compressing it.

The more he could compress his mana, the more room he had for mana. The cycle was continuous. Flood the core, compress, causing his magic power to climb up a bit and then flood his core again. Visault was likewise meditating, trying to raise his own magic power, though, he was on the cusp of S Rank. As he meditated, he could sense the ambient mana in the dungeon flooding towards Damion and was impressed by the young mage's ability. Unfortunately, Damion's approach to compressing his mana was rudimentary.

"Let me teach you a better way," Visault finally said, frustrated that Damion's progress could be much better if the young man would just compress everything, instead of forcing the excess into his core and letting his core reach an equilibrium with the new mana density with a slight increase in magic power.

"Don't just compress the excess, compress all your mana."

"What? All the mana in my core?" Damion asked in disbelief. Sure, he could focus and compress all the mana in his core, but would that result in a higher magic power?

"Yes. The mana density here is such that with your method, while safe and effective in low mana dense areas, is inefficient when you are somewhere with high mana density." Doing as suggested, Damion focused his attention on compressing all the mana in his core. As he did so, more mana was pulled into his core from the dungeon filling in the space made available.

Damion was not sure if this was the right way to do it, but he then gathered the new mana up and worked on compressing it with his original cluster of mana. Time and time again, he gathered the mana in his core together and compressed it down. The new, higher density mana flooding into his core was difficult for his core to contain, being S Rank mana in a B Rank core, but by mixing it with his mana and making it his own, his core was quickly adapting and becoming strong enough to contain the mixture.

Visault said nothing. He offered no more suggestions or criticisms. Not telling Damion if he was doing it right or wrong. That or the Iblis just did not care if he completely failed at the task. After all, failure was a superb teacher in its own right. After close to ten hours of meditating, Damion's body was getting stiff, and he was beginning to feel the effects of mana exhaustion. He had not crossed the threshold to A Rank, but he was close.

What he needed now was a good rest and to let his body finish adapting to his new, higher magic power. Once he was rested, pushing forward with his training would be easier and likely more productive.

"What are you stopping for?" Visault asked. When he saw Damion stop training, he was hopeful the young man had achieved A Rank, but that was not the case.

"I'm approaching mana exhaustion. It would be best if I rest for a while and then resume training."

"Ah, I forgot, human bodies are more fragile than Iblis. You cannot tolerate great changes as easily. Very well, rest. I expect tomorrow for you to breakthrough to A Rank." Damion elected not to respond to Visault's expectation. He was very near reaching A Rank and the Iblis was close to reaching S Rank. Perhaps tomorrow would result in both of them breaking through. Straus had shown up at some point, Damion was not sure when, since he had been focused on training.

The knight had also begun focusing on raising his magic power, unfortunately for him, the process was not an easy one. Being a knight with a malformed core, he had to work two or even three times harder than an average mage to raise his magic power. Compared to Damion and Visault, it was more like ten times harder if he wanted to keep up. After a good eight hours of sleep, Damion awoke with an abundance of energy. He ate a meal from one of his ration packs and then went back to training.

As he was training, he had to admit, compressing his mana into one section and then mixing it with the higher density mana he was absorbing, was much more efficient than just compressing excess mana. For a while he wondered why this method was not used by his people, but then he realized it was because most dungeons were tamed, and timeslots were allotted for farming resources, not training. Even in labyrinths people focused on gathering resources for profit and not training themselves.

As he broke through to A Rank, Damion had the thought that if more people focused on training than on making money, perhaps his people would have more than 30 or so S Ranks.