Chương 56: Training Magic Power

Eight hours a day. For the entire past week, Damion had been training for eight hours every day. Running, lifting weights, practicing his swordsmanship, practicing with his fire attack glyph. Each day Ms. Teft worked him to the bone, forcing him to exhaust himself before she let him have a break. Today, however, was different. After a solid week of training, Damion and Ms. Teft, wanted to see how much he had grown. In an open field outside Saung, Ms.

Teft had placed a testing dummy and Damion was about to find out if he could meet the requirement to advance. The Adventurer Association exam required he score 500 points to earn the status of an E Rank knight. Most of those points he would need to earn in the first test, which measured his attack power. The other two tests would, hopefully, add a few points, but Ms. Teft explained that as long as he exceeded 500 in the first test, he would be fine.

Channeling his mana into his sword, Damion prepared to strike the test dummy with all his strength. Once he poured all the mana he could into his sword, Damion swung, bringing his sword down in a two-handed overhead slash that hit the test dummy in its shoulder. After the blow landed Damion released his mana and felt quite tired. He was still wearing the training bracelets and after expending so much mana at once, his arms and legs felt like lead.

After a few moments Damion started to recover, but he did not dare to use Mana Absorption to speed up the process like he normally did in front of Ms. Teft.

"An acceptable result," Ms. Teft said as she viewed the result on her tablet.

"Acceptable?" Damion questioned. He really wanted to know what his score was. If he managed to break the 500 mark, it meant he was ready for the advancement test.

"420," Ms. Teft told him.

"Really?" Damion signed.

"I thought I would have been able to hit 500 with that attack."

"You are very close. And you have advanced from scoring less than a hundred to over 400 in just a few weeks. This is remarkable growth. Most knights take a year, at minimum, to advance from F to E."

"I could still pass though, if I do well on the agility part?"

"Yes, you have a chance to pass the test, but keep in mind if you fail to pass, you will have to wait a month before trying again."

"I guess I will keep training." Damion said as he got up and prepared to go for a run.

"The physical training has boosted your muscle strength. With the training bracelets pulling mana through your body, it has accelerated that process, but just doing the same thing won't continue to get you remarkable results."

"What should I do then?"

"The test is measuring your magic power, not physical strength or how much mana you channel into your blade. You have managed to get so close to the goal by condensing almost all your mana into your blade and striking." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"I thought that was what I was supposed to do?"

"In a way it is, that much mana compressed, boosts your magic power. What you need to do though, is compress the mana in your magic core. By compressing your mana first and then channeling it into your sword, you will be able to channel higher quality mana."

"Compress the mana in my core," Damion muttered as he thought about how to do what Ms. Teft asked.

"Sit down," Ms. Teft commanded, after Damion complied she continued.

"Focus on your magic core. Most knights don't have strong cores, because of that, it limits their growth and how much mana they can ever have. So, they do what you have been doing, compressing the mana outside their body, building up the mana on their weapon and compressing it further.

"This allows them to reach the magic power of a higher rank, but they don't actually have the magic power of that rank."

"By compressing the mana in my core, it not only increases my magic power, but also increases how much mana I can store, because the mana is compressed." Damion said as he realized what Ms. Teft was alluding to.

"Precisely."

"But how do I get the new mana to compress when I've already compressed the existing mana, it won't decompress if my core isn't full, will it?"

"No, once your body is trained to compress your mana, as your body pulls mana into your core, it will naturally compress to match your magic core. And your core will keep your mana compressed even when your core is not full, because that is the state your core recognizes your mana should be in."

"What is the best way to compress the mana in my magic core?"

"The most conventional way is to overfill your magic core with mana. As you try to stuff more mana in, your core will either slowly expand, or, once it reaches its maximum size, grow stronger to contain more and more mana. As you keep overfilling, the mana will compress itself inside your core. Once that happens your magic core will continue to compress the mana by itself." Damion remembered the lessons the Magic System had given him, which were similar.

He needed to pull in mana and his magic core would naturally do the rest, he just wished there was a way to speed up the process.

"Is there a way to make this go faster?" Damion asked, since he had used the bulk of his mana on the attack dummy, he was still refilling his magic core, which would take a while.

"You can speed up your mana absorption through a variety of means. Artifacts, spell formations, natural treasures, but the most common, is to train in a mana rich environment."

"Where would I find one of those?"

"The Benault Forest is a mana rich environment, though, it might be a bit dangerous for you. Another option is to create a mana rich environment."

"Create one?

"What paid the most when you finished your dungeon?" Ms. Teft asked.

"The Demonic Beast Cores."

"Do you know why Demonic Beast Cores are so expensive?"

"I thought because they were used to create strong artifacts."

"That is one reason, they can also be used in alchemy and even to make spell arrays. But the main use is to be absorbed by a mage to enhance their magic power."

"What?!" Damion was shocked. If he had known he could absorb the magic from the cores to enhance his power, he would have kept a few instead of selling them all.

"Don't get too excited."

"Why not?"

"You can only absorb a Demonic Beast Core that matches your affinity. Trying to absorb the wrong affinity would be like poisoning your magic core."

"Oh." Damion felt his hope get crushed. Since he did not know what his affinity was, there was no way for him to absorb the magic from the skeleton cores to help him.

"Should I still train physically, or should I just meditate or something?"

"Using your mana up and then letting your core refill, is the best way to train it to be stronger. Continue your physical training in the morning, and then focus in the afternoons on overfilling your magic core."

"Okay," Damion answered as he started to focus on letting his magic core fill up, when he noticed Ms. Teft was walking away.

"You aren't going to stay and make sure I'm doing it right?"

"You don't need a babysitter. Come see me after another week of training and I'll measure your progress."