Broken Tower Saga: The First Swordsman

It's the fifth day of the trial, and Wrik had been quite busy all the days. The fifth day started at dawn with meditation. After meditating day and night for a few days, he became quite proficient in mana sense. It even advanced from E- to E, but the problem came after that. Mana discharge the second step to mana application—could be said as the basis of any technique. Wrik wanted to learn that as quickly as possible.

After some practice alone, he consulted the only person he could over this matter — the emerald-eyed girl for her experience. And she did not reject his inquiry.

She said that Mana discharge came naturally after adaptation in mana. For the record, it took her 12 days to learn basic mana discharge. But that was before the awakening. She empathised that if she learned after the assimilation, she might have been able to achieve the same result in just two or three days.

She advised him to practice mana sense while doing the usual work. Discharge will come naturally, and she mentioned positive thoughts or a good mood may have some impact on it.

Wrik followed her instructions and tried to stay in that state while doing normal works like practising the kata of swordsmanship each morning, guarding or even while eating. Soon it became quite easy while doing other things.

Nevertheless, it would always fluctuate during the battle against goblins if he couldn't concentrate for a blink of an eye. He did have a shortcut with the [Eye of Insights], but he limited himself in triggering it. There was clearly a limit to the ability—it couldn't achieve everything. Moreover, there was still the pain in his head if he uses it continuously for over two minutes.

Wrik could now control mana sense within a 5-metre radius without using the eye of insights. He made some progress in the mana circuit as well, from 1.2% to 8.7%. Other than that, he could emit mana through his body, but it was still a few steps away from mana discharge.

Now he was practising the kata again after finishing the meditation. With his Mana sense present, he put an extra effort into linking the mana of the outsides to the insides of his body. Then a sudden thrill caught him, and Wrik activated the [Eye of Insights] and focused on emitting mana from the body to his sword.

Mana started to transmit continuously from his body to the sword, even it started to condense from surrounding to the sword, but the speed was slow, to the point that it was useless in battle.

With the eye of insights still active, he focused on the speed of the flow; he increased the circulation flow, and the blade of the sword turned colder and sharper. He took a stance and slashed at an enormous oak tree in front.

Sweat was dripping from his forehead, Wrik deactivated the innate ability and finally glanced at the tree. The tree was still standing, no surprise there, but there was a blade mark left in it. The depth of the mark was about 8cm deep. So it was a success to some degree.

If he slashed a goblin instead of the tree, the goblin would have severed in half. Even with its armour on, it would be overkill. He used the entire amount of mana that he could control with that slash, so there's no surprise at that.

But, it was not efficient, just one move made him tired, he might not even be able to use it more than three times with his current ability.

Another problem to note was when he focused on discharge, the mana sense got disabled, as his whole concentration was on that slash.

Still, there was no tab about Mana Discharge appearing on his status window. Well, he expected that much. Mana discharge was not just emitting mana from the body, it's all about control.

Wrik sighed and continued with the kata.

Now that their group number had raised to six, they could hunt goblins with more ease. And most of all, they found the small waterfall yesterday after saving the group of three. It solved the problem of water that they have and they didn't need to worry about drinking their own urine. That was a big relief. They had settled close to the waterfall, though it was quite close to the goblin settlements.

Daily sustenance was as stable as it could be these few days with fruits and berries; they also got their hands on some fish from the river but there was still no meat.

The primary task of their fifth day was to investigate the workings of goblins, their numbers, dwellings, or if there were other things to take note of.

After yesterday, they made a plan to eradicate the goblins from here. The three new members of their group thought they were nuts. How can they eradicate hundreds of goblins with just the number of half a dozen? That's why they were investigating the quickest and easiest way to do that.

The ones who handled the job of investigating the goblins were Wrik and the emerald-eyed girl, while Davin and others were charged with securing food.

So Wrik and the emerald-eyed girl were now following a few goblins stealthy. Their goal was simple: discovering the location of dwellings and their numbers. But the goblins didn't seem to have any plans of return to their dwellings any time soon as they were messing around.

They followed the goblins for hours; they didn't find much apart from more goblins. They were equipped with the same outfit, a pike or club with armour on their body. But there were few goblins with a more muscular constitution, height about 10 to 15cm higher than the other goblins. They should be elites within the goblin tribe.

Wrik thought about checking their characteristics through the [Eye of Insights], but gave up that idea as it might be detected by the goblins. The normal ones could not detect any of his inspection, but who knows about the unusual ones? Well, the chances were low, but he didn't gamble on those thoughts.

Just as he was thinking about all this, goblins started to rush towards the north, where the waterfall was, and so was their little shelter. They followed suit, just barely chasing after them for a few seconds, Wrik could hear goblins screaming and there was also another voice that he found familiar.

"I'm going ahead, I think I know who this voice belongs to," Wrik suggested to the emerald-eyed girl to quicken the pace, before running towards the source of the disturbance. After covering a good distance, he could verify the voice.

One man was screaming vulgarities at goblins.

".. . your father, I, already killed hundreds of goblin, comeeee ooonnnmn."

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