Chapter 59

Chapter : 59

Every day, Leo tried to decide the direction of his life. Do not compare yourself to others. Walk your own path.

No, that is the thinking of a loser. Rise higher than anyone and become the best.

Should he live like this, or should he live like that?

Whenever he swung his sword, stray thoughts flowed in from the tip of the blade and ate into his brain.

Walking his own path sounded good, but it also felt like what a failure who had given up on competing with others would say.

But.

‘Become the best? Me?’

There was no way that was possible.

He lacked everything. Born a commoner from an insignificant family, he had spent his childhood without finding a proper swordsmanship teacher, and only after entering the Academy had he properly learned swordsmanship.

Most of all, he had no talent.

When his thoughts reached that point, he wondered what talent even was.

Leo regarded talent as efficiency. For example, when an ordinary person gained one result from one hour of effort, a genius gained ten results from one hour of effort.

Even if an ordinary person worked hard for twenty-four hours a day, if a genius worked hard for three hours a day, the gap between the two would only grow wider. That was how he defined talent.

Because he lacked talent, he could not become the best. So he tried to persuade himself to stop comparing himself to others and focus only on improving himself. Once he finished that task, which was almost like brainwashing, his mind would feel clear for several days. He could focus solely on his sword.

But once time passed again, desire would surge up once more from deep within his chest.

I want to stand higher than anyone.

No matter how hard he tried to suppress it, that writhing desire made the tip of his sword unsteady.

Leo tried to think seriously. This time, he wanted to reach a conclusion. Even if the probability was infinitely close to zero, was there any possibility that he could become the best? No.

Even if he reduced the time he invested in relationships with others, reduced the time he spent on personal enjoyment, reduced the pleasure of waking after sleeping deeply, reduced, reduced, and reduced, there was still not enough time.

He could not catch up to geniuses like Jefrin and Raphael.

On top of that, the problem was not only the speed of growth.

People had limits. In this world, there was a god, and as though that god had drawn a line, when one reached the wall that said, “This is as far as you go,” growth stopped.

That limit, too, would come to him sooner than it would to Jefrin and Raphael.

Then was there no method at all? Was there truly no way to compete with them?

There had been countless people who had wrestled with the same concerns as he did.

They either gave up or reached toward things they should never have touched. They strengthened their bodies with Dark Power, and some even inserted things like Demonic Beasts into their bodies and transformed into something grotesque.

As a result, they broke through their original limits and grew higher, but they still did not reach the level of Sword Masters like Haok or Katarina.

Leo reached a conclusion.

There was none. No matter what method he used, he could not do what Jefrin and Raphael could do.

‘This is not something to be sad about.’

People like him were spread everywhere under the heavens.

He was simply one of them.

There was only one difference. He was more foolish and more stupid than they were. He could not restrain his desire.

That was why Leo challenged Jefrin to a sparring match.

He knew because he had heard the rumor. Jefrin had also reached Sword Expert. The moment Jefrin infused his sword with Sword Aura and swung it, Leo’s sword would break. So even if they called it sparring, it would be far removed from actual combat, and Jefrin would merely be going easy on him.

Even so, if he did not confirm it like this, he could not let go of his desire.

Leo studied Jefrin’s complexion. It would have been natural for him to find this troublesome, but at least his expression was thoroughly controlled. Feeling grateful to him, Leo picked up a wooden sword.

CLACK! CLACK!

Their wooden swords collided. Leo moved first. He thrust his wooden sword toward Jefrin’s chest. In response, Jefrin knocked Leo’s wooden sword aside with only the strength of his wrist. After stripping the wooden sword away like that, he reversed the motion and thrust at Leo’s chest. Because the movement was so swift, the sparring match ended before three seconds had passed.

Struck by the wooden sword, Leo sank to the ground and covered the place he had been hit with his hand. Coughing from the pain, his face crumpled.

“You are quite good for your age.”

After praising Leo like that, Jefrin left the training ground. Leo lowered his head. His hair fell loose and covered his face. He had requested the sparring match knowing he would lose miserably. After losing like this, he had thought his heart would feel at ease.

He was furious.

He hated himself for losing so simply, and he was angry at Jefrin for praising him after winning so easily. Jefrin was the same age as him, so what was he even saying? What angered Leo was that even after several years passed, this gap would not narrow. It would only widen.

Moisture gathered in his eyes. Just as the droplet was about to fall down his cheek, the water boiled. The droplet turned red, boiled, and evaporated. White smoke rose.

Leo’s two eyes emitted light.

His heart beat, striking his chest, and blood circulated fiercely through his body. Leo’s small Mana Hole filled to the brim.

Raphael, who had been watching this, clicked his tongue.

Raphael had been calculating the result of their sparring match.

Jefrin would win with a few casual taps.

The difference between their skills was despairingly vast.

Raphael had been watching from a distance, thinking he should comfort Leo after the sparring match ended and Leo was discouraged, but Leo seemed to be taking it even harder than expected.

If he went over and tried to console Leo while he was crying for no reason, he would touch a sore spot and make the tears burst out.

No one would want to show that side of themselves to someone else, so just as Raphael was hesitating for a moment, Leo’s eyes emitted light. They evaporated the drops of water.

‘Is that what I think it is?’

It resembled the characteristic Ian had shown him. The power that made his Magical Power grow stronger the angrier he became. The power his sister had called something like Berserk. In the original, only Ian possessed that power. It was the power he awakened to save Bishot when she was in danger. Raphael did not know the conditions necessary to acquire the characteristic, and his sister probably had not decided them either.

Leo had obtained it.

‘What is this?’

That power bloomed by using intense rage as its driving source. He could not understand how Leo had obtained the power, or what exactly he was angry about. Raphael had many questions, but the corners of his mouth shot upward.

Leo had wanted so badly to become strong. It seemed he had finally found a clue.

---

In Ian’s case, he had already been an Archmage who had become Master of the Magic Tower before entering the Academy.

Since he had stood several steps ahead of others from the starting point, he naturally had fewer power-up events, and as far as I knew, there was only one time when he grew in a special way.

What Leo had obtained this time. The power that made Magical Power grow stronger the angrier one became.

That alone had allowed Ian to dominate the power balance and show himself as an overwhelmingly strong figure.

After classes ended today, I accepted Leo’s suggestion that we spar. Curious and nervous to see how much he had grown, I moved to the training ground.

Leo pulled his shoulder back and faked a thrust, then advanced and swung his sword vertically.

Ah? I was flustered because I could see it so clearly, but my body moved to defend on its own.

THOCK!

After striking our swords together, I hooked his and pushed it away. That created an opening, and I stopped my sword in front of Leo’s neck.

“As expected, you are strong.”

After exchanging blades two or three times, I won. What? I was surprised even though I had won, so I suggested we go again. We sparred several times like that, and I won all of them very easily.

Had my eyes been mistaken?

No, that could not be. His eyes had emitted light, and the water near his eyes had boiled. There was no way I had seen that wrong.

Then what was it?

It did seem as though he had grown somewhere. He was a little faster than before vacation, and a little stronger. That was all. But those were results that could come from training hard during vacation. He should have been several times stronger than this.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

I met Leo’s eyes. They were dark. They did not emit even a trace of light. Come to think of it, in Ian’s case, his eyes emitted light whenever he used that power, but this kid had not changed at all.

“It is nothing.”

It was not a power that made someone stronger without any conditions. Only when he grew angry did his Dominion over mana increase, so it would be awkward for him to suddenly become enraged while sparring with me. In other words, it was not a power he could use whenever he wanted, like turning on an electronic device.

Then what was Ian?

As though he had placed a flashlight inside his eyes, Ian could flip a switch whenever he needed to and make his eyes emit light. Curious about that method, I went to find Ian.

“Ahh, you call this Berserk? You came up with an amusing name.”

Embarrassment and frustration welled up at his teasing tone.

It was an embarrassing name, yes, but I was not the one who had named it. Being teased for it made heat rise in my face.

That was not what mattered, so I pretended it was nothing and demanded an explanation from him.

“There is a flow through which Magical Power becomes stronger.... You memorize that, and whenever you need it, you move your mana according to that flow.”

When I merely stood there with my mouth open, Ian unraveled the difficult explanation.

He explained it at length in words even I could understand, and I felt as though I understood what he meant.

Even Berserk had a principle.

When a certain emotion was felt strongly, even without intention, mana moved on its own, rotating and flowing through the Mana Hole and meridians.

Ian said he memorized that flow, and whenever he needed that power, he moved his mana along that same flow to increase his strength.

“Can I learn it too?”

“I am not sure if it is possible. I will teach you the flow for now.”

I moved my mana according to Ian’s words.

It was somewhat similar to a Mana Cultivation Method, so it was not hard to memorize the flow and move my mana, but judging by the fact that my Magical Power did not react at all, it seemed useless for me after all.

I went straight to Leo and taught him the method I had heard. While Leo was correcting the flow of his mana as I instructed, his shoulders slumped.

“It seems the problem is that the amount of mana I have is too small. I need to repeat forward circulation and reverse circulation, but when I forcefully split my mana like that, the mana in both flows weakens, so it does not work well.”

Still, it seemed this method was not entirely useless. From time to time, Leo’s two eyes emitted red light. It mainly happened when he lost a sparring match or when he swung his sword alone. The object of his rage seemed to be none other than his own weak self.

He would swing his sword alone, his eyes would emit light, then return to normal, and then his eyes would glow again. The one with the real anger management problem seemed to be Leo.

---

Since no particular incident broke out and things were going well, I crossed swords with Leo every day.

I won every time, but it was not satisfying.

Whenever Leo lost, he sat down on the spot and dug into the ground while blaming himself.

Then light would slowly come from his eyes, but when I spoke to him, that light would vanish as though the power had been turned off.

Frustrated by this, I spoke frankly to Leo.

“So you are telling me to get angry?”

“No, that is not it. I am asking when you usually get angry.”

“Hmm.... The thing is, I am actually quite emotionally stable. I do not think anything in my daily life particularly makes me angry, so I am not sure.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

I did not think so.