Novice Mastery!

After returning to the military outpost just before dusk arrived, the fanged wolves squad split up and headed their own ways, agreeing to meet up the next day in the morning.

They had managed to clear out another pack of wolf-type monsters, only this time the difficulty was very low as opposed to the last one where all members had to fight.

So only the ones who fought were Evan and Finn.

This time though, after learning from his previous mistakes, Evan stayed concentrated during the entire duration of the fight, not getting injured and easily dispatching the monsters he faced.

Back in his room, he held the sword in his hand as he began increasing his mastery, aiming to achieve the novice level of mastery before the night was over.

Swinging his sword, he contemplated the meaning of speed as he searched for his own answer.

'Speed is how fast an object moves in relation to the distance travelled. However, when in combat, speed is defined through the ability to attack, defend, perceive, react and physically move at said speed. I believe that the essence of speed in combat is how fast you can kill.'

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Swinging his sword over and over again, Evan began trying to get a feel for the ethereal feeling of speed which was mentioned in the book.

As he kept swinging, he started imagining controlling the finest of movements of his body to transmit a greater speed through them.

Scrunching his brows in concentration, a scene emerged in his mind as he prepared to slash with his sword once again.

Swirling around his body were small greyish-black particles that were invisible to the naked eye. They clung to Evan's body as they floated slowly in place.

Occasionally, the sword will attract one or two particles, making them leave their current position and travel toward the blade.

Looking closer, whenever the blade was swung and the small particles were present, the blade appeared to travel faster and faster.

Closing his eyes, Evan strained his senses, attempting to sense these so-called 'particles' as he gained a flash of inspiration from the scene in his mind.

Two hours later, with no success in sensing these particles, he was about to stop due to his frustration. However, at the last second, he managed to barely perceive the smallest particle.

Clutching at straws, Evan used the last of his energy to maintain his senses, determined to not let the particle escape from his vision.

Renewed with more vigour after the minor success, he doubled down and a few minutes later was able to fully sense the existence of these particles.

A wide grin split on his face as sweat dripped down from his forehead onto the floor below.

'Haaa… I did it! Now it's time to figure out what this does.'

Having received a stroke of inspiration, Evan began trying to manipulate these particles into moving towards his sword, however, to his dismay, they barely moved an inch when he willed them to.

Focusing again this time, however, he channelled mana within his body as he willed the greyish-black particles to begin moving.

This time, with his vision enhanced with mana, Evan saw something that he had failed to see previously.

Using mana vision, he was able to see the bright, peaceful ambient mana particles swirling as they hovered quietly in their place, which contrasted with the darker colours of the newly found particles.

Gazing closer, Evan discovered that whenever the mana particles and the darker particles neared each other, a suction-like force was generated, causing them to be attracted to each other.

Eyes widening in realisation, he felt sparks flying in his brain as he pieced together the best way to achieve a novice level of mastery with his sword art.

Gripping the hilt of his sword with an iron grip, Evan covered the blade of his sword with mana as he gazed intently at the greyish-black particles steadily making their way closer.

Waiting until the last moment when the dark particles were within inches of the blade, he locked onto a specific particle before coaxing it into landing on the blade.

Gritting his teeth, Evan increased his efforts as more sweat started dripping from his body.

Finally, the black particle fused with the blade as more and more particles converged and fused with that single one.

Only when there were enough particles did he switch off the steady stream of mana which was flowing into his sword.

Quickly getting into a stance before any of the particles had a chance to dissipate and diffuse somewhere else, Evan slashed forwards with extreme concentration.

Feeling the dark blade whistle through the air, he felt a feeling similar to a bottleneck loosening as every movement of the sword etched itself deep in his mind with unparalleled clarity.

With extreme lucidity, he once again lifted the sword and slashed downwards. However, this time, he muttered something calmly under his breath.

"First Form—Horizon's Dash"

As the sword arced downwards, its speed multiplied greatly as a surge of power came from Evan's body, propelling the strike to new heights.

Whoosh!

A green light bloomed from the blade as its speed became enhanced several times that of the former one.

The sword trembled as if excited from its increased speed as it finished arcing downwards before coming to a complete stop, showing Evan's lean figure as his exhausted face came into view.

Sitting down in a cross-legged position, he began reflecting on what had just happened.

'After being able to complete the first form, it has enhanced my speed two-fold and the number of mana slashes I can produce has also doubled.'

The dark mana slashes he used in the battle against the brown wolves originated from the Demon reaper's art as a physical manifestation of the user's will.

At the moment Evan was fighting against them, he thought about creating sword slashes in the air, so after expending a large amount of mana, the dark mana slashes came into existence.

As for the Whispering Retribution art, after finally completing the first form, he felt the quality of his body increase as well as be able to sustain the forms of the Demon reaper art for longer.

With the breakthrough in mastery came an increased understanding of the sword as well as instinctive knowledge of how to better utilize the greyish-black particles which had similar properties to the mythical energy mana.

Taking out the manual for the Whispering retribution art from his storage ring, Evan began reading to see if there was information given about those greyish-black particles.

Flipping through the pages, he stopped at a particular one which caught his attention due to a diagram of the human body being displayed, in addition to a flow of particles similar to that which he sensed.

As he read through the page, a contemplative look appeared on his face as he started stroking his chin, deep in thought.

'So the black particles are actually a derivative form of mana called Ki. A warrior would gain access to Ki when they break through to rank 3, however, since I have the blood of warriors running in my veins as well as possessing two top-grade martial arts some of the latent potential in my body has been squeezed out in the form of sensing Ki.'

Eyes glowing at the prospect of increasing his combat arsenal against the horrors of the Forbidden Wilds, Evan retrieved some monster meat and stuffed it in his mouth as he began reviewing his next steps.