Becoming a Swordmaster by Reading Chapter 14

The principle of aura proficiency increase that Roden discovered.

It was none other than this.

By applying resistance to the muscles to damage the muscle fibers, mana is absorbed in the recovery process and converted into aura.

‘It's a well-known fact that mages convert natural mana into magical power, and knights into aura, for use.’

However, unlike magical power, research on how aura is converted from mana had not been actively pursued.

It was merely known that by revering the sword and training diligently, one could accumulate aura quickly depending on their talent.

This was because knights had a military character, in contrast to mages who had a scholarly character.

On the other hand, Roden was a scholar before being a mage, before being a knight.

So he couldn't help but be curious about the principle.

And while resting, he felt something strange about the natural mana gathering near him, and by quietly closing his eyes and tracking its movement, he realized this principle.

However, according to Roden's observations over a few days, not everyone absorbed the same amount of aura into their muscles.

Just as a mage's ability to create the artificial mana rings called circles depended on their innate mana affinity.

The amount of mana that could be absorbed at one time and converted into aura differed from person to person.

For example, while Chevalier absorbed 1% of the mana.

A common soldier, in comparison, only absorbed about 0.1%.

In fact, a significant number of them absorbed even less than that.

For reference, in Roden's case, he was absorbing about 3% of the mana and converting it into aura.

Since his only point of comparison was Chevalier, he couldn't tell how good this absorption rate was.

Only that it was three times Chevalier's was certain.

In this way, Roden was able to grasp the principle by which aura proficiency increased in just one day of regular training.

After that, he continued to receive regular training for a few days and had time for verification, so he gained confidence in his hypothesis.

‘By the way, to think I have to undergo extreme training every day to raise my aura proficiency… The conditions are too demanding.’

Of course, someone with outstanding talent would be able to accumulate a large amount of aura in their body with less exercise.

Just as some people build muscle more easily even with the same workout.

But Roden did not possess that level of talent.

When he slacked off a bit during training for two days to obtain research data, the amount of absorbed aura dropped sharply to 1%.

In conclusion, Roden had to undergo extreme training every day to maintain a 3% absorption rate.

Such was his talent.

‘Anyway, now that I've grasped the principle, it's time to find a way to increase the absorption rate. First, increasing the intensity of the training… I'll pass on that.’

Honestly, it was impossible to increase the training intensity any further from here.

He could if he forced himself, but in that case, consistent training would be impossible.

‘Because after one day of exercise, I'd have to rest fully the next day.’

In that case, even if he increased the intensity to make the absorption rate 5%, it would be less efficient than absorbing a total of 6% over two days at 3% each day.

It was better to maintain a 3% absorption rate consistently without increasing the intensity.

‘But just in case, should I give it a try? The absorption rate might go up to 7%, who knows?’

Roden, with his strong spirit of experimentation, tackled the training with incredible vigor that day.

Chevalier tilted his head at this sight.

It was because Roden, who had been slacking off for two days, was suddenly training with so much passion.

The proof was that he did 1,000 overhead cuts when others were doing 500.

‘He's going to be sore all over tomorrow if he does that…’

And just as he thought.

As Chevalier expected, Roden was sore all over and had to rest for a whole day.

But while groaning, he checked his absorption rate and came to a conclusion.

‘As expected, the efficiency is low. I trained twice as hard as others, but the absorption rate was only 4%.’

In other words, it meant that consistently performing high-intensity training was the best.

‘In the end, there's a clear limit to increasing the absorption rate by increasing the training intensity. It hits a peak at some point and then follows a downward curve. It would be better to look for another method.’

And so, after resting fully for a day, Roden, who had started participating in regular training again, changed his method.

This time, he decided to try to increase the mana absorption rate during the recovery phase.

‘The absorption rate might change depending on how I rest. In fact, mana absorption was better during sleep.’

That was right.

Roden was able to confirm that the absorption rate was better when he was asleep than when he was awake.

In the first place, Roden's expression of the absorption rate as 3% was a 24-hour average.

Just as muscle soreness after training lasted for more than a day, the absorption rate also showed a tendency to persist.

‘The absorption rate seems to be closely related to muscle soreness. So, how I recover my muscles might affect the absorption rate.’

From then on, after the regular training was over, Roden began to do things that seemed helpful for muscle recovery.

The very first thing he did was increase his sleep time.

Since he had directly confirmed that the absorption rate increased while sleeping, it was natural to increase his sleep time first.

Thus, Roden fixed his sleep time at nine hours.

At first, he tried sleeping for six hours, but seven hours was better than that, and eight hours was better, and finally, nine hours was the best.

To think that he was using nine hours for sleep when a day is only 24 hours.

Honestly, he felt it was a bit of a waste.

In fact, in his previous life, Roden's sleep schedule was quite irregular.

There were countless times when he stayed up all night, so focused on his research that he lost track of time.

But even if it was a waste of time, it couldn't be helped.

It was because he had to sleep for a long time to absorb mana and raise his aura proficiency.

‘Thinking about it differently, I'm getting stronger just by sleeping, so it's actually a gain.’

After changing his sleep time, Roden next looked for other methods that would help with recovery.

That was doing stretching and massage after training.

Roden came to know this method by chance.

Among the common soldiers who would just sit down or lie down after the regular training was over, there was one who was showing peculiar behavior.

“Why are you moving your body instead of resting? Isn't that tiring?”

When Roden suddenly approached and asked this, the soldier, who was stretching his whole body in a peculiar way, made a flustered expression before answering.

“…It's a little tiring for now, but stretching like this makes my body hurt less the next day. It's a method that has been passed down in our tribe for a long time.”

After answering Roden, the soldier who finished the 'stretching' began to massage his own body with an expressionless face.

When asked what this was, the soldier replied that it was a massage.

“It makes the body hurt less… Interesting. Could I learn that from you too, Nedhab?”

Nedhab was startled by Roden's question.

That was because he had never thought that Roden would know his name.

Indeed, Nedhab, who was from a small tribe called Sapkota, was quite the quiet type.

Nedhab wasn't like this from the beginning.

When he lived in the mountains where his tribe was, he had a cheerful personality.

But after coming to the city and starting to face discrimination because of his appearance and skin color, his personality began to change bit by bit.

He became unnecessarily intimidated and withdrawn, and his tendency to hide himself was reinforced.

For that reason, Nedhab had the least presence within the 3rd Infantry Platoon.

But to think that the moron platoon leader remembered his name.

Nedhab couldn't help but be surprised.

If you were to ask if this made him purely happy, as it had for Zailo, it did not.

Rather, it was a bit burdensome.

So he asked.

“You know my name?”

But Roden paid no mind to this.

“Hm? Ah, yeah. Since I'm the platoon leader, it's only natural that I know the names of my platoon members. What's so strange about it.”

He simply answered like that and then said what he had to say.

“So, are you going to teach me that stretching and massage, or not?”

Since Nedhab had no choice in the matter in the first place, he explained in detail how to do the stretching and massage.

And Roden, having learned this, began to experiment with it in earnest.

A verification process was needed to see if stretching and massage really helped alleviate muscle soreness, and thus affected the mana absorption rate.

The result was a great success.

The two things helped not only with alleviating muscle soreness but also with the mana absorption rate.

So Roden did not stop at simply doing the stretching and massage as Nedhab had taught him, but conducted more diverse experiments.

Experiments on how long to do the stretching and massage for the best effect.

For stretching, slowly performing the 14 movements that Nedhab had taught him over 10 minutes was effective enough.

And for massage, the effect increased greatly if he rubbed the painful areas with something like a round stick up and down, left and right, for 10 minutes each.

In conclusion, Roden spent a total of 50 minutes on stretching and massage after regular training.

He even did the stretching before the regular training began.

This was because he had learned through experiments that it helped increase the effectiveness of the exercise.

And Nedhab, as if he found it strange that Roden was diligently practicing what he had taught him, frequently peeked at Roden.

Since he was observing the tribe's customs for longer than himself, he couldn't help but keep getting concerned.

***

In addition to this, Roden devised and experimented with various other methods to increase the absorption rate.

He found out that showering in a cold river to cool down the muscles was good for alleviating muscle soreness,

and he discovered that some foods eaten along with training helped to alleviate muscle soreness and increase the absorption rate. These were the results.

And as a result of repeated research like this, Roden succeeded in raising the absorption rate to an average of 8%.

But Roden was more pleased with the fact that he was immersed in a new research project for the first time in a long while than with the fact that his aura proficiency was growing by leaps and bounds.

Come to think of it, it was surprisingly the first time in 100 years that he had become engrossed in new research.

Moreover, since the clear results were visibly apparent, Roden couldn't help but become more and more engrossed in research related to the absorption rate.

He became so deeply engrossed that in the process, he even came to enjoy the regular training that had only been difficult.

And so, from a certain day, this kind of voice burst out from Roden's mouth as he was conducting the regular training.

“Delicious! Ah, so delicious!”

With every swing of his sword, Roden let out these words that were either a kiai or an exclamation of admiration.

And the expressions of the 3rd Infantry Platoon, who watched this and couldn't understand what was so delicious, couldn't help but turn bizarre.

Only Chevalier,

‘Could drinking after exercising like that be so good?’

was having such thoughts.

***

And a few days later.

Chevalier witnessed an even stranger scene.