Chapter 148: Chapter 148

Sokram remained silent, not muttering a word as Kamus slashed his katana toward Lymus, unleashing a razor-thin wind blade.

Lymus's sharp senses screamed a warning.

He threw himself into a jump, but the invisible, shearing force of the wind blade still caught him, leaving a line of burning, deep purple across his naked chest.

“Lesson number 2: Killing blades never lower their guards!” Kamus shouted with a frown.

“Yes, gasp, cough-cough, Mas…ter!” Lymus answered as firmly as he could while trying to recover from the hit.

Kamus turned to Sokram, still standing there with steel poles on his back, and nodded approvingly, “Good, you can let them down now. Meditate to recover; you have twenty minutes. Then drive those poles into the ground like that whelp over there did, but align yours perfectly with his.”

“Yes, thank you, Grandmaster!” Sokram made sure to thank Kamus for the rest period since he knew that if he didn’t, his rest would be cut short by half.

The relief was fleeting.

When Sokram shrugged off the crippling load of the poles, his muscles only sagged. The weight in his arms and legs, a perpetual, dull ache, had barely lowered at all. The most update n0vels are published on novelFirｅ.net

He looked over the rings on his wrists and ankles, feigning surprise.

He already knew that the second enchantment in those rings would also magically increase the weight on his body to match half the weight of the poles he was carrying.

After meditating and recovering, Sokram had to pierce the poles deep enough into the ground so they would stand firm.

Yet there was a catch: the enchantments on the poles required a precise order for placement.

But it wasn’t just their order that needed to be precise, but also their depth and the distance between poles.

The depth was easy to figure out after seeing the depth of Lymus’s.

Exactly one meter deep, or they would shoot up from the holes Sokram drove them into.

This turned the task into both a physical and mental exercise.

The first pole Sokram picked was wrongly chosen on purpose, because he couldn’t keep guessing the peculiarities of the training, or he risked revealing that he knew what he wasn’t supposed to know yet.

And Kamus would assume Leona leaked information to him.

When Sokram drove the pole into the snow-covered ground, it was perfectly aligned with Lymus's.

Yet, the ground convulsed.

A pulse of mana erupted beneath Sokram's bare feet, and the pole tore free, shooting upward from the hole, shrieking through the air like a spear hurling up away as if actively rejected by the earth.

The pole nearly fell on him, whistling past his ear, thudding into the snow inches from his feet.

But Sokram’s senses were sharp enough to feel the subtle, harmonious vibration of mana around the accepted poles, contrasting sharply with the aggressive rejection pulse from the others.

This allowed him to map the sequence instantly.

“I see…” Sokram muttered, and Lymus, who thought Sokram would struggle to deal with the puzzle as much as he did, frowned deeply, realizing that wouldn’t be the case.

Extending his sensory field, Sokram found the correct position for the pole that had been rejected, and then moved to pick the next one.

Lymus had banked on another hour of rest.

He was visibly crestfallen when Sokram completed the entire complex setup in less than ten minutes.

“Good. Very good indeed. Even I struggled to figure this puzzle out the first time I used it. Kasine can be a little sadistic in her training methods, Hahahahaha!”

Kamus’s laughter boomed across the clearing, his eyes gleaming with approval at Sokram’s work.

‘Just Nana Kasine? Really?’ Sokram thought, but never dared to voice his thoughts.

“Well, he’s a dragon; his senses when it comes to mana are sharper than ours.”

Leona’s words contradicted the pride gleaming in her eyes, but Sokram knew she wanted to keep his ego grounded.

“But either way, it was a good work, kiddo.” She nodded toward him with an unchanged expression.

Kamus nodded too, then casually fished out a clean towel and a large basket from his spatial ring, its woven reeds giving off the tantalizing scent of smoked meat and fresh bread, as if he were preparing for a picnic.

Sitting down with Leona, he began explaining to Lymus and Sokram.

“Today, you and Lymus will train only the basic forms of the Killing Blade. The tips of these poles will be the ground you will walk on to train your balance and footwork.”

Their eyes widened into shocked saucers at the cruel instruction, and Kamus's wolfish grin split his face in malicious delight.

And Leona followed, her eyes glittering with evil amusement as she sawed a loaf of rustic bread into many slices. “Yep. But if you fall and hit the ground while training, you will have to pay… Let’s say… a thousand push-ups! Is that good, Master?”

“Yeah, for the first day it should do.” Kamus agreed, picking one of the cut slices and applying some jelly to it.

That would be a thousand push-ups with their bodies weighing over a ton. A task demanding sheer brute will when every lift was fighting against over a ton of magical inertia.

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“Master, one question,” Sokram started, for the first time saying something besides Yes, Grandmaster.

“What if we fall, but manage not to touch the ground?”

“Smart of you to ask, but to think you believe it is possible… Well, if you don’t touch the ground, there is no punishment. Now, go. Start with the Swift Wind basic forms, and circle through Thunder, Mountain, Fire, River, and Force. Fifty repetitions each form.” Leona said.

But then thinking of something, she added, “Oh, and don’t forget that if you don’t finish before midday, Kasine and Hannah will come looking for you. And if they scold us for making you late, instead of adding one pole each day, we’ll add two.”

“Yes, Master!” Sokram saluted and leapt for the top of the poles, only to be violently rejected and thrown back, landing hard on his butt.

“Pay up!” Kamus's voice cracked like a whip through the cold air just as he savored a generous bite of the jelly-smeared bread slice.

“Yes, Grandmaster!” Sokram shouted, starting the thousand push-ups.

Lymus, who was also undergoing this training for the first time, tried scaling the poles instead.

But once he reached three meters high, a strong force pushed his body away, and he fell to the ground too.

Before Kamus could even open his mouth, Lymus dropped to the ground and began his thousand push-ups.

Once they finished their push-ups, Sokram, instead of rushing to reach the top, motioned for Lymus to wait, “Sword Uncle, walk with me.”

While Sokram walked with Lymus beside him, he extended his sensory range, looking for something, stopping in front of one of the poles after feeling a shift in the mana around.

He touched the pole and then the rings on his ankles, but felt nothing.

But once he touched the rings on the Lymus’s ankles, he felt the synergy between the pole and the rings.

“This is your entrance, Sword Uncle. But don’t jump up, you will have to walk up there using energy to bind your feet to the poles.”

Once Sokram’s words reached them, Kamus squinted his eyes at Leona, who just shrugged.

“How did you figure that out, Sokram?” Kamus’s tone was sharp and full of suspicion.

Sokram looked at Kamus, raising an eyebrow, “Grandmaster, didn’t you read the material I prepared for you about how mana fluctuations vary depending on their element?”

Kamus’s eyes widened a bit, looking caught.

Leona smirked, thinking, ‘Nice comeback, kiddo!’

And then she told Sokram, “Your Grandmaster isn’t that much of a fast reader, Kiddo. You may continue.”

“Yes, Master!” Sokram nodded and continued searching for his entrance.

But before he could reach it, he heard Lymus falling to the ground again.

“Fuck! I thought you said this was the entrance of this damn thing?”

Lymus’s voice broke in anger, breath steaming in the icy air as frustration twisted his face, but the sound of his curse died in his throat as he instantly regretted it.

“Oh, so you think that the training method I designed is something to be cursed at? Should I improve it? To help you get better results? It might get a little harder though…”

Kasine’s voice was full of venom, cutting through the forest like a whip, every word steeped in cold fury.

Even the snowflakes seemed to halt midair as she walked out of the woods, glaring intently at her grandson.

“No, Nana. I’m looking forward to the results this amazing training will bring me! I was just frustrated because of my own dumbness.” Lymus quickly apologized, bowing to her.

“And what do you think of it, Sokram?” Kasine smiled at him, but Sokram was wise enough to know it was a test.

“Amazing formation, truly. Whoever helped you forge and enchant this formation is very intelligent, but your design of it is masterful. But if I could make a suggestion, it would be to increase the number of poles, as the more advanced forms of the Killing Blade might ask for more space.”

He answered, finally finding his entrance in the formation, which, peculiarly, was in the opposite direction to Lymus’s.

Lymus shot a glare toward Sokram that said, ‘You mad son of a bitch!’

But Kasine laughed heartily, satisfied with his answer, “Hahahaha! Amazing, this disciple of yours, Leona. But you told him that he would be bringing in more steel columns every day, right?”

“Yes, I believe he thought he would be taking them back instead of bringing in more each day.” Leona’s smile beamed as she never had enough of being complimented for choosing to accept Sokram as her disciple.

Kasine joined them for their picnic.

And Sokram waited for Lymus to finish his push-ups.

Once Lymus finished it, Sokram, once again, motioned him to wait, “You tried to start climbing alone, and it didn’t work, but since everything in this formation screams synchrony, let’s try reaching the top at the same time.”

This time, it was Kasine who shot Leona a suspicious look, but once again, Leona shrugged, not knowing how Sokram figured that out, too.

Lymus, who saw Kasine’s reaction, nodded firmly, “I believe you might be right. With me, then. 1, 2… Right Foot!”

Using either Force or spirit essence to glue their feet to the poles, they started walking up, one step at a time, “Left! Right! Left! Right!” Lymus would shout, but their height difference made their steps uneven, and every time Lymus got in front of Sokram, he would be pushed back.

“Give bigger steps, Sokram!” Lymus shouted between ragged breaths after almost falling.

“Control your breathing, Sword Uncle. Lesson number 28: A rushed strike is a flawed one! This is also a part of the training.”

Sokram barked back, tired of the strain it was having on his muscles, with his body weighing over a ton while he stood on the pole with his body straight at a ninety-degree angle.

“Tsk! Left! Right! Gasp!” Lymus insisted on pushing forward, but his breathing became even more irregular.

“Control your breathing and regulate your energy circulation, you damn pup! If I fall because of you, I swear I’ll beat some sense into you with one of these poles,” Sokram lost his temper seeing Lymus almost falling.

His reaction made Kamus, Kasine, and Leona burst out laughing, which only irked Lymus even more.

But swallowing his pride, he stopped trying to rush, and only after regulating his breathing and circulation, he took another step.

Their steps finally found synchrony, but they were short steps, no longer than twenty centimeters between each foot.

Their breathing fell into rhythm, steam rising, footsteps tapping in unison, two hearts beating to the same relentless tempo.

“Right! Left! Breathe! Right! Left! Breathe!”

Lymus realized it; this was their rhythm training, the first footwork training method any disciple of the Killing Blade learned until it was ingrained in the way they walked and fought.

The name was precisely that: Right, Left, Breathe.

When they finally stood on top of their entrance pole, Sokram gave Lymus a thumbs up, “I knew a genius like you would get it, Sword Uncle! I’m very proud to train by your side!”

Lymus, who wasn’t used to getting compliments, scratched his nose embarrassedly, “That was nothing.”

“No, it was something indeed. From time to time, you make me remember why I chose to accept you as a disciple after I finished training Leona. Excellent, son.”

Kamus smiled sincerely at Lymus, but then his smile twisted into an evil grin, “But if you weren’t so slow, you would have used the Right, Left, Breath method from the start. You know, Sokram did that since he picked up his pile of steel poles? Walking all the way here.”

Lymus frowned, kicking himself for not realizing that before.

Yet, Leona frowned for a different reason.

“Why are you telling him that? My disciple had to figure that out by himself,” Leona pouted, and Kasine, too, glared at Kamus.

But Kamus just shrugged, “He would have figured that tomorrow anyway.”

Lymus felt touched that Kamus felt proud enough to even give him that tip.

But before Lymus could celebrate, Kamus told him, “By the way, as the eldest, you should lead by example so your sequence will be the opposite of Sokram’s, so start from Invisible Force and finish it at Swift Wind.”

Lymus knew Kamus wouldn’t give him a cape without making the rain stronger right after, so all he could say was, “Yes, Master!”

“In sync, Sword Uncle. So we don’t hit each other and fall.”

Sokram assumed the stance of the first form of the Swift Wind, as if he were carrying an imaginary sword.

Lymus did the same, but even before they could start, they heard Leona say, “Opsie! Almost forgot! I apologize for my carelessness. You should use these wooden swords to practice. Catch!”

Leona threw the two bokkens at them, but just as Sokram was about to catch his, he felt the mana flow of the formation trying to reject the bokken his hand touched.

Sokram turned to Lymus, and all he managed to say was, “Lesson number 1! Lesson number 1!”

Lymus reacted instinctively and caught his bokken with the strongest grip he could because A Killing Blade never let go of his sword, otherwise he is nothing but an apprentice!