[Presence Concealment ★★★]
[Effect: Suppresses the user’s presence and returns it to stillness.
While concealed, the user is difficult to detect unless they deliberately reveal themselves.]
[Warning: Presence is greatly reduced.
Others may easily overlook the user.]
No wonder Nina hid so well.
If Noah hadn’t deliberately searched for her, he probably never would’ve discovered where she was.
Thinking back, one of Nina’s rarest and most distinctive traits at the peak of her growth was her killing-intent-free swordsmanship.
She could attack without emitting bloodlust or murderous intent.
Combined with the Sword God Style’s one-hit-kill philosophy, she was practically born to be an assassin.
The talent Noah had just harvested from her was absolutely worth activating.
He began experimenting that very day.
None of the talents he drew granted instant power.
Every one of them had to be realized through Noah’s own practice and learning.
The advantage was that once he understood something, the talent let him master it far faster than normal.
Noah tried consciously suppressing his presence, reducing every movement and sound as much as possible, then following the natural sensation the talent provided.
When he went to the dining hall as usual, noticeably fewer people watched him along the way.
Some still noticed, but compared with the constant hostile and resentful stares he’d received before, it was much more comfortable.
Noah hadn’t expected the talent to have such a convenient everyday use.
When he reached the serving counter, the cook looked up, filled Noah’s plate, then nearly served him a second portion because he somehow forgot he’d already done it.
The man paused, stared at Noah for a second, and quietly pulled the extra food back.
After returning home, Noah remembered that he still had Gal’s [Battle Aura Flow ★★★★] to activate, along with Battle Aura Coating: Hardening to master.
His body couldn’t handle serious sword practice yet.
Training battle aura control was perfect.
[Battle Aura Flow ★★★★] was much harder to activate than its description suggested.
The system made it sound simple: greatly improve precision of battle aura control.
In practice, refined control was completely different from opening the floodgates and coating the whole body.
It required manipulating battle aura like threading a needle, guiding it exactly where Noah intended.
Repeated fine control placed a heavy burden on his mind.
Before long, his head felt thick and heavy.
He rested until the discomfort eased, then resumed.
If he ever wanted to reach Gal’s level—where the Sword God could blast Eris away from a distance with battle aura alone—then persistence was unavoidable.
Little by little, the flow became easier.
Noah then began experimenting with the method encoded in Battle Aura Coating: Hardening.
That was even harder.
He had to compress battle aura into a denser state while simultaneously arranging and winding it in a specific structure.
It was far more difficult than simply circulating aura freely through his body.
But precisely because it was difficult, practicing it also improved his overall control.
At present, every use of Hardening required too much time to be practical in battle.
Noah wasn’t worried.
Once proficiency increased, he was sure it would become usable in real combat.
Practice made perfect.
And he couldn’t stop.
The feedback loop was too satisfying.
Feeling himself improve bit by bit was addictive.
Only when Noah became so exhausted that excitement could no longer force his mind to continue did he finally stop.
He opened the system panel.
As expected, [Battle Aura Flow ★★★★] now displayed as active.
Then he checked another entry.
[Battle Aura Coating: Hardening (Uninitiated)]
“Yeah, yeah.
The System is always merciless with its ratings.”
But when Noah’s gaze drifted aside, he noticed something different.
[Killing Intent: Nascent (Charge: 3%)]
He froze.
‘Charge?
When did that appear?’
He was certain the line hadn’t been there when he first reviewed his rewards.
And during this period, the only thing he’d practiced related to killing intent, pressure, or presence was Nina’s [Presence Concealment ★★★].
Killing intent was itself a kind of presence.
‘Wait…’
Could he store the presence he suppressed, then release it all at once later?
As far as he could remember, he’d only seriously concealed himself during lunch.
So that short period had charged three percent.
Noah’s exhaustion vanished beneath a fresh wave of excitement.
…
Four days later, on the snowy plains.
Less than half an hour’s walk from the Holy Land of Swords lay a stretch of land away from the main road.
The snow wasn’t particularly deep there, and bare rock and soil showed through in places.
Few people passed through.
Several local monsters made their nests in the area.
One species was roughly the size of a small dog: the Ice Rock Rat.
It had neither sharp claws nor fangs and possessed a gentle temperament, but it was extraordinarily timid and extremely sensitive to movement and presence.
As a staple food source for Icefang Wolves, Snow Hunter Bears, and other medium-to-large carnivorous monsters, the slightest disturbance could send an entire colony scattering in every direction.
Noah crouched three or four meters away and watched a group of around a dozen small creatures digging between snow and stone, occasionally raising their heads and twitching their ears.
Using [Presence Concealment] at full strength, he slowly crept closer.
He finally stopped at about two and a half meters.
Over the past few days, he’d been testing how Presence Concealment affected the charge rate of Killing Intent: Nascent.
If he spent almost the entire day actively suppressing his presence, it still took roughly three days to fill the gauge.
While sleeping or practicing battle aura, Noah couldn’t maintain concealment properly.
He was trying to overcome that conflict, at least enough to keep his presence hidden while using battle aura.
Sleeping could remain an exception.
It was perfectly normal for a Saber to multiclass into Assassin, right?
After all, a certain old gatekeeper from another franchise was a peerless swordsman and still got summoned as Assassin.
[Killing Intent: Nascent (Charge: 72%)]
At fifty percent, Noah had already felt that he could release it.
Originally, he’d wanted to wait until it reached a full one hundred percent.
But his physical injuries were almost healed, and he planned to visit his Sword God master tomorrow to begin formal training.
So he’d sneaked out today to test the ability on monsters first.
Once Noah judged the distance sufficient, he closed his eyes.
Two Ice Rock Rats that may or may not have noticed him sniffed around curiously.
One nearly bumped its nose against his boot.
A single person stood in the snow, his presence blending into the endless white plain.
‘Killing Intent: Nascent.’
Noah opened his eyes and drew the sword at his waist in a rapid iai-like motion.
In the next instant—
A dense, heavy, almost viscous killing intent erupted from his body.
The empty snowfield was suddenly flooded with an aura that seemed determined to kill every living thing within it.
The two Ice Rock Rats beside his feet froze.
So did the rest of the colony nearby.
Everything became silent.
A moment later, several stiff little bodies tipped over into the snow.
Then the entire area went completely still.
Historical record:
One entire family of snowfield Jerrys was wiped out by Noah today.
He nudged one rat’s stiffening body with his boot.
No visible injury.
Eyes stretched wide.
Cause of death: cardiac arrest from fright.
Noah had known Ice Rock Rats were abnormally timid, so the result wasn’t entirely shocking.
Still, he was delighted.
You could never have too many techniques.
Besides, whenever the old monsters in neighboring anime started fighting, who didn’t open by dumping a ton of “Conqueror’s Haki” across the battlefield?
His version needed a charge cooldown, sure, but at least he couldn’t lose on aura.
Noah looked back toward the Holy Land of Swords.
He was already looking forward to tomorrow.