“Ugh…….”
When Mitchell regained consciousness, he pressed hard against his temples as pain made his head feel as though it were splitting apart.
After a while, when the pain subsided somewhat, he immediately examined the inside of his body.
“It really is an Aura Hole…….”
It was common knowledge that mixing mana and Aura was dangerous.
In other words, the Aura Hole in the dantian and the Mana Hole in the heart could not be open at the same time.
Each would be filled with a different kind of energy, after all.
That meant the existence of an Aura Hole in Mitchell’s body also meant there was no longer any way for him to open a Mana Hole.
“Ha…….”
Mitchell sighed and rubbed his face with both hands before finally getting to his feet.
For now, he decided to be grateful that he had survived.
Besides, part of him thought this might actually be for the best.
By giving up black magic, he could sever all ties with the detestable Kellion Family once and for all.
Black magic itself was not what mattered to Mitchell.
What mattered was possessing the strength to move forward.
And martial arts could become one such source of strength.
‘Hmm, I wonder if I can fill the Aura Hole with souls.’
Wanting to satisfy his curiosity, Mitchell looked around.
He had already absorbed most of the souls inside the cave.
They must have been broken down into energy, which had opened Mitchell’s Aura Hole and Aura Roads.
What mattered was whether he could fill the Aura Hole using the same method.
It was dangerous enough that it might trigger another Mana Rampage like the one he had suffered at the age of ten, but Mitchell believed it would work.
Whatever the reason, had he not opened an Aura Hole with dark mana?
‘……I only need to check.’
To absorb the two remaining souls in the cave, Mitchell placed a hand against the floor and used Soul Drain.
CLATTER!
A black shadow appeared beneath his palm, and chains made of ominous energy burst out from it.
They writhed through the air and bound the two souls that had been keeping their distance from Mitchell.
The souls screamed as they were dragged toward him, struggling desperately to break free.
SKREEEEEE-
Their chilling screams continued even after they entered Mitchell’s body.
But only for a moment.
As Mitchell began breaking them down, their screams gradually faded away.
The decomposed souls became dark mana.
Up to that point, everything was the same as before.
Mitchell guided the energy toward his Aura Hole.
There was a chance it could run rampant, but Mitchell trusted himself and pushed the dark mana into the Aura Hole.
The dark mana quivered for a moment before entering Mitchell’s Aura Hole and settling quietly inside.
“It works! ……Huh?”
Mitchell had been celebrating the fact that his theory was correct when he realized that the dark mana inside his Aura Hole had remained exactly as it was.
‘There’s dark mana inside my Aura Hole? It didn’t turn into Aura?’
He knew better than anyone that this should have been impossible.
It made no sense, yet it was happening inside his body right now.
Mitchell once again examined the energy within his Aura Hole.
Then he noticed something else.
“What? This isn’t dark mana either.”
It was something else entirely, neither Aura nor dark mana.
The moment he confirmed that, his thoughts became tangled.
If things remained like this, he would not be able to remove the curse his father had placed on him.
‘That won’t do.’
Mitchell had already made up his mind to leave the family.
To do that, he had to remove the curse somehow.
‘Is there another way……?’
His original plan had been to use dark mana to unravel the curse formula.
But that was no longer possible.
After thinking for a long while, Mitchell’s attention eventually turned to the soul within his body.
‘If I can transfer the curse into a soul, it’ll work.’
Mitchell immediately moved the black sphere that formed the core of the curse.
As he slowly pulled it toward the soul, tremendous pain assaulted him.
Just before the splitting pain in his head caused him to lose consciousness, he succeeded in placing the curse within the soul.
Then, in that state, he broke down the soul and put it into his Aura Hole.
“Urgh!”
But an enormous amount of energy suddenly surged toward him like floodwaters.
The quantity was on an entirely different level from when he had converted the souls into energy moments earlier.
Mitchell barely managed to expel the overflowing energy from his body.
Only after struggling for quite some time did his body finally stabilize.
Mitchell swallowed dryly.
‘……There was this much dark mana packed into such a simple curse?’
Even a basic curse spell cast so casually contained this much power.
Mitchell cursed himself for ever thinking he could unravel the curse formula using dark mana.
Had he followed his original plan, the enormous quantity of dark mana contained within the curse would have killed him.
What was more, so much dark mana had been compressed into it that if he had simply ignored the curse and fled, he would undoubtedly have died.
‘Was Father trying to kill me……?’
If Mitchell did not run away, that would never happen.
But his father could only have placed such a curse on him because he did not care if Mitchell died.
Mitchell’s mind became clearer instead.
He had felt a small amount of guilt about abandoning the family.
Now even that had completely disappeared.
Mitchell walked to the front of the training cave and activated the door.
GRRRR-
With a loud noise, the iron door sealing the cave slowly opened.
Dawn was just breaking, so the surroundings were already bright.
Overgrown weeds covered the area, and his mana vehicle sat there all by itself.
Mitchell climbed into the vehicle and started it, causing the mana-powered engine to tremble.
He pressed the accelerator, and the vehicle began moving.
The road was difficult to see beneath all the grass, but Mitchell did not stop driving.
After going farther, the rough trail disappeared and a well-maintained road came into view.
From that point onward, Mitchell pressed the accelerator even farther down.
***
Several days passed as Mitchell deliberately chose secluded roads to avoid people’s eyes.
After wandering without any particular destination, he finally stopped his mana vehicle at the entrance to a fairly large village.
He had not stopped at a single village along the way, so even the Kellion Family would have difficulty tracking him this far.
GROWL-
The moment he relaxed even slightly, his stomach churned with hunger.
He had already finished all the food and water he had brought from the training cave.
He wanted to enter the village, eat something, and rest in a comfortable bed.
‘Even aside from that, I need somewhere to stay for a while.’
Mitchell’s hands were itching.
He had been unable to do anything because he needed to keep fleeing, but he wanted to grip a sword and swing it as soon as possible.
Despite gaining an Aura Hole, he had not even held a sword by the hilt once.
With that thought in mind, he drove his mana vehicle up to the inn near the village entrance and stopped.
“Whoa, look at that! It’s a mana vehicle!”
The village was fairly large, but expensive mana vehicles were hardly a common sight, so people immediately began staring.
‘I should hide the mana vehicle.’
Mitchell entered the inn.
The owner, who had been watching through the window, hurried over.
“Welcome! This is the finest inn in the village, renowned for providing the very best service!”
“I intend to stay for about a month.”
“Oh! A whole month! Is there anything else you require?”
“I’ll be going out from time to time, so please bring my meals to my room. I also need somewhere to keep that mana vehicle. Preferably somewhere out of sight. Would that be possible?”
The owner’s face lit up.
If Mitchell was staying long-term and wanted his mana vehicle stored as well, the owner could charge him double the usual lodging fee.
“Of course! I’ll clear out the storage shed and let you know when it’s ready!”
“Thank you. I’ll be out for a while, so there’s no need to hurry.”
After leaving the inn, Mitchell asked a passerby for directions and headed toward a jeweler.
He needed money if he was going to live here for some time.
At present, the only things he owned that could fetch any money were a few pieces of jewelry that had supposedly belonged to his mother.
Mitchell sold all of them at the jewelry shop.
In total, he received 10 gold.
One gold was worth 100 silver, and since a fairly decent meal for a commoner cost less than 1 silver, 10 gold was a substantial sum.
‘And even so, he told me to hand over Mother’s inheritance instead of the jewelry.’
If the wealthy Head of the Kellion Family had said something like that, Mitchell suspected the inheritance must be worth a considerable amount.
He decided he would visit an Imperial Bank branch in a major city later and check.
For now, however, obtaining the things he needed came first.
Once the sun fully set, the shops would begin closing.
There were plenty of things he needed to buy, including a swordsmanship manual and a sword.
Mitchell hurried around so that he could begin training in swordsmanship that very day.
***
One hour later, in his room at the inn.
Mitchell finished reading both and , which he had purchased from the village bookstore, then closed the books.
Now it was time to try moving for himself.
‘Is this how I’m supposed to hold it?’
He gripped the hilt according to the method shown in the book.
It felt awkward because this was the first time he had ever held a sword, but after recalling the contents of the swordsmanship manual and settling into the proper stance, it felt somewhat better.
He swung the sword.
It sounded like someone swinging a club.
WHOOSH- WHOOSH- WHOOSH-
Whether he was doing it properly or not, Mitchell continued swinging for quite some time before collapsing into a seated position.
He had only spent about ten minutes swinging the sword, yet his entire body was already screaming at him.
‘This isn’t easy.’
He had expected as much to some degree, but swinging a sword was far more strenuous than he had imagined.
Still, he could not stop here.
As soon as his breathing recovered somewhat, Mitchell lifted the sword again and resumed swinging.
‘The book said the sound changes when you swing a sword properly.’
Recalling what he had read, Mitchell emptied his mind and focused solely on the tip of the sword.
“The book said to do it like this…….”
Each time Mitchell swung the sword, he altered his stance slightly and listened to the sound.
Eventually, the sound began to change.
One hour.
Two hours.
Three hours.
Whenever exhaustion overwhelmed him, he rested once, then started swinging again.
The dull sound of the blade cutting through the air gradually became sharper.
SWISH- SWISH- SWISH-
Sweat streamed down his entire body, and his breathing grew ragged.
Normally, he should have stopped and rested by this point, but Mitchell kept moving.
It felt as though the sword itself were signaling that if he swung it just a little more, he would finally be able to handle it properly.
Mitchell gritted his teeth and swung again.
The strength was gradually draining from his entire body.
But he still could not stop, so Mitchell changed how he distributed his strength in order to keep swinging the sword.
He used less strength when raising the sword and applied force precisely only when cutting.
That clearly placed less strain on him.
‘It sounds much better too!’
The book had mentioned something related to this, but Mitchell had not understood what it meant.
Now that he had actually swung the sword himself, he could feel it.
Forgetting even his exhaustion, Mitchell began trying other movements, including horizontal and diagonal slashes, learning them through his own body.
Fortunately, perhaps because he had already gotten the hang of it once, it did not take long before the sound became consistent in every stance.
Only then did Mitchell put down his sword and lie flat on the floor.
His entire body was soaked in sweat.
“Hehehe.”
Laughter kept escaping between his ragged breaths.
Whenever his laughter began to subside, the sight of himself like this made him start laughing all over again.
‘Was this always this much fun?’
Between the family library, the training grounds, and the training cave, he had spent an entire ten years training.
But he had never found any of it enjoyable.
It had merely been a desperate struggle to survive.
But now, he was having an incredible amount of fun.
Every time he gripped the sword and swung it, he could feel himself improving little by little.
He finally understood the joy of growing stronger that he had read about in heroic chronicles.
Of course, if anyone had heard Mitchell’s thoughts, they would have cursed him.
After all, he had learned in only a few hours what others might spend months struggling to even begin getting the hang of.
But there was no one there to tell him that.
Satisfied simply by the fact that he was enjoying himself, Mitchell sat up again.
Now that he had caught his breath, he wanted to try something else.
‘I want to try using the energy in my Aura Hole…….’
Mitchell recalled the contents of .
It had said that, just like mana, the most important factor in using Aura was the user’s will.
Mitchell concentrated intensely and recalled the sensation of energy moving through his body.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-
His heart pounded violently as the energy began flowing through his Aura Roads.
Strength surged into his muscles, and his senses sharpened.
Mitchell lifted the bed with one hand.
The energy from his Aura Hole infused the muscles in his arm, producing explosive strength.
The power was so great that he could hold the wooden bed aloft in one hand despite the awkward position.
‘So this is the power of knights and martial artists…….’
Mitchell trembled with exhilaration.