Several minutes passed.
Kun stepped aside to a corner of the training grounds, holding the book the instructors had just handed out.
“Basic Aura Breathing Technique — Antares Style.”
In the age of myths there lived three legendary swordsmen who were said to have opened new horizons in the art of the blade. As the name implied, this technique had been created by Antares himself, known as the Giant Slayer.
It was said that because the middle and final sections had been lost more than a thousand years ago, no one could ever master it completely…
Even so, the basic section alone possessed such a solid foundation and such universality that for beginners there existed no better method. In fact, eight or nine out of ten breathing techniques sold on the market were merely degraded versions of the Antares Style. Although it was only the foundation, it was worth a great deal of money, so it had been passed down in fragments and eventually degenerated into cheap tricks used by mercenaries.
But in Kun’s hands was the original version. …Before it declined.
Even as a foundation, it was an order of magnitude above the trash taught to mercenaries. Moreover, the book had been adapted to the needs of House Zoldic and supplemented with detailed commentary.
But…
Kun quietly set the book aside and muttered,
I doubt I’ll need to learn this.
It was a good technique, but he already had his own. There was no need to master something else. And more importantly…
I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to.
The curse Dead Man’s Sleep was his inborn punishment.
Turning his head, he noticed some of the students had already closed their eyes and focused. Most were from aristocratic or noble families. Apparently they already had their own breathing methods, so they showed little interest in the handout. In that case…
He had no reason to hide that he possessed a breathing technique either. After sweeping them with his gaze, Kun slowly closed his eyes. He began to gradually activate Supernatural Power and Divine Madness.
Uuuuuung…
. . .
Waaaaa…
The crying of ghosts swept through his ears. It had been almost half a year since he began practicing this technique. Despite relentless training, the amount of death energy in his body had decreased only slightly. In fact, what had vanished was not even a hundredth of what filled him.
At least the absorption speed is slowly increasing.
As if confirming the thought, the technique devoured the death within him, growing larger. What was surprising was that this process continued constantly even when he was not actively performing breathing exercises. As if…
As if the power of my technique itself has a will and searches for prey.
Of course, the speed was not as high as under conscious control, but in time the power of his technique would suppress the death energy.
No need to rush.
Whispering this to himself, Kun slowly divided the streams of power. One part he left circulating throughout the body, while the other he directed elsewhere.
Uuuuuung…
The power left the main channels and flowed toward bones and muscles — toward what was usually called the frame.
Now then…
The most important part began now. Kun focused to the utmost. His bones and muscles were not merely exhausted from morning exercises — they were ravaged. The technique began gradually removing fatigue and strain accumulated during training.
Uuuuuung…
In the next moment the power split into dozens of thin threads and spread through the muscles.
Whoosh!
Dozens became hundreds. Thin as spider silk, they wrapped around muscles and bones, tightening and binding them. It looked as if the muscles were being stitched together or tightly compressed by invisible threads. Seeing this with his inner sight, Kun exhaled in relief.
Huu…
As for physical strength, this was enough to extinguish the “fire” for now. It was a temporary measure Kun had chosen to overcome the weakness of his body. Since his frame was naturally weak and his muscles grew poorly due to the accumulated corruption and death energy inside him…
Better to compress the muscles that exist, making them dense and firm.
This unusual practice had continued for more than six months. That was why, despite the passing time, Kun’s body had barely changed outwardly.
It already grew badly, and I compressed everything that appeared…
No wonder he did not look muscular. It was a simple — even crude — method. But without it, Kun would not merely fail to keep up with training — he would not survive Lion’s Moat. Besides, he would never have thought of it without the hints of the dark arts left by Myung.
Crack!
Feeling the threads of power tightening his body, binding muscles to bones, Kun thought:
He said three months, right?
The voice of the senior instructor resurfaced in his mind, promising that in three months they would learn on their own skin what true hell was.
Three months.
It sounded ominous. The senior instructor of Lion’s Moat would not throw words into the wind. Which meant…
The question is what kind of hell awaits us in three months.
Finding the answer was not difficult. Unlike the other children, Kun had already been through something similar.
[Roberian’s Fox Den]
If Roberian truly used Lion’s Moat methods to train his “foxes”…
It was most likely poison. It was well known that poison could be expelled from the body with magic power or Aura. Moreover, the process awakened survival instinct, dramatically accelerating mastery of breathing techniques and building resistance to toxins. Like ration reduction, it was training that struck two goals at once. But there was one problem.
Many children would simply not withstand the poison.
Even diluted for training, poison remained poison. And if the goal was to awaken survival instinct, it would not be weak.
Even if you survived, you risked lifelong crippling — or, at worst, simply dying.
For this reason other great houses did not use poison in training.
In the Fox Den many students had died precisely at this stage…
A bitter smile appeared on Kun’s lips at the memory of the past. He frowned, listening to the sensations in his body.
Will this body endure poison?
Despite all changes, his body still could not be called exceptional. Even improved, in pure endurance he remained near the bottom among the students.
But I must…
— Captain, when this war ends…
— I want to buy a small house with a garden. With the money I saved, I’ll find my missing mother and sister…
— Captain.
— Captain, Captain!
He had things he was obligated to finish. Kun clenched his teeth as the voices of his comrades echoed ghost-like in his ears.
Grit…
The sound of grinding teeth rang out, and a metallic taste of blood spread in his mouth.
I will survive.
At that moment several pairs of eyes were watching Kun.
Just as I thought.
— So that’s it!
One pair belonged to the senior instructor, another to Taylor Rosetta, the second son of House Rosetta. They watched him with meaningful narrowed gazes.
— That bastard… so he already knew a breathing technique?
And those words belonged to the leader of the gang from beneath the Belzgan bridge — Barison, nicknamed Iron Fist, and his lackeys sitting nearby.
4.
“That bastard… so he already knew a breathing technique?”
Barison’s cheeks trembled with rage. He had seen how Kun did not even glance at the book handed out by the instructors and immediately sank into meditation. That was only possible if he already possessed some technique. Barison clenched his fists until they creaked.
“Damn! So that’s why?”
He had deliberately chosen the skinny, frail-looking boy to vent his anger on, but by irony the boy turned out to be an Aura practitioner. Barison only vaguely understood what it was — a power that let an ordinary person leap over walls and cut stone with a sword. And he had picked a fight with such a person…
“…Damn it.”
Crack.
Now the result of their previous fight seemed logical.
“Figures.”
Otherwise he could never have lost to such a weakling. Since the rumors of his disgraceful defeat by Kun half a year ago, Barison had changed greatly. Not only had his shoulders broadened. His careless swagger vanished. His hands, thighs, and face were covered with scars that had not been there before. Most astonishingly — all these wounds came not from training but from fights with other students. Many began to despise him and challenge his place in the hierarchy.
“Of course I turned those upstarts into bloody pulp every time… damn bastards.”
Barison bit his lip remembering the clashes. Other students crowded around him — at best a gang, at worst his servants. In the struggle for survival, those who recognized only the strength of his fists gathered at his side.
One of them, a short boy with protruding teeth nicknamed Rat, spat contemptuously:
— Pah, cowardly bastard.
— Cowardly? — Barison repeated.
The rest immediately chimed in, trying to curry favor:
— Exactly! Last time he won dirty, using buckets and a mop…
— And if he also hid knowing breathing, he’s doubly a coward!
— Next time you’ll crush him for sure!
— Yeah, you’ve already beaten people who use Aura!
And that was true. Barison had indeed once defeated a student practicing a breathing technique. Even if only once, a victory was a victory. He lowered his head and looked at the book in his hands.
“Basic Aura Breathing Technique — Antares Style.”
Aura was what allowed even that weakling to defeat him. Barison was certain his talent far surpassed Kun’s.
“So…”
The reason for his defeat was only the difference in techniques. He gripped the book tightly.
A moment later Barison raised his head and looked at Kun training alone. His eyes burned with thirst for revenge.
— With this, I’ll also…
But Barison did not know. He did not know his enemy was not merely a student, but the soul of the hound of House Don-Bringer. And that his thirst for revenge was but a grain of sand compared to the ocean of fury boiling inside Kun.
And time in Lion’s Moat continued its relentless march.