Shuren unpacked his belongings in the quarters assigned to him.
For a place called a Knight Training Center, the room was about the same size as the one he had lived in back home.
“Everyone, assemble at the training ground immediately!”
A knight's booming shout rang out from outside.
Shuren had already finished unpacking, so he headed straight for the training ground.
According to the schedule, lessons began on the very day of enrollment.
They were not formal lessons yet.
For the time being, they would be undergoing a probationary course.
But that did not mean the probationary course could be taken lightly.
Plenty of trainees were eliminated here before they ever reached the formal curriculum.
It was their first day, so their movements were still clumsy, but no one arrived late.
After all, everyone here had undergone some degree of training within their respective families.
“Is everyone here?”
The knight standing on the platform spoke.
“As the Commander explained during the enrollment ceremony, the probationary course will consist of physical training, mana cultivation, and basic swordsmanship.”
The trainees did not show it outwardly, but most were unimpressed.
They had already learned all of those things from their families.
Every one of them assumed they would never be eliminated during something as simple as the probationary course.
“Today, we will begin with the fundamentals of mana cultivation.”
The knight began explaining how to cultivate mana.
‘Hmm. I don't need to listen to this.’
What the knight was teaching was truly nothing more than the most basic mana cultivation method.
Of course, mana cultivation methods themselves were valuable and not something just anyone could learn.
Most worthwhile methods were passed down like a family's secret art.
But every trainee here belonged either to the direct line or a branch of the Pellantz Family.
Most of them had learned either the original Pellantz cultivation method or a version their respective families had modified.
Of course, not everyone had been so fortunate.
Shuren noticed that the trainees were divided into two groups.
The first consisted of children who had learned cultivation methods from their families.
They ignored what the knight was teaching and practiced their own methods instead.
The other group was a small minority who had not been able to do so.
The latter possessed conspicuous traits.
Hair colors, eye colors, or skin tones different from those of the Pellantz direct line and ordinary branch families.
Like Shuren, they were descendants of families that had been absorbed and forced to bear the Pellantz surname.
‘So this is what the training center is really like.’
Shuren finally understood what the Knight Commander had meant.
They competed based on ability here, but ability alone would not decide the results.
Those without a mana cultivation method passed down through their family had no choice but to purchase one for an enormous sum of money.
Compared to that, the method the knight was teaching now was far better.
It dealt in pure mana.
‘But they'll never reach the top with that.’
Shuren felt sorry for the children listening intently to the knight's teachings.
Even if they mastered that basic cultivation method, the best they could hope for was becoming low-ranking knights.
He wondered if they even knew that.
Shuren's circumstances were similar to theirs in that his family had also been absorbed.
But what he possessed internally was entirely different.
He knew the cultivation method of the now-forgotten Flamer Family.
‘I can just keep doing what I've been doing.’
With that thought, Shuren shut out his surroundings and began cultivating mana.
‘The main estate really is something else. The mana here is on a completely different level from what I could feel back home.’
That thought reminded him of the Flamer Family's main estate in his previous life.
‘That place was overflowing with just as much mana. Damn it…… if it weren't for those Pellantz bastards.’
‘Anyway, I should make as much use of this place as possible while I'm here.’
Shuren composed himself and immersed himself in mana cultivation.
Before he knew it, the sun was beginning to set.
“That will be all for today. Starting tomorrow, we will work you in earnest, so enjoy your last good night's rest!”
The knight dismissed them.
Shuren ate dinner and went to sleep in his quarters.
The next day.
“Wake up! Get moving!”
The knight's booming voice echoed through the corridor.
Shuren had already gotten up when he first heard the man's footsteps and was in the middle of arranging his bedding.
As a result, Shuren was also the first to arrive at the training ground.
The faster trainees came sprinting out after him in a panic.
“Shuren, you're quick!”
“Thank you.”
The knight praised Shuren when he saw him standing alone in the training ground.
“Get out here, now!”
But toward the sluggish trainees, he transformed into a demon.
At the thunderous rebuke, the trainees began sprinting at full speed.
Before long, all the children had gathered.
“Huff, huff…….”
The sudden burst of running had left them dazed and breathless.
“You brats must have been raised far too comfortably at home!”
The knight roared.
Everyone here was a child of the Pellantz Family.
But once they had entered as trainees, the instructors and knights stood above them.
“I told you that starting today, we'd work you properly, didn't I?”
The knight stared at the trainees with a pathetic look.
“You're running after me! Anyone who falls behind before I stop gets penalty points!”
With that, he immediately began running.
Shuren quickly followed, while the other trainees ran after them, panting heavily.
“Huff! Haaah!”
“Urgh……!”
The trainees felt like they were dying.
They had lost count of how many laps they had run around the training ground.
Yet the knight running ahead of them showed no sign of slowing down.
More and more trainees began falling behind.
“Stop trying to take it easy and run! Do you want penalty points?”
“Accumulate enough penalty points and you're expelled!”
The instructors following from behind shouted at them.
From early morning onward, the trainees were worked until they were on the verge of collapsing.
“That is enough! Take a short break.”
The knight and instructors examined the trainees.
Except for a handful, their stamina was dreadful.
‘That red-haired boy. His name was Shuren, wasn't it? He's better than most.’
Shuren naturally drew the instructors' attention.
He looked considerably less exhausted than the other trainees.
Their precious break was brief.
“Today, we will begin basic swordsmanship training.”
The knight's announcement signaled the start of the lesson.
The instructors distributed wooden swords to the trainees.
“There are eight basic sword paths.”
The knight demonstrated as he spoke.
As expected of a knight, his swordsmanship contained no unnecessary movement.
“Of course, none of you entered the training center just to learn this. These are the absolute fundamentals, so I trust you can practice them properly on your own. What I will teach you now is the basic swordsmanship of the Pellantz Family.”
The knight continued his demonstration.
‘So that's the basic swordsmanship taught by the Pellantz Family.’
Shuren judged it to be fairly good swordsmanship.
From what he had heard, even the Pellantz Family's soldiers used it.
Perfect mastery would require time, but there was nothing remotely difficult about Shuren watching it and following along.
‘Hmm. This is exactly like yesterday.’
Shuren looked around.
Just like the previous day, the trainees had split into two groups.
There were those who casually followed along, making it painfully obvious that they had practiced beforehand.
Then there were those who had not, fumbling awkwardly as they tried various movements.
‘So that's why the elimination rate during the probationary course is so high.’
Scores at the training center were not determined solely by raw ability.
Trainees who already knew the material and had practiced beforehand naturally had a much easier time earning higher scores.
‘Not that it matters to me.’
Shuren had been called a genius in his previous life.
There was no chance someone like him would struggle with swordsmanship taught at a training center.
SWISH—!
He began with the first cutting motion.
Clean movements flowed seamlessly one into the next.
WHOOSH!
After finishing with the final posture, a thrust, Shuren lowered his wooden sword.
‘That was definitely his first attempt, wasn't it?’
The knight in charge of swordsmanship instruction focused on Shuren.
Shuren's swordsmanship was flawless.
‘Could he have learned it somewhere……? No, that's highly unlikely.’
Not everyone bearing the Pellantz surname was equal.
Children of influential families often had their parents secretly acquire the training center's curriculum and teach it to them beforehand.
The Pellantz knights and instructors knew about it.
But they did not interfere.
They considered even that a form of ability.
Shuren's family, however, was known to have no knights.
Nor did they possess enough wealth to purchase information.
That meant there was no realistic way Shuren could have obtained the curriculum beforehand.
‘And yet his swordsmanship is that clean.’
He had watched the knight's demonstration once and reproduced it perfectly.
‘If there is such a thing as a genius, that child must be one.’
The knight had taught many trainees at this training center, yet even he had never seen talent like that before.
“Hmph. He's just copying the outside movements.”
“How can you call that our family's swordsmanship?”
Some of the trainees whispered as they watched Shuren.
‘Tsk, tsk. Hopeless.’
The knight inwardly clicked his tongue at them.
They could not even see the solid fundamentals underlying Shuren's movements.
“Sir! Pellantz swordsmanship is too easy!”
“As members of the Pellantz Family, of course we've already mastered something like this. Isn't there anything more practical?”
Several trainees complained.
They were bored because they had already practiced everything beforehand.
Some of them also wanted a chance to show off.
‘Mediocre fools who merely learned faster thanks to their families' influence.’
The knight was dumbfounded.
But he did not reprimand them.
On the surface, they merely looked like enthusiastic students hungry to learn.
‘We were going to do it soon anyway. I might as well move the curriculum forward.’
Having made up his mind, the knight spoke.
“Very well. In recognition of your enthusiasm, we will move on to the next stage. Instructors, bring out the training dummy.”
Soon, a human-sized training dummy was brought before them.
‘Go ahead. Show off as much as you like.’
The knight crossed his arms.
“Cut through this dummy with your wooden sword! Anyone who succeeds will receive bonus points.”
The trainees immediately began murmuring.
“Cut through the dummy?”
“It looks incredibly tough just from looking at it.”
They were being told to cut through a training dummy with wooden swords, not real blades?
They might as well have simply said they did not want to hand out bonus points.
The trainees from lower-ranked families grumbled because they knew they had no chance.
“Lord Jake. May I try?”
At that moment, one of Jake's lackeys asked for permission.
Jake nodded.
The boy grinned and raised his hand.
“I'll try!”
“Very well.”
He tightened his grip on his wooden sword and stood before the training dummy.
“A training dummy……!”
He took his stance and channeled mana into his sword, reinforcing it.
“This is how you cut one!”
THUD!
A heavy impact rang out.
A small crack appeared where the wooden sword had struck.
“Ow…… Why is this thing so hard?”
The boy complained as he returned to his place.
“Lord Jake. Show us how it's done.”
The boy beside him urged Jake forward.
“Instructor, I will try.”
“Very well. Step forward.”
This time, Jake came out.
Standing before the dummy, he fixed his eyes on it while gripping the wooden sword.
Then—
WHOOSH—
He swung.
Mana gathered around the edge of the wooden blade in an instant before it slammed into the dummy.
BANG!
The sound was completely different from before.
When they looked, part of the dummy's torso had been torn away.
“Ooh……!”
Clap, clap, clap.
Several impressed trainees applauded.
It was exactly what they expected from Jake, who was considered the best of this year's class.
Although he had failed to cut all the way through, everyone had seen the faint glow of mana around his wooden sword.
It was not Sword Aura yet, but if he continued honing himself, it seemed certain that he would be able to use Sword Aura before long.
“Hmm, close.”
Even the knight assessed it that way.
Although Jake had benefited from his family's support and prior training, his talent itself was genuine.
‘Something like this is nothing.’
Jake was also feeling rather pleased with his result.
While everyone was marveling at Jake's display, Shuren quietly raised his hand.
“Very well. Give it a try.”
Shuren stepped forward.
Immediately, he felt the hostile gazes aimed at him.
“What's he doing?”
“He can barely even handle a sword.”
The trainees openly looked down on him.
Shuren ignored them and assumed his stance.
Those jealous children did not even qualify as obstacles in his eyes.
‘Interesting. Can he cut through it?’
Unlike the trainees, however, the knight was watching with anticipation.
He had already glimpsed a fragment of Shuren's talent.
Shuren gathered mana into his sword.
Then he slashed diagonally.
SLASH!
A dense glow of mana shimmered along the wooden blade.
THUD!
The training dummy split cleanly in half, its severed upper portion tumbling across the ground.
“…….”
No one made a sound.
But inwardly, they were all stunned.
‘What the hell was that?!’
The children who had been told about the training center's curriculum in advance knew the truth.
The training dummy existed to put overly confident trainees in their place.
They had been specifically told not to bother trying for the bonus points, because the wood was too hard to cut through.
Yet Jake had torn part of it away.
And even more astonishingly, Shuren had cut straight through it.
“Your concentration is impressive. You aimed for the part I already damaged.”
Jake was the one who broke the silence.
“R-right! Lord Jake already did all the work, and that guy just laid his spoon on top of it!”
One of Jake's lackeys immediately backed him up.
“Ah…… I was so surprised I didn't think of that. I guess that makes sense.”
The other trainees gradually began agreeing.
‘Idiots.’
Shuren mocked them inwardly as he returned to his place.
Even the knight was dumbfounded.
‘There is already an unmistakable gap between that boy and the other trainees.’
After witnessing Shuren's skill, the knights and instructors began viewing him far more favorably.
***
‘What? Why is the training hall door open?’
Instructor Katen had just finished writing the day's training report and was on his way to prepare for duty.
But the door to the training hall was open.
Today's schedule should have ended long ago.
He quietly looked inside.
‘Why is he still here?’
The person remaining inside the training hall was Shuren.
He was sitting on the floor with his eyes closed, cultivating mana.
‘Judging by the look of it, he's been doing that ever since training ended.’
Katen could only marvel at his dedication.
Even more astonishing was the fact that Shuren's concentration had remained unbroken for so long.
HUMMMMM—
Mana visibly flowed toward Shuren from all around him.
Katen had no idea where the boy had learned his cultivation method, but it seemed remarkably efficient.
‘What a pity. If he'd been born into the main family, they would've given him wings…… Yet he had to be born into a branch family, and not just any branch family, but among the descendants of the old Flamer Family.’
There was not a single instructor who did not know Shuren's origins.
Some looked down on him for it.
Katen was different.
His own circumstances were similar to Shuren's.
No—in at least one respect, Katen had been more fortunate.
His family might have been a branch family, but they had still been allowed to learn mana and swordsmanship on their own.
Shuren's circumstances were worse.
‘He'll never succeed in the Pellantz Family. But…….’
Katen could feel the determination radiating from Shuren.
Perhaps this child might actually break free from the limitations imposed by his family.
Katen himself had failed to escape the shackles of his birth and had ended up working here as an instructor.
But he hoped Shuren would soar beyond them and make his name known across the continent.