Chapter 324: There is a Reason Behind Strength (5)

Keter’s style of training was simple. He repeated only one routineendlessly: fight, then rest. However, he added variation every time. Sometimes he would only fire arrows, other times he would suddenly demonstrate swordsmanship. At times, he would split the trainees in half and make them fight five versus five.

Five days passed like that, and...

Drip.

At last, the trainees succeeded in making Keter bleed. Once blood was drawn, Keter drove them even more brutally, offering pieces of advice as he pressed them harder.

“There’s no strong person who goes all out against the weak. But once you wound them, they won’t consider you weak anymore.”

“In moments like this, you have to respond based on the situation. If you have allies who can defeat a stronger opponent, retreat and avoid dying pointlessly. If you don’t, then someone needs to act as bait and create an opening.”

Keter emphasized that to beat the strong, one could not be afraid of sacrifice.

“Don’t whine about losing an arm, let alone a finger. An arm? Just keep a servant by your side, or slap on a prosthetic. It won’t interfere with daily life.”

And so, on the morning after the promised week had passed, the trainees were left with all emotions burned away, nothing remaining but ferocity. Their sense of time had naturally vanished as well. Unaware that a full week had gone by, they instinctively formed ranks to fight Keter again.

Keter extended his hand. “Stop. Training is over.”

Whoosh! Twang!

But the trainees didn’t believe him. Keter had a record of lying about pausing training for a moment only to launch a surprise attack.

“Good. Looks like you’re finally ready to fight.”

Keter didn’t get angry. Instead, he seemed pleased, receiving their attacks once before saying, “This time it’s real. You all worked hard.”

Boom!

At the same time, Keter stomped his foot. An enormous stretch of ground was overturned. The trainees weren’t the only ones who had grown over the past week; Keter had also unintentionally become far more proficient at wielding the power of the Terra Ring, one of the Five Element Relics.

“Is it... really over?” Anis asked cautiously, only then realising the truth.

There was little doubt in his voice; there was more regret than anything else. The other trainees also looked not relieved, but eager, as if they wanted more. They had become addicted to battle.

“There’s nothing left to teach. I taught you everything in one week. As sparring partners, I’d definitely still be useful to you, but I don’t have the time. I’ve got one last thing to say, so gather around.”

Keter had demonstrated even Limitless Archery in full. He explained not just how it worked, but the theory behind it in enough detail to be recorded in books.

The trainees gathered before him with uncertain expressions. Seeing them still wary even after approaching, Keter couldn’t help but smile.

“Honestly, I didn’t think all of you would last a full week. I expected two or three, maybe five at most.”

Ten people stood before him—the same ten who had gathered at the start. Not a single one had dropped out. Even Keter hadn’t expected that.

“I didn’t go easy on you, so you’ve earned the right to be proud. That wasn’t a week just anyone could endure.”

Though the praise came from someone far younger than them, everyone felt pleased. That was how brutal Keter’s training had been.

Keter looked over the trainees. Every one of them had achieved miraculous growth. Their aura had grown a level higher, and their combat skill had risen by two.

Those who had been stuck at four-star reached five-star thanks to elixirs and nonstop aura circulation, while those already at five-star advanced to the highest level of five-star.

And though they don’t realize it themselves, there’s even a Master who’s reached six-star.

There were three six-star Grandmasters: Elder Panir, and Mizar and Pekda from the Seven Stars of the North.

Looks like they broke through the limit imposed by Zodiac Archery after seeing my Limitless Archery.

That was exactly the growth Keter had wanted, and the three had delivered splendidly.

“Even if a Prime shows up now, you won’t be helplessly crushed.”

He didn’t say they could win. No matter how many six-stars there were, the Authority of a seven-star was absolute. The trainees sensed that unspoken truth and felt a flicker of disappointment. After growing so much, they still couldn’t defeat a Prime, but that was the cold reality.

In addition, there was something Keter truly wanted to teach them.

“During this training, you used only aura. I’m asking, so answer.”

“Yes. We used only aura.”

They looked at him as if wondering why he was asking something so obvious.

“Aura really is versatile. It handles offense and defense at once, and even a solid steel shield can’t stop an Aura Arrow. But can just anyone use aura? It’s as difficult to handle as archery—no, harder. And acquiring it in the first place is no easy task.”

That, too, was common knowledge.

That was when Keter clapped his hands. At once, Daat opened a subspace and brought out a table. There were a variety of unique arrows and bows there, none of them familiar to the trainees.

“Sefira was bound in chains, heavy iron balls shackled both ankles and wrists. Under the name of law, magic and gunpowder were forbidden. That’s why Sefira and its archery were weak.”

Keter picked up a bow from the table and tossed it to Anis. Anis caught it reflexively and froze. The bow was astonishingly light, despite looking large and heavy.

“Pull the string.”

Anis did as told, and his eyes widened further. With only a slight pull, the string drew fully back.

“W-what is this?”

Arrows were weapons powered by tension. The strain placed on fingers and arms was enormous. Yet the bow Keter had given him required no strength to draw, and holding it was effortless.

“It’s a bow enchanted with magic. It uses mana to bear the weight and tension instead. We can’t mass-produce these yet, but that’s what mage towers are for. Try them yourselves.”

The other trainees eagerly tested the enchanted bows, murmuring in amazement.

“The mass stays the same, but the weight is reduced... Not just mobility, but fatigue would drop dramatically as well.”

“Even more impressive is the reduced strain on the arms. That would let us focus more on aiming, and accuracy would skyrocket.”

As experts in bows and archery, they immediately grasped the value of the enchanted bows. But the surprises weren’t over. This was just the beginning.

“I said earlier that magic isn’t the only thing suppressing archery’s limits—gunpowder is too. Try the round-headed arrows over there.”

With a flick, Keter used the Terra Ring to create a clay house three hundred meters away.

“I’ll try it.”

Taragon, fascinated by new weapons, picked up one of the round-headed arrows.

“It’s basically an explosive arrow.”

“Explosive arrow...!” Taragon muttered after Keter.

The tip was rounded and hard. It would catch the wind badly and wouldn’t fly far, but that didn’t matter. Aura could compensate.

Taragon nocked the explosive arrow onto the magic bow. The string drew smoothly. His aim and release were faster than ever.

Whoosh... Boom!!

The clay house vanished in a single blast. Everyone stared in shock. They knew the power of gunpowder, but this was absurd. The amount that could fit into a rounded arrowhead was, at most, a finger’s worth, and yet it obliterated an entire structure. The secret, of course, lay with Keter.

Ragnon, I’m going to borrow your technique.

Keter hadn’t invented the explosive arrow. It was an old creation of Ragnon, the Bomber. To Ragnon, someone obsessed with massive and flashy explosions, the power of an explosive arrow had been insignificant and unworthy of battlefield use. But for Sefira, it was more than enough.

“We no longer need to follow Lillian Kingdom’s laws. There’s no reason not to use magic or gunpowder. Training archery fundamentals and aura is good, but keeping up with the times is just as important. This isn’t an era where stubborn training alone is enough.”

Just as people grew, so did technology. However, rigid minds clung to the past. That was what Keter feared most: being trapped by past glory or tradition. He wanted Sefira to keep from stagnating and rotting.

“Don’t devote effort only to training. Put just as much thought into developing and mastering tools like these. Remember that. That’s my final advice.”

Keter bowed lightly to the trainees.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

When Keter treated them with respect, the trainees finally realized that training was truly over.

* * *

Keter and Daat stood on the balcony of Keter’s mansion.

“The explosive arrows are truly a masterpiece. The age of swordsmanship that’s lasted for thousands of years is going to come to an end.”

Daat was not exaggerating. Gunpowder was not nearly as difficult to make as people imagine, as both the materials and the manufacturing process were easy to obtain and execute. However, its destructive power far exceeded expectations. Now, this was no longer a weapon that killed one person; dozens could become targets at once, and even structures could be blown apart.

Of course, gunpowder weapons like cannons already existed, but cannons were never something someone could carry around. Explosive arrows, however, were portable. While their weight and bulk limited how many one could carry, even an ordinary person—someone who hadn’t mastered aura—could more easily carry out mass slaughter, and even kill aura users.

“That’s exactly why everyone else strictly restricted gunpowder. There’s no reason to use it in swordsmanship. Well—no, that’s not entirely true, but let’s just say it doesn’t pair with swords nearly as well as it does with arrows,” Keter explained.

“But no matter how much you rely on gunpowder, you still can’t beat a Prime opponent, right?” Daat asked.

“Of course not. Primes are on an entirely different level, removed from reality itself. Aside from me, the other Primes are people who abandoned the human path. Well... nothing in this world is truly absolute. Someday, technological progress might reach the level of their Authority, but that day isn’t now.”

“The Baen Kingdom’s airships and everything else... you can really see technology surpassing aura and magic.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s just aura and magic being used in a different way. Machines use them more efficiently than humans do. If a machine breaks, you fix it or just build another one.”

“Hearing you say that, I get why everyone’s so obsessed with longevity. You start wanting to live longer just to see the future.”

“If you want to live long, go into seclusion. That’s the best secret to longevity.”

“But if you become a Prime, you won’t die, right?”

The moment someone became a Prime, their body stopped aging. In theory, they could live forever. But Keter flicked a finger dismissively.

“If you’re big enough, you’ll stand out even if you do nothing. You might not die of old age as a Prime, but you’ll probably die in battle someday. Of course, I’m going to die of old age.”

“But you’re a Prime. How can you die of old age?” Daat asked.

“I told you before. I gained Authority while remaining human.”

“You said you didn’t give anything up.”

“Exactly. I didn’t give up being human. So I age like everyone else. I think I’ve already got some gray hair.”

“What?!”

The reason everyone was so desperate to reach higher realms was to obtain power, but more than anything, they desired immortality. That, too, was tied to the nature of aura and magic. To grow stronger, one had to possess vast amounts of aura and mana, but they were a double-edged sword. The more one had, the greater the burden on the body.

Most Masters didn’t live long, not just because they died in battle, but surprisingly often due to illness. Panir, who was a Master and in his seventies, was an exception. That wasn’t just due to good health—it was proof of extraordinary control over aura.

“Still, even if you age, won’t you live for thousands of years?” Daat asked Keter.

“I don’t really want to live that long.”

“What? Why?!”

“If I lived forever, I wouldn’t be able to give my all to the present moment.”

“...!”

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

“Daat, dying isn’t an act of courage; it’s natural. You shouldn’t think of it as a penalty or a loss.”

“But I still want to live a long time. I want to see more and learn more.”

Especially your future.

Daat swallowed those thoughts.

Shrugging, Keter gazed toward the distant mountains.

“Do whatever you want. Anyways, did you find out about Henya?”

Henya was Eslow’s daughter and an absolute being who fell in love with a commoner.

“To put it simply, it’s a complete mess.”

“That’s my favorite. What happened?”

“Eslow’s Authority is weaponization, right? Apparently, there’s a widespread rumor among the nobles that he used it to turn his own children into weapons. Most likely, Henya was the one who spread it.”

“Oh? And?”

“Eslow tried to turn Henya and Ryze into weapons as well. Because of that, Henya fled with him. After that, nothing. No one knows whether they’re alive or dead, or where they went.”

“What about Wid?”

Wid was the commoner Henya loved. Daat shook his head.

“He disappeared even before Henya. No one knows where he went either—no traces at all.”

“Hm. Then that means Henya made the first move.”

Originally, Henya had been preparing to have Wid acknowledged by Eslow. Keter suspected that something must have gone terribly wrong; otherwise, she’d never have exposed Eslow’s ability and gone into hiding.

“For me, I guess this counts as good news. It makes for a very solid justification.”

Keter intended to confront Eslow directly, but simply fighting him wouldn’t be worth it. Even if Keter won, he’d risk retaliation from the southern noble families and would still have to deal with Eslow’s forces. He would win, but the greatest virtue in war is victory without fighting.

From that perspective, using Henya was Sefira’s best move. It would be an evil ruler who turned his own children into weapons versus a righteous crusader who punished such evil.

“If I step in under the pretense of helping Henya—if Henya can absorb Eslow’s power base—that’s not just killing three birds with one stone. It’s more like seven.”

“The problem is finding Henya, when even Eslow couldn’t.”

“Now I finally understand what happened.”

The reason Eslow shut himself away in the palace was that his plan to weaponize Henya and Ryze had failed.

“Like you said, Daat, he must be desperately searching. But if he still couldn’t find her, this isn’t just a simple midnight escape.”

Eslow had his own intelligence unit. He also had more than enough money to hire intelligence guilds and assassin guilds. And if he still couldn’t find them, Sefira certainly couldn’t.

“But I think I know where she is,” Keter said.

“As expected of you, Big Brother. So you had a plan all along? Did you already coordinate with Henya? If you tell me where she is, I’ll bring her back.”

“No. I don’t know where Henya is either, but I do know where Kai is.”

Kai was part of the Special Task Force, the Samael Empire’s independent intelligence unit.

Daat frowned. “I know that too. He’s staying in Sefira.”

Kai had stayed behind at Sefira after coming with the chancellor, not even trying to hide the fact that he was monitoring them.

“Then bring him here. The Special Task Force definitely knows Henya’s whereabouts.”

Keter was certain of it—only the Samael Empire had the power to secretly extract three people from Eslow’s territory and make them vanish without a trace.