The old smith removed the cloth to reveal a huge spiked mace, it was as long as a long sword, absolutely a wrong design for a mace.

“It’s too big, actually it was my stupid apprentice who worked on it, by the time I noticed the mistakes it was far too late to fix it so I figured I might as well keep it to remind the boy what not to do.”

Esdras picked it up and was pleasantly surprised by the weight, now this is something he could work with.

He mainly wanted something durable to sustain his dungeon delving. It’s not like he expected to find a legacy weapon randomly, he would have to seek out a royal smith or a dwarf from the blue mountains.

“No, this is perfect for my needs, I’ll take it. How much?”

The old man looked at him, his face agape at Esdras picking up the mace with one hand. He needed four strong men just to barely moved across the smithy.

“Uh, just fifty silver coins my lord.”

“Take a gold coin, here, I don’t want to hear the people say I mistreated you.” Esdras generously gave out the coin.

One good thing about tbe old Esdras was that he didn’t spend much of his allowance, so when his uncle started decreasing the amount every year he still had saved enough money.

That was in part because he didn’t go out or have any friends to hang out with. Which is a little sad.

Unfortunately that kid was done in the moment he was shipped off to the mage tower with that kind of talent.

“Thank you, thank you!” The old man bowed.

“If you’re done, I need to go and resume my post.” Rolf said when they finished and Esdras nodded.

“Esdras, is that you?!”

Just as he was about to head back in he heard someone call out to him, it was Calvin, the Vigor knight who gave him his breathing technique.

“Oh, It’s really you, I knew the apprentices were coming back today, but you…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know I look like a completely different person, I went through this conversation a few times already, get over it.”

“Woah, no need to be snappy now, it’s only normal, I would imagine it’s ten times more shocking to people who knew you. So, how did this happen?”

“Eh, well, it’s thanks to the technique you gave me actually.” Esdras honestly answered.

“What? Really, this?! But, that can’t be right… this can only happen after years and years of endless training…”

​ “Well, what can I say? It seems I have some talent for it actually, it sort if happened…”

Naturally Esdras wouldn’t say the whole truth, after all, he had to keep some stuff to himself.

“Talent… I guess that’s the only explanation. Anyway I’m glad you were able to make use of the technique so you can protect yourself.” Calvin smiled and patted him on the shoulder looking very happy for him.

Esdras could feel that Calvin had no ill intentions for him and was simply happy, he was just a simpleminded good guy. It was really hard to not like such a guy.

“Oh, I know!” Calvin clapped, ” come with me, I want to show you something. With your talent you may be able to make something out of it.”

“Eh? Alright lets go, I also wanted to tell you something so let’s go.” Esdras wanted to tell Calvin a bit about his findings regarding the advancements of Vigor knights.

Obviously he wouldn’t tell anyone how to advance to the next realm until he himself did, but he didn’t mind guiding Calvin a little as thanks for giving him the technique generously.

In a huge training ground, soldiers were scattered about doing their own thing, instructors were barking their lungs out.

Esdras and Calvin occupied a remote corner. Calvin took out a notebook and showed Esdras a diagram of the human body.

“See, do you understand now?” Calvin asked desperately.

“These drawings are a sin against humanity, worse than your own explanation.” Esdras had enough of this.

“I will show you, then, look this is the first move.” Calvin sighed, took his spear and got into a stance.

He performed a thrust then a sidestep and and spinning slash in quick succession.

“Did you see that? Do you understand what I mena now?” Calvin asked.

Esdras’s eyebrows furrowed, although it looked like nothing happened, he was able to notice it.

There was a strange feeling about these moves, like a synchronization that made each consecutive strike harder than the first and more impactful.

It was like… a technique! No, it was more like a pseudo-technique, one that has not formed yet.

“How did you think of this? Actually how did you do it?” Esdras was very interested and asked.

“Aha, it’s not a big deal, I just thought about what you said back then. And I thought about how I could improve, so one day while I was training I had an idea!”

“I remembered how the mages have their spells and all that, I thought that maybe we too can do something similar. First let me ask you, how do you use your Vigor?”

Esdras thought back to how he fought back in the dungeon and answered honestly, “I just channel it to my arms just as I am about to make a strong attack.”

“Exactly!” Calvin nodded excitedly, “but have you ever thought that’s wrong? Well, not wrong but not exactly right either?”

“Can you get to the point, you can brag later.” Esdras shook his head in exasperation.

“Fine, fine, what I’m trying to say is, what if we rotate the Vigor and when you attack in the first move channel small bursts of it throughout the body, increasing the amount with each move.”

Esdras felt like a thunderbolt hit him from the clear sky. He just thought about the higher realms and pure power but that was not all there was to consider.

Thinking about it from that perspective, level 4 apprentice mages could already use a few cantrips at least, True mages didn’t just have more mana, they could use true spells.

So, why not Vigor knights?

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep