The pressure was intense.
Sweat beaded and ran down Gauss's forehead. The bandages wrapped around his limbs looked light, but weighed a shocking amount—because small black stones etched with simple runes were tied into them; activate the runes, and the weight could be dialed up at will.
Rachel then put him through a brutal strength circuit. By the end of one set, Gauss was almost lightheaded.
What was I here for again?
Forget it—just train.
When they finally stopped, his back was drenched. He flopped onto the smooth floor, gulping air. Sweat stung his eyes, blurring his vision—until a woman's face slid into view above him.
"Not bad."
"Stronger than I expected."
"I acknowledge you."
Rachel finally gave her approval. "Even for a warrior, your physical stats are excellent." Not that he could compare with her; that wouldn't be fair anyway. In this city, almost no one surpassed her in raw physique.
"Heh…" Gauss panted. Fortunately, beyond strength he had superb stamina and recovery. After a short, scorching burn, his "precision machine" of a body reset quickly. As his breathing steadied, he pushed himself up.
"Feel anything?"
Sitting cross-legged a short distance away, Rachel smiled. Gauss felt the shift: the crushing fatigue was replaced by a strange comfort, as if every muscle and bone were breathing—hungry for more. He flexed his arms. "I feel… lighter? Control seems smoother, and the power feels denser."
It was subtle—not a jump in "numbers," but a deeper change in body control.
"Exactly." Rachel snapped her fingers. "Pushing past your limits—breaking and rebuilding muscle and sinew—gives you finer control. And… while you're laser-focused fighting fatigue, your willpower gets trained too."
Prompted by her words, he looked inward. Sure enough, his mana was livelier, more in sync with his body's rhythm.
Rachel nodded. "Spirit lives in flesh. Two sides, one coin—each shapes the other."
Gauss nodded back.
"But keep this tear-the-muscles stuff to a minimum," Adèle cut in from the side, worried he'd get addicted. "Before training, Guildmaster Rachel gave you a dragon-moss extract—an extremely rare restorative. It drastically speeds tissue repair so this kind of training doesn't leave hidden damage."
Ah. No wonder she'd handed him a cup of green liquid.
"Dragon moss?" The name pricked his ears.
"Mhm. A rare moss that only grows where dragons fell—packed with life energy. That one cup could buy a decent magic item," Adèle said.
Gauss's head snapped toward Rachel; she just waved it off, unconcerned.
"Feels like the extract didn't do that much…?" Adèle seemed to read him. "Its effect is sustained and gentle—that's its value. You'll benefit from it in all body training for a while. Especially since you're condensing a second class—it'll speed that up too."
"Got it." Gauss bowed gratefully. "Thank you, Guildmaster Rachel."
He hadn't expected such generosity from essentially a stranger. Why was she being so kind? There had to be a reason.
"Haha, don't thank me," Rachel laughed. "Someone paid for it."
"Who?" he blurted.
"I can't say. You'll learn when it's time."
"Either way—thank you for the coaching," Gauss said.
"No big deal. If you hit trouble, come see me. And—Sena's a little messy right now. Don't get involved," she added, breezy as ever.
…
"Well? Well?" Alia's eyes were wide with curiosity. The four huddled in Gauss's room around a yellowed scrap of leather that might be a treasure map. Yesterday he'd bought a Comprehend Languages Level 1 spellbook at the guild; at his level, it hadn't taken long to master.
"What does it say?"
Even with Captain Fern's warning that most maps like these were fakes, the possibility was enough to hook them. That's people for you—how the peddlers keep selling them forever.
"Let's see…"
Gauss cast Comprehend Languages, laid his palm beside the cinnabar scrawls, and focused. A faint glow ran from his fingertips into the script, flickering over the characters. After a dozen seconds, he withdrew, frowning.
"I got parts—but it's incomplete," he said. Some symbols were codes, not a normal written language; the spell couldn't crack them.
"When three stars fall into the Fire Dragon's Eye, mirror-flame will light the true path; in the moon's whisper, pass through the Wall of the Dead's Sigh, offer… and reach the Golden Land."
He shook his head. Useless—no concrete place. With only a fragmentary, abstract sketch on the leather, he couldn't match a location.
"No idea," Alia sighed. Shadow and Serandur had none either. Truth be told, apart from Gauss, they weren't exactly scholastic—functional illiterates in another world.
"Feels like smoke and mirrors," Gauss said, lifting the leather again. The key spots were in cipher—maybe profound writing, maybe nothing at all, doodles the spell couldn't parse.
"Ugh…" Alia flopped onto the table. "I thought we'd get a real lead on a hoard."
They poked and prodded—blood drops, heat, water—nothing. "Forget it, stash it for later," Gauss said. The Appraisal had been equally underwhelming: "A tanned leather 'treasure map' of dubious authenticity, with no special magic; appears to record information in a cipher."
They broke up to train. Between commissions, everyone had to practice and digest gains. Gauss was no exception. In fact, he got busier. The dragon-moss extract had his body primed; he had to strike while the iron was hot—drill White Falcon to speed the sword-class core, and keep building the models for Fly and Fireball.
…
A few days later, fourth floor of the Guild—an open training room.
Boom!!
His rapier, sheathed in white light and vibrating at high frequency, drove the fruit of days of hard practice straight at a towering woman. The thrust was terrifying—air warped and shoved aside.
White Falcon is a piercing style to begin with; stack Zephyr's [Combo] and [Wind Pressure] effects, add the [Ironscale Bloodline] (even without a claw, the energy scales bolstered his arm), and you had enough to pierce steel plate.
And yet—
Thud—
The blow landed with a dull note and… stopped. Through the hilt, it felt like striking an indestructible dragon hide—extremely tough and supple at once. Vibration, pressure, sword-qi—all the energy he'd packed into the blade was swallowed and smoothed out by a bottomless force. The backlash ran up the grip and numbed his tiger's mouth; he skidded back and barely held his feet.
Rachel, who had taken the hit square, hadn't even shifted. Look closely and she hadn't moved a step. She'd simply raised a forearm and caught the falcon-strike with the outside of that sculpted limb. Aside from a nick in her sleeve—white skin showing—there wasn't even a red mark.
"You're leaking power. Not unified," Rachel said, lowering her arm. The sleeve mended itself like living cloth. She ignored it and kept coaching.
"Falcon Thrust is about condensing all strength and will into the tip—unstoppable—then bursting in an instant. Your aura looked good, but you misfired from the very first beat."
She stepped—a blur despite her size. "Feel the difference? Your shoulders are too tight. That ruins the flow; you're muscling it, not integrating it."
"Here. Here. Here. And here. All off." She pointed to his waist, scapula, elbow, wrist. Each point, though she didn't touch him, tingled exactly where she meant.
"Adèle taught you this style?"
"Yes."
"Then she didn't do it right," Rachel said, shaking her head. "Watch. I'll demo."
"Okay." Gauss locked in. She grabbed a practice rapier off the rack. He felt her whole presence fold in; the flood of life and power compressed as she forced her body down to match his current stats—unbelievable, but she did it, sheer precision control.
No earth-shaking aura, no flashy light. She just took two quick steps and flicked her wrist. The blade punched the air with a tiny, razor tear—like a localized sonic pop. The air in front of the tip compressed to the edge—then burst. All force, will, momentum, potential—perfectly constrained to a single point.
"Hiss—" The difference was plain. Gauss saw it at once.
"Got it?" she asked.
He didn't answer immediately. He closed his eyes and replayed every detail—less brute explosion, more twist all lines into one rope, then raise the surge. He compared it to his own motion, over and over.
Clarity clicked into place—almost like a mini-epiphany. He opened his eyes. "I… think I get a piece of it."
He tried a thrust. The blade punched air. By power and presence it was weaker than his earlier strike—but Rachel nodded. "That's it. Knew you were a natural—one hint and you're through."
He didn't stop to bask; he kept drilling, chasing the feel. Rachel was a monster; even without White Falcon herself, she could read his body and tune him with surgical precision.
One! Two! Three!
He stabbed again and again. Time blurred—until:
Shhht!!!
A sonic crack bloomed at the white-lit tip.
"Got it!"
And not just a crack—the white energy flicked off the point and lanced ahead.
"White Falcon Sword Art Lv4 (1/100)."
The skill bar jumped, breaking into level 4. At the same time, something surged within him like never before. The slippery, half-hidden thing finally woke under a perfect falcon strike.
A fierce qi erupted from deep inside—not mana, not mere flesh-force, but a keen energy like a will to cut through anything. It streamed along his arm like a river to the sea, pouring into his right hand—into Zephyr's blade.
"Vmmm—"