Techniques of external energy? Even South Wind hadn’t heard about those!
“Most of them are simple. But there are Mortal ones among them, and, in order to motivate you, I’ll tell you that there are several Techniques of the Spirit in here as well.”
Techniques of the Spirit?! Hadjar felt like he was going to faint, but he came to his senses in time. In the past, people from the Kingdom of Lidus could not have even dreamed about learning Techniques of the Spirit.
“If you want to study those, you'll need at least ten thousand points.”
“For killing a beast at the Leader stage, ten points are given,” Dogar whispered into his ear. “For killing an enemy during a war—only one point is given.”
Hadjar was absolutely shocked. These Techniques had surely been sent here just to show that they existed in principle.
“Let me explain. You weren’t brought here to be taunted by things you can’t have. A senior officer has the right to bring their assistant here and they’ll be given a free Technique of the Mortal level to study.” The old man smiled kindly at Hadjar.
“Otherwise, what’s the use of an assistant?” Dogar added. “If they just get killed in their first real fight.”
Hadjar nodded. So, the General wasn’t trying to ‘punish’ me. She was humiliating Colin by almost publicly rewarding the commoner who’d dared to raise his hand against her adjutant.
“Now, if you just allow me to check you and find out your strengths and weaknesses... This is a completely painless procedure. I'll just put a little bit of my energy into yours for a moment, and then I'll take it away.”
Hadjar looked at the numerous scrolls and then at the old man. Damn it! Damn it! Should I risk it?
He wasn’t sure that a Heaven Soldier, with the help of his mystical crap, wouldn’t be able to detect the heart of a dragon. And something told Hadjar that any cultivator could probably find a thousand and one ways to use such an ingredient in his own cultivation. It was just too dangerous.
Even if this old man had talked about his inability to progress...
Things got tense. The pause had gone on for too long.
Chapter 38
Hadjar fell to his knees once again and pressed his forehead to the ground. Perhaps I should start wearing something over my forehead, to avoid injuring it when I do this sort of thing in the future.
“I beg your pardon, honorable adept,” Hadjar said, voice full of regret. “The spiritual patron of our village doesn't allow us to use someone else's energy.”
“I'm not going to let you use it,” it seemed like the cultivator was a little taken aback by this.
“Please forgive me, venerable adept,” Hadjar was banging his head on the ground now, ignoring all the older man’s arguments. “If I let you do this, I won’t be allowed to go back to my village!”
Dogar and the old librarian looked at each other.
“He's from a remote village full of superstitions.”
“Get up, officer,” the librarian sighed and continued talking only after Hadjar had risen to his feet. “We won’t deprive you of your peace of mind. But you have to choose the Technique by yourself, in that case.”
“I would advise taking something that strengthens the body,” Dogar added. “You're too frail.”
“You have ten minutes, officer,” the cultivator walked over to a table that had an hourglass on it and flipped it over. “Please don’t think that this rule is one I see much point in, but... rules are rules.”
Hadjar, wiping away imaginary sweat from his brow, began perusing the rows of scrolls. He immediately passed by the section that contained the regular Techniques. The Steps and the Sword were enough for him. He wasn’t interested in something like a ‘steel jacket’.
These Techniques required long-term training and would eventually become unnecessary at the stage of Transformation. Hadjar planned to go far beyond the Transformation stage.
He immediately went to the section of Mortal Techniques. There were fewer scrolls here than in the previous section. The reason why was clear. Just eleven years ago, there had only been a few such scrolls in the entire Kingdom. Hadjar found himself in front of a treasure trove of knowledge.
“Why are there two price tags everywhere?” He asked without turning around.
“The first one is for taking a scroll out for an hour,” the librarian explained. “And the second one is for buying the full copy. To answer the question you no doubt wish to ask, you’ll get to keep your own copy after we mobilize.”
It was both an inspiring and depressing prospect. It was unlikely that the Empire had sent the really good Techniques they had if they were being allowed to spread throughout the Lidus Kingdom. But, alas, Hadjar didn’t know which Techniques were ‘useful’ and which weren’t. So, he just walked along the rows and waited for some sort of insight.
‘Seven steps of emptiness’ (Analysis... Structuring and general data... Entering it into the evaluation system... Cost: 0.15 points of Energy/sec)—bodily Technique that allows the wielder to move at the speed of a deer at the Leader Stage. A copy cost five hundred points, and renting it cost exactly ten times less—only fifty points.
Hadjar smiled inwardly but had a brooding and indecisive facial expression outwardly.
How many men in the army have a photographic memory? Maybe ten or twenty in every two million do. The army will obviously lose out on a lot due to these people. After all, they just need to read the scroll and don’t need to buy it.
Hadjar didn’t have such a talent. But he still had the neuronet. He would never have to buy a full copy while he had it. For the price someone would pay to learn one scroll, he could go through ten.
‘Misty hammer’ (Analysis... Structuring and general data... Entering it into the evaluation system... Cost: 0,23 Energy Points/Use) — a weapon Technique that increases the strength of a hammer blow twofold.
The other Techniques were even more impressive: Techniques that made the body as light as a feather. Techniques that improved one’s vision. Techniques for archers which could turn one arrow into several midflight.
But these were mere Mortal Techniques. They didn’t belong in the category of ‘multi-volume’. One of the best examples of ‘multi-volume’ Techniques had been the ‘Fried Sparrow’, which the Master and Colin had used.
The problem was that the scrolls laid out on the shelves in this library were all one-volume. They were only valuable to the practitioners below the stage of Transformation.
Hadjar just looked at them as he passed by.
Finally, he was at the end of the hall. There were exactly 47 scrolls here, divided into five sections. One of the scrolls had been set apart in the last, fifth section.
[Analysis... Impossible to analyze. Error 12@#$47]
“Meditation Technique?” Hadjar read, clearly surprised. Spiritual Level. Twelve thousand points. But... what is this Technique of meditation?
“I'm not surprised you don't know about it,” the old man sighed, leaning heavily on the table. “When I first came here, most of your best cultivators knew nothing about meditation Techniques. That's one of the reasons why you didn't have Heaven Soldiers before.”
Hadjar looked at the other price tag. You had to pay three thousand points to rent it. Three thousand points, just to read this scroll for an hour!
“What do you cultivate before the stage of Formation, officer?”
“The body,” Hadjar replied.
“And before the Transformation?”
“The capability of the body to create and... store energy,” Hadjar decided not to use words like ‘generation’ and ‘accumulation’.
It would look very suspicious considering his supposedly rural background.
“And how is the transition from the Transformation Stage to the path of the true cultivators carried out? I mean the first, truly ‘real’ stage of the Heaven Soldier.”
Hadjar gazed hungrily at the scroll, literally feeling its significance and value as
a tangible aura around it.
“If only I knew…”
“The answers to these questions are in this scroll, officer,” the old man took a covert look at the clock and the sand in the hourglass slowed down slightly. Dogar pretended that he hadn’t noticed anything.
“The Meditation Technique lying in front of you will reveal the secrets of this cultivation. In other words—it describes how to absorb the energy of the world, how to properly circulate it, how to use and store it. Different meditation Techniques have different depths of knowledge and comprehension of this truth,” the librarian continued. “A Technique of the Spiritual Level, like the one lying in front of you, is able to guide you on the path to becoming a Heaven Soldier.”
Here it is! That's what Hadjar had been looking for—a way to get to the level of a true cultivator!
“And, of course, I can't choose it.”
“That would be too easy. But now you know exactly what to strive for.”
Hadjar reluctantly walked away from the meditation scroll and began to examine the remaining four sections. As expected, there were plenty of volumes there—one for each type of Technique.
Alas, he couldn’t find a weapon Technique for swordsmen here. Only spear Techniques were present. This fact, by the way, explained the General’s skill with that type of weapon.
“Can I take one of these?” Hadjar asked.
Each tome of a multi-volume book was estimated at a thousand points. The cost to rent them was exactly a hundred points.
“Only a copy of the first volume,” the old man nodded. “This is, of course, not the best version of the Technique. The last, tenth volume will be useful to you only at the Superior Stage of a Heaven Soldier.”
“Do the stages after Transformation have subdivisions?” Hadjar was surprised to hear this. Meanwhile, the old man made a copy of the first volume for the ‘Mount’ Technique. A Technique that made the body as strong as a rock.
Judging by the description attached to the scroll, it was necessary to rub a hundred different powders made from thousands of different herbs into the body to cultivate it. And in order to fulfill the requirements of the first volume, which could only slightly increase the strength of his skin, Hadjar would either have to spend all his wages at the scientists’ shops or run around the woods like a hare.
“They do, but it is not as complicated as with the early stages,” the old man laid out the Technique scroll, along with a blank one, on the table in front of him.
He took out a yellow talisman from his pocket, squeezed it between his index and middle finger, and said something. A gold seal, made up of many different characters, began spinning in the air immediately. The text from one scroll was slowly printed onto the other.
“Could you, venerable adept, tell me about it?”
“There's nothing to tell,” the old man tied a red ribbon around the copy and put a simple wax seal on it. “Each level after Transformation is divided into four stages: the Initial Stage, the Average Stage, the Advanced Stage, and the Superior Stage. And, I have to add, the difference between a newly advanced Heaven Soldier and one who has a lot of experience at this level is simply enormous.”
The last grain of sand fell and the old man nodded his head in the direction of the empty clock. Dogar and Hadjar, who was carefully holding a copy of the scroll, bowed. They turned around almost simultaneously and walked out.
While leaving the tent, Hadjar noticed something reflected in the hourglass. Something that, for a moment, had flashed in the librarian’s previously calm gaze.
I doubt he’s lost the will to develop his power! That old fox…
Hadjar thought he should be wary of the old man from now on. He stared at them as they left with far too much interest. It was easy to guess what would’ve happened if the cultivator had found out what Hadjar had in his chest.
The heart of a dragon... not only cultivators but whole countries would fight for it!
“We chose a Technique for you, now we must pick your weapon,” Dogar went ahead again.
He moved through the crowd of soldiers like they weren’t even there. The soldiers were hurrying to get to the cauldrons full of porridge.
A quarter of an hour later, they reached another tent. It was even bigger than the library had been.
Chapter 39
Ordinary legionnaires guarded the Armory. It was obvious why no elites had been posted here as well. No one would allow ordinary soldiers and officers access to artifact weapons. The Techniques were much more valuable than the weapons. But the scrolls that the old librarian had kept before the Empire provided new ones had been worthless, not even worth a bowl of food, by Empire standards. Even a mere mortal weapon was thousands of times more valuable in comparison to them.
And so, Hadjar just chose the sturdiest classic (by native standards) blade from the collection presented to him. Ordinary soldiers couldn’t choose anything, they just used the weapons they were given.
“Good choice,” Dogar nodded after they returned to the camp. “A sword of good quality and a Technique suitable for your needs. Now, go to our doctor and tell him that I sent you. Maybe he has some of the herbs from the librarian's list.”
Hadjar used the neuronet and a thousand different names of herbs appeared in front of his eyes. Damn it, even if they all grew in the same field, it would take at least a day to collect them!
And it’s necessary to grind them into powder, in order to not lose the desired properties... I still need to find them, I can worry about processing them later.
The sword in Hadjar's hand was different from the sword the Master had given him for training. It was solidly made, but not from the best materials. An artisan, not an apprentice, had forged it, but it was still a mass-produced weapon. At the same time, this one had been forged, hundreds of the same exact blades had also been made; so the quality was worse because of the limits of the local technology.
“Well, are you ready to train, deputy?” Dogar’s smile was almost bloodthirsty as they passed by the camp and stopped in the clearing where the parade ground was.
The parade ground looked like a field specifically set aside for the purpose of torturing people. At least that’s what Hadjar’s initial impression was. A thousand warriors were busy with their daily exercises. A hundred of them were running around the oval parade ground with huge logs on their shoulders. Another hundred were trying to avoid getting hit by the spinning dummies on the obstacle course.
Fifty people were trying to avoid the stones being thrown at them by the dummies and simultaneously trying to hit the target located about a hundred steps away from them. At the same time, there were multiple pairs of people sparring in the center of the parade ground.
They were fighting not with blunted training weapons, but with real ones. Therefore, the sand under their feet had turned red.
“Everyone!” Dogar roared out, and Hadjar clutched his ears, realizing that all this time, the huge man had been communicating in a whisper.
“Senior officer!” A thousand people greeted him in the chorus.
“The daily routine is as follows,” Dogar whispered again, hurrying over to the pyramid of logs twenty-three feet in length and with a diameter of eight inches. He sat down and, using some belts, hoisted five of the logs onto his shoulders.
“First, two hours of running with logs on your back. Followed by five minutes of rest, so you can drink the poison of the healer.”
Hadjar looked to the side. A scientist with a scroll in his hands was sitting in the shadows. There was a barrel of malodorous brew next to him.
“It will restore your power and treat your wounds a bit,” Dogar tested the weight of the logs, sat down, and added another log. “After that, two hours on the obstacle course. Five minutes of rest. Two hours of sparring. Five minutes of rest, and, as a light finale, fifteen minutes of running with a log. Five more minutes of rest, and then the healthiest among you will carry the injured back to the healer.”
Dog
ar got up. He looked like Atlas holding up the sky. And the soldiers definitely respected him. After all, he was going to train right alongside his subordinates, carrying a lot more weight on his back than them, thereby motivating them and setting an example for them to strive toward.
Dogar was a proper senior officer, deserving of his rank.
Hadjar sat down next to the pyramid of logs. He covered his neck and back with the specially prepared rollers, then grabbed the belts and threw the logs onto his shoulders, all in one motion. When Hadjar began to rise, he heard a rather ominous warning.
“If you ever try to weasel out of doing your fair share of training, assistant, I’ll ban you from drinking the medicinal brew. For your first time, since you're such a squishy, delicate thing, I'll take pity on you. You’ll need to get used to the idea of carrying twice or even three times that weight soon enough, however. And now, pick up the pace, keep your back straight, focus on your breathing!”
The last orders were addressed to the soldiers. Their faces grew more severe at once, and they ran around the parade ground behind Dogar, who, for his part, was running as casually as if he weren’t carrying nearly a ton of logs on his shoulders.
Hadjar, sweating heavily, jogged at the back of the group. It was very difficult for him to run every lap; his heart was racing and the veins in his temples were throbbing. But he kept running, in spite of his fatigue.
It seemed to him like this running would never end. It was useless to try and count the laps. And so, in order to add to his training, he tried to keep track of the movements of each of the dummies on the obstacle course. Sweat and pain prevented him from doing the exercises properly. But Hadjar was ready to train not just twice as hard, but three times as hard, if it meant he’d grow stronger.
He knew that only an iron will and constant, impossibly difficult training would help him defeat his foes.
Therefore, when, two hours later, the soldiers who were sparring and the ‘loggers’ exchanged places, he still kept dragging the logs around.
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