Two Years Later...
In front of the old stone cottage, now less dilapidated and more lived-in, a boy moved.
He was twelve, with the lean, corded muscle of constant training. His brown hair was tied back, and his green eyes held a focus far older than his years. In his hands, a simple iron sword wove through the air, but it was more than a blade—it was a conductor.
Mana flowed with every cut, not as a separate spell, but as part of the motion itself. A slash left a faint, lingering green afterimage. A thrust seemed to extend further than the steel should allow.
Roy White, once the trashy side character, was no longer just practicing. He was creating.
The final sequence of his new form ended with a downward cut that sent a ripple through the morning mist. He stood still, chest heaving, sweat cooling on his skin. And then, the world itself took notice.
[You have created a swordsmanship art that does not previously exist. Would you like to name it?]
A grin, fierce and triumphant, spread across his face. "Yes."
A prompt for a name appeared in his mind. The pressure of legacy. It should be something cool, he thought. Something epic. But then a simpler, prouder truth surfaced. This was his. Forged from nothing but stolen knowledge, relentless practice, and sheer will.
"Name it... Roy's Swordsmanship."
[Art Registered: Roy's Swordsmanship. Creator: Roy. Grade: C? - Proficiency: D.]
A C-grade art! With a question mark, indicating its potential to grow. Its foundation was a trinity:
1. Imperial Swordsmanship (D): For its structured power and form.
2. Kane Swordsmanship (Principles): For its ruthless speed and efficient angles (learned a year ago after mastering the Imperial style in a record six months).
3. Kendo (E): For its philosophy of distance, timing, and the spirit of the cut.
He had tried to weave mana into the very fabric of the style, as hinted at in the novel's descriptions of advanced magic swordsmen. It was the hardest part, a process of trial, error, and near-mana burnout. He hadn't fully succeeded—true mana-channeling was still beyond him—but he had achieved mana resonance, where his spells and movements enhanced each other in sequence.
With a deep breath, he called up his Status, a testament to two years of brutal, isolated grind.
[Status]
[Name: Roy White] [Age: 12]
[Potential: C] [Rank: E-]
[Mana: E+] [Mana Control: D]
...(Other attributes at E-tier)...
[Art: Roy's Swordsmanship (C?) - Proficiency: D]
...(Skills upgraded to E-tier, Mana Eyes (E), Mana Control (D))...
The progress was real. He had broken through to E-rank a month ago. Every skill had been honed. His proficiency with his own created art was already at D-rank, a testament to how deeply he understood its principles.
But the numbers also highlighted persistent mysteries. His Mana (E+) and Mana Control (D) were disproportionately high. His Vitality and Agility also outpaced his other physical stats. The likely cause was his dormant half-elf bloodline finally expressing itself, granting him an elf's affinity for mana and a wood-elf's natural agility. It was a silent gift from the mother he never knew.
Yet, a wall loomed. E-rank was the peak of unaugmented human limits. To reach D-rank, to shatter that ceiling, he needed to form the First Mana Circle around his heart. His C-rank Potential was the official limit, but his heretical Mana Root System experiments—now consisting of three faint, stable channels in his legs and one in his spine—were his secret gamble to break that rule.
A more immediate problem crushed these grand thoughts: his purse was empty.
The 10 gold coins were gone—spent on Kane's fees, body-strengthening elixirs, and two years of food. He was broke. He couldn't, and wouldn't, go begging to Baron White.
The solution was obvious, dangerous, and necessary. It was time to stop being a hermit and start being an Adventurer.
He needed money for food, for better equipment, for the resources to fuel his unconventional growth.
But he had an advantage no other F/E-rank adventurer did: foreknowledge.
His mind went to the local town, built around the E-rank dungeon. According to the novel, within that well-trodden dungeon was a hidden chamber, accessible only under specific, non-combat conditions—a puzzle of mana alignment at a certain moon phase. Inside was not a weapon for a protagonist, but a Mid-Grade Mana-Gathering Crystal, a treasure that would be trivial to a B-ranker but a windfall for someone like him. It was perfect. Overlooked, valuable, and within the territory he knew.
His goals crystallized:
1. Register as an Adventurer and start earning immediately.
2. Find and secure the hidden crystal in the local dungeon.
3. Use the resources to push for a D-rank breakthrough before the Dragon Academy admissions in two years.
He looked at the rising sun, his cheap sword gleaming in its light. The years of solitary foundation-building were over.
Tomorrow, his new life began. Not as a noble's son, or a passive side character, but as Roy, the adventurer. The heretic. The variable.