Even if a Blue Knight had no time to drink, there was always time to train authority.

I immediately headed to the training grounds of our army’s encampment together with Magnus.

“First, let us review the fundamentals once more. Begin by using pulling force and repulsive force.”

“Understood.”

Hummm.

Magnus floated one of his metal awls into the air.

Crackle!

I raised my mana, sparks bursting around the crown of my head.

Extending my hand forward as though grabbing the metal awl, I used pulling force.

Wooooooong!

An invisible force exploded through the air, and the metal awl shot toward me.

“Hup!”

Screeeech!

Magnus extended his hand as well and unleashed pulling force.

The awl stopped between us, trembling violently like a fish caught on a hook.

Nothing was visible to the naked eye, but through Bio-radar vision, the black world filled with pure-white magnetic fields erupting wildly around the awl.

“Pull harder.”

“Harder?”

I increased my strength as Magnus instructed.

Crack-crack!

Electric sparks burst around my eyes as well, and the pulling force became several times stronger.

Screeeeeech!

Magnus likewise pulled on the awl with several times more force.

“More!”

“More?”

I poured in more mana exactly as instructed.

Wooooooooong!

The magnetic field distorted violently.

Iron particles buried in the soil beneath the awl floated into the air, swirling in the shape of a giant figure eight along the magnetic field.

My nerves were beginning to heat up.

Compressing lightning to generate such an intense magnetic field created extremely high voltage.

If I wanted to raise the voltage even further, I would have to activate lightning reinforcement and cycle bodily enhancement in the style of sword aura reinforcement.

“Kh.”

Right as I was about to ask how much further I needed to go—

“That’s enough.”

Magnus gradually withdrew his force.

I did the same.

The awl almost fell to the ground before returning to Magnus’s hand.

“First of all, congratulations. Both your mana capacity and control have become vastly stronger.”

“I’ve guzzled enough elixirs that I’d better have become stronger.”

I shook my head at his praise.

That was not false modesty.

It was simply fact.

How many bottles of Elixir of Sacred Radiance had I consumed?

How much had my Thunderbolt Body increased?

At this point, I naturally ought to be capable of this much.

“However, compared to that level of control, your unconscious conversion efficiency seems poor.”

“Conversion efficiency?”

Magnus began offering feedback.

“You allow too much lightning aura to leak during the process of converting lightning aura into magnetism. The first loss occurs when mana becomes lightning aura, and the second occurs when lightning aura becomes magnetism. A magnetism artist’s success or failure depends on how much those two stages of loss can be reduced.”

“I understand. Even reducing each stage by only five percent means a combined difference of over nine percent. Thinking about the time and money required to gain nine percent more mana than one’s opponent makes me want to cry blood.”

I immediately understood.

Magnus barely exposed his violet lightning at all.

By contrast, I had sparks erupting from the crown of my head, around my eyes, and eventually even around my hands while exercising magnetic force.

That difference alone was efficiency.

“Rather than poor control, it feels more as though you’ve grown accustomed to using two separate forces simultaneously. The amount of loss is too absurd to simply call it carelessness. Honestly, this shouldn’t happen if you properly attended academy—no, even training camp lessons. But as far as I know, there are no electric arts authorities that use mana in this manner.”

Magnus spoke as though he had witnessed something utterly bizarre.

“I see.”

Something immediately came to mind.

Lightning reinforcement.

Sword aura reinforcement was an authority that manifested mana into light, heat, and physical force within the body.

Because of House Astreos’s bloodline traits, mana naturally converted into lightning whenever we used it.

Thus, when we Blue Knights learned sword aura reinforcement, it became lightning reinforcement through the addition of lightning aura.

In my case, I wanted both the cutting power of sword aura reinforcement and the shock attacks of electric imbuement simultaneously.

So I intentionally mixed large amounts of lightning aura into sword aura reinforcement, increasing the proportion of lightning within lightning reinforcement itself.

Apparently that same tendency leaked into my magnetism arts.

“I understand now. That won’t happen again.”

“I’m relieved you understand.”

Magnus continued staring at me strangely before changing the subject.

“So then, what authority do you wish to learn?”

“Sacheol Armor.”

At my answer, he froze and blinked once.

“Are you planning to become a magnetism artist?”

“Of course not. You joke well.”

“There are countless people who fail to learn Sacheol Armor even after devoting their entire lives to magnetic control. Even the Three Musketeers who once learned magnetism arts under me only succeeded in magnetic flight. Of them, only the eldest, Unutus, managed to learn Sacheol Armor.”

It certainly sounded difficult.

After all, the technique involved covering oneself in ultra-vibrating Sacheol while ensuring that not a single attack penetrated inward.

Still, my Thunderbolt Body was approaching twenty-five hundred percent.

I had even fired the Electromagnetic Railgun.

If the problem were insufficient mana, talent, or bloodline, that would be one thing.

But there did not seem to be any authority I could not learn purely because of insufficient control.

“But I need to learn it.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been getting dragged into close combat more often. They aren’t opponents I can kill from a distance with one or two bolts of lightning anymore. Everyone is absurdly strong and absurdly fast.”

“Strong enough to threaten a Blue Knight?”

“More than enough. I need to push my physical abilities even further.”

Lightning reinforcement alone was no longer enough.

Sacheol Armor in magnetism arts functioned like Wind King Armor in wind arts.

It also acted as an exoskeleton.

The Sacheol connected through magnetic force supported my movements from outside the body like artificial muscles.

I recalled my battle with Doctor Adler.

The outcome had been favorable, but in truth the encounter had been terrifying.

Without holy water back then, the strategy of taking a sword strike and beheading him in return would have amounted to suicide.

But if I had possessed Sacheol Armor, I would not have needed to take that hit at all.

I could have either blocked it or evaded it.

One or the other.

Magnus nodded reluctantly.

“I will try.”

That very day, I began training in Sacheol Armor.

“The most important point is a precise awareness of your own body. Since you are already skilled in bodily enhancement and neural acceleration, it should not be overwhelmingly difficult for you. However, it will still take considerable time before success.”

“How long are we talking?”

“I can say with certainty that you will not succeed while I remain here. I will focus on advancing your training as quickly as possible and teaching you the necessary process, so continue practicing alone afterward. Ah, and if you make a mistake, your entire skin may be shredded away, so always bring one or two priests with you during training.”

Magnus raised Sacheol and layered it over his body.

Tzzzzzzz!

“Your head, chest, abdomen, thighs, soles, the backs of your knees, your hips, lower back, between the shoulder blades, shoulders, and the back of the neck. You must recognize everything inside and outside those areas as your body. Only then can you organically control Sacheol Armor.”

“Organic control. That seems to be the core.”

“Correct.”

Covered in Sacheol, he stepped forward.

Step.

As his leg moved, the Sacheol attached behind the knee spread outward slightly before gathering together again.

His arm moved slightly as well, so the Sacheol over the latissimus muscles—where the surface area had expanded—became thinner, while the Sacheol over the front of the shoulder—where the surface area had contracted—became thicker.

“Did you notice?”

“I think so.”

“When controlling Sacheol Blades, Sacheol Shield, or Metal Tide, you don’t need to care about these things. If you simply swing Sacheol Blades according to inertia, their thickness changes however it pleases. Even Sacheol Shield bursts apart like crushed pudding after blocking powerful projectiles before reforming itself. As for Metal Tide, there’s no need to even mention it.”

“But if you handled Sacheol Armor that way, hundreds of ultra-high-speed vibrating blades would pierce inward through my flesh.”

“Yes. Which is why a change in perception is necessary. This is a transformation in how the brain defines the body. In effect, it is no different from creating a new body.”

It sounded somewhat grandiose.

But it was true.

To truly control Sacheol Armor properly, my brain needed to recognize it as part of my body.

It needed to interpret and respond to the electrical signals coming from Sacheol Armor exactly the same way it interpreted the electrical signals generated by my actual muscles.

Only then could the disasters Magnus described be avoided.

“We’ll begin with your hands.”

“Understood.”

Tzzzzzzz!

I raised Sacheol and attached it across my hand.

It felt as though I were wearing a gauntlet covered in thousands of large and small blades.

“Observe how the Sacheol moves according to the movement of your fingers. You must understand what happens when you clench your fist and when you fully extend your hand. You must know which parts spread outward, which parts are pulled inward, which areas may safely spread, and which must never be allowed to pull inward. And then you must elevate that understanding from mere knowledge into instinct.”

Magnus was making an extremely difficult demand.

“Stars above.”

I muttered quietly under my breath.

For a moment, I even considered asking for this as my next perk.

【“How shameless.”】

I didn’t hear that.

【“Don’t act like my little brother.”】

I said I didn’t hear it.

Then suddenly, a method occurred to me.

Crunch!

I clenched my fist instantly.

“That’s dangerous!”

Magnus turned pale.

“It’s fine!”

I increased the magnetic force and properly activated the Sacheol Blades.

Chiiiiiiing!

The vibration speed of the Sacheol multiplied dozens of times, and the Sacheol Armor gauntlet covering up to my wrist pulsed sharply.

“Your Highness!”

“I said it’s fine!”

It became both a blade that could grind apart anything it touched and a shield capable of repelling anything that touched it.

At the same time, it became an artificial muscle connected through magnetic force rather than muscle fibers.

Which meant it was fundamentally no different from the movements of my original finger muscles.

More precisely, it was no different from the movement of the skin produced by my original finger muscles.

If I treated it as an extension of that, there was nothing difficult about it.

After all, movements of muscle and skin were already familiar territory for those of us who used bodily enhancement and neural acceleration.

Of course, to do that, I needed precise knowledge of the expansion ratio as well.

Apparently that was the difficult part.

But for me, it was easy.

Hummm!

My Bio-radar now covered an entire city.

At least in terms of range and precision, I was confident even compared to direct-line purebloods.

If I focused even one-tenth of that output onto myself, accurately calculating and applying movements across the area of my own body in real time was trivial.

“There’s no way this is fine!”

“Look.”

“Where are the priests?! Get the priests!”

“Look already!”

“Stop pretending you’re fine after severing your own nerves! Your insides might already be shredded— huh?”

“Didn’t I tell you I was fine?”

Magnus stared at me with the expression of someone who had just been struck across the head.

“H-how is this possible?”

He stammered uncontrollably.

“With all due respect... are you actually some illegitimate younger brother of mine?”

I explained Bio-radar to him.

I explained that I had already used magnetism arts extensively before and that Bio-radar had made spatial awareness itself feel natural to me.

“Ha.”

After hearing everything, Magnus let out a deep sigh filled with utter disbelief.

“Very well. Then aim to extend it up to below the elbow.”

It sounded like he muttered something about this taking him much longer, but I must have misheard.

No matter how talented I was, I was still just an illegitimate child who had gained power forcibly through a contract with the thunderous star.

There was no way I could progress faster than Magnus, the genius eldest son of a prestigious collateral branch.

Erica entered Cophion once more.

After hearing that Kyrie was launching a major commercial enterprise involving Rikenta, she had left the front lines to Navigator Silphius and hurried back personally.

How lovely. My husband is increasing this lady’s power all on his own.

Since House Rikenta survived through intermediary trade, and since she herself ruled the house through intermediary trade within intermediary trade, any expansion of logistics routes inside and outside Rikenta was welcome news.

That was especially true with a proven great merchant like Gluttony involved.

To avoid burdening the front lines, her procession traveled lightly in groups of only one hundred.

Massive armies existed for prestige and war, not for safety.

If they wished to avoid ambushes by the Hall of Purity, it might actually be safer to move quickly with only a small group of close retainers.

“Where is Kyrie?”

“Y-Your Highness!”

At the appearance of the matriarch, the officers of Kyrie’s army hurried to guide her.

Clang! Clang! Claaang!

“Oh?”

Erica watched Kyrie in the training grounds, sweat pouring from him as he swung both hands encased in black gauntlets.

It resembles Wind King Armor.

The sight of him concentrating so intensely was deeply impressive.

Impressive enough to make her want to spar with him.

Chapter 231

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