Vol 1 Chapter 18

"It's good, isn't it? If they're ambiguous, they probably won't feel much like swords."

"Huh."

Hyung shook his head and said nothing more. Kapros thought hyung's behavior was somewhat childlike and told him what he had been thinking.

"For now, I'll focus solely on magic for a week. Please concentrate on your training as much as possible too, hyung."

"Looking at your eyes makes me scared. How much do you plan to do in just a week?"

Hyung had already seen roughly how far Kapros could go when he concentrated, so he asked with a shrug.

"3rd circle mastery. I'll definitely return after mastering the 3rd circle."

Kapros clenched his fist and said firmly.

Hyung chuckled and said, 'Then I should practice sending orcs flying with one hit to be of help to you,' and waved as he headed towards the field. Kapros watched hyung's retreating figure, then turned around and took a somewhat excited step towards the distant Wizard Tower.

Seven days from today.

The next time he walked this path, he would definitely be a 3rd class master.

From then on, Kapros holed up in the tower and started magic training again. The tower assistant Zen welcomed him warmly, and Kapros went up and immersed himself in training, racking his brains in earnest.

In his empty mind, he imagined a hot and strong image of fire. He expanded what was just a small spark into a huge wall of fire over 3 meters tall.

He imagined that dangerous heat haze.

He kept repeating it as if it were real.

The wall of fire was his protection. Flames so intense that anything touching them would crumble to ash and bounce off. But he believed it would be a reliable defense wall for him and his companions.

It would not tolerate the enemy's footsteps—!

Flash. Kapros opened his eyes.

The green formula world turned white-hot and connected to his hand inserted in the circle. Light surged all around as magical power swirled and escaped.

Right now, he had to draw out the wall of fire living and surging within him!

"Devourer of flames! Become my guardian who rules and stand here!"

Whoosh!

"Fire Wall!"

Kapros raised his palm inside the circle and thrust it forward like a wall.

Then, with a whoosh of spreading flames, a 3-meter-high wall of red-hot fire instantly took its place before his eyes, just as he had desired. At the same time, light burst from the magic book spread at his feet.

The dazzling light soon made the single Fire Wall incantation written on the blank page fly away as if burning. As the 2nd circle book finally became completely blank, the book itself glowed blue and disappeared. This was a sign that he had fully mastered this book.

"Haa... haa..."

With this, Kapros had become a complete 2nd circle master by tower magic book standards.

It took three hours to get this far. The last spell, Fire Wall, was difficult to construct a perfect image of a fire defense wall, but thanks to the rhythm he had been practicing until now, he was able to finish faster than expected.

"This is just the 2nd circle..."

If he could master the 3rd circle, he would gain a powerful weapon to add to the 1st circle spells he had trained to the point of being able to call forth and control by name alone, and the 2nd circle spells he had trained to use with just activation incantations without drawing circles.

In fact, it had been good to be able to use magic comfortably while Kion-hyung blocked monsters in front until now, but such a method would be useless in the upcoming real battle between users. The opponents were multiple. They wouldn't give him time to cast magic at ease.

Therefore, his plan was to compensate for weaknesses by firing 1st circle spells while wielding dual swords, and using 3rd circle spells when a finishing move was needed.

Of course, the kendo he had learned in reality didn't use dual swords, but if he couldn't use that again, he wanted to start something completely different from scratch. He already had a rough image in his mind of how to use dual swords. The only thing left was to see how far he could develop his new body obtained in Mist.

In Mist, skills weren't standardized. In the case of magic, one had to acquire and learn from books, but usually, the weapons or actions one used would develop into skills.

For example, because Kapros enjoyed walking around in winding paths so much in Mist, a skill called 'Hiking' had appeared in his basic skills. If he continued to enjoy walking, that skill's proficiency would increase and develop into other skills. But if his pattern changed to sneaking around, a skill similar to the shadow step of hunters or assassins might appear, and if he often ran around, another skill related to movement speed might be added.

Even if he couldn't use a sword at all in reality, continuously swinging a sword in Mist would create a Sword Mastery skill. Swimming would create a swimming skill, cooking would create a cooking skill, and this was one of the things that added to Mist's charm. So, the hope that he might be able to handle swords in both hands if he just put in the effort wasn't entirely hopeless.

Dual swords he had never handled before, with an ambiguous sword length. He had chosen conditions opposite to what he used to use as much as possible, but...

'Can I handle it?'

To be honest, he wasn't very confident. That's why he had asked for them to be made with the simplest iron.

"...Now I should open the 3rd circle book."

His heart was a bit anxious like that, but the days passed quickly. Kapros spent most of his time in Mist. He even used tricks like playing for twelve hours, handling only minimal tasks for three or four hours to avoid forced logout, and then logging in again, wracking his brain as much as possible.

When he couldn't grasp the image, for the first time in his life, he looked into fantasy novels, movies, and comics.

Three days of effort researching how to create something more impressive.

Originally, he should have gone to pick up the swords after three days of game time, but he forgot even that and trained for 12 more days. The 3rd circle magic he had trained to the point where he didn't feel difficulty in concretizing it right before going to pick up the swords included Ice Spear, Invisibility, Haste, Magic Shield, and Fly, achieving quite satisfactory results.