From all these information, Weiss guessed that her own talent as a knight was excellent. So if she could take advantage of that and work hard, then it should be possible for her to even become a grand knight in a short period of time.
After becoming an official knight, her speed of progression had become slightly slower compared to her previous speed when she was just an apprentice knight.
But the main reason behind this slowness was the flaws present in her secret art. Now that she had managed to mend those flaws, her pace of advancement should increase again.
As an offical knight, one needed to first make their life core perfectly stable. This was a step that Weiss had already completed as soon as she had made her breakthrough.
Next a knight needed to purify their life force continuously. During this purification process, the density of the life core would increase while it's size would decrease continuously.
At the beginning, a knight's life core was as large as the heart of the person. When the size of that core had reduced by 50 percent, then one would be able to become a mid level knight.
Then after the core had shrunk by 70 percent, a knight would finally reach the high levels. Making any progress after this would become super hard.
But still, of a knight could continue to purify the life force, the core could be shrunk by 80 percent. This would make one a peak level knight. And reaching this step one could try to become a grand knight.
Grand knights did not use life force and instead used something mysterious called the Ancient Force. After the life force had became condensed enough, one could try to transform it into this mysterious ancient force.
With the introduction of the ancient force, the body of a new grand knight would evolve and would become something better. It was a thorough transformation.
The lifespan of a regular knight was same as an ordinary person. They only aged at a slower rate. But for a grand knight, living for a century was not uncommon. Normally a grand knight had the lifespan of about 120 to 130 years.
This made a grand knight to look like a god in the mortal world. A grand knight alone was able to defeat whole armies. They held a very high position in the society.
Even a king needed to be respectful toward a grand knight. So Weiss could truly be free from all danger from the nobility and royalty of this nation after reaching this realm.
...
Count Falgur was a tall man with muscular figure. He always dressed very thoroughly with extravagant clothing. As a famous noble of the Brightshine kingdom, it was was his duty to always show off his dignity.
He had a habit of taking a little break every evening from all his duties and at this time, he liked to enjoy some strong liquor on his own.
During this period of time, he wanted to forget all about his responsibilities as the head of his family and about his training as a powerful high level knight. He only wanted to enjoy a moment of peace at this moment.
In recent times, the count was entangled in a conflict with a neighbouring noble. Even though this conflict was not serious and there was no chance of an all out war happening, that annoying neighbour of his was doing many things to continuously harass him. It was truly very irritating for the count.
So, on this evening, he was planning to open the bottle of a very aged alcohol. This was something that he brought for a lot of money in an auction and had been saving for a long time.
But now, he was finally planning to open this bottle. For Count Falgur, there was nothing better in relieving stress than a strong high quality alcohol.
Count poured the alcohol in a small cup and first brought it close to his nose. This was an alcohol made from some special kind of grains and it had a very gentle earthly smell.
"Hmm, the brew made in the Kingdom of Kadi is truly the best in the whole world. Unfortunately, they exported them very rarely so without strong connections it's impossible to get even one. I was lucky to have found this in that auction."
Even before taking a sip, the scent alone calmed the count down a lot. Then as he took a sip, a mix of sweet and sour flavour filled his mouth.
At the same time, high concentration of alcohol in this drink made his mind a bit fuzzy. Overall, it was an awesome experience and the Count was finally able to get rid of most of the worries plaguing his mind.
For the last few days, as the count had been too busy with the matters regarding the neighbouring noble, he had not managed to do all his duties as the head of the family properly. Only the most argent reports had been sent to him during this period.
"The last few days had been so much trouble. I will definitely punish that bastard whenever I get any chance. Hmph. I will not forget this harassment."
So now that he was in a good mood, he thought about the various things that he had missed during the last few days.
One matter among them stood out to him. And that matter was related a small baron family called the Souran family.
This family of baron was not special by any means. They had a small territory in a very harsh land located in the troublesome northern side of the continent.
They were extremely poor and they also did not have any other notable product that was only found in their territory.
This family was slightly well known for having various wild animals with beautiful fur in their forests. But as those animals were hunted very rarely, only a few people were aware of this matter.
Normally a family like this was never going to get any attention from a high level knight like the count but still even in this busy period, the name of this family had managed to get some space in the count's head.
The only reason for that was the daughter of the current baron Souran.
The count had seen her only once when he had to make a visit to the backwater Souran territory to show off his authority as the leader of this region's nobles.
But just that one look had made the count to gasp in surprised. This little lady was just too beautiful. Even with her young age, her beauty was so overwhelming that the count was unable to think about even a single female who could match it.