Time passed as I kept practicing my thrusts and slashes.
Swoosh.
I thrust my sword toward the golem, and then six more thrusts followed in quick succession, hitting it straight in the chest. Six small holes were formed. But these holes were different, bigger than yesterday's, and mind you, that was without infusing any stellar energy into them. That meant I was improving, slowly but steadily.
Not bad for only the second day of touching a sword.
But I wasn't getting cocky. I was still a complete newbie when it came to the sword. I still had a long way to go.
My movements weren't as sluggish as before. Little by little, I was getting used to the weights, but they were still heavy. Too heavy.
Huff, huff.
I felt something wet soaking through my clothes. Sweat. I looked like I had just taken a dive into an ocean.
I swapped my stance. I lifted my sword and brought it slashing down onto the golem's right shoulder.
It cut, but barely — only biting into a small piece of the golem's stone body. That body was just that tough.
Then I felt shivers run down my hands as pain shot through them from the impact of hitting stone with steel.
Panting, I let go of my sword, which was wedged into the golem's shoulder, and let it fall.
I glanced over at the sleeping Virgil.
"He's still sleeping..." I muttered. "What an odd deity."
It was strange. Why would a god sleep so much?
Doesn't he have any followers?
Ah.
Then I remembered.
This man had been here for who knows how long, sleeping. He had never blessed anyone with his powers, so it made perfect sense why no one had ever heard of him. Well, I couldn't say no one — there were other worlds too, from what Virgil had told me, and just because he had never appeared in my world didn't mean he hadn't appeared in others.
But then that raised something interesting.
Other worlds.
In those other worlds, were there other races, races just like the ones Virgil had killed? The ones whose extinction he had caused?
Probably. Evil is everywhere, after all. Just the thought of the sins Virgil had described made my stomach churn. Not just the sins themselves, but the thought behind it all — the thought of killing people.
I couldn't.
Taking someone's life was something I could not do. You could call me whatever you liked, but I just couldn't.
I was lying to myself. I was trying to deny it—but deep down, I already knew. I had to.
I was in a world where it was kill or be killed. It was a necessity. And no matter how much I hated it, the day would come. I would do it.
I looked down at my hands.
I would one day kill someone with these very hands.
Shaking my head, I stood up.
Those are thoughts for another day.
I pried my sword free from the golem's shoulder and attacked again.
I had one simple goal:
Pierce through the golem's stomach. Cut one of its limbs. No stellar energy. Maybe I couldn't do it today, but soon. Very soon.
Gripping my sword tight, I went at it again with renewed energy.
Every time my stance was wrong, I started over.
Too little force? Start over.
Too much force? Start over.
Too slow? Start over.
Limbs burning? Start over.
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
I wasn't going to stop. Not until I had drilled through that damned golem's thick body. Not until I had cut one of its limbs.
Then, after days, or rather weeks, changes started to appear.
The first thing I noticed was the pain. Or more accurately, the absence of it. I no longer felt pain when I moved with the weights on. Before, every swing, every step, every attempt to execute a technique had been agony. Sure, I could still swing, but never the way I intended to.
The second was the weight itself.
It no longer felt heavy. I had been training here for over a month, which was probably only a few hours back in the real world. During that time, I had worked out exactly as Arthur had told me to — running, push-ups, all of it — taking breaks in between because I was not a machine. And the more
The longer I trained, the lighter the weights felt, until they were no longer a problem at all.
They had become so light that I actually thought they had fallen off at some point. But no. I was just stronger. My muscles had become firmer, more defined than before. I even felt like I had grown a few inches taller.
It was a surreal thing to witness in yourself. If I could train in this space every day, the growth would be immense — but unfortunately, that was not possible. So I had to make the most of whatever time I had left here, because waiting another six months felt like an eternity.
Funny enough, Virgil hadn't woken up even once during the entire time I trained. He had said he'd wake when he felt I had progressed enough.
Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I looked at the golem.
It looked absolutely battered.
Cracks ran all over its body. Chunks of stone littered the ground from my relentless attacks. And now, a large number of holes covered it from top to bottom — as if a giant bee had stung it dozens of times over. But the striking part wasn't the number of holes. It was that every single one of them was exactly the same size.
That had been intentional. I had been practicing control — because in situations where killing wasn't the goal, where I needed to subdue rather than destroy, I had to know how to pull back. To execute something precise and deliberate rather than just brutal.
On top of that, the holes had gone clean through. They had burst out the other side of the golem's back, and through them I could see the garden beyond. I had finally done it. I had pierced all the way through.
And all of that was with nothing but raw physical strength. No mana. No stellar energy. Pure power.
Not bad for a beginner.
With a single thought, the golem began to regenerate. The holes sealed, the cracks closed, and it stood whole again.
"Phew." I exhaled slowly.
Now it was time to execute the techniques in full — with stellar energy.
Speaking of stellar energy, during the time I had spent here, my absorption rate had increased, and the amount I could store in my cores had grown as well. Another achievement. Small, but still mine.
I gripped my sword and settled into my stance.
I would start with the first technique.
The muscles in my arms and legs pulled tight.
One question sat quietly in my head.
Would I perform it the same way Virgil had?
I wasn't trying to compare myself to him, and I wasn't trying to be arrogant about it either — but somehow, it felt achievable now. What he had demonstrated no longer seemed completely out of reach.
The reason I believed that was simple: I knew he had been holding back. He was a god. He could probably reduce the entire golem to dust with a single thrust without even breaking a sweat. A deity who could destroy a planet without effort wasn't going to unleash everything just to show a beginner a technique. He had been restraining himself so I could keep up.
And that was fine.
I whispered three words, barely a sound:
"Let it breathe."
Then it stirred.
Cosmic latte energy poured out of my cores and ran like a river toward my arms. When I tightened my grip on the sword, the energy followed — flowing out, spilling over the blade.
An energy that mirrored the cosmos wrapped itself around my sword.
No matter how many times I felt it, I was always left breathless.
How could an affinity be this mesmerising?
I drew my arm back into a thrusting position. Then, with a thought, I chose the specific stellar energy I wanted from within that cosmos and triggered it.
The reaction was instant.
The cosmic latte color bled away as a bright, white light devoured it whole.
My sword shone. Brilliant. White.
I made sure to hold back at least fifty percent of my stellar energy — the second technique would need it.
My eyes stayed fixed on the tall, still figure of the golem.
Everything was in place.
I spoke:
[Stellar Series, First Technique: Phi Lupi]
Then I moved.