Chapter 72: Chapter 72
“This direction! Chase!”
Ordering his men to strip off that Fireproof Spider Silk Cloth outer robe and burying the corpse again, Waynes then pointed in a direction and ordered the squad to advance.
Upon receiving the order, two Knights wielding Transcendent Weapons immediately took the lead to clear the way. As soon as these two showed the slightest drop in stamina, fresh reinforcements immediately took their place from behind.
Just like this, even though they were in the Qiumu Forest where ordinary people would struggle to traverse, the traveling speed of Waynes and his men did not slow down much.
After an unknown amount of time had passed, even the dullest person could make some predictions about the enemy’s movement route. “Vice Commander, this direction? Could the enemy be planning to take a detour from the east to launch a sneak attack on Sis Castle?”
“It’s not impossible.”
Waynes pondered for a moment, then ordered someone to transmit a message to the territory. “Let’s speed up. The people of the Salvation Cult are using wizard relics to clear the way; they absolutely cannot sustain this for long. Go even faster; we must intercept them before they enter the territory!”
After speaking, he rubbed a dark green gemstone ring worn on the index finger of his left hand. In the next moment, two caws of a raven echoed from out of nowhere.
Immediately after, two dark shadows swiftly darted over everyone’s heads, flying toward the direction where the enemy was located ahead.
…
Meanwhile, at Ioneel’s location.
“Your Excellency, we have already been discovered by the people of the Sis Territory, and they are still chasing us. Are we still going to continue heading to the Sis Territory?”
“Continue.”
After uttering a brief command, Ioneel fell silent once more. Looking at the 【Friend of the Wilderness】 statue in his hand, which had already developed obvious cracks one after another, he remained completely unfazed.
After walking for another while, Ioneel extended his right hand, revealing a golden, eye-shaped tattoo on his palm. In the next moment, an illusory eye composed of golden light flew out from the center of his hand.
After a few seconds, it flew back into Ioneel’s palm, reverting into a golden, eye-shaped tattoo as its light faded away. Then, Ioneel spoke up:
“We are not far from the Sis Territory. The opponent is already on guard, but their Lord is still within the territory. Later, I will hold them off. Your first priority is to find that Lord and kill him!”
“Yes.”
The remaining six immediately acknowledged the order. They had done this sort of thing more than once on their way here; it was just that they didn’t necessarily kill the Lord every time. If the other party could be redeemed, they still preferred redemption.
The core tenet of the Salvation Cult was to redeem the world and redeem the people. They never killed proactively, let alone killed without cause. They would only resort to slaughter when it was certain that the target could not be redeemed, and only to avoid sustaining harm to themselves.
The fact that Ioneel had issued an absolute kill order right now clearly indicated that he had already deemed the Lord of Sis beyond redemption.
…
Sis Territory.
Ron’s body lay in bed, but his consciousness was within his Light Orb. He no longer had any doubts about the Knight’s Path; the only thing he lacked was continuous practice, or rather, time.
Therefore, recently, he had been focusing his research direction on what lay beyond Knights whenever his consciousness returned to his true form, or more specifically, on the Breathing Technique.
The Breathing Technique was related to the body’s state of adapting to the modification by Transcendent Factors. Its more concrete manifestations were the maximum limit and quality of retained Life Energy.
Whether Apprentices or Knights, everyone consumed Life Energy to strengthen themselves. The higher the upper limit of retained Life Energy, the equivalent of having a higher mana pool, and the higher their enhancement efficiency would be in practice.
Of course, what was even more important was the quality of the Life Energy, which reflected the body’s state of adapting to the Transcendent Factors. The higher the quality of the Life Energy, the closer the body was to becoming transcendent.
And correspondingly, the upper limit of enhancement through the consumption of Life Energy would also be higher.
This was somewhat like pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps to take flight, but the fact remained that as the body grew stronger, the quality of the Life Energy would rise, pushing the enhancement limit higher, thereby making the body even stronger and the Life Energy quality even higher.
However, no possibility for infinite enhancement had been discovered for the time being. Regardless of the type of Life Energy, it would eventually reach a limit.
Yet the Breathing Technique comprehended by most Knights was insufficient to allow them to reach the physical limits of their current stage. The further one progressed, the worse the effect that purely physical improvements had on boosting overall combat prowess.
Another classic case of diminishing marginal utility.
This was why Knights pursued better equipment and better weapons. Sometimes, the enhancements brought about by weapons and gear would far exceed the minor improvements gained from physical strengthening.
…
During the Apprentice stage, the first limit Ron experienced was the limit of an ordinary person, the limit of an ordinary person completely devoid of any transcendent attributes.
Surpassing this limit brought him to the stage he was currently at, but one didn’t need to reach the end of this stage to become a Formal Knight.
In fact, just a tiny fraction beyond the limits of an ordinary person was enough to support someone in becoming a Formal Knight. The key here relied more on the Whole-Body Force within the body, rather than physical fitness.
No matter how much they enhanced themselves, if they could not condense these forces into one, they still couldn’t be considered a Formal Knight.
Ron wasn’t someone who liked to pursue limits, but not pursuing limits didn’t mean he didn’t want to become stronger quickly. After all, the world he was currently in was simply too dangerous.
And if he wanted to improve his enhancement efficiency, given that he wasn’t lacking in resources, he could only find ways to improve his Breathing Technique.
The Sis Territory treated its Apprentices exceptionally well; hardly any Apprentice lacked resources. Even Ron, relying on the Secret Pattern program of the 【Transcendent Body Refinement Technique】 to maintain an enhanced state for over 16 hours a day, still had more than enough to use.
As for ordinary Apprentices, based on Ron’s observations, being able to stay in an enhanced state for 8 hours a day was already considered remarkable.
…
If quantifying the use of Life Energy to strengthen the body into leveling experience, where an ordinary Apprentice gained 1 point of experience per hour, then they would only gain 8 points in a day.
As for Ron, because his Breathing Technique was closer to the essence, he could gain at least 1.5 points of experience per hour. At 16 hours a day, that was 24 points, three times that of other Apprentices!
But Ron wanted to go even further. Since the time spent enhancing couldn’t produce a qualitative change, he could only push the limits of his Breathing Technique.
What he was doing right now was constantly retracing his memories to push his Breathing Technique to a state infinitely close to when he received the inheritance near the Wondrous Ice.
Going a step further, he planned to use the inheritance opportunities gifted to him during his Apprentice stage and rewarded from the Domain of Chaos trial, leveraging his true form’s perspective to push the Breathing Technique to its absolute pinnacle.
This way, perhaps he could obtain a Formal Knight-level body before he even became a Formal Knight.
Moreover, because this was his own enhancement (under the Full-Immersion Control Mode), it wouldn’t delay the time it took him to become a Formal Knight.
It was just like how a person falling ill and weakening doesn’t affect the strength of their perception, and recovering from an illness wouldn’t render them unable to control themselves and crush a paper cup barehanded.
The key to becoming a Formal Knight still lay more in technique and proficiency, bearing little relation to raw power itself.
If it weren’t so, Ron wouldn’t be spending sixteen hours a day enhancing himself.