Even when Abel came, none of the knight servants were distracted from their training. It was part of the rules here. No training would be paused. Otherwise, all their effort would be wasted, and they would have to start all over again.
“You’ve come, Abel,” Lord Marshall greeted Abel with a knight’s big sword in his hand.
Right now, Lord Marshall was supervising the handful of elites he recruited from Harvest City. They were mostly second sons of noble families. They were well educated, and they served under Lord Marshall because they knew it was the best choice for them. Second sons didn’t get a lot of chances. It’s not that they wanted to become wandering knights, so they would often go to Harry Castle to receive proper education in combat.
“How do you feel lately, Uncle Marshall?” Abel said, meanwhile observing Lord Marshall’s face. He looked a lot younger than before now. It must’ve been the training potion he had been drinking.
Lord Marshall smiled, “It’s been great. I feel like I’ll be promoted anytime soon. Actually, I’d love to learn the same techniques as you, but I also feel like Hoover’s way is the only go-to that I’ve got.”
Right now, Zach was the only one that learned the ways of the dark knights. Marshall wanted to do the same, but he didn’t have the same talent and resources that Zach had. Zach was younger, so it was easier for him to pick up a completely new training system. Also, he had more golden-quality “qi concentration potions” to learn the same system as Abel.
Anyways, as Abel grabbed onto his knight’s big sword, and he readied himself for his morning practice routine.
Ever since his last battle with Wizard Cliff, he started to gain a new perspective on his own fighting advantages. One crucial aspect was his insanely-strong melee attacks. With his two ultimate techniques, he could bring down almost anyone if he was close enough.
Still, with his advantages, he also got his own disadvantages. The power of the dimension was strong, but it would take too much time for him to activate. Also, it was a unique form of energy, and because of that, it would take him much more time to learn how to master it. Until then, it’d be a long time before he became a knight’s head commander.
Right now, he was just stuck at his current level as a knight. He had no way of controlling the power of the dimension inside him, let alone “shooting” it out as a form of attack. In fact, if it wasn’t for his combat qi, this same energy would’ve destroyed him the moment he unleashed it.
Without a short-term goal that he could achieve immediately, he decided to do things the long and steady ways. He did have Hoover’s guidelines with him, so he followed its content and focused on his basics. Hopefully, if he was patient and diligent enough, he would make enough progress to overcome his limits.
By the way, since it was a rather peaceful, Bartoli had more time to do things other than her regular training. She read Abel’s cooking recipes. After she learned how to make Chinese foods such as fish soup noodles, dumplings, soy milk, and fried sticks, Abel’s breakfast just became a lot more wholesome than before.
Apart from magic and meditation, Bartoli spent most of her time cooking. Because of how much she liked it, she decided to make the second floor of her magic tower into a big kitchen. It was something that no one on the Holy Continent had done before. If it wasn’t for the huge amount of freedom Abel gave her, she would’ve never had the luxury to do something like this for herself.
In the morning, Abel went to the Harry Castle blacksmith shop to pay Master Bentham a visit. When he arrived, he realized the shop was much bigger than when he left. Not only were there more blacksmiths working here now, but there were also people of all fields coming in here. They were all very eager to watch a grandmaster blacksmith do his forging practice.
“Greetings, Master Bentham,” Abel bowed as Master Bentham was focusing on a piece that he was working on.
Master Bentham smiled at him, “Greetings to you too, Abel. Are you here for your own turn?”
Abel said jokingly, “Well, yeah! Uncle Marshall’s been complaining about how little gear I’ve been making for him, so, you know, I guess the only option is to hurry up.”
Ever since Lord Marshall learned his second knight’s training system, he started investing more in his regular training. That being said, he also became more invested in buying the right gear for himself. Especially now, so it seemed. Since Abel was getting closer to becoming an official wizard, he had to make sure that enough equipment was made before Abel would have to shut down training.
And it wasn’t it was all for Lord Marshall, either. Abel had to make new gear for descendants of both Harry and the Bennett Family. It was part of his obligations now. He wasn’t very stressed about it, though. If anything, forging was very relaxing for him, so it became a habit for him to do forging every morning.
Master Bentham nodded in agreement with Lord Marshall’s decisions, “Lord Marshall was right to have you come here. Right now, the demands have been going up. Once our elite soldiers reach the next rank, it is still up to you to give them the finest weapons. It’s best if you start early, I would say.”
“I’ll be off now, then,” Abel nodded and proceeded to walk to his own workshop. Strangely enough, Master Bentham was following him inside. He didn’t say it out loud, but he must’ve really wanted to watch a grandmaster work.
When Abel lifted his hammer, he realized that there were a lot of blacksmiths peeping through the windows. These people were all advanced blacksmiths. While none of them could understand all of the techniques that Abel was using, they would still go to lengths just to have a peek of him doing his work.
In the afternoon, Abel would stay inside his magic tower and practice drawing runes. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how to, but without drinking any “soul potions” before getting into it, it would simply take too long for him actually to finish making one.
Due to the use of his dragon crystal, the strength of Abel’s power of Will had already reached its max limit. Drinking soul potions would no longer give him any boost. Since he didn’t want to waste his potions, he thought that only training was going to help him draw runes faster. To be more specific, while his power of Will was at its max, he could still improve his speed. This was evident in his daily training. The more he practiced on drawing runes, the more that he faster he actually drew them.
And that pretty much ended Abel’s day at the Harry Castle. At night, he would go to the dark world to continue exploring there. Due to the time difference between the two worlds, he would spend ten days and ten nights fighting non-stop.
Overall, Abel’s day was very productive. It could even be described as “packed,” despite what many on the Holy Continent would think. As free, easy, and rich as life he might appear to be, it was full of challenges and difficulties that he rarely told others about.
