"Attempt 112," Leo muttered to himself as he approached the knight once more. A clear path had been imprinted into the scarlet sands behind him. Plainly evident of the countless times he had walked it. He gripped his dagger tightly in his right hand and lunged forth like a tiger, trying to get the first strike.
The knight responded immediately, it cleaved through the air with its massive greatsword which caused the air to whistle. Leo nimbly dodged underneath it and went in for a quick strike. He stabbed at the knight ferociously, however, his blow didn't connect as the knight had swiftly moved out of the way.
It was incomprehensible that the knight, who used the unwieldy and hefty greatsword, was able to move at such speeds. This was especially true considering the greatsword was mid-swing.
A pair of chilling azure eyes stared at him with contempt. The knight reappeared in front of Leo and slashed mightily towards the ground. Even at a casual glance, anyone could tell it was extremely powerful! Leo dashed to the side, barely avoiding the attack.
He rushed in for another speedy stab but this time it actually worked! He lodged the dagger deep into the knight's side. The dagger had effortlessly, like a hot knife through butter, pierced the armour.
Leo was ecstatic, this was the first he had ever landed on the knight. But he was only able to be happy for a short period of time as the knight smashed his face in with its elbow.
Leo had been careless for a moment and immediately suffered immense consequences. A deep, bloody impression was left on his face, a few teeth had rocketed out of his mouth and his nose started to bleed profusely; furthermore, he had been flung a meter back.
Leo now had no weapon and was lying defencelessly on the ground like a little lamb waiting to be slaughtered. His expression turned fierce as he immediately pushed off the ground and entered a fighting stance.
He had been in this situation before. The first few times he had fought the knight he had no weapon and he was regularly disarmed when he did, this meant he had to learn to fight with his hands. So far every time he had fought with his hands he had failed miserably, this did not say much as he had always failed miserably, dagger or not.
The knight relentlessly attacked, making the most of its advantage. It gave no short respites and showed no openings, at least none that Leo could see.
Unable to grab hold of his dagger and endure the unrelenting barrage of attacks, Leo swiftly reached the limits of his stamina and succumbed to many violent wounds. He became incapable of moving on account of his crushed bones and maimed flesh.
The knight threw away its greatsword and grabbed him by the arm. It brutally pulled his arm away from his shoulder and his muscle fibres ripped and tore, like the fibres of a rope unwinding, which caused Leo a tremendous amount of pain. Blood cascaded out and soaked the sand until eventually a *crack* was heard. The knight threw Leo's mutilated arm to the floor and started to rip into his leg.
After a few minutes, which felt like more like a few agonizingly slow hours for Leo, the knight had fully finished tearing his limbs apart. It picked up its greatsword and plunged it deep into his chest. Its greatsword and hands were smeared heavily with blood.
The ouroboros on Leo's neck luminesced a grim light which quickly encased Leo and his dismembered limbs. Soon they disappeared into thin air and the knight returned to its position, the blood and guts on its armour and sword entirely gone.
---
A few kilometres back Leo and his limbs materialised out of nothing. Leo looked towards the sky and let out a long, strenuous sigh, "Attempt 112 is a bust. But it's a big success as well! I finally hit that piece of shit! 113. This one is going to be the one."
He excitedly rocketed off the ground, or rather, would've rocketed off the grounds if his limbs hadn't been torn from his sockets and tossed aside like bits of unwanted junk. "I'll never get used to this." He remarked to himself.
It was a slight lie; he had been getting used to the cycle of fighting, dying, improving. Compared to his very first fight, he had improved tremendously, in part due to the dagger he had found lodged unceremoniously in the ground.
It was his 11th attempt when he got it. He was starting to lose his will to fight, each fight ended almost instantaneously and he was unable to improve in the slightest as he couldn't decipher what the book had wanted him to do.
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He had mindlessly wandered around for what felt like days and when he returned to the 'resurrect point', he found the dagger. To this day he was unsure if he had just missed the dagger or if someone had placed it there intentionally. With the dagger, his interest in fighting was renewed. He could feel himself get better every time.
Leo closed his eyes and began to circulate mana around his body. He was not following the Essence of Void's instructions exactly, he couldn't even if he wanted to.
After much trial and error, he had combined the knowledge he had gained from the Essence of Void and his own experiments to slowly creep forward and reach the gates of peak 1st circle warrior. Sadly, his efforts in the study of magic didn't go well, he had only reached primary 1st circle mage.
Mana arts were highly valuable, especially those of high grades, as they provided a powerful base and a clear method to advance which greatly increased cultivation speed.
Cultivation could be likened to walking a long path that was littered with innumerable traps while also being completely blind. Mana arts provided a guiding light that illuminated the path forward and the traps to avoid, the strength of the light dependant on the quality.
Due to his lack of ability to understand the complex technicalities, Leo had adopted a hybrid method and, as his body was returned to peak condition every time he died, he didn't need to fret over potential pitfalls and long-term side effects. It could be said he was wandering about with a long cane which was a massive improvement compared to those without mana arts, who scoured on hands and legs, but still much worse than those with a guiding light.
While it may seem like Leo's progress was lagging, He was ahead of the pack by a pretty big margin. Most kids his age had only tentatively stepped into the waters of primary 1st circle warrior or, less likely, primary 1st circle mage. At the moment Leo was even starting to surpass less talented nobles who had dedicated mana arts available to them since their birth.
Leo felt a cool surge of mana surge through his veins like a small stream, currently, he was trying to improve his magical abilities. This entailed that he revolved mana around his body continuously which required an intense amount of concentration. Any lapse of direction and he would suffer an immense backlash that disabled his ability to cast magic and absorb mana particles from the air.
The path of the mage was much harder and more sluggish than the path of the warrior and it required more active involvement compared to the path of the warrior. Furthermore, it wasn't very useful. At most Leo could only gather a small number of void particles at his fingertips and unleash it as a meagre burst that was unfit for battle. However, the unique properties of the void element presented a peculiar path.
Through many hours of testing, Leo had learned of the strange qualities of void. Void could erase matter! Or more accurately, convert matter into mana which could be absorbed to replenish the mana used. Of course, the mana used for the spell was in no way equivalent to the mana replenished; Leo roughly estimated the return was about 2.5%. In other words, he would have to use 40 spells before he could cast the spell again for free. It wasn't terribly useful.
This, however, was not the trait that opened up an interesting way to avoid the knight. The fact that it could eradicate matter was. Leo's 'master plan' was to carve out the crystal bulwark that encased him. Unfortunately, this 'master plan' did not come to fruition. Despite the previous performance of the void element, it was not able to destroy the wall, in fact, it didn't even make a dent.
Nonetheless, Leo was still resolved to see his plan through to the very end. He surmised the problem to be his magical cultivation and as such, he concentrated on it heavily, outright abandoning his physical cultivation for the small chance to avoid the knight. So far he had not succeeded in a breakthrough.
Trying to advance as a mage without the requisite knowledge was much harder than advancing as a warrior. This was why most commoners had cultivated mostly in the path of the warrior, with only a select few talented ones ever becoming a 2nd circle mage without the aid of a dedicated art.
Fortunately for him, that was exactly what he had. A dedicated mana art that was given to him by Sloth. Thanks to this, Leo could feel he was very close to breaking through to the advanced stage of the 1st circle.
Leo let out a giant sigh, this process was extremely tedious and wasted a large portion of his time. The time he could have spent practising against the knight. He had many doubts about the path he was taking. "Is this really faster?" He kept questioning himself. "Should I just fight the knight?" His doubts piled up. "No. I have to go through with this. Even if I fail, I'll still be stronger in the end."
His internal monologue, which had ruined his concentration, had disrupted his cultivation. Luckily, the disruption was not very significant, however, his circulation path had been blocked temporarily, meaning he couldn't cultivate further for at least 3 days. Furthermore, he suffered a mental backlash causing him to become tired.
Leo shut his eyes and fixated on his breathing. Deep breath in… deep breath out. It was not the first time he had suffered a backlash and with a backlash as mild as this, he was not concerned. 3 days was not a long time considering he would be incapacitated for at least 7 days. He found that sleeping was the best way to get through this.
Sleeping was not a thing he would do often; dying would usually reset his body and cultivating was like being in a state of pseudo-sleep so it was not very necessary unless he was greatly fatigued.
With his high mental fatigue and breathing exercise, Leo fell asleep. The scorching scarlet sand on his back kept him at a nice comfortable temperature as the wind whistled a melodic tune.