Officially called the Long Night, the painting of the Goddess was an incredibly special type of treasure. Unlike weapons or armour, it wasn't meant to be used in battle. The painting was an auxiliary cultivation treasure. These were the most sought-after type due to their ability to directly aid in cultivation.

As such, the cost of these items was staggering. If Logan wished to sell the Long Night, the System demanded that he fulfil certain conditions. He hadn't tried, but it automatically warned him that he would have to increase his privilege level and go to a particular type of shop for auctions.

Before then, it wouldn't even list the starting price.

After reading the analysis, Logan understood why. Made with mutated Refraction Crystals infused with the power of the soul, The Long Night held a chaotic reflection of the Heavenly Laws. This was effectively useless in its natural form. To fix this problem, a powerful cultivator had been hired to extract and direct these laws, turning them into three interconnected sections of a single painting.

The first was the Goddess. If an ordinary person comprehended the profound mysteries hidden in the brush strokes within ten days, the treasure would deem them worthy and imprint a copy of itself on their soul. This infusion of Laws would elevate the soul to a higher level, almost as if it was being rearranged according to a blueprint.

This would use all of the energy in the painting and require three months to regenerate the artwork, allowing the next person to try their luck once it was ready. That should happen within the next two months since ten days had already passed in the prison cells.

The second was the flower field. Logan had already figured out it was the next step after the Goddess, but knowing something for a fact was different than hoping it was true. For instance, he hadn't known that the flower field was designed to elevate the consciousness of mortals in the Body Tempering realm. After that was the starry sky, which held mysteries in the next major realm after Body Tempering.

Logan could only assume that was why it held such incredible value. Enhancing a person's mind was already difficult, making the painting a rare treasure to begin with. It would improve their ability to make decisions in battle, grow their intelligence, and raise their learning speed. That would make it incredibly useful for what he planned to do next.

The Library was packed full of techniques that had caught Logan's eye. He wanted to learn a few of them at once, but the System warned against trying that. Diverging focus would only slow down progression. Not to mention that many of them required either a sword or spear or axe, none of which he had any idea how to use.

Logan couldn't see himself swinging a sword around for one technique before swapping to an axe, so he paused his search to think about which weapon to pick. He needed to become stronger as quickly as possible. A single rat had almost killed him, making him wonder what would happen if five came at once. He would only be able to run. Surviving the chase would be easy, but the main reason for that was the four geriatric old men and women who couldn't run away in the first place.

Eventually, Logan settled on the spear. The main reason was his desire to stay away from the monsters. A bow would've been nice, but its useability in a cave was limited at best. It was also much easier to learn than nearly anything else. A spear felt like a nice middle ground, not to mention that he felt a strong affinity for one of the spear techniques in the Library.

Logan grabbed a spear out of the prison cell. The head was carved out of white crystal, and the shaft was surprisingly made of wood. All of the spears were made with the same ashen wood. He had no idea how they had managed to find a tree underground, let alone grow one, but it also had a very unique texture.

Waving the thing around, Logan was shocked by how heavy it was. The spear shaft was cold and solid in his hand. It was undoubtedly made of stone, yet somehow, it remained flexible like natural wood. He even shook it to make sure, the tip wobbling up and down without trouble.

Suddenly, a thought came to mind.

It was likely fireproof.

Logan could instinctively keep his robes from being destroyed by the flames. It stood to reason that he could do the same with the spear, keeping it from being turned into charcoal after a single fight. Then again, what if he didn't want that to happen? Logan didn't dare to use the egg's power to test his theory, but he suspected that with a bit of practice, shrouding the weapon in flames and using them to attack was entirely within the realm of possibility.

He would only try when another monster showed up, leaving him to give the spear a few swings in the meantime.

Logan was still in the cells. That meant he had ample targets to aim for, one of which he was staring down. After getting into a comfortable stance, he thrust his spear at one of the target dummies.

The razor-sharp tip bounced off its crystal chest. Logan felt a small backlash as his arm trembled, but that didn't stop him from trying again. There were dots painted on the dummie's head, chest, and stomach, all of which he aimed for at random.

Once his shoulders started burning from the strain, Logan confirmed his decision and purchased three books from the Shop. The first was about basic spear usage. It cost less than 50 credits. The second was a book focused on exercises and training methods to improve mastery over the spear. That one had been more costly, setting him back over 300 credits. And the last was a copy of Piercing Thrust, the martial technique that Logan wanted to learn.

It was by far the most expensive, setting him back nearly 2000 credits. While only a sixth of his current wealth, there were nine other people he may have to buy manuals for. What was most important, however, was his own strength. If he couldn't protect the group, then they would all die anyway.

End of story.

Having money was nice, but it wasn't more important than keeping everyone alive. Logan could also gain more credits with the technique he was trying to learn. Becoming stronger would keep him alive and give him more opportunities to kill monsters, earning him credits and improving his lifeline.

He wanted to study it right away, but Logan calmed down and decided to do things in the correct order. There was no point in learning a spear technique when he didn't even know how to hold the weapon in the first place.

Logan tried out the different moves while he read the first book. It was like a virtual reality screen where he could move the page around his field of view, keeping the book to the side while he tried out the different moves.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Thrust, sweep, lunge, slash; he learned all of the basics. It was difficult at first, but since Logan could glance to the side and review the book whenever needed, it took a few hours to become comfortable holding the spear.

After memorising most of it, Logan moved on to the training manual. It explained the underlying mechanics of fighting with a spear, advised on how to best improve skill and physical fitness, and even provided a set of breathing exercises to use in training and battle.

The spear was a polearm that worked best at a specific range. Swordsmen would try to step into that zone. In contrast, ranged specialists would try to keep out of it, using that tiny bit of leverage to gain a lethal edge over their opponent. If an enemy couldn't get close enough to strike a spearman, they weren't enemies at all.

They were nothing more than a target dummy.

And like how a sword worked best in slashing apart unprotected flesh, a spear was best at piercing through protections to strike vital points. Accuracy and power were critical. The spear wasn't a complicated weapon weighed down by tricks or complex manoeuvres. It was predictable and straightforward in style, but those flaws were its core advantages when the weapon was put in the right hands.

That information alone was transformative to Logan. After completing the book, he began to understand the foundations of spear fighting. While it didn't make him a genius fighter, it had pointed him in the right direction on how to become a skilled warrior.

The exercises were also very interesting. They listed a comprehensive set of methods that combined to raise the very foundations of an amateur spearman. Weight lifting for strength, power training for speed and explosive movements, and some rather odd exercises to improve control over the body. The intent was to raise the spearman's accuracy to its limits.

Everything until that point had been based on information supported by modern science. Now, Logan reached the end of the book and found something odd. It was a spear dance called the Nine-Step Spear. Designed to simulate battle with a complementary set of breathing techniques, it claimed to do a bunch of mystical crap that looked like it was made up by a child.

The first step involved several spear thrusts at an imaginary enemy. Footwork, stance, and a high demand for accuracy made it challenging to master. This included a breathing technique that forced blood into the muscles and rapidly exhausted them, thus increasing a person's endurance while using their full effort.

It wasn't meant to be used in battle, either. It was solely designed for training. And that was just the first of nine, the other eight possessing unique styles and breathing techniques that flowed from one to the next.

Surprisingly, it was very involved and took Logan over an hour just to memorise. With his newly improved mental abilities, he could quote the entirety of the first book after an hour of studying it. To say that it took him an hour just to learn one dance out of nine was ridiculous.

And that wasn't even mentioning the claims it was making.

Supposedly, the dance could push an adult human to their physical limits in under six months of daily training. That alone was absurd. As far as Logan knew, it took many years for athletes to reach their peak. Even after achieving that, getting sick or injured would require them to train back up. It would be a lot easier than the first time since they had already reached their limits. However, recovery would still take months even with machines, supplements, and a support team.

To do all of that just by dancing? Absurd. It was crazy enough that Logan couldn't wait to try it, so once he was done learning the First Step of the Nine-Step Spear, he moved to see if he could verify those claims.

Logan went into the middle of the hallway and slowly attempted each motion, moving his limbs one at a time. He started with the footwork before including a variety of thrusts. It was sloppy and made him feel stupid, but he soon became engrossed in the movements.

His brain started conjuring music to go with his actions. It was so hard to keep track of his feet, the spear, his grip on the spear, and his breathing all at the same time. That was why Logan quickly stopped thinking about moving and just started going along with the rhythm, unaware that his lungs were moving in the breathing pattern he had long since memorised.

Now that he had put those in the back of his mind, everything seemed to gradually click into place. Logan still made a lot of mistakes. His footwork was a little off and his spear would move too slowly, always missing the spot he aimed for by at least a finger.

Despite all of that, he continued moving to the silent rhythm of the dance. He would fix what he could on the next cycle. It wouldn't be perfect even a hundred or a thousand attempts later, but it would be better than the last time, and that was all that mattered.

Logan continued dancing. When the song ended, he spun around and restarted without wasting any time. Every attempt became a little smoother, his thrusts turning sharper and his steps more confident. What was once unwieldy and complicated started becoming comfortable.

And before he knew it, far more straining.

After countless failures, Logan eventually hit his stride. Every breath felt like he was inhaling steam, his blood going hot as it pushed against the inside of his muscles. His steps were solid and his thrusts were accurate enough to hit the imaginary points he needed to. They were still off, but instead of being wide by a finger, they were off by a nail or if he was lucky, a hair.

At first, there was no problem. It felt a little tiring to have an extra level of strain put on each of Logan's movements. Then he reached a third of the way through his most perfect run yet. His muscles felt like they would explode, but Logan didn't give up for one simple reason: he was doing it right.

For the first time, Logan could feel that he was doing a good enough job for the Nine-Step Spear to actually have an effect greater than the sum of its parts. It was exhausting and painful, but his hard work directly resulted in improvement, motivating him to try to reach the end of the First Step.

Logan pushed through the strain as his spear became heavier and his feet ached. Still, if he reached the end of the First Step, he could start the second. According to the book, the next step was much more difficult, but the benefits were also several times higher.

Logan was already tired by the time he started his current attempt. That didn't give him the best chance at completing the First Step, something he knew when his muscles began to twitch. That didn't mean he had to stop yet. Logan pushed on until he made it nearly halfway through the dance, but a few seconds later, the spear fell out of his trembling hands.