Chapter 79 - Horseback Riding Skill
The maids busied themselves refilling the water tanks and hauling in more food. Outside, regular students stared at us like we were zoo exhibits. Most of them were female for reasons I didn’t care to guess.
After feasting on six full portions, I was stuffed, yet my stomach didn’t bloat as expected. My musou energy gauge had refilled instead. The water musou core was gradually restoring it.
Cultivation techniques mirrored the ga’s chanics, granting passive abilities that scaled with mastery and musou energy level. Reaching certain mastery thresholds fulfilled advancent conditions, allowing knights to ascend to higher levels.
At the highest mastery rank, a cultivation thod could bypass advancent conditions entirely, letting a knight leap stages. The locals used this trick to ascend, but they didn’t realize the hidden limit.
The ga allows a character to bypass advancent requirents a total of five tis. This is because a single character can equip five cultivation thods simultaneously, provided they have purchased four additional slots using musou coins. Unequipping them didn’t reset the perk. The cap remained.
In short, level five or six was the ceiling for most of the population. But if soone was clever, they could fulfill advancent conditions early, then save their bypasses for later levels, paving a path to level eight or nine.
Since I couldn’t access my ga nu or status screen, I had no idea how many cultivation thods I’d actually equipped. Three? Five? Did a scroll’s dream even count as one? Whatever the case, I might have equipped or unequipped them unknowingly, since I hadn’t mastered a single thod yet.
For today, my body had reached its limit. Ti to call it quits. I slipped into a fresh bathrobe provided by a maid and left the pool room. More maids entered behind , ard with brooms, mops, and cleaning tools to scrub away the ss I had left.
I covered my mouth and tested my breath. It was still foul, but now it slled like burning charcoal. I wondered how Lia would react if we kissed. Probably won’t be good.
Back in my room, I glanced at the windows. It was still dayti.
"..."
Steady inco, food on the table, a roof overhead, living carefree and slow, this was supposed to be my dream life.
Yet my mind wandered. Aki’s words lingered. Sylveria’s face and Louis Zen’s shadow haunted .
I sensed crisis. Eventually, Sylveria and her gang would storm in to arrest , just like Troturre had.
Was this anxiety? Imagination? I had no idea. But I couldn’t settle down. I had to do sothing, even a little.
My gaze landed on a new item in the dorm room: a training dummy.
When in doubt, hit the dummy. I grabbed a wooden sword and resud training.
.
By the ti the sun dipped west, the dummy was destroyed. Three items dropped.
Finally, a purple book appeared.
A rare skill book!
Alongside it, another speed badge and a leather armor set. As usual, I used the badge and stashed the armor in the closet for the next training day.
Then ca the main course. I touched the book.
A surreal dream swept away. I was riding a horse, halberd in hand, charging at a dummy target like a jousting knight.
Horseback combat! Exactly the skill I needed!
But training wasn’t simple. The dummy counterattacked with its own halberd, moving like a cavalryman. Their weapons clashed.
The dummy mounted its fake horse, chasing my clone. My clone maneuvered his horse in return. The two exchanged blows.
Minutes later, the clone took down the dummy. Another horseman appeared.
The clone reset to his starting position and charged again. But after the first strike, the exchanges shifted. They didn’t repeat old moves. This was real combat. I felt like I was watching a movie.
An hour passed. Six targets down. I wanted to pull my hair out as I couldn’t learn a thing. How would this clone play out after he ran out of his lifespan?
Twelve hours later, I was exhausted just watching. My clone had defeated seventy-two foes. How many swings had he made? What kind of stamina did he have, standing on stirrups the whole ti? My quads, knees, and my balls were in pain just by watching him, even though I had no balls or legs in here.
Twenty-four hours passed. Could soone just kill already?
A month, a year, a decade passed. Soon seventy years seed to fly by as I remained stuck watching my clone fight endless battles. Yet, sohow, patterns began to erge. Just by observing, I started to understand.
Finally, the clone turned his gaze toward . He smirked, dismounted, and presented his halberd.
"Your turn."
Well, crap.
I chuckled and accepted the mory. As I grasped the halberd, the clone dissolved into golden dust, rging with my consciousness. Experience and knowledge flooded my mind.
When my senses returned, I was standing in the sa spot. Outside the windows, twilight lingered. Coincidentally, the door opened. Lenitia and Lia returned, looking exhausted.
"Welco ho," I greeted with a smile.
Lenitia flinched, covering her nose. Lia stepped closer, sniffing my face.
"Better. Still weird, but better."
"Thanks?"
"It’s weird, but you sll... delicious. Can I eat you?"
"...Instead of eating , I have sothing new to test on you. You see, I have just mastered a horseback combat technique. Want to test it on you?"
"..."
We stared at each other, then glanced at Lenitia.
Her cheeks flushed crimson. She scread,
"Lechers! Perverts! Immoral! Go die, both of you!"
Lia teased, "Watching is also an education, Your Highness."
Lenitia’s face turned scarlet, the blush spreading down her neck. She covered her face and bolted into the bathroom, slamming the door.
"..."
Behind us, maids arrived with another cart of food and cocktail drinks.
Lia and I exchanged an evil grin. Without hesitation, we downed the cocktails, barged into the bathroom with the dicine, and shoved the food carts inside. Clothes ca off.
"NOOOOO!!" Lenitia scread.
We forced the dicine cocktail down her throat. Afterward, Lia and I bathed together while I practiced my new skills.
Lenitia hid in her tub, but she peeked. Lia’s voice echoed through the bathroom, loud and shaless.
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