“First, you should start by awakening your essence through the absorption of mana. The techniques...you’ll focus on them later when you’ll have acquired actual firepower. You’re too weak now to use those techniques properly anyway.” I said as he frowned.

He sat cross-legged and started breathing techniques.

“You can see the mana that is present all around us?” I asked.

“More like feeling it.” Kyle said.

“Same thing...All you have to do is direct it into your body. Your flesh, blood and bones must be washed by mana for as long as you can.” I instructed.

“I know...but do you not have a quicker method?” Kyle asked with a smile.

I did...but I didn’t want him to know.

For me to use magic, I used Kyle’s body as a sponge that attracted mana that I then trapped it in the copper ring. I had no actual body. I couldn’t refine mana.

To speed up his training, I could use the reserves of mana to perform an essence awakening in a matter of days instead of the arduous months of training.

Essence awakening.

Essence was born out of mana.

The act of absorbing mana with the human body unlocked another kind of energy. Essence. Or it could be said that the mana was not the same once refined by the human body.

To awaken one’s essence was to continuously absorb mana until the body reached its limits and awakened the essence by refining the mana absorbed to allow it to coexist with the human body. At that stage, it was another energy entirely. Essence.

It was very different from magicians who just created a mana pool inside their body. They did not have to refine anything and kept the mana the same way they absorbed it...but for Hallowed swordsmen, it was the act of refining mana into essence that gave them power.

Essence could be used to temper one’s body to the limit. The purer the essence the stronger one was.

The essence became purer as time passed and as one refined more mana.

Just like the mana, there was a limit to the essence the body could hold. Once the limit was reached, the essence thickened becoming purer. As the essence became pure, the body tempered by a pure essence became stronger as well. At the same time, the mana the body could refine was increased.

“Do you have another method?” Kyle asked again.

“Yes.” I said.

“Then use it.” Kyle excitedly said.

I drew upon the mana that the copper ring had been mining and sent it into Kyle’s body.

All I had to do was force his body to absorb mana until it couldn’t and refine essence.

Three days later, the time for the essence to awaken had come.

“I’m finally a Novice Hallowed Swordsman.” Kyle said as he played with a transparent energy(essence) in his palm.

The strength of a Novice Hallowed Swordsman was not something that could be looked down upon. At least, for the untrained human.

Early stage Novice Hallowed Swordsmen could punch with three thousand kilograms of power.

Middle stage Novice Hallowed Swordsmen could punch with four thousand and five hundred kilograms of power.

Late stage Novice Hallowed Swordsmen could punch with almost six thousand kilograms of power.

Novice Hallowed Swordsmen could also live for two hundred years.

There were five known levels of Hallowed swordsmen: Novice, Intermediary, Master, Grandmaster and Awakened.

A Novice could live for two hundred years. An Intermediary could live for four hundred years. A Master could live for seven hundred years. A Grand Master could live for a thousand years. An Awakened could live for four thousand years.

Each level was hard to reach but the first two could be easily attained by the hard-working common man.

The level that divided the talented and the untalented was the Master level. Very few could reach it.

The Grandmaster level was even harder to reach and those who reached it could be counted on one hand.

As for the Awakened level, only one man was known to have reached it. The emperor of the Trost empire. William Trost.

At least that was according to Kyle’s memories.

I knew that the Awakened level was not the last level. There were two more levels after it.

Hallowed Swordsmen could train to reach immortality. That was the last level possible.

After the Awakened level, there was the Ascendant level and the Primus level.

The Ascendant level allowed one to live for ten thousand years.

The Primus level allowed one to live forever.

They could still be killed though. In this world, there was no such thing as true immortality.

I went into my memories and compiled a set of sword techniques that I put inside a book that I gave Kyle: “Here. These should be useful.” I said.

Kyle took the book and skimmed through it.

He said: “They all look complicated...But I’ll learn them.”

While Kyle was celebrating his advancement to the Novice level, I was spying on the Brightmoon family mansion.

Our arrival in Dellmoor city was not a very discreet one indeed and it had raised quite a few eyebrows.

The elite of the city had already started to inquire about Kyle, trying to understand where he had come from.

At the Brightmoon family mansion.

An old man frowned as he downed his wine. Three silhouettes were sitting in front of him.

The old man was Elias Brightmoon. The current patriarch of the Brightmoon family. Seventy-two years old and also a late stage Intermediary Hallowed swordsman

In front of him, to the right, was Elias’ second son Klaus Brightmoon. He was forty-three this year and was also an early stage Intermediary Hallowed swordsman

To the left, was Elias’ daughter Elise Brightmoon. She was thirty- eight. Also an early stage Intermediary Hallowed Swordswoman.

In front of Elias sat his younger brother, Markus Brightmoon. He was sixty-nine. His level was that of a late stage Intermediary swordsman.

Elias then said: “I just had an interesting conversation with Barid Stone. He came to me trying to confirm whether this Kyle is part of our family. I told him that we have so many branches throughout the continent that we can’t really keep up with our numbers.”

His brother, Markus Brightmoon then said: “He is very wealthy for his age. Even if it’s an inheritance, he shouldn’t be able to squander it like he does. It’s way too much.”

Elise said: “What we should be asking ourselves is why he didn’t come to see us first. We should also be asking ourselves which branch he comes from. Everything he did when he arrived is suspicious. There’s a possibility that he isn’t from our family as well.”

“There is a branch in each country on this continent. He may be from any one of them. As for the reason why he didn’t come to see us, it’s his business.” said Elias’ second son Klaus.

Elias’s brother, Markus said: “I will pay him a visit.”

Elias looked at his brother: “Why?”

“We must be sure of his origins.” Markus said.

...

...

I stopped spying on the Brightmoon family and refocused on Kyle’s training.

Once a body had awakened its essence, all that was left was to purify the essence as well as increasing its quantity.

A pure essence represented your level.

The quantity of essence represented the amount of essence one could use during fights. They were represented by the early stage, the middle stage and the late stage.