Chapter 86: Vigilance in Times of Peace

Victor stood blindfolded in the training ground, a longsword in hand, surrounded by eight iron-oak targets. Drawing a deep breath, he dove straight into the state of Revelation. Though his eyes were covered, the faint currents of air sweeping across the arena painted a vivid, three-dimensional image in his mind.

Within a radius of twelve meters, everything was revealed to Victor with crystal clarity: he could "see" the intricate grain on the iron-oak targets, and even the seven ants scurrying across the ground. Of course, these were not sights perceived by his eyes, but information relayed by the ever-present wind elementals.

Most wondrous of all, with the aid of X-3, Victor's skin detected the air’s humidity, temperature, and flow; his nose discerned the myriad scents drifting through the space; his ears picked up the heartbeats of eighteen individuals dozens of meters away. All this data, filtered and sorted by the X-3DE system, coalesced into an even larger image in Victor’s mind.

Within twelve meters, the image was detailed and languid; beyond that, it grew blurrier and swifter, until, at seventy meters, it dissolved into chaos. Yet, Victor still knew with certainty that forty meters away, fifteen guards armed with hunting bows stood in precise positions—he could even distinguish each of their identities by their heartbeats and scent.

As Victor raised his sword, Lilia bit her delicate white teeth and ordered, “No aiming for the lord’s head or neck—fire at will!”

The guards exchanged uneasy glances, hesitating to loose their arrows, even though these were blunt-tipped and harmless against Victor’s thick leather armor.

Barrett, the mercenary commander and camp instructor, scowled. Displeased by the guards’ timidity, he cracked his long whip hard across the back of one guard and roared, “Follow the order!”

At last, the guards unleashed their arrows toward Victor, forty meters away. The blunt arrows flew at nearly a hundred meters per second, reaching Victor in a mere instant.

Victor sensed Lilia’s worry, the guards' fear, Barrett’s shame. Yet none of this mattered to him. Faced with such a torrent of information, X-3 filtered out all useless emotions and distractions, leaving Victor as calm and precise as a machine.

In his perception, fifteen arrows streaked toward him from every angle. Their speed seemed to slow, and then slow even more as they neared, until—within twelve meters—they crawled at a snail’s pace. Victor knew the arrows had not truly slowed; it was simply that his mind processed information so swiftly, it created the illusion of halted time.

A faster mind did not mean a faster body: an ordinary person might see a slowed arrow, but their clumsy movements would never elude it.

Victor, however, moved with a speed far beyond normal men. In this near-frozen illusion, a breeze seemed to swirl around him, making his every action both swift and effortless. One by one, he brought his sword down upon the arrows.

To Victor, even his own movements seemed slow; but to the others, their lord moved like a ghost, vanishing and reappearing, slicing the near-invisible arrows cleanly in two. When the last shaft was severed, the targets finally split along smooth, fresh cuts. No one even knew at what moment Victor had cut through all eight targets.

“Victor, that was incredible!”

Among the stunned onlookers, Lilia was the first to react. Beaming, she ran to Victor’s side, scanning him up and down for any sign of injury.

“Barrett, it seems you won’t be earning any merit points this time,” Victor said with a laugh, removing his blindfold and slipping an arm around Lilia’s slender waist.

He had arranged this test specifically to gauge the results of his recent training, instructing Barrett to bring fifteen archers, each to fire five arrows coated in black powder at him—one hit would earn each guard a hundred merit points. The outcome was clear: Victor had severed every arrow.

“My lord, you are truly formidable—we admit defeat with utter respect,” Barrett replied, grinning broadly. For an old mercenary, nothing was more gratifying than serving under a powerful leader. The guards, too, gazed at their lord with awe.

Victor felt himself floating in euphoria. In forty seconds, he had not only sliced through seventy-five arrows, but had also cleaved eight iron-oak targets without a sound, astonishing everyone.

The recent turmoil over sugar and coffee had made Victor realize how rash he had been of late, eager to produce alchemical humans and revealing two trump cards before proper investigation—only to come away empty-handed. In truth, once he understood it wasn’t Sylvia scheming against him, Victor felt a wave of relief. Yet knowing Sylvia had anticipated this and chosen not to warn him left him feeling stifled.

“Perhaps Sylvia wanted me to learn a lesson: potential does not equal power. Right now, I need to lie low, not flaunt my abilities.”

With this unreasoned logic, Victor regarded Sylvia as one of his own, never suspecting that the countess simply enjoyed watching her young lover’s awkward predicaments. Victor’s innate pride always fascinated and frustrated her—how could this minor noble, who had nothing, refuse to become her vassal? What was he so smug about? Sylvia could never know that this was the confidence of a peak human: not even the greatest nobles, nor the almighty Lord of Radiance, could compel a modern human to submit—they would only think of how to dissect and study him.

Regardless, this setback shifted Victor’s mindset. He began to relax, delegating the tedious affairs of the domain to Lilia, adopting the detached perspective of an observer to fill in gaps and spending more time cultivating his secret forms.

After some time in focused training, Victor’s physique attribute had surpassed nine points, his state of Revelation could now be maintained for fifty seconds, and, thanks to practicing the Bull’s Stance, his strength output efficiency had increased by forty percent—explaining how he had so easily sliced through the iron-oak targets.

“Nelson, how far am I from being a true knight?” Victor asked, brimming with pride as he turned to his chief general.

Nelson frowned, but answered honestly, “My lord, you could easily defeat an ordinary apprentice knight, but against a true knight, you stand no chance.”

“Why?” Victor asked, somewhat dissatisfied. In the state of Revelation, he felt as though he could see through every weakness and that no one could match his speed.

“Your strength is too low. Even if the knight wore no armor, you couldn’t kill him. Once a knight channels his battle aura, his body grows as tough as bronze. Even if you strike at his eyes, he’ll seize that brief opening and deliver a fatal blow.”

“Moreover, a knight’s endurance is monstrous. If you can’t land a critical hit, they’ll drag out the fight until you’re exhausted—then you won’t even be able to flee. So, my lord, never engage a knight in close combat!” Nelson warned gravely.

Nelson’s earnestness made Victor’s heart sink. He knew Nelson spoke the truth.

Victor could discern the elemental concentration in living things—the higher the concentration, the greater the attribute value. Earth element formed the body’s physical structure, so the physique attribute represented not just strength, but also bodily toughness and bone hardness. For instance, Victor’s tame giant rhinobeast possessed far greater strength than Nelson, yet its physique was only thirteen points; a strong soldier with a sharp spear could still kill it, for its body could not resist the piercing blow. But with earth element concentration above twenty points, the situation changed entirely.

Victor had witnessed Bruce’s battle with the elder ogre: Bruce, at full battle aura, reached a physique of twenty-seven points and wielded a fine adamantine halberd, yet could not sever the ogre’s arm. Even though the ogre deflected the force, it proved its body and bones were unimaginably tough.

Victor himself had experienced this firsthand. In the seamless state, his crossbow bolts had the power of a heavy arbalest and blinded the ogre in one eye, yet failed to penetrate its skull; in melee, his dagger couldn’t even wound its body. Had it not been for Nicole’s intervention, Victor would have been smashed to pulp the moment his Revelation ended.

If a decrepit ogre could battle a bronze-ranked knight, what of the adult ogres? And ogres always traveled in packs. What could drive out such bands of ogres and gnoll packs from the forests? Now that the forest centaurs had migrated, might these powerful ogres move into the area? At the thought, Victor’s expression darkened.

Seeing his lord’s dismay, Nelson offered comfort: “My lord, you are an extraordinary marksman—if you use a military-grade heavy crossbow, you could threaten even a knight.”

Victor smiled wryly at the misunderstanding, then asked, “Our hilltop camp is easy to defend, hard to attack, but it has a major flaw—there’s no escape route! Do you have any suggestions?”

His lord’s abrupt change of topic left Nelson scratching his head, but he replied, “My lord, we could install a few winches on the steep side of the hill. In an emergency, we can lower ropes so everyone can descend to the ground.”

“See to it at once,” Victor ordered. He did not explain further; concern over ogres was not something to share, lest it spark unnecessary panic. But precautions must be taken. Victor resolved to produce more alchemical ravens to monitor the borders of his domain, especially the mountains to the west and the entrance to the great marsh—if ogres existed in numbers, it would likely be there. Alchemical ravens were cheap, after all. Simultaneously, he could purchase materials so Busso and his team could craft sharper heavy and repeating crossbows.

Suddenly, a villager burst into the training ground, only to be stopped by the guards. Undeterred, he shouted excitedly, “My lord! My lord! We’ve done it! We made that cream by your method!”

Victor was overjoyed—with cream, nothing could stop the spread of sugar!