Chapter 10
‘..…This really is different. But why? Is there an abundance of magical energy here? Or is it something else…?’
For the past month, I hadn’t missed a single day of aura cultivation.
And each time, the aura within me grew, little by little.
That was thanks to the increasing amount of aura condensed in my energy core and the Breio breathing method I further refined.
But near the eastern forest, the amount of aura I absorbed during training noticeably increased.
I calmly analyzed the strange phenomenon that seemed to affect only me.
“Approximately 600 meters east—around twenty targets.”
One of the soldiers reported as he returned.
Sir Brown glanced at me. I smiled and said.
“Let’s wrap it up and eat.”
After a short rest, we sprang to our feet.
Once again, we split into two squads, with all the soldiers following Sir Brown’s orders.
As for me, I moved ahead alone to approach the enemy.
“Twenty-four of them. Nothing to worry about.”
I found a cluster of twenty-four goblins gathered together. They seemed to be resting—until my voice rang out.
Immediately, they sprang up.
Whirr, whirr, whoosh—THUD!
The goblin closest to me dropped like a sack of stones—its head crushed.
“Twenty-three!”
The remaining goblins surged forward.
I took a few steps back and summoned the spirit of fire.
“Inferno.”
—What do you desire?
“Nothing too flashy. Just burn their eyes. A low-tier flame should do.”
—Hmph.
Inferno had grown to just under 50 centimeters in size.
Its upper body—roughly 40 centimeters—was sharply defined, while its lower half still looked like a faint trail of smoke, as though it had just escaped a lamp.
The fire spirit darted into the cluster of goblins.
It didn’t overextend itself—just surged once and seared their eyes.
Even when it missed, the heat alone was enough to blind the goblins temporarily.
Keeeeeek!
Screams rang out from all around.
None of the goblins died on the spot, but being blinded in battle was practically a death sentence.
“Wooooaaah!”
The Hebron soldiers charged in.
Forming a V-shaped formation, they rushed the goblins—who were now stumbling around, unable even to decide where to run.
The soldiers quickly closed the distance.
“Inferno!”
Inferno filled the gap in the V-shaped formation, soaring forward in a straight line as a wall of crimson flame erupted behind him.
‘Too much aura consumption!’
It was a pity.
Still, the encirclement was flawless.
Not a single goblin escaped. Every last one was skewered and killed by our soldiers.
The battle ended so quickly, it felt almost anticlimactic.
But that boosted the soldiers’ morale even higher.
They were hungry for more goblin blood.
“When did you learn to use tactics like this?”
Brown asked, eyeing me. I turned to him with a smile.
It wasn’t the first time he had asked me that.
But this time, Brown answered his own question.
“…It must be the Hebron library.”
“If you already knew, why bother asking? You know better than anyone—I’ve only left Hebron three times in my life, Sir Brown.”
Starting at age sixteen, I’d only ever left the Hebron territory once a year—to accompany the barony’s tax caravan.
“That’s right.”
“Did we collect all the daggers?”
“Yes, young master.”
Among the goblins’ belongings, their iron daggers were the most valuable.
We either reforged them into usable weapons or melted them down to create new gear.
Since Hebron typically stocked up on supplies during that annual tax journey, self-sufficiency was crucial for the rest of the year.
‘They’re already tired.’
Despite the high morale, the soldiers were breathing heavily.
It wasn’t even noon, yet they were drenched in sweat.
They hadn’t mastered aura cultivation, and it showed.
“We’ll fall back and rest for a bit.”
“Yes, sir!”
They responded louder than usual, then retreated and took a well-deserved break.
I sat among them and resumed my aura cultivation.
‘Is that it?’
I reflected on the odd effect I'd been experiencing during training.
‘The more lives I take, the more mana I absorb when cultivating aura.’
I hadn’t figured out the exact cause yet.
But it seemed that in the process of drawing in the energy through my pores, the life force of those I killed was being absorbed as well.
And the difference was significant. After major battles like today, I could store far more aura than usual.
‘No need to waste a fortune on magic crystals anymore.’
At House Breio, they used magic crystals to increase training efficiency.
It was an option only available to those with endless wealth.
“Let’s resume.”
Our break didn’t last longer than twenty minutes.
Anything more would’ve made us sluggish.
And so, we continued hunting goblins.
After a long push, the sky had already begun to glow with shades of red and orange.
“We’re heading back.”
“Yes, sir!”
The soldiers reeked of sweat.
But none of them complained. Not because they didn’t want to, but because they physically couldn’t.
By the end of the day, they trusted me completely.
They believed that following my lead had kept them all alive—without a single fatality.
“Woooaaaah! Long live Young Master Louis!”
When we returned to the estate, the townsfolk welcomed us with cheers.
We hadn’t brought back anything fancy—just goblin iron swords, paralyzing darts, and blowpipes—yet three sacks full of spoils had piled up.
In a single day, we had killed nearly three hundred goblins.
Even a large mercenary company would struggle to pull that off.
Mercenaries often didn’t know the terrain, and more importantly, they didn’t fight with the same desperation.
A few returning soldiers bore light injuries.
An old man, who served as the village’s healer, stepped forward to receive them.
“This is the herb medicine, made just as you instructed. We’ve tested it a few times—it works wonders.”
He carried a wooden bucket full of medicine, and the village youths assisted him in applying it.
I splashed some water on myself for a quick wash and was about to head to bed when I found Sir Brown waiting at my door.
“Will you be heading out again tomorrow?”
“No. We rest tomorrow and resume the day after. But stay alert—we don’t know if the goblins will come to us instead. No one should be out farming either. Make sure the fields are clear.”
“Understood, young master.”
“Wait.”
I went to the estate’s storage and returned with a handful of herbs.
“Give these to any soldiers with stab wounds. Have them chew it thoroughly and swallow it slowly with warm water.”
“What kind of herb is this?”
“Urcho. It's good for tetanus. Goblins don’t maintain their weapons—some of their blades are rusted.”
“Oh… thank you, young master. I didn’t expect you to even think of these details.”
I was glad I had studied herbal medicine.
Once tetanus sets in, only a healing potion or a priest’s blessing can cure it.
For Hebron’s soldiers, chewing some Urcho was a simple but effective precaution.
“Oh, and assign one of the more skilled craftsmen in the estate to…..”
I issued a few more detailed instructions to Brown, who fought to stay awake and absorb every word.
Once he was gone, I sat upright on the mattress.
I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep yet—not when I hadn’t cultivated my aura since midday.
Since then, I have personally killed more than fifty goblins.
I began to cultivate an aura.
‘Just as I thought.’
As expected, a massive surge of magical energy flooded toward me.
The energy was so intense that it made my skin sting.
But I could handle it.
No—I had to handle it, whether I was capable or not.
Grit!
I clenched my jaw and endured it. This was the only way I could surpass my limits.
After some time, the flow of the aura stabilized. Then came the crushing wave of fatigue.
‘Is this… another talent of mine?’
It was like I was absorbing the lingering force of the spirits clinging to my body.
The more lives I took—and the stronger they were—the more eenrgy I drew in during cultivation.
My core had expanded. Noticeably.
‘I might be able to attempt it sooner than expected. Maybe… even right now.’
The fatigue eventually overcame me, and I dozed off for a short while. But I didn’t sleep for long—energy overflowed through me, washing away the exhaustion quickly.
When I opened my eyes again, the moonlight was seeping through the window. It was dawn.
‘Let’s try it.’
I was sick of just imagining it. Even if I failed, I wanted to make the attempt.
Now that I had escaped the despair of certain failure, I had no excuse not to pursue the opportunity given to me.
Throughout history, there had been rare attempts to imbue aura with elemental attributes.
From ancient times to the present day, cultivation techniques for fire, water, and wind-based aura had been developed, with a few successful examples.
‘The Flame Knight Madoros, the Water Knight Annes, the Wind Knight Paroma.’
They weren’t particularly powerful. They were only remembered because they had managed to imbue their aura with an element.
There were books about them in the library of House Breio, which classified those cultivation methods as Tier-three secrets.
Any retainer could read them.
‘They weren’t exactly high-security secrets, anyway. Elemental aura didn’t necessarily increase power or efficiency—and for manipulating fire, water, or wind, a mage’s spells were far more practical.’
But if someone became a Spirit Knight—that changed everything.
There were no records of such a person in the Kingdom of Xenon’s history, and the most famous Spirit Knight was just a fictional character from the chivalric novel <The Flame Knight Zenith>.
‘But the theory is sound.’
In my past life, I’d already developed a modified version of aura cultivation for this purpose.
Now, I adapted the Antaria Aura Cultivation Method using that variation.
Thankfully, the method wasn’t ingrained into my body yet, so redirecting the flow of aura inside me wasn’t too difficult.
‘It’s not so different from magic. Like the ancient magic circles that summoned wind, I’ll inscribe a magic circle within myself. No need to overdo it. If the fire’s too intense, my organs will be incinerated. Just enough to give my aura a fiery shape…..’
Time passed unnoticed as I sank into deep focus, refining my aura.
As the burning energy from my core began to spread throughout my body—A sharp ringing sound jolted me back to consciousness.
DENG! DENG! DENG!
I shot to my feet, heat still radiating from within, and sprinted toward the eastern wall.
The beacons there had been lit—one after another.
It meant intruders had appeared on the eastern front.
As I climbed the battlements, I saw them—masses of goblins pouring through the fields, covering them like a tide.
“Inferno!”
–“May I unleash my power?”
“As much as you want!”
My core expanded, the aura within it shifting.
The quality of my aura had changed.
As the fire-attributed aura coursed through my core, heating the mana that passed through, the mid-tier fire spirit Inferno, now drawing power from me, went wild like a beast that had tasted refined high quality fuel.
SWOOSH!
Inferno’s body grew larger than mine, his muscular form blazing as he surged across the fields.
Wherever he passed, the flames of a mid-tier fire spirit ignited in his wake.
The group of goblins—at least several hundred strong—was swallowed by roaring fire.
KEEEEEEH!
Their screams tore through the silence of the night.
It didn’t look like many of them would even make it to the wall.
“The fields…..!”
A soldier on the battlements stared in horror at the burning farmlands, face pale with shock.
Spirit fire could be extinguished at the spirit’s will.
But once crops had burned, there was no bringing them back.
Hebron had a population of barely 400.
More than half were blood relatives; the rest were close enough to know each other’s life stories.
I spoke calmly but firmly.
“This year, it can’t be helped. But starting next year, everything will be different. Once we wipe them out, our lives will change for good. Don’t look at what’s lost—look at what’s ahead. Until then, Hebron will feed you. So tonight, let’s finish this!”
“YES SIR!”
Soldiers climbed the walls, bows in hand.
