Truthfully, Lorist had been doing quite well these past few years. At the Mercenary Guild, he had become a veteran
At
The year before, Lorist had toured a small ruin that had already been excavated and examined, along with his companions. It was supposedly the tower of a mage. The soaring spire depicted in books had long since crumbled to dust, leaving no trace behind. But the three underground floors that had been uncovered and dug out were still awe-inspiring. The walls, constructed from massive refined steel stone, were smooth as mirrors, and even thousands of years had failed to leave any mottled marks of time upon their surfaces. The lines crisscrossing the floors and walls into complex three-dimensional patterns were magic circle formations, and the stone slabs engraved with orderly, strange symbols were foundation stones inscribed with ancient Elven text.
After coming out, every one of his companions dreamed of discovering a ruin and achieving both fame and fortune. But everyone knew how difficult that was. The ruins within the current range of human activity had been almost entirely excavated. Only by venturing deep into the barren, rarely explored dense forests and mountain ranges might one find something worthwhile. However, with everyone's current strength, going to those places was no different from delivering themselves as food to magical beasts or simply seeking death. All they could do was daydream.
Lorist, though, had begun to feel a deep curiosity and longing for the legendary magical civilization. In his previous life, hadn't he dreamed of becoming a mage himself after reading that book called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" as a young man? Unfortunately, he had transmigrated to Galentea too late. If only he could have arrived a few thousand years earlier, in that age of magical civilization — he might have become a great mage himself.
Dawn Academy's three specializations — Ruins Research, Archaeology, and Linguistics — were among the very best of all the academies in
Ruins Research referred to the study of the engineering construction and architectural purposes of ruins left over from the age of magical civilization, as well as methods for excavating them more effectively — exploring entire ruins while minimizing damage to the site. Archaeology was about how to identify and preserve artifacts and objects passed down through the ruins. In plain terms, it meant determining what a thing was used for and whether it was valuable. Linguistics was the most difficult of all. During the age of magical civilization, languages like the ancient Elven tongue, Dragonese, and Goblinese — mastered by mages — were suffused with magical power. This meant that people without magical talent could not learn these magic-infused languages. Occasionally, one might pick up a few words through intuition, merely mimicking the pronunciation without true comprehension.
Magic-infused languages like these could not be passed down in the post-magical era. Yet mages of the magical civilization had loved using these languages and scripts to inscribe records onto stone slabs. In the present day, the field of Linguistics could only proceed by deciphering the strange symbols and characters found on slabs recovered from excavated ruins, one by one. The greatest achievement of Linguistics so far was the ability to distinguish between ancient Elven script and Goblinese script. As for what Dragonese script looked like, that remained an unsolved mystery.
Ruins Research, Archaeology, and Linguistics were all interconnected. In Lorist's view, these three specializations all boiled down to a single concept. In the words of his previous life, it could be summed up in two words: tomb raiding. It was essentially the same work — the only difference being that in Galentea, it was perfectly legal and legitimate. Discover a ruin, explore it, sweep up all the items inside, return, publish the site, auction off the goods, and achieve both fame and fortune. Then hordes of scholars and archaeologists would descend upon the site to study what the ruin had originally been, and so on.
Lorist believed that once he earned certifications in all three of these specializations and graduated, his future — whether as a research-oriented scholar or an adventurer who loved to roam the world — would be wonderfully bright. What he didn't know was that his decision to register for three more specializations had caused his reputation at the academy to soar even further. If he graduated with certifications in all seven specializations, it would be an unprecedented feat at Dawn Academy — and one unlikely to ever be surpassed.
For Lorist, the coursework wasn't the problem. The problem was that his
This kind of situation was far from uncommon in Galentea. Some noble families, when sending their children abroad to study, would deliberately split their inherited Combat Force or swordsmanship manuals into separate stages. The next stage's cultivation method would only be provided once the previous stage had been mastered. But Lorist's situation was different. He had been out of contact with his family for nearly three years. The powerful Krisen Empire to the north was in the throes of a fierce three-prince succession war, with flames of conflict burning everywhere and no end in sight. Under these circumstances, there was simply no way to establish contact with his family up north. The war would likely drag on for several more years — could he really just sit around foolishly waiting for the fighting to end before reaching out for the continuation of his cultivation manual?
Even if he were willing to wait, his body's condition could not tolerate further delay. Alas, how to put it — this was both his blessing and the driving force that compelled him to continue cultivating.
This ability was called dynamic vision. In short, it was a visual capability that allowed one to clearly track the trajectory of objects moving at high speed.
Lorist was no stranger to dynamic vision. During his seven years of military service in his previous life, he had encountered one truly impressive individual during a training exercise. He had led a squad against a special forces operative who had infiltrated their base, expecting it to be an easy victory. To his surprise, his entire squad was utterly routed in the firefight. In the end, he was forced to charge in with a proximity grenade, taking them both down together. The sensors on their bodies emitted smoke, indicating they were all "dead." So the whole group sat against a wall, smoking cigarettes. Lorist offered the other man a cigarette and asked with great curiosity how he managed to dodge concentrated assault rifle fire — and whether he could learn that bullet-dodging technique.
That impressive individual took a drag of his cigarette and said bluntly that Lorist couldn't learn it, because he was born with the ability of dynamic vision. In everyone else's eyes, no matter how fast an action was, to him everything appeared in slow motion. That was why he could always dodge the gun barrel one step ahead, making him invincible in firefights. He simply hadn't expected someone to charge at him with a proximity grenade in a suicide attack, and in a moment of carelessness, he had been cornered with nowhere to dodge and taken the hit.
Lorist was so envious of that man's dynamic vision that his mouth watered. The man said there was nothing to be jealous of — dynamic vision could actually be trained. Fighter pilots, for example, were required to possess dynamic vision. The only issue was that the training process was absolutely miserable. Besides, there were plenty of methods for training dynamic vision online. If Lorist had the time, he could go look them up and try it out, and then he'd know exactly what it felt like.
The man sighed and said that innate dynamic vision like his own placed an enormous burden on the body. It wasn't like dynamic vision obtained through training, which, though inferior to the natural kind, was more than sufficient for ordinary people.
At the time, Lorist hadn't understood what the man was sighing about. Later, when he found some free time, he searched online and sure enough discovered many methods for training dynamic vision. He decided to give one a try: sitting in a swivel chair and spinning rapidly, while a comrade three meters away held up cards with large characters written on them. His task was to read what was written on each card while spinning. The result? In less than ten minutes, he collapsed. Nausea, the urge to vomit, dizziness so severe he couldn't even stand — his appetite vanished entirely. Even the next day, he felt groggy and walked with a drunken stagger.
He had heard that this particular dynamic vision training method only worked if you persisted with it, continuing until you could remain completely unperturbed, with a heart as still as water. Once the training was successfully completed, one could even clearly make out the faces of passengers through the windows of a speeding train.
But after experiencing that training method, Lorist and his comrades all unanimously declined to continue. It was far too nauseating to bear, and nobody saw the point of being able to read passengers' faces on a train. In the end, the training was simply abandoned.
Now Lorist understood what that man had been sighing about.
When Lorist discovered that the body he had transmigrated into possessed innate dynamic vision, he was thrilled beyond measure. For example, when a fly buzzed through the air, a single focused glance from Lorist could instantly count exactly how many times its wings had beaten. In sword duels, no matter whether his opponent employed lightning-fast sword techniques or claimed to be some kind of swift-sword master, under Lorist's focused concentration every movement appeared sluggish — making it easy to respond and counter in every way.
However, using this dynamic vision ability was extremely draining on his mental power. At first, he could not sustain the focused concentration for very long. But as he used it more and more frequently, Lorist discovered that his mental power had grown dramatically. By now, he could maintain his dynamic vision for as long as he needed without any trouble. Moreover, even without activating dynamic vision, his mental power gave him a keen awareness of his surroundings — something that had been clearly proven during his adventures as a mercenary and while hunting low-tier magical beasts.
But the problem lay elsewhere. His physical fitness and reaction speed could no longer keep up with the growth of his mental power. When Lorist had first discovered his dynamic vision ability, his Combat Force was still at one-star Bronze. As he cultivated his Combat Force, his physical capabilities and mobility kept pace with the reaction speed demanded by his dynamic vision. That was why he had been virtually unstoppable in sword duels at Dawn Academy, undefeated among his peers — and why the academy had appointed him as a trainee swordsmanship instructor the previous year.
But now his Combat Force was stuck at the peak of three-star Black Iron, and Lorist had noticed that his mental power continued to grow even as he used dynamic vision. If this continued, his body would become a burden — his movement speed unable to match his reaction time.
Last year, Lorist's impressive performance had satisfied the academy, and this year they had been preparing to formally appoint him as a swordsmanship instructor. However, this decision angered many of the Silver Instructors at the academy. They mocked him ceaselessly and even encouraged their silver-tier students to challenge Lorist to duels. When Lorist had faced a challenge from one of these Silver Instructors some time ago, he had begun to sense that something was wrong with his body.
It started when that Silver Instructor had his silver-tier Combat Force students challenge Lorist under the pretense of swordsmanship practice. After each student was defeated by Lorist's blade, the instructor, humiliated and enraged, decided to step into the ring himself, bare-chested. The moment the match began, Lorist felt the pressure. This Silver Instructor was clearly no armchair theorist — he possessed rich combat experience. In the duel, his swordsmanship stripped away all flashy, impractical techniques. Every move was direct and efficient, simple yet swift, with each strike aimed squarely at vital points. Some techniques even went so far as to trade injuries blow for blow.
Lorist had barely scraped out a victory.