Poison Arts

- [Jade Black Hands Skin Hardening Method]

Description: A skin hardening method that transforms the practitioner’s hands to be as hard as meteorite metal. Once mastered, the hands turn completely black and can break through stone and steel alike.

“Ah!” When Mwana saw the description of this technique, a lightbulb switched on inside his head, “This must be the technique that that guy used.”

Mwana was referring to the poisonous technique practised by Code D the Demon of the Red Hawk gang. Although the strength of this technique was undeniable, Mwana did not dare practise it lest his hands transform into a charcoal.

- [Venom Heart Technique]

Description: At full mastery, the technique allows the practitioner to convert negative emotions and sentiments into pure venom. With the respective palm technique, the venom can be implanted into the opponent’s heart!

“What a nasty technique!”

Mwana was about to put this book down but the more he read through the description, the more he saw its value. In fact this technique was very compatible with his Sealing Arts and could help improve his overall magic skill.

In the end, Mwana dropped his prejudices about the technique and decided to record it on the Third Eye Mirror inside his mind.

Body Strengthening and Potion Making

- [Berserk Bull Potion]

Description: This magic potion can be used by combat magicians, hybrid magicians, and regular warriors to boost physical strength for 5 to 30 minutes.

Advantage: 5X strength boost.

Side-effects: When the potion is in use, the person’s brain is affected lowering the overall intelligence.

“This is the clear definition of a “muscle head.”

Mwana was not interested in something like this. What was the use of being strong if your intelligence became worse than a toddler’s? It was naturally better to keep one’s wits in a battle.

- [Sugar Power Breathing Method]

Description: This breathing technique temporarily boosts metabolism. It uses glucose and other sugars in the person’s body to boost physical might.

Side-effects: Naturally, if one activates this technique they have to consume a lot of sugar, otherwise they will experience a glucose deficiency. Some warriors have also reported experiencing a sugar rush that made them more impulsive when using the breathing method.

- [Horned Dragon Head Style]

Description: This technique makes the user’s head as hard as that of a horned dragon. In each new stage, the skull will thicken by two inches.

Reading this description, Mwana was left speechless. “Won’t the person turn into a pumpkin head by the end?”

The technique had 6 levels.

“How many inches is that!”

“If one is stupid enough to practise this technique, then they will end up transforming into a mutant!”

Mwana now understood that the library had both great techniques and questionable methods mixed in together. It was also the reason why it was not advisable to pick one’s core techniques without any guidance.

If Mwana did not already have core techniques and came here as a novice, it was likely that he may have been misled by some of these questionable methods. However, in Toro, there was already an established educational system. Therefore, almost everyone learned the basics of fields like martial arts and magic in a specialized school.

For this reason, rather than choosing their main techniques, people mostly visited the Infinity Magic Library to broaden their knowledge or learn support techniques.

Weapon Arts

- [Marching Marshall Spear]

Description: The standard military spear technique in the Kingdom of Toro.

“I have seen this before in the martial road.”

Mwana instantly recognized this technique. After all, he had just seen it recently on the Jua village Martial Road.

The Marching Marshall Spear had a very unique status in Toro. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that every male in the kingdom had at least learned the basics of this spear technique.

When Mwana had asked the White Rock Academy head about the technique, the old man had vaguely implied that this spear technique was the Old King Bemba’s way of preparing everyone for a sudden mass conscription.

Naturally such an implication had left Mwana sweating.

However, despite the possible intent behind how widespread this technique was, there were two positives about this spear art that made it so widespread.

First, the spear art was extremely powerful. Not only was it powerful but the basics were publicly available for everyone to learn.

Second, this spear technique had a very irresistible positive side effect – boosting vitality. Once someone mastered the basics of this technique, their vitality increase was plainly evident; whether the technique was a form of military propaganda or not, no one cared. On Bemba’s part, this was an open conspiracy.

“Should a nation-wide crisis ever erupt, all the people who learned the technique would stand out like candles in the dark. Naturally, they will be instantly conscripted into the army!”

However, even though Mwana could see the conspiracy within, he also understood why no one cared even when they could see through it.

“Even if they know what’s up, the technique is too amazing; nationwide crises are also too rare. People will still take the risk.”

It was not that everyone did not see that this was a trap set by the military, but rather, they saw and still chose to practise it.

“However, the biggest reason why people don’t care should be that if a huge crisis really appears, no-able bodied male will be able to dodge the military draft anyway.”

On this point Mwana was indeed right. If the kings of Toro really chose to implement a mandatory draft, there was no escape unless one was ready to be charged with the crimes of draft-dodging or treason.

Looking through the technique, Mwana was amazed by each of the moves of this spear technique.

- [Marching Marshall Spear]

First Move: Sweeping Armies

Second Move: Indomitable Mountain

Third Move: Piercing the Heaven

Fourth Move: Sky Thunder Spear

Fifth Move: Coiling Snake Breaking Thrust

Sixth Move: Weeping Cyclone Twisting Thrust

Seventh Move: Hell Gate Guardian

Eighth Move: Fate Destroying Spear

Mwana had only seen 3 parts of this technique on the martial road.

He was intent on learning it especially for the vitality boost. Now that he wanted to force his way into the Blood Boiling realm, he had to find ways to counter the negative side-effects of the Blood Dragon part of his Myriad Dragon Bloodline.

“I have already secured some useful blood-nourishing herbs as down-payment from Apothecary Dawa. Now all I have to do is find useful techniques. The vitality boost from this spear technique should help.”

In addition to the vitality boost, there was also another reason why Mwana chose this spear technique.

“So far, my focus has always been on the sword, but now that I have become a Great Swordsman I have to walk out my own way, my own path. That is the only way I can become a Swordmaster.”

The path to the swordsmaster rank was not easy. One actually had to master their own path. The simplest way was to accumulate knowledge by learning many other martial arts and integrating them into your own unique sword path.

“Sword arts alone will not suffice.”

Mwana knew that to understand the simple, one had to learn the complex first.

Therefore, the first weapon Mwana chose to expand his weapon expertise was the spear.

“Either way, it is unavoidable. To become a Crystal Warrior, I have to join the military. In the military, it is inevitable that I will have to master the spear.”

“As they say the sword is the nobleman’s weapon while the spear is the soldier’s confidante.”

Further, Mwana’s dream to become a Crystal Warrior was inseparable from the military. Although he was no longer naïve enough to think that joining the military was all candies and roses, it was not something that any Crystal Warrior could avoid. Usually, Crystal Warriors held an almost insurmountable level of power compared to others in the same rank.

For instance, Epesi was a Crystal Warrior while Volk was not. While both were in the same rank in every regard [Warrior Rank – Void Rank, Swordsmanship Rank – Sword Grandmaster, Magic Rank – Magic Master], Epesi was far stronger than Volk.

Because of the gap between regular warriors and crystal warriors, the government made sure to keep a tight leash on crystal warriors. There was no way the royal family would allow the uncontrolled creation of characters that had the level of power held by crystal warriors.

The Marching Marshall Spear in the library included the full description of the 1st to the 6th moves. The 7th and 8th moves were only listed but not included. And while this spear technique had 9 moves in total, the name of the 9th move was not even revealed.

“One probably has to join the military and achieve some form of merit before getting the final 3 moves.”

Mwana’s thoughts were right on point. It was like dangling fresh grass in front of sheep.

In addition to the Marching Marshall Spear, Mwana browsed through the library directory and chose other ordinary forms of spearmanship to improve his basics. These techniques included the spear of the bamboo cutter, grassland spearmanship, mountain splitting spear, and springing spear.

“Although these techniques are not exceptionally powerful, they can improve my basics of spearmanship.”

In addition to spear techniques, Mwana naturally chose some sword techniques as well. His father’s Sword Dragon Mantra was too complex and took too long to unravel. He had also bought some unnamed sword techniques from the old seller in the town but this was not a complete sword system.

What he needed now were techniques that were not only complete but also easy to master.

The techniques he chose were: Takfiri Sword – the Sword of Wisdom Reflection, Falling Leaf Sword (this was the sword technique that Terran specialized in), Thunder Calming Sword, and Spirit Gourd Sword and Shield Form.

The most unique out these four techniques were the Thunder Calming Sword and the Spirit Gourd Sword and Shield Form.

The Thunder Calming Sword was so powerful that at the highest level a sword swing could dispel storms and quell the rage of thunder.

As for the Spirit Gourd Sword and Shield Form, this technique stood out to Mwana due to its special origins.

Seeing the name on the Spirit Gourd Sword and Shield Form technique book, Mwana exclaimed in shock and admiration, “Someone from the same clan?!”

- [Spirit Gourd Sword and Shield Form]

Description: An ordinary woman once found a strange gourd. From it she comprehended a profound sword and shield technique and rose from a non-warrior housewife to a military general within a decade. This technique created a legend, the Sun General of 300 years ago, Jua Maridadi – the Beautiful Sun.

Although Mwana had heard the story of Jua Maridadi from his mother over a million times, he did not actually expect to find her sword technique here.

“And it isn’t just a regular sword technique either. It incorporates the shield as well!”

“This is it!”

With these weapon arts, Mwana was sure that his expertise when it came to the sword would improve at an exponential rate. Becoming a Swordsmaster was not easy. The warrior had to actually create and master their own sword technique. Therefore, learning techniques was not enough. One had to glimpse something from these techniques and use that to feed into their own unique sword style.

Further, the more techniques one learned, the more their future path would expand even after they already had their own unique sword style. After all, the title of sword grandmaster was just the shortened form of the term “grandmaster of a hundred schools.” Not only did a grandmaster have to establish their own swordsmanship school but they also had to have learned countless other sword arts and weapon arts.

So learning different martial arts today was setting the foundation for tomorrow!