“Is it here?” Leonard asked while surveying the nearby area. He willingly followed his son to find out where he got such confidence about a mysterious spear art but they are still looking for it for over an hour.

“It should be around here” Lawrence used an ordinary spear to cut the bushes and grass to reveal a dark hole in the ground. With no hesitation, he jumped down as Leonard can only follow his reckless son. Inside the hole, stone bricks covered every single area of the cave as fireflies illuminated the cave. There’s only one passageway as large columns made of stone bricks lined side by side. Their footsteps are the only thing they hear as they walked silently and are ready for battle.

After walking for an hour in a seemingly endless passageway. They saw an apparition of an old man carrying a spear with his back resting on a cold wall.

“Have you come to take my treasure?” the apparition asked as Lawrence nodded. An indescribable and immense pressure fall on him like his inner organs are crushed and his muscles tensed as he was forced to the ground. With no hesitation, his father was already swinging his bastard sword towards the apparition carrying a wind so strong that everything is getting sucked towards it. A loud boom followed as a massive cloud of smoke appeared where his father and apparition were. The cave shakes violently as the columns are starting to break.

Luckily, the rumbling stopped as he saw his father gazing at the apparition with interest and intrigue. The old man ignored Leonard as the sword just passes through him. In a second, thousands of wind sword cuts crashed towards the old man as the cave rumbled once again but the old man wasn’t even injured.

“Impressive, to find an apparition capable of ignoring my thousand wind slash” his father smirked as the old man nodded.

“I have no reason to fight you nor do i have a way to fight. I’m merely an illusion created a hundred years ago.” the old man said wistfully as Lawrence was quite confused. ‘Then how was Cain able to fight the old man, both of them have the same strength and speed. Both of them just fought with techniques and arts to see who’s better. With the help of Cain’s system, he has already amassed a hundred sword arts but he nearly lost to the old man. What is happening?’

“As for you young man, my spear art might be suitable for you but that spear art is for someone else” The old man added Lawrence gritted his teeth in frustration but breathes slowly and calmly. He gazed at the old man before nodding with disappointment in his eyes.

“Don’t worry young man, i sense that you have the power of light and moon in you. This spear art is perfect for you” the old man gestured to come near him as Lawrence gazed at his father as it might not be safe. His father nodded as he sensed that the old man has no ill plans. Grabbing the small book with the symbol of the half-moon and small spears surrounding it. Lawrence tilted his head as the old man laughed loudly.

“It’s a spear art created by my friend a long time ago with a help of a mysterious book he found on the demon’s lord castle. That madman, if he was a little slower, he would have been gutted like a fish by the demon lord” the old man reminiscent before chuckling.

“Are you talking about the Dawn of Moonlight Lucarius?” his father asked with astonishment and disdain in his voice as the old man nodded.

“He was even faster than me, what a monster honestly. Both of us are light paragons but i focused on illusions and light manipulation while he focused on reflection and gravity manipulation”

“Isn’t there supposed to be trial or a challenge to get treasures like this?” Lawrence asked as the old man looked stunned before laughing loudly

“Young man, the trial itself is in that book. According to Lucarius, it isn’t completed yet as he asked me to find someone to solve it for him”

“I see…” he stared at the book in his hand as he has never heard of such treasure in the novel.

‘I should ask… never mind. She probably won’t answer. Damn, why is the author so useless.’ “Well, i have no treasures other than my book but you can always come here if you want” the old man smiled as Lawrence nodded. Suddenly he found himself in a patch of grass as he looked around to see that they’re already outside of the cave. Besides him is his father who grew silent as he contemplated something.

“Father?” 

“Son, i request you to not learn that book”

“Huh? Why father?”

“Since Lucarius is a traitor of mankind…. and that old man should be the wandering spearman who killed him.” His father explained. This shocked Lawrence as he looked at the book once again. Traitor of mankind, only given to the foulest criminals akin to natural disasters. They are the human’s strongest that use their powers for evil. There are only have been 3 traitors of mankind mentioned in the novel with one of them the right hand of the demon king who fought with Cain.

“The moniker Dawn of Moonlight is given to him as he usually signals the end of days. He was invisible under the moon and it’s still a theory how the wandering spearman killed him which happened a hundred years ago.”

His father grew serious before glancing at the book.

“Every time a traitor of mankind is killed, they are erased in history so everyone would forget them and for them to lose their influence and legacy that might create more evildoers in the continent. It’s normal to have never heard of him.” he explained as he saw the confusion in his son’s face

“There’s a theory that after escaping the demon king’s castle. He was cursed by that demon king to do his bidding resulting in destruction.” His father continued

“I’ll still learn it. He used it for evil but I’ll use it for good. I promise you father that I will never become a traitor of mankind” Lawrence boasted as his father sighed before smiling

“I’ll look forward to that my son. I’m sure you’ll be stronger than Lucarius” he said as they saw their carriage and rode in it back home.

Once reaching the house, he greeted his mother before locking himself in bed. Seemingly excited about the spear art. After reading it for hours, he understood the basics of spear art. There are only 4 movements in spear art as it was normal for weapon arts to have 5 movements. The first movement is named reflection which by its name can reflect any weapon art movements and spells back at the enemy. The second movement is absorption which absorbs any mana and aura from the incoming attacks to replenish his own mana and aura pool. It nullifies any attack to a certain strength. The third movement is gravity enhancement which applies a strong gravity towards the blade of the spear which can pull enemies towards the spear and it can increase the weight of the spear by infusing additional mana in it. The last movement is called lunar enhancement which can only be used at night. Every swing would have a moon-like shockwave crashing towards the enemy with every movement of the spear. According to the book, Lucarius can use this to attack a large number of enemies as he can infinitely use it as long as it’s during nighttime.

‘This is broken, why did the novel never mention this nor Lucarius. I have to ask that woman even if I have to force her. Still, this might be broken but all of the movements consume a large amount of durability from the weapon itself. I should practice reflection and absorption first as this will help me improve my endurance when fighting which will happen in the fourth wall. Besides, there should be no event in the novel as most of it will start at the academy. I can just practice continuously but first, I should go to a blacksmith. There should be a legendary blacksmith hiding in this city’.

The next day, after taking the carriage towards the residency where peasants lived called the lower stratus by the kingdom. He made his way towards the dilapidated house with a broken sign in front of it. With a slight push of the door, he saw a large burly man with his back facing the door swinging his hammer repeatedly with a certain rhythm in it. “I don’t accept orders from a noble” the man said with a tone full of hostility and disdain without taking his eyes off from the anvil.

“Sir Advuis, the heir of the dwarf king. What would the kingdom do if they found someone like you” Lawrence sneered as the large man glared at him.

“Are you threatening me?” his tone akin to growling as Lawrence smiled before bowing.

“I’m not, I just wanted to find a reliable blacksmith that can forge anything no matter what kind of material I bring”

“You’re just a 2-star paragon, any blacksmith can forge you a weapon with whatever material you bring” The dwarf sneered as Lawrence shakes his head before revealing a pointed bone of the ice wyvern. The man raised his eyebrow before inspecting the bone.

“You’re a rich noble eh? fine. What weapon do you want?”

“What is the most durable ore you have?” Lawrence asked as the man rubbed his chin before pointing at a table. There is a wood that looked like it was burned for hours. Lawrence touched it to find it more durable than he thought. No matter how strong he pushed, it didn’t even have a dent. He tried smashing it with his moonlight beams but it didn’t even have a scratch. The dwarf hiding as a man showed a grim expression before scratching his head. A sigh escaped from dwarf’s mouth as Lawrence didn’t notice the dwarf's expression. Hesitation can be seen on the dwarf's face before determination followed. As if the dwarf doesn't want to explain what it is. 

“It’s the cursed wood given to me by the elves after fixing their legendary weapon. It only absorbs the element of the moon which means it’s as useless as a durable stick for others” the dwarf informed

“Ever since that event, no one wanted to have the powers of the moon. Although his history was erased, the myths of his power still lingered in everyone’s minds. You would have a harder time in life but you’re a noble so it shouldn’t be a problem for you” the dwarf continued as Lawrence nodded.

‘It seems that this dwarf prince knows a lot about traitors of mankind’

“Give me a week and I will create you a weapon suitable for you. Just give me a hundred gold” The dwarf proposes the idea as Lawrence’s mouth twitched as it was the total amount of his money. With a heavy heart, he gave a large sum of money to the blacksmith. Advius was surprised by the amount of trust Lawrence has given to him but he hid it under his stern expression. If Lawrence didn’t give him a hundred gold, he would only ask for a total of 15 gold as the cursed wood is worthless to him but now that he was given a hundred gold, his conscience would not allow him to make a mediocre spear. Seeing Lawrence leaving, a heavy sigh escaped from Advius’s mouth as he might have to work day in and day out.

For a week, Lawrence would ask the maid to bring him food only once as he concentrated on training his spear arts. His light sky steps improved as even when running, he won’t fall anymore or miss a light disk. For the moonlight beam, it didn’t improve as much as he wanted as achieving the fourth beam is too hard for now. So he only focused on the first movement and second movement of his spear arts. He still didn’t know what’s the name of this spear art as he only called it moon spear arts. After the week, he was only able to improve in reflection. He can reflect a two-star warrior's attack as he asked some knights to attack him.

A fireball crashed towards him as he activated reflection. His spear brightens with a gray aura as he smashed it toward the fireball. The fireball was reflected back but at half of its strength as the knight was able to dodge while Lawrence suffered from the attack. He would receive half of the damage and reflect half of it back. The knight panicked as Lawrence didn’t even glance at him, contemplating what he did wrong. As a sigh escaped from his mouth. ‘I probably need a whole month just to be able to reflect attacks completely. For now, I should head back to the blacksmith.’

After getting healed by their personal healer mage. He rode the carriage towards Advius’s house. There he saw a young black-haired man with black eyes talking to Advius. Beside him is a short lady with pink-haired double twin tails.

“As I said, I’m currently tired from making a weapon. Come back next week” Advius said as black circles can be seen in his eyes. He looked fatigued and exhausted.

“Please, I need a suitable weapon. Most weapon in the academy is worthless to me” the black-haired youth pleaded but Advius was not having it.

“Is the weapon finished?” Lawrence asked as the black-haired youth squinted his eyes.

“Yes, I hope you are fucking happy” Advius said with sarcasm and anger in his voice before entering his house as Lawrence was about to follow him, the youth blocked his way with a friendly smile

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Cain” Cain introduced himself as Lawrence glanced at him. “Move” Lawrence answered with disdain before shoving Cain away from the door.

“Hey! How dare you do that Lawrence?!” the pink-haired girl yelled while glaring at him.

“Miss Katherine? I’m surprised to see you wandering around with garbage beside you” Lawrence sneered as Katherine was enraged.

“Garbage? I’ll show you who’s garbage!” she yelled as she was about to attack Lawrence only to be stopped by Cain.

“Stop Kath, don’t embarrass yourself. Forgive me for intruding upon your way great noble” Cain smiled but a glint of disdain appeared before his eyes.

“At least a garbage know’s his status” Lawrence chuckled before entering the house.

“Why did you stop me?” Katherine angrily asked but Cain patted her head as a slight blush appeared on her face.

“It shouldn’t be you who humiliates him. I should be the one to do it” Cain chuckled as Katherine tilted her head

“How? You do know that he’s not in the academy right?”

“He’s not? What do you mean?”

“Are you living inside of a rock? You know what, don’t answer that. He and Catalinna nearly killed each other when they went on the north. As punishment, both of them are gonna be sent in the fourth wall.”

“What a shame, anyways. He’s arrogant I’ll give him that but he just shoved me. It’s less than what others did to me.”

“You just wanted to fight him. I can see through your stupid face” Katherine pointed out as Cain can only chuckle awkwardly as both of them decide to leave for now. Inside the house, Lawrence decided to sit on the nearby chair as Advius went to his room to grab the spear.

‘Now I have done it, I tried speaking politely but my mouth once again twisted my words. Oh well, I guess I can only avoid Cain. Damn, I’m training too much that I even forgot about this event in the novel.’

“Take this and leave” Advius puts the weapon on the table as Lawrence grabbed it.

“If you want to improve that spear, just bring me the bones of ice monsters and the pearl of the soul” Advius grumbled before entering his room and slamming the door. A second later, loud snoring can be heard as Lawrence gazed at his new weapon. It was a black spear with vein-like blue lines seemingly scattered around the spear. It looked messy with random blue lines running through from the tip of the spear to the shaft. He tried breaking it in half with all of his strength but it didn’t even budge. He tapped his finger on the pointed tip as blood started leaking. There was no resistance at all as Lawrence was amazed. The pain of losing a hundred gold started to heal as he gazed at his weapon with excitement.

‘Now, I can fight properly. The only problem is where in the living hell would I get the pearl of the soul. Did he think I’m that rich?!’ Lawrence walked slowly outside as he contemplated what to do about the pearl of the soul. It can be bought at usually a thousand gold but a thousand gold can already feed a village with a thousand people for three years. It can be created by infusing a hundred monster cores with an alchemist. The monster core is already rare enough as it only appears in 1 in 10 monsters. He sighed while looking in the bright sky. He entered the carriage silently as it moved towards his mansion. It was a peaceful ride as he glanced at the people minding their own business. Some were working, some were drinking and some are just chatting with their neighbors. This peace would imminently crumble as the need for power courses through his mind.

“I should try to reach the high stage second star paragon” In the seven meridians, each meridian has three parts inside. Each part should be filled with an internal aura before breaking through. The most common way of gaining an internal aura is moving the body. The easiest way is through fighting and battling. The harder the fight is, the more internal aura one can get. This is why breaking through usually happens mid-fight or during the battle.

However, it is the opposite for the mana heart. One would need to use their own mana to strengthen it slowly and safely as they would sit and focus solely on improving their mana heart. The faster it happens, the worse the foundation would be. Mages would lock themselves for days just to improve their mana heart by a little bit. Lawrence planned to lock himself to strengthen his mana heart. He’s already 75% on the way to successfully strengthening his mana heart. He can't stop now, can he?