During his long hours holed up in the grand library, Kyle had seen Gladiheim’s knight cadets many times, but he had never exchanged more than greetings with them.

The reason was simple. Kyle always sat at his desk reading, while the cadets granted entry hurried through the stacks, pressed for time.

This time, however, things were a little different. The three who had come with Lucia stared at Kyle, their eyes sparkling with curiosity and interest.

“Was there something you wanted to say to me?”

As an Alastor pureblood, Kyle had every right to speak informally to the cadets, but he began politely. Even so, he felt it would be rude to dispense with formalities on their first meeting.

“Please, there’s no need to be so formal with us.”

One of the cadets bowed in alarm. Only then did Kyle nod.

“So? Did you want something?”

“W-we’ve heard a lot about you from Lucia.”

A short-haired girl spoke hesitantly. What sort of things? Kyle tilted his head and looked at Lucia, who thrust out her chest proudly as she answered.

“I’ve told them many times how remarkable you are, Master Kyle.”

“What have I done?”

“Since receiving your guidance, Master Bruno has not only improved his training results, but the other cadets’ opinion of him has changed greatly. And hasn’t your help played a large part in making my swordsmanship even sharper?”

“Bruno aside, what have I done for your swordsmanship? It’s sharp because of the elders’ teaching and your own talent.”

“Our repeated sparring sessions have also helped me a great deal.”

Lucia spoke insistently. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t wrong. Since losing to Kyle six years ago, she had devoted herself to the sword with even greater fervor. Back when she had scarcely anyone to spar with, her repeated matches with Kyle had helped her immensely.

Above all, she keenly felt how unbelievably extraordinary Kyle’s swordsmanship was. As he had said, she was learning from the elders of the Sword Tower.

Naturally, the elders’ swordsmanship was exceptional. They had devoted far more than half a century to it. Yet Kyle’s was remarkable enough to rival theirs. Lucia could not yet put that greatness into words, but her innate talent let her sense the same helplessness before Kyle that she felt when facing the elders with a sword in hand.

“If you aren’t busy, could you recommend sword styles for my fellow cadets?”

“Hmm.”

Kyle considered it for a moment. Nelia served as Librarian, but she only helped people locate books, not choose ones suited to them. That was unavoidable, since she didn’t know which sword styles or cultivation methods the cadets had learned.

“All right. Let’s go to the library’s cultivation room first.”

Kyle would have to become a knight of Gladiheim someday himself, so there was no harm in getting to know the cadets beforehand. Besides, these were the elite cadets whose scores ranked just below Lucia’s. He was curious to see how good they were.

With Kyle leading the way, Lucia and the cadets headed to the grand library’s cultivation room. There, he drew the wooden sword he had brought and faced them one at a time.

He didn’t unleash an oppressive force as he had against Bruno. If he did, he wouldn’t even get to see their swordsmanship. At first, the cadets hesitated to swing at Kyle, but Lucia’s prodding finally persuaded them.

“Th-this can’t be...”

They had heard about the youngest pureblood young master’s genius from Lucia until their ears ached, but actually crossing swords with him made them feel that even her stories had understated it. Everywhere they looked, he seemed full of openings, yet when they struck, those openings proved not to be openings at all. Meanwhile, no matter how firmly they defended themselves, their defenses offered no protection.

The three cadets ranked second through fourth among the fourteen-year-olds could only lower their swords and admit defeat with disheartening ease. Would things have been different if they had used aura? Their eyes wavered at the realization that they couldn’t even be certain of that.

“Hmm.”

Kyle rubbed his chin, lost in thought for a moment. They were all skilled. Honestly, in swordsmanship alone, they were on par with Bruno a year ago, or slightly better.

“What grade of sword styles are you allowed to study?”

“Grade four.”

Over the past year, Kyle had worked through grade-three cultivation manuals, incorporating their contents into his Primordial Chaos Circulation Method. In his spare time, he had read grade-four sword manuals. There were so many books in the grand library that he hadn’t read them all yet, but he could at least select suitable sword styles for the cadets.

He immediately left the cultivation room, searched the grade-four shelves, and took out three sword manuals to hand to them. The cadets accepted them with bright faces and not a trace of doubt.

Their time in the grand library was limited. Having never entered it before, they could hardly have chosen sword styles in advance. Wandering through the vast stacks, taking out manuals one by one and reading through them, would have consumed much of their precious time.

Now Kyle had recommended manuals for them. They could only bow their heads in gratitude.

“Just how much have you been singing my praises?”

Even so, it was odd that these rather proud elites had accepted the manuals recommended by someone they had only met today and begun reading them without objection. Kyle glanced back at Lucia, who was trailing after him instead of staying with the other cadets.

“I only told them what I’d seen and experienced.”

“I think they trust you, not me.”

“That is also true. I am stronger than all three of them, after all.”

Lucia answered confidently. Paying no attention to the books on the shelves, she simply followed Kyle around. When he selected some cultivation manuals and sat down at a desk, she took the seat opposite him.

“Don’t you need to choose a book?”

“I have a sword style I’m already learning.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“I was curious about what you do in the library, Master Kyle.”

Lucia stared at him with wide, bright red eyes. Kyle chuckled at her gaze and showed her the covers of the books he had taken out. She blinked when she saw that they were all cultivation manuals.

“So you don’t only read sword manuals.”

“I do read them. I just read more cultivation manuals.”

“Aren’t sword manuals more useful for reference?”

“They are, and they leave me hungry for more. But I have to do this first.”

Lucia tilted her head at his answer. As someone of mixed Demon blood, she did not awaken a spiritual root the way humans did. From the moment she was born, she had instinctively known how to wield mana.

That didn’t make cultivation manuals unnecessary. They taught techniques for handling mana more efficiently. She simply wasn’t bound by a spiritual root.

That made it all the harder for her to understand Kyle’s absorption in so many different cultivation manuals. None of the humans she had observed behaved that way.

“I naturally assumed you had gained your understanding of the sword by reading the many sword manuals here.”

“You don’t have to read books to gain insight.”

“Then where do you gain it?”

“By swinging a sword.”

Turning a page of his cultivation manual, Kyle added one more thing.

“By loving the sword.”

Love. Love, was it? Lucia blinked a few more times. She found that word difficult to understand.

She had no memories from before the age of five. Her earliest memory was of walking barefoot along the northern coast below the Blade Mountains, wrapped in a vivid red cloth.

After she had wandered the white sands for a long time, a patrol of the Aurora Knights found her and brought her to Gladiheim. She then met with Katarina, their commander, and faced Julius, who had come upon hearing that a child of mixed Demon blood had been found. Afterward, she was granted temporary permission to live in Gladiheim’s lower levels.

Lucia had taken an interest in the sword because most people in Gladiheim’s lower levels carried one. Here, people were treated according to their skill with a sword. Grasping that instinctively at five years old, Lucia had approached a group of soldiers in training and asked for a sword.

Her unusual heritage as a child of mixed Demon blood, combined with her coming up to them and asking for a sword, piqued the soldiers’ curiosity. They lent her a wooden sword.

From that day on, Lucia was allowed to live in the Sword Tower. The elders personally stepped forward to teach her swordsmanship. She had not first taken up a sword out of love for it. She had simply wanted to be treated well within this fortress—to escape the discrimination and hostility that came with her Demon blood, and to be loved.

“...”

Even Lucia would not deny that she had been born with a gift for the sword. That was another reason she wielded it. Simply because she had a talent for it. Had she come to love it now, then? She found it hard to give a clear answer.

She still did not love the sword. To her, it was merely a means of earning love and recognition. Her dream of becoming a knight someday was an extension of that desire. If she joined the Funeral Knights, the elite of Gladiheim’s elite, no one would look down on her for her Demon blood anymore.

“Seems like the idea of loving the sword is difficult for you.”

Kyle grinned.

“Well, you don’t necessarily have to love it. The sword already loves you, after all. But there should be some give and take. Try to love the sword as much as it loves you.”

“I don’t really know what love is.”

Lucia answered after considering it briefly. Sitting there with her arms crossed and a solemn expression, she looked every bit an adolescent girl entering that sensitive age when all sorts of worries about life began to surface.

“If you don’t know what love is, you can learn. What’s so hard about that? From now on, tell your sword you love it before you swing it. Tell it before you go to bed, and tell it when you wake up in the morning.”

“Do you do that too, Master Kyle?”

“Me? I don’t need to. The sword already loves me, and I already love it.”

“But a sword is ultimately just a blade, isn’t it? And you’re the one swinging it.”

“Exactly. So loving the sword ultimately means loving yourself as the person wielding it.”

That only made things more puzzling for Lucia.

“If loving the sword is too difficult a concept, stand in front of a mirror with your sword and say, ‘I love you.’”

Kyle had nothing more to tell her. Her swordsmanship? There was nothing to criticize. The elders’ teaching was undoubtedly excellent, but Lucia herself also had the drive to improve. Whenever he found something he might point out, she would ask him to spar before he could even mention it, then come at him having already worked to address her shortcomings herself.

Even if she simply continued growing as she was, Lucia would become a powerful swordswoman. Self-love would arise when she tried to love herself and her sword; Kyle could not lead her there with words. She might feel frustrated for now, but if the sword loved her that much, someday her own thirst would make her love it in return.

“...”

Lucia asked no more questions. Arms folded, she sank deep into thought. Meanwhile, Kyle concentrated on his cultivation manuals.

In truth, he wasn’t exactly in a position to give anyone answers or guidance himself.

He had spent the past year absorbed in various cultivation manuals, striving to complete his Primordial Chaos Circulation Method, yet its completion was still nowhere in sight.

'And this isn’t something I can ask anyone about...'

He believed he knew as much as anyone about the sword. But there was far too much he didn’t know about manipulating mana through spiritual roots, circuits, and cultivation manuals. All of this was based on the special gifts he had been born with, which made it difficult to ask even Julius or Nelia.

'I’ve been correcting things through trial and error, but am I finally reaching my limit?'

Still, he hadn’t been entirely treading water. Using the Violet Lightning Heaven-Striking Art as his foundation, he had blended in operating principles from various cultivation manuals. Jorm, coiled around the core in his middle energy center, had initially been only finger-sized, but was now far larger. The mana in his lower energy center had also increased dramatically.

Kyle was certain of one thing. Not a single grade-three cultivation manual in the grand library offered better mana-accumulation efficiency than his unfinished Primordial Chaos Circulation Method. That was only natural: he wasn’t merely using a single-element spiritual root, but tapping into the potential of his spiritual root of chaos.

Yet he wasn’t satisfied. He had reincarnated into this illustrious house, blessed with an exceptional body and talent. He wanted to reach the pinnacle he had never attained in his previous life.

After a long stretch of concentrated reading, Kyle suddenly raised his head and looked across the desk. Time had flown while he was absorbed, and Lucia was no longer sitting opposite him.

Instead, four notes lay where she had sat. One was from Lucia, saying she was leaving first, and the others were from the cadets, thanking him for recommending their sword manuals. Kyle chuckled and tucked the notes into his pocket.

According to the routine he had followed for the past year, it was time to return to the manor. Today, however, he still felt reluctant to leave for various reasons. He lingered a little longer among the shelves before entering the grand library’s cultivation room.

He wanted to test his Primordial Chaos Circulation Method with what he had learned today. Not merely run it as usual, but push himself a little further. If he passed out in the manor’s cultivation room, Arian would go frantic. Better to do it here.

“Jorm.”

Jorm answered his call. Emerging from his middle energy center into the physical world, Jorm was now as large as his forearm, and no longer the purple of their first meeting. Wreathed in multicolored light, Jorm gazed at Kyle with sparkling eyes.

[“Yes, Master.”]

Jorm hadn’t just grown physically, but mentally as well. There was no more stammering or childish speech.

[“Is it mealtime?”]

In truth, only the manner of speaking had grown a little more mature. Stroking the bright-eyed Jorm’s head, Kyle said,

“I’ll feed you later. If I collapse here, go outside and fetch Lady Nelia. Understood?”

[“Understood.”]

Jorm nodded in reply. Once he had confirmed that, Kyle sat on the cultivation room floor and focused on his Primordial Chaos Circulation Method. Without needing to be told, Jorm returned to his middle energy center and prepared to refine mana.

HUM...!

The mana in the cultivation room began flowing into Kyle’s body. Since he had decided to push himself harder than usual, the influx was greater, and the flow through his circuits more violent. He concentrated, enduring the pain flaring throughout his body.

His body began to tremble involuntarily. It felt as though it would burst, unable to withstand the torrents raging endlessly within. Kyle guided the Primordial Chaos Circulation Method with his mind to prevent that disaster. Awakened by its violent operation, his spiritual root conveyed its hunger to his lower energy center, and mana poured down into it through his middle energy center like a waterfall.

The already enormous opening swallowed the mana. His lower energy center, expanded over the past year, devoured it, yet remained as insatiable as a hungry ghost. More. More. As mana continued pouring in, Kyle’s body shook even more violently.

So far, everything was within his expectations. Kyle intended to be just as recklessly brute-force as he had been in his previous life—no, even more so.

[“Master, are you sure this is right?”]

Jorm’s question from his middle energy center was almost a scream. The influx of mana was incomparably faster and greater than anything they had attempted before. Jorm was refining it with every ounce of strength, but anxiety swelled over whether they should be doing this at all. Instinct warned that this would damage a human body.

'I don’t know.'

Despite the pain spreading throughout his body and the torrents battering his circuits, Kyle’s voice was utterly calm. An unbelievably vast network of circuits already ran through his body, but he wanted something far beyond that.

Mana manipulation based on cultivation methods was ultimately limited by the circuits. Vast though Kyle’s network was, its individual pathways remained separate. Rather than searching that vast network for the best and shortest routes, he wanted to join the separate circuits together outright, allowing him to take the optimal, shortest route instinctively.

If he succeeded, his Primordial Chaos Circulation Method would advance by leaps and bounds. With that thought, he accelerated its operation. Just then—

“What a reckless idiot.”

A voice suddenly clicked its tongue. Before Kyle could open his eyes, someone placed a hand on his back.

'Who is that?'

He had never heard that voice before. And whoever it was had touched him while he was circulating mana.

It was an incredibly dangerous thing to do, yet Kyle’s instincts did not warn him of danger. A rush of energy swept through him. The pain within his body subsided, and an almost refreshing energy seeped in.

The torrents calmed, but the flow did not slow. This unknown energy guided Kyle’s mana with perfect naturalness.

After circulating his mana through one full cycle, Kyle’s eyes snapped open, and he turned around.

Someone he had never seen before stood behind him.

No—was that even a person?

“Who are you?”

For the moment, that was what Kyle asked.