The God-Possessed Swordsmanship Genius - Chapter 21

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Swordsman Genius Blessed by a Divine Spirit, Chapter 21

For a moment, the world seemed to turn white.
A single, brief word of praise left Allen’s mind hollow.
Allen lifted his head and looked at Aksion once more.
His father’s expression was the same as always.

‘What did he just say?’

Allen doubted his own ears.

Excellent?

It was praise from none other than Aksion Viscken, the Continent’s Foremost Swordsman, a father who had always been so strict and fearsome.
This was a man who barely ever said even “that’s enough,” and yet he had called him excellent.
It was the kind of words Allen had never thought he would hear in his lifetime.
As Allen stood there, unsure how to respond, Aksion’s words carried on.

“Did Sungshin-ryu reach the third stage after that fight?”
“Yes? Yes, sir.”

Allen stumbled over his words, which was unlike him.

“Y-yes, that’s right.”
“For someone who has only just been freed from that curse, your progress isn’t bad at all. You clearly didn’t neglect your training either. Your swordsmanship and fundamentals are strong for your level.”

Under the string of compliments, Allen’s mind went blank once more.
It felt as though the efforts of his previous life were finally being acknowledged.
Training, fundamentals, and swordsmanship.
Those were the fruits of everything the Allen of his past life had built up in order to grow stronger.
Without realizing it, Allen clenched his fist tight.
He wanted to shout out loud. If he opened his tightly shut mouth, it felt as though a cheer would burst out of him.
But in the middle of the main hall of the family estate, that was simply out of the question.

Did he sense the turmoil stirring inside Allen?
The gaze with which Aksion looked at Allen grew deeper.

“You said you wanted to become the head of the family, didn’t you?”

Allen flinched at the sudden question.
Still, it was not a question he had any reason to hesitate over.

“Yes, sir, I did.”
“Do you think you can do better than your brother?”

A trace of regret, though faint, crept into the voice of a man who rarely showed his feelings.
From his eyes and tone, Allen could sense what Aksion truly felt.

‘So Father wanted my brother to become the head of the family.’

Lucas Viscken had been exceptional since he was a child.
With a talent just like his father’s, he was a genius who had reached the Master realm at an early age, and that was his brother.
Everyone in the family never doubted that Lucas would become the head.
Even now, most people still believed so.
But Aksion knew that Lucas had no intention of inheriting the family.

Could he do better than his brother?
For a moment, Allen’s thoughts became tangled.
Some words surfaced in his mind, and before he knew it, they had slipped out of his mouth.
Allen voiced his honest feelings.

“I don’t yet know what it takes to lead a household. I’m still a greenhorn who has never led even a small sword squad.”

To become the family head was to lead the household.
Allen had never once lived under that heavy weight of responsibility.
But there was one thing he could say.

“That’s why my goal right now is only one. I will become a swordsman stronger than you, Father. And with that strength, I will become someone who protects the family and those I love.”

His heart thumped wildly.
A dream and a goal he had carried since childhood. He had never imagined he would be saying it to his father like this.
How would Father respond?
Would he think it was presumptuous? Or would he laugh at him?

At Allen’s words, Axion smiled faintly.
It wasn’t a mocking smile.
Allen had expected a scolding or anger for his audacity, but none came.
Axion rose from his seat without a word.
And in the next moment.

Whoosh.

Axion’s figure closed the distance at incredible speed. A rush of wind sounded, and in an instant the gap was gone.
Descending from the throne, he appeared right before Allen.
At the same time, he thrust a book toward him.

“Your footwork is weaker than your swordsmanship. Steps built on a body without mana always have a clear limit.”
“This is…”
“The first half of the White Lotus Step. Take it and master it.”

The White Lotus Step.
It was the name of the advanced footwork technique granted to the main line of the family.
The footwork Axion had just displayed was none other than the White Lotus Step.
Not only a manual for the technique, but a live demonstration as well.

“Th-thank you.”

Allen hurriedly accepted the manual.
Whatever the reason, he could not let Axion keep his arm extended.
He had already been thinking he needed a new footstep technique built on mana, and now an unexpected reward had come down to him.

Why would he give this to me, of all things?
The technique was far too valuable to be payment for a mission.
So this reward had nothing to do with the mission.
Could it be to congratulate his son for overcoming the curse?
Or to celebrate his own achievement?
Allen quickly erased the guesses that had surfaced in his mind.

‘He isn’t the sort of man to do that.’

Then why, exactly?
He would soon find out.
As though this were the price for the technique, Axion spoke.

“Allen Viscken. I hereby appoint you Second Squad Leader of the Flying Sword Corps.”

* * *

Once the private audience was over, Allen gazed at the manual in his hands.
Baekryeon-bo was the reward bestowed upon the squad leader of the Flying Sword Corps.
In Viscken, power followed rank; whatever title you were given, the strength to match it came with it.

‘Second Squad Leader of the Flying Sword Corps.’

For the first time, his own squad had been decided.
And it was the same squad as his brother’s.
Just then, as Allen stepped out of the Lord’s Hall, he spotted Lucas waiting for him.
Up until now, he had only ever called him brother, but in this moment, Lucas looked like someone with a different name.
Commander of the Flying Sword Corps.
The man who was now his direct superior.

“Did you hear?”

It seemed Lucas had already caught wind of the news.
Allen nodded.

“Did you know, Brother?”
“I heard you’d be coming in to fill the Flying Sword Corps’ ranks. That you’d be assigned to the second squad.”
“Then did you also know I’d been made squad leader?”
“Squad leader?”

Lucas’s face showed genuine surprise.
It seemed he hadn’t known even this much.

“…No. I was told you’d be joining as an ordinary member.”
“You started out in the Flying Sword Corps too, didn’t you?”
“I did. I worked my way up from ordinary member.”

Even that alone was no small feat.
Among the Main Estate’s forces, the Flying Sword Corps was one of the few squads that carried out missions directly under the Lord’s command.
Unless one’s skill and accomplishments were recognized to a considerable degree, one couldn’t even set foot inside.

“The post I knew you’d been given was ordinary member of the second squad. Likely, they judged your ability to be on par with a Flying Sword Corps member.”

Allen’s assignment to the Flying Sword Corps had been settled in advance, but his promotion to squad leader had been decided within the Lord’s Hall.
Lucas suspected the decision was not unrelated to Allen’s private audience with Axion.

“Your promotion to squad leader came together suddenly inside the Lord’s Hall. It’s the first time the Lord has reversed a decision so quickly. That must mean he truly acknowledges your ability.”

After watching the reenactment of the battle with the Iron Chain Society, Axion had called it splendid.
It seemed that, having seen that reenactment, he had hurriedly changed the post to squad leader.
Of course, that was not the only reason Allen had been placed in the Flying Sword Corps.

“Father said something to me. He asked whether I was confident I could outdo you.”
“The Lord did?”
“Sending me to the Flying Sword Corps must be his way of comparing me to you.”

Lucas was the youngest Commander of the Flying Sword Corps in history.
He had been able to achieve that because his skill and his ability to accomplish missions were both recognized, regardless of his status.
In fact, some in certain circles even argued that he ought to hold a rank higher than Commander.

“If you show anything less than what I’ve done, they’ll send you somewhere else right away.”
“I think so too. The Lord isn’t one to show favor just because someone is blood.”

Allen took this, too, as a kind of test.
What kind of man would he prove to be, serving in the same place as his brother?
And being squad leader didn’t mean his situation was any easier than Lucas’s.

“You should be prepared for a certain amount of backlash.”

At Lucas’s words, Allen nodded.

“That makes sense. I failed my first mission, and everyone’s probably still whispering that I haven’t shaken off the Curse of the Bimah.”
“Right. The other squad leaders might not accept you, and neither might the men under you. And as for me, I won’t be giving you special treatment just because you’re my brother.”
“Something’s off, don’t you think?”
“Off how?”
“The order’s backward. A superior begging for an inferior’s acceptance? It should be the other way around.”

Lucas’s eyes sparkled at Allen’s words.
He was right. What Allen said was the textbook principle of the chain of command.
Yet for someone who had never once belonged to a sword corps, to see through it like that.

“Not bad.”
“Of course. Considering whose son and brother I am.”

Allen grinned and bowed his head toward Lucas.

“Then I look forward to working with you, Commander.”

* * *

Back in the annex, Allen headed straight for the training yard.
Meeting Pedrok to hand over the money he’d brought back from the dungeon mattered, but there was something more pressing on his mind right now.

A single shimmering flower rested in Allen’s hand.
The Star Flower.
Once he had overcome the Curse of the Bimah, it was the first elixir that came to mind.
Of course, he still had more than a handful of things left to acquire after this.

‘After the Star Flower comes the demon sword, then the divine scripture of the ancients… I’ve got a mountain of things to get.’

Either way, he had secured one of the essential conditions for changing the future.
Knowing what would happen in the future was an enormous advantage like this.
He could claim treasures no one else knew about, and sometimes he could prevent disasters that were never meant to happen.

“Whew.”

Allen caught his breath for a moment.
How much of an elixir’s power a person could absorb depended on the one taking it.
Depending on the person, they might take in as little as twenty percent or as much as fifty percent of the elixir’s power, a difference of more than double.

‘My target is fifty percent.’

He had no idea when he would ever be able to take a peerless elixir like the Star Flower again.
That meant he had to gain as much power as possible in this one go.

‘Focus.’

Allen closed his eyes and slowly placed the Star Flower in his mouth, chewing it.
It was like chewing on a massive lump of magical power.
Afraid that even a trace of power might leak out, Allen kept his mouth tightly shut as he chewed and swallowed the flower.

Gulp.

The entire flower slid down his throat.
Allen immediately shut out every sense around him and focused on the energy of the elixir spreading through his body.

Sssshhhh.
Bubble-bubble.

It was as if he had swallowed lava instead of a flower, his insides scorching. The surging mana rushed downward, flowing past his abdomen.
He had downed countless elixirs, but never one whose power ran so strong it set his body burning like this.

‘Don’t let it spill. Not a drop.’

He threw open every sense and every organ in his body, straining to take in the elixir’s energy.
The elixir’s energy burst forth like a raging waterfall.
I couldn’t control all of it, and just as some of it was about to slip through my grasp—

Hum.

My eyelids were shut tight.
Yet in a field of vision that should have shown nothing at all, a stream of mana flowed through, clear as falling water.

‘This is…’

Kwaa-kwaa-kwaang!

The elixir’s energy coursed through my body like a waterfall.
The energy that had been brought under control shot out in all directions like streams of water, while the energy that had escaped control trickled down through my throat.

‘Is this another effect of the Mirror Eye?’

A power that pierced through the flow of mana.
Within those mysterious eyes, I had begun to see how the elixir’s energy was moving.

‘If that’s the case…’

Allen, who had been sitting with his eyes closed, felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips.
Fifty percent?
If that was so, then I had to change my goal.

‘I’ll swallow all of it.’

Aiming not to lose even a single drop.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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