It felt so good to be close to the witch!

Recalling the feeling she had never experienced before not long ago, Lilia's decision became even more resolute.

……

Time flies, and two days passed in the blink of an eye.

But for the Blackrock Knights who are loyal to the Tulumbel family, these past two days have been incredibly difficult.

The declaration of a "battle to annex territory" cannot be concealed.

The news three days ago that the Wandering Witch attacked the temple's prison wagon further confirmed Roy's collusion with the Wandering Witch, which means that even if Roy is not burned at the stake, he will definitely not be able to return in the short term.

Without their lord, they had lost their backbone.

No one is stupid.

Everyone is aware of the current strength comparison between Iron Mountain Territory and Black Stone Territory.

If the Turenbell family is defeated in the final "war of territorial conquest", the Turenbell family will be reduced to dust in history. The knights who are loyal to the Turenbell family will become "wandering knights". Even if they later join other families, they will naturally be looked down upon and considered inferior.

If the "traitorous knights" who betrayed their families hadn't been even more infamous and held a lower status than the "wandering knights," there would probably have been deserters long ago.

Under such circumstances, it is easy to imagine how low the morale of the knights was.

Not only the knights, but also the residents of Blackrock Territory were thrown into a state of extreme panic and helplessness by this news.

Unlike Blackstone Territory, the taxes and corvée labor in Iron Mountain Territory were unimaginably heavy, and its prosperity was built on the blood and tears of countless people.

Compared to Iron Mountain Territory, the residents of Black Stone Territory live an incredibly happy life.

They were not required to perform forced labor to mine underground, nor were they required to pay heavy taxes. They could simply farm or hunt, and at the end of the year they would have some savings left to buy themselves and their families a warm coat and enough food to get through the harsh winter.

However, if Blackrock Territory loses this "territorial merger war," then the residents of Blackrock Territory will henceforth live a life as difficult as that of the residents of Iron Mountain Territory.

They were worried and anxious, but as ordinary civilians, there was nothing they could do. Without a travel permit, they couldn't even escape Blackrock Territory to other towns. They could only pray silently every day that Blackrock Territory would win the battle.

Blackstone Territory, the lord's mansion, deep within a small courtyard.

Roy sat cross-legged on the bed, breathing at a unique and magical frequency. In a world invisible to the naked eye, a magical particle was drawn out and inhaled into his body.

Not long after the magical particle entered his body, it was transformed into a wisp of pure battle qi.

This wisp of fighting spirit circulated and eventually merged into a ball of fighting spirit that emitted a dazzling light.

Roy slowly opened his eyes, his dark pupils radiating a warm, soft light.

Although he has an energy supply derived from the pollution he absorbs from the witch, and he is not lacking in magical particles, this does not prevent him from absorbing one magical particle from nature every hour through his breathing technique.

Even the smallest mosquito leg is still meat.

Feeling the ball of battle qi within his body, composed of a thousand strands of battle qi, Roy's face showed a joyful expression.

With ample energy supply within his body, he could condense battle qi threads very quickly.

For two days, or more precisely, for a full 33 hours, he practiced breathing techniques without sleep, except for necessary meals.

Only then, the day before the "Territory Merger War," did he complete the prerequisites for advancing to Bronze Knight.

Next, as long as he refines these 1000 strands of battle qi into one and uses it to temper his body, he will be able to advance to the Bronze rank!

After recalling the key points of the advancement to Bronze that he had learned from Red, Roy took a deep breath and began his breakthrough.

Chapter 27 Promotion, Bronze (Part 1)

Inside the room, Roy recalled the key points Red had told him about the promotion from a formal knight to a bronze knight:

The path of a knight's training begins with a trainee knight honing his physique, followed by the three-part training of a formal knight's breathing techniques: adaptive adjustment of the breathing technique—gradually adapting the body to magical particles—condensing battle aura threads.

Once a knight has condensed a thousand strands of battle qi within their body, they can refine them into a single, true battle qi. By circulating this battle qi throughout their body, they can further break through the shackles of their physical form and ascend to an even higher level.

Years of practice in breathing techniques, refining a thousand strands of battle qi into one, is not a problem for a formal knight. The real key to preventing a formal knight from advancing to the bronze rank lies in the human body's adaptability to magical particles!

Battle aura is formed by the fusion of magical particles and human life force. Although its nature is much milder than that of magic, there is still a threshold for adaptation.

Battle qi at the "silk" level has a very mild impact on the human body. Even at the thousand-silk level, because the quality remains unchanged, it puts a burden on the body, but is generally bearable by everyone. However, the situation is quite different when battle qi reaches the "Dao" level.

Within battle aura, there are particles of magical power. Even after being tempered by life force, it remains violent. Battle aura at the "Dao" level is so violent that it reaches one-tenth the level of true magical power, which not every knight can withstand.

Those who cannot withstand the "Dao" level of battle qi but forcibly break through will only have one fate: their bodies will be torn apart by the violent battle qi, and they will explode and die.

This is also the key reason why the Knights' training path in the Glorious Empire emphasizes the "golden age of training".

The ages of twelve to fourteen are the age at which the human body is most adaptable to magical particles and battle aura, as determined by the pioneering knights through countless experiments.

Once you're past that age, your body's development is complete, and it becomes extremely difficult to adapt to magic.

The reason why Red is stuck at Bronze II and can't make any progress is not because his breathing technique is not good enough, but because he started practicing advanced breathing techniques too late and missed too much of the "golden age of cultivation". As a result, every step forward on the road after Bronze is extremely difficult.

But Roy himself doesn't have this problem.

Because of the talent [Infinite Desire] brought by the [Original Sin Cube], his body can adapt to even the most primitive and violent magic, let alone the relatively gentle battle aura.

For him, the most difficult part of advancing to the Bronze level was actually gathering the thousands of strands of Battle Qi needed to refine a single Battle Qi.

Now that I have enough battle qi, breaking through to the Bronze rank is a natural progression.

Under Roy's mental control, the strands of battle qi within his body began to gather, merge, and refine...

After an unknown amount of time, when an exceptionally pure battle qi, radiating a hazy white glow, appeared within his body, Roy understood that the refinement of his "Dao" level battle qi was complete. Next, he only needed to control this battle qi to circulate throughout every corner of his body to truly break free from the shackles of the human body and step into the realm of the extraordinary.

Without hesitation or doubt, under his conscious control, this true battle qi began to circulate.

Starting from the heart, the source of human life, the blood flows through all parts of the body and finally returns to the heart, completing a full cycle.

Wherever the battle aura passed, every cell underwent a fundamental transformation.

This is why the physical limits of Bronze Knights far exceed those of ordinary people!

Roy opened his eyes, and at that moment, he could clearly see even the dust particles floating in the air under the sunlight.

Time seemed to be slowed down in his eyes, passing by frame by frame.

"call……"

He exhaled a deep breath, the long gas billowing out from his mouth and nose like a giant beast breathing.

It took Roy a while to adjust to the sudden change in vision.

He knew that this was not because time had actually slowed down, but because his dynamic vision and neural reflexes had increased too much in a short period of time.

Moreover, Roy could sense that his speed and strength were now far superior to what they had been before, because the improvement was so great that even he himself could no longer estimate the extent of the increase.

We need to get Reid to test and verify this...

The idea popped into Roy's head, and he immediately put it into action.

To avoid premature exposure, Roy did not go to the lord's training ground. Instead, he cleaned up the room, moved the tables and chairs to the wall, and created a small open space to serve as a "temporary training ground".

after a while.

Inside the room, in a makeshift training ground, Red stood opposite Roy.

At this moment, he still looked bewildered, his eyes slightly unfocused, as if he was pondering something incomprehensible.

From the time Young Master Roy started learning breathing techniques until now, it's only been three days, right?

In just three days, he went from a complete novice who knew nothing, wasn't even a trainee knight, and whose physical strength was only comparable to that of a full knight, to a bronze knight.

Even the imperial novels wouldn't dare to write something like this!

Although he knew that Young Master Roy's talent in breathing techniques was unparalleled, he never imagined that he would be so monstrous!

The maximum rate at which the Explosive Breathing Technique can absorb magical particles is one per hour when one is a formal knight. Even if young master Roy fuses and converts battle qi threads very quickly, and practices the breathing technique without eating, drinking, or sleeping, he can only accumulate 24 threads of battle qi per day at most.

In this situation, how can one accumulate enough Thousand Threads of Battle Qi within three days?

Red couldn't understand it.

I can't figure it out.

In the end, he could only comfort himself by thinking that young master Roy was a male who had awakened his talent, and perhaps there was something special about him.

"Uncle Red, can we begin?"

The slightly excited voice startled Red from his daze.

He adjusted his stance, looked up at Roy opposite him, who was wearing armor and holding a training wooden sword, and nodded: "You're ready. You can attack at any time."

Upon hearing Red's reply, Roy took a deep breath, his face showing some tension, but mostly excitement.

This was the first time he had truly made a move since coming into this world.

Moreover, their first opponent was a bronze-rank knight.

"drink!"

With a loud shout to bolster his courage, Roy charged forward, thrusting his training wooden sword straight out.

A strong wind rushed past his cheeks, and the force far exceeded the limits of ordinary people, propelling his body to burst forth with incredible speed. In the blink of an eye, he covered several meters and arrived in front of Red.

This unprecedented experience left Roy somewhat mesmerized.

In his previous life, this was a wonderful feeling that he could never have experienced.

Perhaps on his previous life on Earth, people could use machinery to achieve speeds faster than he does now, but the exhilaration of conquering nature and the world with one's own body is something that machinery can never match or replace!

Chapter 28 Promotion, Bronze (Part Two)

A strong gust of air whipped Roy's short, black hair back as he fixed his gaze on Red's body, his training sword aimed at Red's chest.

When the training wooden sword was less than half a meter from Red's chest, Red moved.

A faint white light emanated from the unsheathed knight's sword in his hand. There were no fancy moves, and the sword wasn't even drawn. It was just a simple horizontal slash with the sheath still on, yet it struck Roy's training wooden sword from the side, arriving first despite being delayed.

With a dull thud, Roy's training wooden sword veered uncontrollably to one side. Judging from its trajectory, it didn't even graz Reid's body, while Reid's unsheathed knight's sword continued its trajectory toward Roy's chest.

Roy could clearly see the unsheathed knight's sword closing in on his chest, time seemingly slowing down. He tried to pull his sword back to defend, but found himself slower than Red in this stagnant world. Before he could even draw his sword, Red's scabbard would strike him first.

It turns out that just because you can see something doesn't mean your body can react in time...

The thought crossed Roy's mind, and the next second, the sheathed knight's sword in Red's hand stopped a centimeter in front of his chest, not a fraction more or less, demonstrating the powerful control a true bronze knight has over his body.

"I lost."

Roy was taken aback for a moment, then said in admiration.