Second World Novel

“Arthur, can you do mana concealment?” Jack asked.

The two were resting for the night in a small cave inside the woods near the battlefield. They had been using this cave as a hiding place to rest before they went out to hunt for enemies during the day.

“I can, but I’m not an expert. Why do you ask?” Arthur asked back.

“Can you do it for me, please?”

“Now? Why?”

“I just want to check something. Please?”

Arthur shrugged. “Okay,” he said and closed his eyes. Soon, Jack felt Arthur’s presence disappear. It was as if the draconian was not there despite he was still visible.

‘So, it is true,’ Jack thought as he looked at his radar. The green dot that represented Arthur had disappeared from the radar.

He was not aware of this since his own dot was never shown on the radar. The only time another person performed this technique near him was Wong during the world tournament. But at that time, Jack didn’t pay attention to his radar so he was not aware.

‘This confirms that Long person is an extreme expert in mana concealment,’ Jack thought. Long’s dot only appeared on the radar when he was using mana to execute a martial art. When Long was running, his dot was not visible. Long could conceal his presence even when moving. Something that Jack was still unable to do. Jack had to do it like Arthur here, staying still and concentrating to erase his presence.

Who was this Long guy exactly? He wondered if his grandfather knew such an expert. But the guy was very young. Long shouldn’t be in his grandfather’s circle. Yet, Long’s martial expertise was frighteningly close to the elderly generation.

He didn’t think such an expert would hold a regular rank within World Maker. He suspected Long to be one of Master’s heavenly enforcers. If this was true, then he had laid eyes on four out of the five heavenly enforcers.

“Enough?” Arthur asked, opening his eyes.

Jack nodded and said, “Thank you.”

“What do you want to check, anyway?” Arthur asked.

“This eye patch,” Jack said and pointed to his eye patch which was a disguise for his God-eye monocle. “You recognize my monocle that replaces this eye patch when I’m in my real self, do you? Some of our enemies wore the same monocles. These things have a radar that can detect others in the vicinity. Using mana concealment makes the radar unable to detect you.”

“Hm… Good to know. I will make sure to always use mana concealment if I want to hide from the enemies,” Arthur said.

“The war on this side seemed to be coming to an end soon,” Jack said. “The Liguritudum army had fought fiercely today. Much more fiercely than the days before. It is as if they don’t care if they lose troops.”

“Maybe they are on a timetable?” Arthur guessed. “A protracted war is never good for anybody. They probably want to speed it up to avoid unfavorable things from happening.”

“Maybe…,” Jack said. “Okay, time for a practice before sleep.”

He unsheathed his Storm Breaker and started practicing his sword art. Jack never skipped his daily training. Ever since he traveled with Arthur, the old swordsman watched Jack practice and gave him pointers. Arthur was a master swordsman, so he could see what Jack lack at a glance. From Arthur’s advice, Jack’s sword art received improvement.

Arthur didn’t teach Jack any new sword art despite seeing the boy’s talent in using swords, he thought it would be better for Jack to perfect his Formless Flowing Sword Style rather than learn a new sword art.

But he did teach Jack a deeper understanding of the way of the sword, one that he termed the sword’s heart. This was more of a zen teaching rather than a sword art. It let the practitioner build a connection with one’s sword, becoming one with it. One who mastered it could feel and move one’s sword as easily and as swiftly as one’s thoughts.

On the perfection of this sword’s heart, the swordsman no longer needed any sword art. This was because one could command his sword to do anything he wanted. Arthur admitted that even he had not achieved this perfection stage.

Jack wondered. If even the strongest swordsman hadn’t achieved it, then no one else had. Didn’t this mean the perfection stage was just an imaginary concept? Jack didn’t argue, though. He listened to Arthur’s teaching with earnestness.

𝔫𝔬𝒱𝑬𝐥𝑵𝖊xt.𝐜𝞸𝐌

When Jack was training this sword’s heart by meditating, he suddenly became tense.

“What’s wrong?” Arthur asked after seeing Jack’s expression.

Two longswords appeared in Jack’s hand. The main sword was Storm Breaker but it had a different look due to being disguised.

“Lots of people are approaching… Most likely enemies,” Jack informed Arthur. He had seen many dots appearing on his radar. All were blue dots, indicating players. Their number looked to be around two hundred. Most friendly players and natives who had broken from the main army traveled in fewer numbers.

They then heard a loud voice from the outside, “The two ghosts of the battlefield! We know you are inside. Come out! It’s time we send you to the afterlife, where ghosts are meant to be.”

“Should we go and meet them?” Arthur asked, holding the hilt of his katana.

Arthur was back to wearing the samurai outfit he had gained from winning the world tournament. This samurai outfit was a super rare grade, while the soldier outfit he wore when he was with the princess was just a rare grade.

On their first night together, Jack asked why Arthur wore weaker equipment. Arthur said because the soldier outfit was stronger. Jack was confused as to how rare-grade equipment was stronger than super-rare-grade set equipment.

It turned out that the soldier outfit was level 70. The high-level set armor was a gift from Princess Aldryth after Arthur helped her with a quest. As for the samurai outfit, it was still at its original level of 50. Arthur didn’t know or didn’t want to bother about the equipment leveling feature. Hence, the much higher level of rare equipment was stronger than the lower-level super rare equipment.

After finding out, Jack did him a favor by upgrading the samurai outfit until level 65. He had enough ores to spare after no longer needing to upgrade his own equipment.

Arthur admitted that the samurai outfit was superior after the level-up, so he went back to wearing it.

“They might have prepared a trap,” Jack answered Arthur’s question. “Let’s go out the other way. We will circle back and observe. If it is feasible, then we take them on.”

The cave they hid in had a back exit. They were not stupid enough to hide in a place that got them trapped with only one exit.

“How do they find us?” Arthur asked as they walked to the back exit.

“They might have someone with good tracking skills. A real-world skill, I mean. Not the game skill,” Jack answered. “It doesn’t matter. The fact is they find us. Now, we need to deal with it.”

The two went deeper into the cave, over some tight spaces until the cave widened again. They came out of the cave with its exit covered by vines hanging from above. Just as they stepped outside, both of them sensed an assault from above.

They jumped in opposite directions just as an energy field fell right in front of the cave’s exit. Jack noticed that the energy field was the Spectral Prison, a mage knight’s skill.

‘Aw, man… Are you two those who have the damn mana sense thingy? That ability is truly game-breaking,” Jack heard a familiar voice and looked up.

Standing beside the mage knight who had just used the Spectral Prison were Spring Crown and Ronald. Jack also noticed around them were roughly fifty ethereal native soldiers.