"Huuuuup...."
"The path of the sword is like a path of penance..."
"Keeeeuuuk..."
"There is no easy way to become strong."
"Uwaaaaaaaaah..."
"First, you must build your foundation. What is the foundation? It's your lower body. An unshakeable, sturdy lower body is the first virtue a swordsman must possess."
Thud.
"Oh?"
Patrick's eyes flashed.
"Your butt is touching the ground? Are you going to fight in that position?"
"No, this is..."
"Reset."
"Huuuuuh..."
At Patrick's command, Matthew forced himself back into a horse stance. Then, one by one, Patrick placed sheepskin pouches filled with sand on Matthew's shoulders.
"Grit your teeth and endure. No one has died from this."
"Keeeeeeeeuk... Uwaaaaaah..."
After Patrick's training began, Matthew was tasting a physical hell in less than half a day. Patrick first made him do the horse stance to train his lower body, and to see faster results, he placed heavy pouches on both his shoulders.
"Keeeuh, it's nice to have good equipment. The kids in my fief had to use hard rocks, but these are soft, well-balanced sheep pouches? This training environment is quite comfortable and nice. Isn't that right, friend?"
"Ugh... Uuuuugh..."
Desperately trying to calm his trembling knees that moved against his will, Matthew gritted his teeth. He too was a student at the Knight Academy and was no stranger to strength training.
But...
'This is truly insane.' The intensity of the training was on a completely different level. The training Patrick made him do seemed to be teaching Matthew a whole new world, showing him that the human body could feel this much pain from such an act.
The moment his body reached its limit and was about to collapse once more...
"If you collapse again, I'll double the time."
"Heeuk..."
"You think I won't do it? You think I'm just saying this and will go easy on you?"
"Huh... Huwaaaak..."
"If you're curious, go ahead and collapse. I'll show you whether I'm a man of my word or not."
Matthew's eyes became bloodshot. How does this demon know my limits so precisely to make such a threat at this very moment? No, the reason doesn't matter.
This bastard will do it. He will definitely do it. He's more than capable of it.
"Don't set your own limits. I will decide what your limits are."
"Huwaaaak...."
To Matthew, who was now letting out a scream that was hard to tell if it was a kiai or a cry, Patrick placed one more sand pouch on him.
"Woooow..."
"Now that Roist is gone, it's that freshman."
"It would be better to just beat him up. What is this, bullying disguised as public training?"
"Look over there. The professors are watching and can't say a thing."
"Vicious devil bastard."
These were the thoughts of the other first-years watching Patrick and Matthew's training. In fact, to them, this looked less like training and more like bullying under the pretext of training. Was it because it was torture wearing the mask of training?
The professors watching from one side of the training grounds only glanced at Matthew and Patrick, but did not interfere.
"Isn't that kid really going to quit the knights’ faculty?"
"Can't be helped if he quits. He got in through a donation in the first place, how long could he last?"
"True, even if he drops out as a first-year, the world will still treat him as a talent."
"That's true."
The other first-years thought Matthew would drop out before the year was over. Even they thought what was happening was not something a person should do. It's not like he's training with a sword, he's just pushing his body to the point of torture.
What kind of training is that? Even if they were in Matthew's shoes, they didn't think they could continue attending the academy while enduring such vicious bullying. Even the professors were thinking something similar.
However, there was one person who had a different thought watching this training process. 'Indeed, starting with the basics. He intends to firmly solidify the roots.'
Professor Justin Leit. After seeing Patrick train Matthew, he said a word to the other professors to keep them from rashly interfering, and he himself just watched from a distance. The Patrick he knew was a much greater master than himself.
He thought that there was much for him to learn from the process of such a master teaching a student. 'I'll have to watch for a while.'
A day passed, then two... A week passed, and as a month was approaching...
"Straighten your posture."
"Ugh... Uwaaaaaaaaah..."
Nothing had changed. Patrick continued to train Matthew only in the basic horse stance, and Matthew silently followed Patrick's lead. No, well... not silently.
"Aaaaaaaap!"
Because the screams never stopped bursting out. Just from the sounds, the scene was so desperate that one might think it was not training, but the torture of a sinner. The only thing that changed was the number of sand pouches placed on Matthew's shoulders.
The others who watched this scene were impressed.
"He's really managing to endure that."
"How does he endure strength training of that intensity?"
"He's not using aura, right?"
"Is that exercise easier than it looks?"
"No. I tried it once, and I couldn't even last 30 minutes without aura."
"But that Matthew guy is doing it all day, isn't he?"
"You have to acknowledge his grit. His grit..."
Now, even the eyes of the other first-years watching this sight held a hint of admiration. In truth, they didn't think that training was helpful. They thought it would be better to swing a sword one more time or focus more on Aura Blessing instead of doing such brutish strength training.
That's what they thought, but...
"His grit... Yes, his grit, at least..."
"You have to admit it. I guess he wasn't someone to be ignored just because he got in through a donation."
"Tell me about it."
People are naturally impressed when they see someone accomplish something they can't do. The expressions of the first-year classmates watching Matthew, who had been continuing the high-intensity lower body workout ordered by Patrick for over a month, had changed quite a bit. And in fact..
Patrick himself was a little surprised right now. 'Look at this bastard.' His eyes were bloodshot.
The sweat flowing all over his body was dripping to the floor, forming a puddle. His trembling lower body was already proof that his physical body had reached its limit. But seeing Matthew holding onto his body that had reached its limit with mental strength and pushing himself even further, a peculiar light shone in Patrick's eyes.
No matter how hard it was, no matter if he felt like he was going to die, his will never chose the option of giving up.
All the times Matthew had collapsed so far were not due to his will, but only when he truly went beyond limit after limit, and the tearing of his muscle fibers reached its breaking point. In this side of Matthew, Patrick was feeling interest, pride, and a sense of nostalgia. 'So there's another monster of grit like Namgung Cheon.'
Iron Dragon Swordsman, Namgung Cheon. A man abandoned despite being born as the legitimate son of the Namgung Clan, the most prosperous prestigious family among the Five Great Families. Like most of Patrick's friends, Namgung Cheon was not treated well by his family.
Despite being born the eldest grandson of the Namgung Clan, he was the world's greatest dullard, with not a single fragment of talent to be found. The head of the Namgung Clan had already given up on him.
While his younger brothers learned the Namgung Clan's advanced sword art, the Sky-Cleaving Free Sword, and the Sovereign Sword, which only the direct line of the family head could learn, all he could learn was the basic sword art, the Twelve Iron Sword Forms.
A dullard who couldn't even perfectly execute the Twelve Iron Sword Forms and could only repeat his training endlessly.
As outcasts tend to befriend other outcasts, he managed to form a bond with the Ugly Dragon Scholar Jegal Hyeon, who was discriminated against for being ugly, and the Iron-Blooded Dragon Peng Moojong, who had a personality so bad he was cast aside even within the Peng Clan.
As a result, he also came to know the Radiant Dragon Grandmaster Jin Cheon. And in Jin Cheon's eyes, Namgung Cheon was a figure who stood at the complete opposite pole from himself. Jin Cheon, from a third-rate sect, who had nothing to rely on but his own talent.
Namgung Cheon, born as the eldest grandson of the martial world's most prestigious family, the Namgung Clan, but with not a shred of talent. They couldn't be more different. Jin Cheon never thought that in his life, he would come to pity the direct eldest grandson of the great Namgung Clan.
He subtly made a suggestion to the man who couldn't learn a single advanced martial art because he lacked talent.
"Should I teach you a few things?"
At that time, Jin Cheon had already caused a ruckus with the Namgung Clan's head and had pried out the first half of the Sky-Cleaving Free Sword. Although it came with the condition that he would never teach it to others, he thought, surely they wouldn't say anything if he taught it to their own son.
But at that time, Namgung Cheon said with a smile...
"How can I, who can't even perform the Twelve Iron Sword Forms properly, learn the Sky-Cleaving Free Sword?"
"But your younger brother is already past the Sky-Cleaving Free Sword and learning the Sovereign Sword, isn't he? Isn't that shameful? You're the older brother."
"It's fine."
Namgung Cheon said, smiling.
"What's the point of me, with my meager talent, competing against monsters like my younger brother or you? For me, it is enough if I can defeat just one person."
"Who is that one person?"
"Yesterday's me."
"If I can become even a little bit stronger than yesterday's me, that is enough."
"What are you talking about? You talentless fool..."
"Hahaha."
Seeing the bluntly sarcastic Jin Cheon, Namgung Cheon just laughed it off. At that moment, Patrick had a strange conviction. This guy will become strong.
There was no basis for it, but he somehow felt that conviction, and in the end, that conviction was correct. When the Black Serpent Union, a powerhouse of the unorthodox alliance, led its elite forces to invade the Namgung Clan, the head of the Namgung Clan was leading his own elite forces and fighting elsewhere.
At that moment, when it seemed the fate of the Namgung Clan, who had been completely caught off guard, was nothing but ruin...
"Who dares to covet the Namgung Clan?"
The one who defeated the Black Serpent Union's leader, Blood Evil Saber Jeokmak, and stood firm at the family's main gate, steadfastly protecting his family until Jin Cheon and his friends brought reinforcements, was Namgung Cheon, the very man who was ridiculed within his own family as the world's greatest dullard.
It was the moment when he, who had not received even a single form of the Sky-Cleaving Free Sword, let alone the Sovereign Sword, and had only silently trained in the Twelve Iron Sword Forms to overcome the him of yesterday, proudly claimed victory against an absolute master of the unorthodox alliance and earned the title of Iron Dragon Swordsman.
Effort, grit, passion. People say these words easily. Those guys who say that even if you lack talent, you can just work harder than others.
Since his previous life, Patrick had seen such fools and scoffed at them.
Effort? Grit?
What a joke. As if others don't? For anyone in their right mind, putting in effort is only natural.
What's so great about it that they can proudly raise their heads and spout nonsense like 'I worked hard'? Moreover, among those who spouted such nonsense, there wasn't a single person who truly put in the effort until the very end. What's the point of putting in effort right now?
When they start to feel the misery of being overtaken by others, surpassed from behind, and ultimately left alone, most of them stop even that 'effort'. Those who say 'I worked hard. I did my best.' were nothing more than losers whining, 'I worked hard, but it didn't work out.
So please feel sorry for me.' With the sole exception of that one monster of grit, the Iron Dragon Swordsman, Namgung Cheon. The world regarded him as the greatest dullard, but in Patrick's view, Namgung Cheon was not a man without talent.
The talent to put in effort until the very end. That was a talent that even Jin Cheon, who made his name as the greatest genius of his time, did not possess. And perhaps, this Matthew before his eyes might possess that same thing.
Looking at the fierce light in Matthew's eyes, Patrick thought. 'I don't know how far you'll follow, but as long as you do, I'll take care of you until the end.'
"Uuuuugh....?"
Finally, Matthew lost consciousness and collapsed. At that, Patrick personally lifted him up and slung him over his shoulder.
"Young master. I will do it."
"It's fine."
Patrick brushed off April, who was trying to stop him, and returned with Matthew slung over his shoulder. 'You will become strong.'