Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 804: Fortuna Standard Combat Energy (FoSCE) Training Manual I

CH804 Fortuna Standard Combat Energy (FoSCE) Training Manual I

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Beneath the veil of rapid development sweeping through the Frontier March, there existed a secret project overseen personally by the Domain Lord, Count Skywalker—Alex Fury. Known only to a select few, it was classified among the highest levels of military secrecy within the domain.

The creation of a standard Combat Energy Manual for the Frontier March.

Most Combat Energy Manuals available on the market were either trash-tier or prohibitively expensive. Perhaps the most practical manual widely available was the Celahan Empire’s own standardised method. However, it was considered mediocre across nearly every parameter, with its greatest strength being its stability.

Most superior Combat Energy Manuals were closely guarded by the higher nobility, treated as treasured heirlooms and House secrets. As such, they remained beyond the reach of the common people and even many lesser noble Houses.

This contributed greatly to the disparity in power between nobles and commoners—and even among the nobility itself, as more prestigious Houses generally possessed superior hereditary manuals for their descendants.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the quality of a House’s Combat Energy Manual—or the manuals available within a territory—directly determined that House’s or territory’s military potential.

For this reason, Alex hoped to elevate the Frontier March’s combat strength by introducing a standard cultivation method that surpassed the norm and exceeded what was readily available outside the hands of high-ranking nobles and powerful organisations.

One of the greatest problems plaguing the Frontier March had never been a lack of talented individuals. There were, in fact, quite a few. Rather, it was the lack of suitable manuals with which to train them.

Overly insecure nobles and magistrates who had previously governed the territory had feared rebellion from within the domain. As a result, they had refused to acquire even the Empire’s basic standard method for these promising individuals.

Alex intended to change that.

Unfortunately, no one within the domain—not even Saul and the other experienced BattleBanes—knew how to compile a Combat Energy Manual. Apparently, that knowledge was tightly guarded by the continent’s royal families and powerful organisations such as the various Temples.

Alex felt a strong sense of déjà vu, as this closely mirrored the control the various Imperial Families exerted over the spread of the Interplanar Eye, allowing them to maintain their dominance over Pangea.

‘It’s a shame the creation of Combat Energy Manuals came after the era of One Heaven, the Heavenly Venerable, and the other Sorcerer Emperors,’ Alex mused to himself.

As a result, although he now possessed access to the Heavenly Venerable’s vast knowledge within his Memory Palace and OmniRune’s database, there was nothing that could directly help him create the Combat Energy Training Manual he needed.

…At least, not directly.

Alex settled for the next best approach.

With Raven Horn’s help—and a little teleportation back and forth to the Wildlands, the heartland of every kind of trade, legal or otherwise, on the continent—he gathered a large collection of unique Combat Energy Training Manuals and fed them to OmniRune.

OmniRune analysed the various manuals, not with the intention of immediately stitching them together into a new manual, but rather to identify the fundamental principles and commonalities shared by all Combat Energy Manuals.

It then cross-referenced those findings against the basic knowledge of Combat Warriors and Combat Energy contained within the Heavenly Venerable’s knowledge library.

Through this process, Alex finally came to understand the fundamental difference between Pangea’s Internal Energy Tempering Manuals and Verdantis’ Combat Energy Training Manuals.

Unlike the former, which had originally drawn inspiration from the body-tempering methods of higher-level beasts before deliberately diverging to better suit the human body, the latter almost completely replicated the cultivation methods of magical beasts.

Where Pangea’s warriors absorbed ambient mana through their breathing—and, at higher levels, directly through every part of their bodies—before combining it with their vitality and compressing it into their cells to elevate their physical state, Verdantis’ Combat Warriors, much like most magical beasts, absorbed mana—or, more specifically, Combat Energy—through both breathing and diet.

They then channelled that energy through specialised pathways known as Apertures before storing it within an Energy Core, supposedly formed around a convergence of Apertures near the navel, much like the dantian commonly found in the martial arts novels of Alex’s previous life.

One method, by its very nature, elevated one’s state of being, while the other essentially functioned as a battery to rapidly increase combat performance.

As a result, Internal Energy strengthened the body and extended a warrior’s lifespan, whereas Combat Energy, from what Alex could determine, actually shortened it.

A typical Pangean Saint could naturally live for well over two hundred years, with the ageing process slowing significantly depending on their elemental affinity and the quality of their cultivation manual. In contrast, a Verdantian Saint had a natural life expectancy of only around one hundred and twenty years.

Even a Legend in Verdantis would have a life expectancy of, at most, two hundred years.

And if One Heaven, the Heavenly Venerable, and the other Sorcerer Emperors were any indication, true Sorcery likewise extended one’s lifespan, with Class 7 Epics possessing life expectancies approaching a thousand years.

Since the life extension brought about by Sorcery was similar to that of Pangea’s cultivation and ascension methods, Alex concluded that the life-consuming nature of Combat Energy was abnormal.

Therefore, in creating a standard Combat Energy Training Manual for his domain, Alex decided against simply piecing together the strongest existing Combat Energy method. Instead, he intended to revolutionise it by incorporating certain principles from Pangea’s Internal Energy Tempering methods.

‘This would’ve been difficult, but I possess the entirety of the Heavenly Venerable’s research into human metaphysical anatomy. While I can’t reproduce it with an expert’s mastery, I can certainly cobble together something useful,’ Alex mused.

‘Fortune favours the brave,’ he thought. Then he chuckled to himself. ‘Or perhaps it’s simply destiny handing out plot armour to achieve her desired plot.’

According to the Heavenly Venerable’s research, the introduction of the Class 6 mutagen into the first Combat Warriors had led to a mutation that enabled previously talentless humans to cultivate.

That mutation was none other than the Apertures required to cultivate Combat Energy.

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