Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign

With his aim achieved, Ezra greeted Gregor and politely told him he wasn't continuing on the path of a rune smith.

"Hahaha" Gregor burst into laughter.

"As I expected"

"You expected?"

"You're not one to be content with learning rune for years"

His laughter subsided.

"Regardless, it was a wonderful experience and research material. You have helped me in ways you will never know"

"I'm glad then" Ezra said.

"Thank you for your guidance"

Saying that, Ezra turned and left.

Looking at Ezra's back, Gregor thought.

'Not only talent, but an overwhelming drive to grow. Things are definitely getting interesting in a few years'

'What an experience. I better thank Bard and waive the fee'

—------------------

Done with rune training, Ezra sat down, mediating as he went through what he learned in the past months.

More importantly, what he had gained.

'I achieved my aim and much more'

With a Master Rune Smith's help and Bard's Rune Amplification Potion multiplying the effects of the runes, it was a wholesome haul.

'Now-'

He took out the pair of short swords.

'-shall we test it out?'

Hosting the mana stone in between his teeth, he began.

With the imprint's help, the mana went towards its intended destination.

Since the elements were now aligned in his meridians, the mana touched all of them without needing his intervention.

Exhaling, he did a set of movements as fast as possible and stopped.

The mana flow shook, but it didn't break.

That was all Ezra needed to know.

'YES!'

His efforts bore fruit.

His next steps were to increase his sword mastery and movements, which he immediately got to doing.

While making the Mindless Cultivation technique, he had also created a unique combat manual by combining movements from many others.

He called it Formless Fighting, or the Infinite Forms technique.

It began with a series of simple kicks and punches, but became deadlier as one went on, and of course, more complex and difficult to pull off.

Ezra made it so some part of it was applicable to a spear and some to a sword, so he'd be able to transmit from movement to movements for specific situations.

At the start, his muscles strained upon reaching the twentieth movement, and the technique had a hundred and twenty movements, and even more variations.

Not that he'd use all of the movements in a fight, but unpreparedness was not his style.

For now, he focused only on the first three movements.

The goal was to transition from movement to movement, reaching all a hundred and twenty before stopping.

As he practiced, multiple errors occurred, causing him to rearrange the sequence of movements more than five times and also removing many techniques that didn't suit his style.

Exhausting for sure, but each change brought about more changes, evolving the technique and him along with it.

What was best about the technique was that it utilized all of his elements and that it attended to all body movements.

From movement speed to attack and defense, it was an all rounder.

This meant he didn't have an edge in any area.

While this would be damaging for the normal person, Ezra was an anomaly. His elements, physique and mana quality already gave him all the edge he'd ever need.

Like so did he train, and three months melted in no time.

At this time, Ezra found himself stumped.

'What's going on?'

He couldn't cultivate his physique for some reason.

The mana from the mana stone was only being absorbed by the element orbs.

'Ah!' then it hit him.

'I've hit the wall'

A wall, as referred here, was a block in someone's progress.

To break the wall was to 'breakthrough' to greater heights.

It was an indication that Ezra couldn't get any stronger while still in the Adept-rank.

He would have hit his wall long ago if not for the fact that he painstakingly cleared out most of his impurities, which allowed to accumulate more strength at the foundation.

Breakthroughs multiplied once strength by doubling the requirements to breakthrough once more. i.e increase one's potential.

It was theorized to unlock the soul. With each breakthrough, the soul was freed and that allowed for one's limit to increase at every subsequent rank.

This was why Adept Mages could never chant faster than Advanced Mages.

For Knights, it was even more prominent because many had shallow foundations, and shallow foundations essentially limited their potential far greater than one could ever imagine.

It caused wide gaps as Adepts that could defeat Experts had risen many times.

The point here was not the Adept strength, but the Expert's shallow foundation.

Then you had innate qualities…

Even with such promising prospects, Ezra would be hard pressed to defeat an Advanced Knight of the Empire.

Of course, it was not so simple. Every rank, one's limit multiplied by the previous plus 1.

Assuming a Knight had a limit of 1 and another had 10 at Adept-rank, when advancing to Intermediate-rank, the one with 10 would have it increased to 101, while the other would have it increased to 2.

All may seem fine and dandy for the one with a limit of 101, but if he is unable to gather enough resources, his cultivation will slow to a crawl while time withers away his strength.

So, having high potential wasn't always a good thing.

With enough resources, you rise faster than the rest, but without enough resources, you fall far below the rest.

All things were balanced, as should be.

Of course, this had problems as well.

If a knight with a limit of 2 went and became a Grandmaster, he would be a blade made of glass. His attacks might be powerful, but his mana would not be enough or he might not have proper control over his element.

Such has happened many times over the centuries.

The crucial fact to understand was, if one did not reach a particular threshold, they would not be able to breakthrough.

Meaning that, if one's potential was low from the start, and the person did not shore it up with external resources, when he gets to Expert rank and beyond, he will be unable to advance, forever stuck in that rank.

A tragedy indeed.

This was why elixirs like the Un-limiting Dew were heavenly, as they allowed Glass Grandmasters to shore up their foundations until it was enough for a breakthrough.

One would now understand why the Grandmaster cursed Fredrick so intensely. By taking the dew, he had sealed the man's fate - to forever stay as a grandmaster - unless he found other items of the same quality, that is.

This was why Ezra didn't call his vassals to increase their mana capacity, because if the limit grew to unimaginable heights, he wouldn't have enough resources to give them to advance as quickly as they should.

In any case, it was now time to advance.

Focusing, his mana began churning, heating up the rest of his body.

He was going to breakthrough the Adept-rank all-

*Boom*

A wave of mana was expunged from his body and spread in all directions.

'Huh?' Ezra wondered. Since when was it that easy to breakthrough?

But in his stunned state, he forgot to stop the process and a minute later…*Boom*

"…" Ezra blinked in confusion.

He had broken through to the Advanced-rank just like that.

It was as stupendous as it was ridiculous.

He sat there for another minute, before breaking his posture.

Since he couldn't reduce his level, he didn't bother fussing over it and instead began looking through his body to see what had changed.

For one, his body had gone through qualitative changes. The size of his mana pool quadrupled, twice! It was now able to contain even more and regenerate mana faster.

His mana pool had already quadrupled at Adept-rank, now…

Ezra looked around in suspicion. The situation was unbelievable even for him.

He had nullified the defects of low mana recovery with mana stones. So, it didn't really bother him.

His mana had gotten thicker thanks to the condense rune and his breakthrough.

Snapping his fingers brought forth a flame on his fingertips. One more destructive than those before.

His ice had become harder and lasted longer.

Lightning struck both faster and harder.

He didn't notice much improvements in blood, except for easier control.

Darkness saw the most improvement. It enhanced the concealment rune on Ezra's back. Now, he might be able to move in a crowd without anyone noticing.

But he had to try to be sure.

Then, as he increased in rank, the effects of the runes amplified.

'Come to think of it, I don't know what they look like'

The runes were carved on his back so he hadn't seen them.

Only the imprint rune, which was hosted as multiple points, could be seen.

He held his head in agony. His senses were going haywire because of the increased power of the rune of clarity.

Additionally, his mental acuity had increased again.

Alas, one could not cheat time. (Wait, but he reincarnated…?)

After getting to Advanced-rank, Ezra found that he could still not cultivate his physique.

He discovered that the problem was his body.

As a vessel, it was too small to take any more increments of mana, and if he forcefully cultivated, he'd cripple himself.

He set out to solve the problem.

With no need for cultivation, he was able to focus a hundred percent of himself on body and weapons training.

Here, the cumulative of his achievements shined.

His physique and immense mana pool allowed him to practice faster.

His experience allowed him to correct mistakes and otherwise fatal movements at a moment's notice.

His senses told him minor defects in posture others might've not noticed.

As he practiced, he trimmed the movements and also added to it.

By the end, he was left with sixty-five movements.

These sixty-five movements could be used in different sequences. Ezra discovered and mastered eight sequences.

He spent sixty percent of his time on weapons training.

This was because he couldn't rush the growth of his body.

It was astounding that it was even able to take so much at such a young age.

Over-exercise would easily stunt his natural growth, Ezra didn't want that.

Instead, he began looking for ways to use what he had more effectively.