The Villain's Story

A/N:Sorry for no chapters, Am really sick and also injured my right hand.

anyways, join the discord for fast updates.

https://discord.gg/ZWpHy6QCWc

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Upon entering the room, I was greeted by the gazes of four people. The Sword Saint Arken, Alex, and....unexpectedly Lucas Hiddleston.

There was also a silver-haired girl who I recognized.

She was on the list I had made as characters who had made their appearance well-known in the novel.

Granddaughter of the Principal, Olivia Olsfer.

Sabrina's rival in academics, and later a friend of hers.

and the weird oddity who used a melee weapon despite being a girl.

Well, in this world it didn't matter what gender you were if you were awakened, it was just that in this era females usually opted for long-range classes like Hunter and mages or healers.

Not that there were oddities, like her.

Just that they were extremely rare.

"Welcome Back, 'Cowboy'."

I heard the sword saint's voice...but cowboy?

Why is he referring to me as Cowboy?

...is this related to why the 'Yeehaw' was mentioned by The Vice Principal?

'...I need to review the video...'

I thought to myself as I felt embarrassed again.

"Pfft."

It was then that I heard Alexs laugh.

I looked at him with a death glare and he immediately shut up and looked away while whistling.

"Haha, You shocked me there when I saw the video given to Alex.

Who'd think you were a monster maniac."

"Monster Maniac?"

I questioned the sword saint while moving closer.

And he answered.

"A guy that goes crazy when meeting monsters, and becomes a crazy person that's willing to die to fight them."

...

Oh, well that describes me perfectly then.

"Now that you understand, Greet the other two, one is my friend's granddaughter, Don't try to hit on her if you don't want to experience both mine and Oliver's wrath."

" Uncle!"

"And the other is someone I met in the labyrinth, in a similar situation to you. Nearly dead fighting monsters."

"..."

Arken said while ignoring the faces of the two he just mentioned.

"Now that you here, let's all have a spar, you four against me, I can finally have some fun."

As I heard his words I examined myself and then denied the suggestion.

"My apologies master, but I can't spar right now."

It hurts to even keep my eyes open, fighting in this state is impossible.

I'm not one of those badass anime characters that need to not rely on their eyes to fight.

I haven't reached that level yet.

"Oh? what's wrong, have your injuries not healed?"

"No almost all of them have healed except for my eyes, I used a skill I shouldn't have used for too long and so this happened."

I explained to him.

Quite frankly, it's hard keeping them open.

My vision is becoming blurrier by the second.

... I don't think I can keep my eyes open any longer.

"Hmm let me see."

The sword saint said as his body disappeared and he appeared right in front of me.

This had happened too many times to count.

I tried to counter it during our spars, but honestly, I can't keep up with it without [Dragon Eyes] active.

His eyes glowed once again and after a while he said.

"You should go to Vanessa for regular checkups...your eyes have an unusual amount of mana condensed within them.

That probably is the reason your vision is blurry...hmm."

The sword saint explained as he pondered once again and put his hands on his chin.

After a while, he said.

"Well, although it's still too early for you all, getting the basics right won't hurt."

He said.

'Basics?'

I thought confused as to what he meant.

Thankfully, my confusion was lifted soon by his next words but was replaced with surprise.

"It's time to teach you all Mana Sense."

What?

The A rank skill, Mana sense?

The one skill that only a handful of humans possess?

How in the world are we supposed to learn a skill without a skill book?

But before I could question it more, The Sword Saints' words interrupted me.

"Now now you four, get apart 50 meters from each other and sit down in a meditative position."

***

"The main concept behind Mana Sense is spreading your mana to the maximum limit you can into the surroundings, condensing it until it escapes from its ethereal form and becomes physical.

Doing so, the mana, within the area it has been spread out, goes around every 'Object.' outlining its features clearly to you.

Within this area you have set, you see everything.

Your mana becomes your eyes.

The energy within your body penetrates the surroundings and creates its area within the world, albeit small, it allows you to see from all directions within the domain you have set.

Within it, you have a perfect vision of all living things that contain mana, and also nonliving things are illuminated by your mana.

Slowly breathe, and spread your mana to the surroundings as much as you can, then condense the mana until you see everything in a certain area.

From thereon, make the area you spread your mana out to the area in which you can see everything. Focus more on that area, greaten its features, and slowly expand.

Now, it should take you at least a year or two to gain somewhat of an understanding of mana sense, but hey it took even me three years to perfect it.

Now, Any Questions?"

The sword saint finished his words and was greeted by a question from Olivia.

"Question! How is it possible to learn a skill without a skill book?"

The sword saint looked in her direction...sighed and said.

"...kids these days have forgotten everything."

"?"

"Tell me, Olivia, How did the first humans to awaken acquire skills?"

"By defeating monsters and rewards from the system?"

"No."

"Then how? Labyrinth treasures? Dungeon loot?"

"By Repetition."

The Swords saint's words confused Alex, Olivia, and Lucas who were paying attention to them.

Arken, seeing them sighed once more and said.

"When the era of the awakened started, We had nothing, no knowledge, no skills, no mana techniques, absolutely nothing.

You may think that the only way to get skills is by outside means like skill books or rewards from the mysterious system but you couldn't be more wrong.

The masters of the old age practiced and practiced a single movement with either their weapons or body, perfected it, Applied the concept of mana to it, and did it thousands and thousands of times.

From then on, they began to see the errors in what they were doing, so they corrected them.

The first ever human skills were not fancy skills like Heavens Wrath, Divine Judgement, or whatnot.

It was A Simple Slash.

A slash that was honed to perfection so much that it became recognized by the system and became a skill.

It was this slash that was possessed by the master who created it and with it, he became a hero that carved his name in history, a history that you don't read nowadays.

Then, others emerged, Thrust, Pierce, Stab, Punch, Kick, and many more.

Awakened nowadays have it easy, while we had to do it the hard way.

A similar concept is used in the creation and pursuit of Martial Arts.

The Very first martial art was gained in the same way, not as a gift.

The more movements present in the art, the more blood and sweat the creators endured to make them.

Nowadays, you just try the special movements one by one, not bothering to practice the damn thing once.

Of course, with the information printed in you, you easily can perform it, but that is where the problem lies.

Dependence upon the System.

None of you have those movements memorized by yourself.

They are imprinted into your mind from the start.

forget Muscle memory, you don't even have normal memory of it.

And so, to answer your question Olivia, Skills can be learned without skill books or rewards by the system.

They can be learned by Sweating Blood, with effort, will, and sheer determination.

So, now that my monologue is over, how about you all start practicing Mana Sen-?!"

Interrupting the sword saint was a wave of condensed mana that appeared so suddenly from a particular direction that it left him baffled.

He activated his Skill and then was shocked to the core when he found out the cause.

'...im-impossible.'

Alan learned Mana Sense that fast?!