Chapter 103 : Steel

Chapter 103: Steel

I took out all the Dracium and handed them out one by one.

Even after that, twenty-two remained, so I had to store the rest in the Subspace Necklace.

Phew…

Hoo…

Inside the silent shrine, only the breaths of my younger siblings and Burson echoed.

Everyone looked like thoroughly dried firewood.

That meant they were ready. Ready to ignite with the spark called Dracium and be reborn into something new.

Katrina was like thickly chopped oak logs. She would burn hot and long.

Daisy was like a well-dried haystack. The moment a spark touched, whoosh! She would burn fiercely, but I worried she might burn out too quickly.

“Is it finally starting?”

The oak log’s eyes shone with anticipation.

“Let’s do it fast. Quickly. Quickly.”

The haystack couldn’t contain her excitement and shook her legs.

“Daisy.”

“Hm? Why? Hurry. Hurry.”

“Breath in.”

I grabbed the haystack’s shoulders and personally demonstrated.

A deep inhale, then a slow exhale…

“Ah! Do you think I’m a kid?”

Daisy reacted exactly like a child would, shaking her whole body to shake off my hands. But I didn’t let go.

Meeting her eyes, I spoke seriously once more.

“Breath out.”

Perhaps because she sensed the unusual weight in my tone, Daisy flinched, then slowly began adjusting her breathing to match mine.

“Ssshhhp! Haaaah.”

“Hhhhp! Haaaah.”

Katrina’s eyes sparkled as she teased Daisy.

“Getting all jittery like a rookie. That’s because you’ve got no guts. I told you to train your abs, didn’t I?”

Daisy glared at Katrina, but she didn’t dare say anything back. Daisy was afraid of Katrina.

She only leaned over and whispered to Seklan a moment later.

“That Unni thinks bigger muscles are always better. Doesn’t she know about practical compressed muscles?”

At that, Katrina quickly muttered as if to herself.

“Oh? I’ve heard the world has something called practical compressed muscles. Let’s see how tough they really are later.”

Daisy clamped her mouth shut in the end.

With deep breathing and a little chatter, tension and excitement were diluted just enough.

My younger siblings were now ready.

“Hoo…”

I exhaled deeply and gave them one last reminder.

“You all must follow my instructions exactly.”

Of everyone here, I had the most experience with elixirs.

As the prince of the Banroa Kingdom, I had grown up eating only the finest since childhood. Even after coming to Roberland, I had worked hard to find and consume elixirs to climb the realm as quickly as possible.

But even I couldn’t help but feel tense before the Dracium.

Compared to all the elixirs I had taken so far, this was on a completely different level—the supreme elixir.

In terms of value, it rivaled the Elixir itself. The legendary elixir—that was what Dracium was.

This was my first time taking something of this magnitude.

To absorb its effects as much as possible, I had to stay razor-sharp.

It wasn’t enough for me to soar alone; I had to take my younger siblings with me.

As far as possible. As high as possible.

“Alright. Swallow it whole—don’t chew.”

Saying so, I locked eyes with everyone, counted to three, and we all swallowed the Dracium together.

Gulp.

The Dracium slid down my throat softly. Heat spread along the path it traveled, burning through my throat and stomach.

Like drinking strong liquor, a searing breath escaped through my nose, and a dizzying intoxication shook my body.

But there was no time to be drunk. I urged my younger siblings and Burson, who staggered under the drug’s effect.

“Now. First, we stoke the elixir inside the body until it activates. From this moment on, no using Aura! Move your body with everything you’ve got! Run! Follow me!”

I led everyone out of the shrine. Fourteen of us ran across the deserted island together.

Asha, being a magician, soon gasped painfully, her breath faltering.

“Hahhh! Huff! Do I… have to run too?!”

“The first stage is the same for everyone! Raise your body temperature and turn yourself into a furnace! How well your body absorbs it depends on this part!”

“Grrrrraaaahhh—!”

At my words, Asha gritted her teeth and pushed on. It must have been especially hard for her, since magicians rarely trained their bodies, but she clenched her jaw and ran.

“Run! Run! With everything you’ve got!”

As we ran, the fast and the slow naturally began to split apart.

Even without Aura, the body of a Swordmaster could never be the same as that of a Low-grade Expert. It was only natural.

My siblings dashed up and down the valleys of the deserted island.

I sprinted at full speed, weaving back and forth to check on everyone.

“Varen! You can run more than that!”

“Huuhh… Hyung, this drug is making me dizzy as hell.”

“Clench your teeth and push through it!”

“Haaah…”

Varen, talented yet innately lazy, let out a deep sigh.

Yes, this was his true nature. The fiery passion he’d shown when he swore to bring down Zahir had been the exception, not the rule.

But today, I had no intention of cutting him any slack.

“You lazy brat! Lazy!”

I snapped off a branch and whipped Varen’s calves like a riding crop.

“Argh! Uwahhh! Don’t do that! Aaaagh!”

Unable to endure the stinging annoyance, Varen quickened his pace.

Yes. That’s more like it.

This time, everyone had to grit their teeth.

Digesting an elixir was like smelting iron ore into refined steel.

To turn the body into a furnace, one had to drive it beyond its very limits.

When I judged that everyone’s bodies had heated up enough, I stopped the running and made them switch to weight training.

We hauled over the rocks I had marked while scouting the deserted island and began lifting them, squatting up and down.

For Asha, being a magician, I had her train by resisting my Aura with her mana.

The key was to draw out strength past the limit.

Through this process, the inflamed mana began to seep deeper into the body.

“Urgh…!”

“Ghhh…!”

On the quiet island, only groans echoed. Faces flushed bright red as everyone strained against the crushing pressure that threatened to flatten them.

“Khahaha! Light as a feather! Seah, don’t you think so?!”

Katrina’s face, red as if about to burst, turned to Seah.

Seah, her small body clinging desperately to a large boulder, shook her pale head weakly.

“It’s hard… Don’t, don’t talk to me!”

The usually calm, expressionless Seah now wore a desperate look. It was a rare sight indeed.

But I didn’t have the luxury to simply watch.

On one side, I was squeezing out my Aura to press Asha, while on the other, I was lifting a house-sized boulder with raw muscle power, squatting again and again.

“Ten reps complete! Thirty seconds rest, then the next set!”

Thud!

Thud! Thud!

The moment we hit the set count, we all threw our rocks aside at once.

Everyone’s faces were beet-red, steam rising from their heads.

Even in such a state, Katrina didn’t hide her competitive spirit.

“Hhhff… hhhff… Sir Burson, you sound out of breath, don’t you? Hhhff… Looks like it’s really tough on you. But me? Hhhff… I’m fine. At your age, shouldn’t you… hhhff… take it easy?”

“Huff… huff… Haha… Lady Katrina, I’m quite alright. As for you, huff, you should rest easy. I’ll just grow stronger… huff… so I can protect you.”

The two of them—second only to me in skill—were caught up in a fiery contest of wills.

A personality match-up I quite appreciated. It meant I didn’t have to interfere.

Meanwhile, a few others had to be handled like fragile glass.

Like lazy Varen… or Jia, who dreamed of being rich.

“Jia! You’re slowing down! Hold it properly!”

“Ow… Oppa… I’m already doing my best…”

“Your best isn’t enough. You have to go beyond that!”

“No, I mean… this is beyond…”

“You know what you swallowed, right? That elixir is worth far more than countless diamonds of the same size. If you don’t absorb it properly, it’s like losing that many diamonds.”

“Eeeek?! No way! My diamonds!”

Crushed under a rock, Jia staggered, but at those words, she clenched her fists and forced herself back up.

That’s it. Keep pushing.

“Now! We’re moving to the shock endurance stage! Grab your weapons! Clash with everything you’ve got!”

Clang! Kaaang!

The sound of weapons striking with full force rang out from every direction.

“Harder! Swing as if you’re going to smash your opponent to pieces!”

Running, weight training—now even the shock from clashing swords.

It was no different from heating iron, hammering it, and plunging it into cold water.

Just as steel was forged by striking it a thousand times, I was determined to push my siblings endlessly until the elixir was fully melted into them.

“Seklan! You can do more than that! Squeeze it out! No holding back!”

“Ugh…! Yes!”

Kang! Kaaang!

Seklan, who always held back against Daisy without showing it, now unleashed his true strength. Daisy blinked in surprise, then gritted her teeth and swung her sword with renewed desperation.

“Good! Now, back to running!”

“Uwaaaah!”

Even while screaming, everyone forced their bodies to move. And with each moment, the power of Dracium seeped deeper into their flesh.

All through the night, we devoted ourselves to completely digesting the Dracium.

“Huff… huff…”

“Haaah… haaah…”

In the middle of the deserted island, where the temple pillars lay half-buried, we collapsed together and gazed at the brightening sky.

A fierce, proud sense of achievement swelled inside my chest.

‘We did it.’

We had completely melted the Dracium—so perfectly that it could not have gone any better. Not just me, but even my siblings.

Fwooo—

The world looked entirely different.

I could feel each and every strand of mana brushing against my skin.

So this was mana—it filled both the heavens and the earth.

Its flow was so vivid, so sensitive, it was as if I were feeling my own fingertips.

And it wasn’t just an impression. If I looked closely, sometimes mana would twitch! and shift its body in response to my will.

‘I understand now.’

At last, I truly realized why there were countless Swordmasters in this world, yet so few Grandmasters that one could count them on their fingers.

It was because that realm could not be reached by learning—it could only be touched by feeling.

Whether through a miraculous opportunity like Dracium, or through endless training, only when one could sense and wield the circulating mana of the world as clearly as their own fingers could they even attempt to step into that domain.

‘I was already standing at its threshold.’

Only now could I fully grasp my current state. The external mana I had once handled only in the realm of the unconscious—I could now sense it consciously and even exert some influence over it.

I was already walking the path toward becoming a Grandmaster.

‘Grandmaster… At last, the goal is starting to come into sight.’

When I had first thought about having to fight the Empire, everything had felt impossibly far away.

But now, I had already unified Ailun. All that remained was Shamalun. Once I conquered that, Seah’s Three-War Strategy could finally begin.

Of course, we had to prepare for the coming Wave from Norberju first…

But our strength was growing explosively, day by day.

The only thing left was to raise the quality of the army.

And that, too, I was confident in.

At the onset of winter, the wind cooled the heat on my forehead—it felt unbelievably refreshing.

Turning absentmindedly, I spotted Luccrancer sitting there, dazed, staring at the sky.

“How do you feel?”

He grinned.

“A bit bitter.”

“Bitter?”

“Yeah. Just thinking… so the others had been seeing the world like this all along.”

Then he suddenly leapt up and drew his cherished spear.

“I can’t hold back. I need to train right now.”

With sharp whooshes, Luccrancer began thrusting and sweeping his spear in silence.

I really liked that steadfast side of him.

‘The effect is undeniable.’

His spear was already completely different from before. The tip was alive. Each thrust considered far more possibilities, and his whole body and Aura moved in seamless harmony with a sharpened instinct.

This must be the gift of Dracium—its power to elevate one’s talent itself.

Yes. At last, the rough iron ore had been refined, purified, and reborn into starlit steel.

I was watching in satisfaction when Seah and Asha approached.

“Oppa.”

“Hm?”

“We’d been trying to research ancient magic to develop a new weapon.”

“A new weapon?”

“Yeah. But ancient magic was so difficult, we only managed to outline the concept.”

“And now?”

“Just now, while talking with Asha, I realized—we can make it now. I don’t even know why we couldn’t before. The world just… looks different.”

Beside her, Asha added in her characteristic halting speech.

“Not great magic weapon. No. Simple concept. Applied weapon. For soldiers. A bow. Good.”

Better than the Imperial Bow?

Dracium.

Its effect was perfect.

How does a diligent blacksmith know when the steel is complete?

It’s simple.

He can’t not know. Because just like this, it naturally sings with a clear sound.

And so, just when our plans were already sailing smoothly, momentum surged once again.