Ch.16016. Side Quest – The Mana Cultivation Method of the Lion King

After Professor Alexander’s unconventional lecture, Gilbert devoted himself entirely to academy life. It was still premature to reveal his gaming knowledge.

Tactical Combat was a console game. As such, it had a main storyline that formed the backbone of the game, while everything else was merely supplementary content for enjoyment.

These included sub-quests between main story segments, mini-games, and the academy life itself, which borrowed directly from raising simulation game systems to extend playtime and provide additional entertainment features.

In that sense, academy classes were often skipped with just a simple “attended class” message if they weren’t connected to the main or sub-stories.

However, even though Gilbert could use the game system, that didn’t mean this wasn’t reality. He felt pain when injured and fatigue when overexerting himself—he was simply living in reality with the awakened special ability of a game system.

To put it plainly, this meant he couldn’t conveniently skip lectures or set aside separate time to accept sub-quests. In the game, days and nights would change and time would appear to flow, but time didn’t actually progress unless he was advancing the main story or a sub-quest.

This meant that even if gameplay time exceeded a week, in-game time wouldn’t necessarily advance a week. Therefore, there was no time pressure, and it was possible to accept and play through all the sub-quests and main quests he wanted.

But now that it had become reality rather than a game, completing all those sub-quests was impossible. He was a cadet at the academy, and as such, had a schedule to follow.

He couldn’t neglect training in preparation for main quests that could trigger at any moment, so his life was proceeding like a hamster on a wheel, following a tight schedule.

‘Phew. Has my mana level increased a bit?’

Gilbert exhaled deeply in his private room at the mana training facility and slowly began to stretch his stiff body. Having attended proper mana lectures and mastered the correct training methods, he was now using basic mana cultivation techniques to increase his mana stat.

Though it was only days ago that he’d been frustrated about not being able to freely progress through sub-stories, it was encouraging to learn that he could increase his mana stat by properly attending lectures.

In truth, if he had no talent for mana cultivation, the situation would have been different, but since his physical abilities were top-tier compared to anyone else on the continent, the concern about lacking talent proved to be unfounded.

Honestly, he did breathe a sigh of relief. If piloting ability was needed to control a Titan like one’s own body, then mana served as the bridge connecting the two.

The basic mechanism of a Titan involved forming a contract with an artificial spirit using mana, with the spirit acting as the brain to make the Titan move according to the knight’s will.

In other words, if piloting ability was like motor skills, mana ability was like sensory nerves. And the mana battery functioned like the motor nervous system.

If mana ability was insufficient, the artificial spirit acting as AI couldn’t properly control the Titan system, and no matter how excellent one’s piloting skills were, they might stumble and fall before even taking proper steps.

Typically, a Titan’s operational limits were indicated in two ways: the first referred to the Titan’s own mana battery, and the second to the knight’s mana core, which had to supply mana to the artificial spirit. It was like having functioning hardware but non-operational software.

To prevent such situations, one had to somehow increase their mana level, which was why knights were so passionate about mana cultivation. Of course, focusing solely on mana cultivation was the quickest path to becoming what people called a “useless build,” but that didn’t apply to Gilbert.

As Gilbert calmly sensed his dormant mana core, he realized he needed to execute a plan he had postponed since enrollment.

It wasn’t that the Hart family’s mana cultivation technique was poor. Even measured by game standards, it was an A-rank technique, a family secret that shouldn’t be leaked outside.

But in his mind lay the method to obtain the world’s greatest mana cultivation technique.

In all his gameplay, he had never failed to acquire this mana technique, except when attempting the dog-awful achievement of clearing the game with just the basic mana cultivation method.

If he could obtain this most efficient technique, no one would match him when it came to Titans. Strictly speaking, there was the protagonist Ian, but since Gilbert had no intention of touching the Titan that Ian would acquire, the scales would likely balance out.

Though he’d said he would help build up the protagonist’s party, he needed means to protect his own life. One of those means was the mana cultivation technique. He had no intention of monopolizing everything, but he also wasn’t planning to give everything to the protagonist.

The reason was simple.

If he had multiple cards to play, he should use them all rather than going all-in—that didn’t suit his temperament. Besides, he didn’t believe Ian was an unshakeable blue-chip stock. The protagonist’s invincible myth was possible because it was a game, and because Gilbert himself was the player.

And this place was not a virtual reality game.

It was a cold world where one misstep could mean death.

In other words, it was reality.

***

Long ago, there lived a legendary knight.

Before Titans appeared in the world, he was the continent’s sharpest sword, racing across the land with just a single blade.

With one stroke of his sword, he split the earth and divided rivers.

Wherever he stood was adorned with victory, and glory as brilliant as his golden hair accompanied him.

He was a knight, but also a king and a great ruler.

Rising to unify the chaotic continent, he was both sword and shield to chastise the land.

Historians did not hesitate to call him the Knight King or the Conqueror King.

A sun that seemed would never set.

The Golden Knight King.

But even he, who was thought to always shine, walked downhill, betrayed by the vassals he trusted without doubt.

Hanging on the edge of a cliff due to his trusted vassals’ treachery, he remained the Knight King until his final moment, and after his last resistance, the sun set.

Later history described him as “百折不撓” (baekjeolbulyo)—broken a hundred times but never bending.

He was a hero and like a lion.

They called him the Lion King, Terodamas.

***

After reading through the biography of the Lion King at Demeia Academy, Gilbert closed the book.

Countless heroes had shone brightly throughout the continent’s long history. Though Gilbert, not particularly interested in such worldbuilding, didn’t know much, if he had to name one figure he knew, it would be the Lion King Terodamas.

He was a great hero-king who reportedly took a third of the rebel army as companions to the afterlife even in his final stand, and in the end, unhesitatingly offered his neck to a general who had once taken an arrow for him on the battlefield.

A king who, like a lion, never yielded and lived a magnificent life.

That was the Lion King Terodamas.

The reason Gilbert knew this story, despite not being a history buff, was because it was deeply related to the sub-quest he was about to undertake. Terodamas was worthy of being called the Lion King, but there was another title that followed—the Knight among Knights, the Continent’s Greatest Sword.

His swordsmanship, said to split land and rivers with a single stroke, was described as having reached the principles of heaven, and historians wrote that the mana cultivation technique he perfected could contain the world. Though now it was said to be just remaining documentation out of respect for the great Lion King, Gilbert had no objection to the truth of these claims.

In fact, while playing Tactical Combat, one could obtain the Lion King’s legacy through sub-quests, with the Lion King’s swordsmanship, mana cultivation technique, and sword being prime examples.

The sub-quest Gilbert was about to undertake concerned one of these legacies—the Lion King’s mana cultivation technique, Lionheart.

In the world of Tactical Combat, Lionheart was considered the most outstanding mana cultivation technique. Known in the community as the “Lion King’s Mana Core,” this technique was unrivaled in stability, mana compression ability, and speed.

It lived up to its title as the most excellent cultivation technique in history, and once obtained, it synergized with the protagonist’s character skills, helping them stand tall as the greatest knight.

Gilbert had come to the library to find the biography of the Lion King with the intention of undertaking this sub-quest that offered such an incredible reward.

Given that it consisted of linked quests, it would surely be troublesome, and unlike in the game, he wasn’t certain that activating the trigger would allow proper progression, but he absolutely had to obtain Lionheart.

Although his mana ability had turned out better than expected, it was still below average for the academy. While he didn’t memorize the mana stats of every character, he knew the figures for the major S-rank characters.

Currently, the highest stat among Demeia Academy cadets belonged to the Imperial Knight Seraphima Rector Infractus, and at this point in time, her stat would surely be 50, equivalent to a 5th-rank knight.

Considering that his stat was 35 after a month of intense training, he still hadn’t even reached the level of a 6th-rank knight, the lowest rank.

His ability to demonstrate near-artistic piloting skills in the entrance mock battle was the product of his abnormally high piloting ability and the experience naturally accumulated while becoming a “rotten water.” Even if someone else achieved the theoretical limit of 100 in piloting ability, it might still be impossible.

Gilbert borrowed the Lion King’s biography and went to find the history professor who would provide the clue to the sub-quest.