Leaving Ritchie, Diana stormed to the captain's office. "You stuck me with a great job," she grumbled.
The cold captain, Carrie, set down her pen. "How am I supposed to train him? Late-awakened knights are weak, especially now. A transfer to the front could come any day. He'd die out there."
"There's a way," Carrie said. Though aloof, she wouldn't let her team die needlessly. "Our squad's strong in attack, weak in defense. Only Marilyn excels at guarding. I've wanted a heavy-shield bearer."
"A heavy shield?" Diana frowned.
"Strength and endurance matter for shield-bearers, not speed or skill. He'd be useful fast and survive better on the battlefield."
Carrie hesitated, then revealed the real reason. "Heavy-shield bearers are usually burly men. With that kid's frame, no matter how he develops, he'll never meet the standard. As a shield-bearer, he'd be useless. In wartime, a useless soldier lives longer—no speed means no scouting or assault team cannon fodder."
Diana fell silent. Carrie was right. On the battlefield, you survived by being an ace or a useless liability. Those in the middle were the first to die.
Harsh, but true.
While they decided Ritchie's fate, he was in the equipment room, chatting with Randy, the logistics officer.
"Why did my master only introduce people by their first names?" Ritchie asked, puzzled.
"It's custom," Randy said, repairing a armor of armor. "The knight world is small. Surnames reveal family ties, which can pressure leaders. So we use first names or nicknames."
Ritchie watched enviously. He knew he wouldn't wear armor anytime soon, as only full knights did.
He'd seen armored knights before but never a stripped-down armor.
It was surprisingly complex.
"What are these?" he asked, pointing to bundles of rope-like material inside the armor.
"Magic tendons," Randy said, pulling one out. It resembled a tight, fine-wire spring.
Suddenly, it stretched to three times its length.
"They're the armor's muscles. Knight armor isn't just protection, it mimics the human body, with muscle structures and a powerful heart."
Randy opened the armor's chest plate, revealing a lid-sized, multicolored core. Its intricate cables dazzled Ritchie.
"What's it do?" he asked.
"Powers the armor and enhances attack techniques," Randy said, snapping the plate shut and resuming repairs.
"Aren't those techniques the knight's own skills?" Ritchie asked.
Randy sighed. These were basics knights learned as kids. Teaching this bored her, but she answered. "Armor's an amplifier. It boosts strength and speed tenfold, but skills benefit most. Take a basic shockwave. It might crack a one-inch stone slab normally, but with armor, it can punch through a foot of steel."
Ritchie touched the armor, eyes full of longing, but his expression darkened. He hadn't forgotten the words he'd overheard while unconscious.
"What's an incomplete knight?" he asked, having wanted to ask Diana but lacking the chance.
Randy paused, realizing he'd likely overheard the term applied to himself. "Incomplete knights," she said honestly, "are those whose awakening was disrupted, often by accident, leading to partial or lost abilities."
Seeing Ritchie's gloom, she added, "It's not all bad. What's lost often comes with gains. Incomplete knights can excel in specific areas."
Ritchie gave a bitter smile. "Like how a blind person can't see but has sharper hearing and touch."
The analogy was spot-on, but Randy, not wanting to dwell, focused on the armor.
The air reeked of mold, cobwebs draped the walls, and dust on the floor was so thick each step left a footprint.
Ritchie could hardly believe this place held what he sought.
He was here because days ago, his mentor Diana had unlocked his inner vision and planted a fighting aura seed in him.
Knights weren't just defined by superhuman physiques but by their fighting aura.
A knight could lose limbs, but good prosthetics were easy to get, barely hindering combat. But lose their aura, and they were finished. The worst punishment wasn't death but shattering a knight's aura.
With the seed, Ritchie had a shot at becoming a true knight, despite fears his incomplete awakening would prevent it.
Yet a seed wasn't enough. He needed a technique to channel the aura.
This was no joke. A technique's quality determined a knight's strength, often outweighing natural talent.
The army offered basic techniques, but no one chose them if they had options. Safe and easy to learn with plenty of guidance, they lacked potential.
No one in Ritchie's regiment used these public techniques.
"Everyone here has a powerful background," Randy had said casually, revealing the truth.
For days, Ritchie begged for a technique, but to no avail. Family techniques were fiercely guarded, and the women knew no others to share.
Just as hope faded, Rosa, the prankster, claimed a place held countless techniques.
Ritchie doubted her. She'd tricked him before; once into a bathroom where Captain Carrie and Diana were, with predictable results.
Still, after much hesitation, he followed her. For a brighter future, he'd chase any chance.
This wasn't Glasloval but Sawa, Lavol Province's capital. The nine-hour cart ride brought him to the knight regiment's headquarters.
Rosa had snuck him into the locked library storage room. Ritchie never imagined her knack for picking locks. She opened the double-locked doors with ease.
"Stay here," she said. "These are centuries of collected techniques. Pick one, copy it. I'll be back by four to take you back."
Rosa left quickly, as if eager to escape.
As she slipped out, a sly grin crossed her face. She'd tricked him again.
She wiped the door's sign, changing "Restricted Area, No Entry" to "All Materials Unverified."
Ritchie didn't know every provincial headquarters had such a room.
Initially, knights stored stray techniques here. Most were incomplete, useful only as references. Over time, some added whimsical or nonsensical ones. Pranksters like Rosa tossed in absurd techniques, and the room became a joke. Treasures might hide within, but mixed with poison, only the reckless would dig.
That's why the door had so many locks. Many higher-ups even wanted the room destroyed.
Ritchie, unaware of the room's true nature, felt like a beggar in a treasure vault, overjoyed.
He grabbed a few booklets, each detailing techniques. One stood out, boasting skills like dimensional slicing and teleportation. His eyes widened, imagining mastering them.
But the booklet's preface noted it demanded exceptional talent. Disappointed but undeterred, Ritchie moved on. There were plenty more.
He skimmed through books, initially thorough, then rushing, setting aside intriguing ones and shelving the rest.
Hours passed, and he grew numb. Casually opening another booklet, his eyes lit up, heart racing. He glanced around nervously, though he knew he was alone.
The first page showed a man and woman entwined, her legs wrapped around his waist as she sat on him.
At eighteen, Ritchie wasn't naive. Sex was a thrilling topic for boys his age. At night, he'd fantasize about pretty classmates moaning beneath him.
His breathing grew heavy, arousal stirring as he freed himself, stroking while flipping through the pages, careful not to soil the booklet.
The technique was depraved, evil, and perverse, centered on bringing a woman to climax to steal her life energy.
A lazy, wicked method, but Ritchie loved it.
Even better, it claimed, "This technique is easy to learn, progresses rapidly, and grows stronger through quantity, with no bottlenecks."
Ritchie read it repeatedly, flushed and feverish, itching to test it.
He'd chosen it. Any man would.
But it lacked combat applications, only mentioning enhanced perception and endurance after practice.
From his time in the squad, Ritchie knew knights prioritized aura strength, then burst power, speed, and reaction. Strength came next, then perception and resilience. Endurance was least useful as armor's energy dictated battle duration.
This technique might be useless, but so was he.
He couldn't flaunt it in his all-female squad. The consequences would be dire.
Ritchie had brought a blank notebook to copy techniques. He tore out pages and meticulously transcribed the method, including its intricate illustrations.
Finished, he folded the pages palm-sized and tucked them into his chest band.
Returning with a blank notebook would raise suspicion, so he searched for another technique that was better than standard ones but easy to learn.
His memory served him well. He recalled one suited for heavy-shield bearers, which he'd noticed earlier.
He quickly found a technique perfect for his assigned role.
The heavy-shield technique was crafted by an honest author, bluntly listing its flaws. Summed up in one word: "slow." It progressed sluggishly, and once mastered, it dulled agility, making the user clumsy.
The author, initially baffled, sought to fix these flaws. He succeeded, adding two aura applications at the end.
The first, Deflect Strike, was a defensive skill, not to block but to redirect an enemy's attack, creating an opening for a counter.
The second, Slide Step, involved low, gliding footwork, like skating on ice.
Ritchie grasped both concepts quickly, but execution was tough. Deflect Strike required catching an enemy's attack in a split-second, which was near impossible in a knight's lightning-fast combat. Slide Step was simple on flat ground but tricky in varied terrain like mountains or swamps.
...