I woke on the cold floor, my body still humming with the residual ache of mana exhaustion. A stark reminder of yesterday's recklessness. After a breakfast of determination more than flavor, I threw myself into four hours of Imperial Swordsmanship drills. The movements were becoming a part of me, a physical mantra to ground my spinning thoughts.
Kendo would have to wait. The mysteries and dangers of my magical experiments demanded my full focus.
First, I needed to assess the damage—and the discovery. I called up my Status.
[Status]
[Rank: F-]
[Mana: F]
...(Other attributes unchanged)...
[Arts: Imperial Swordsmanship Technique (D) - Proficiency: (F)]
[Skills: ...Enhance Physical and Body Enhancement (F)...]
Two things immediately seized my attention.
First, the Arts section now showed Proficiency. My Imperial Swordsmanship was a D-rank art, but my mastery of it was only at F-rank. This was a useful metric—it showed the gap between knowing a technique and truly owning it.
Second, and more shocking, was my skill list. Body Enhancement (G) and Physical Enhancement (G) were gone. In their place was a single, new entry: Enhance Physical and Body Enhancement (F).
They had fused.
The violent mana drain, the backlash… it hadn't just been an overload. It had been a synthesis. My reckless experiment had forced the two complementary skills to merge into something greater, jumping a full rank in the process.
No wonder I'd collapsed. I'd accidentally performed magical alchemy on my own soul.
A new, urgent question arose: Could I still use the components separately? I focused, willing only the internal reinforcement. My body solidified subtly—Physical Enhancement was still there, now stronger. I canceled it and tried for the external shell. A shimmering field of energy wrapped around me—Body Enhancement, also enhanced.
I could use them independently, and each felt more potent than their original G-rank versions. The mana cost, however, felt the same as before the fusion. The efficiency gain was locked in.
This was incredible. But what exactly did the new skill do?
I focused my [Appraisal] on it—a privilege few in the world had. The average person would need to pay for an expensive one-time Information Scroll or hire a member of the Appraiser class, a licensed and costly profession.
[Enhance Physical and Body Enhancement (F) - A synthesized skill born from the fusion of Physical Enhancement (G) and Body Enhancement (G). An advanced enhancement magic that reinforces the target's physical structure both internally and externally.
Effect: Increases overall physical strength and durability by 20%.]
My breath hitched. 20%.
I understood the scale. Standard enhancement skills were Growth-Type and widely available, but they started weak. The common progression was:
· G-rank: +5%
· F-rank: +10%
· D-rank: +25%
· C-rank: +50%
· B-rank: +100% (Double)
· A-rank: +150%
· S-rank: +200%
My new F-rank skill was performing at nearly D-rank potency. I was getting double the effect for my rank. This was the power of synthesis, of not just learning but innovating.
This also explained the Adventurer economy flashing in my mind. These common enhancement skill books started at 5 gold coins for G-rank—a sum that could support a common family for five years. Adventurers could afford it because their work, while deadly, was lucrative. A single F-rank monster core fetched 5-10 silver. Hunt ten monsters, earn a gold coin. Sell rare herbs from dungeons, valuable monster parts… it added up.
It was a high-risk, high-reward life that the Empire actively encouraged. It cleared monster threats, fueled the economy, and even served as a recruitment pool for the army and nobility. Reach S-rank? You could be granted a Viscount title. Solve a major crisis at a lower rank? You could earn a Barony, like my so-called father.
This was the ladder I needed to climb. Not as a noble's son, but as an Adventurer. It was the perfect cover to explore dungeons, find resources, and seize the "lost opportunities" I knew about from the novel.
But first, I needed to be strong enough to survive an E-rank dungeon, let alone an F-rank one.
My immediate goal crystallized. I had a supercharged strength skill. Now I needed mobility.
I turned my attention to Speed Enhancement (G). It was pitifully weak compared to my new fused skill. But the principle was the same. Could I understand it, break it down, and then… rebuild it better?
The path was clear: train, experiment, synthesize. Turn the common tools of this world into something uniquely, devastatingly mine.
The grind continued.