Chapter 10: Treasures In The Mud
The problem is that the technical level is the worst. Swordsmanship is at E-, and archery is at F+.
At this level, it's probably only enough to deal with a passing bandit gang.
This means it is a very difficult situation. It was urgent to raise the technical level.
However, it wasn't easy to get there just by training haphazardly.
It's the same reason why, even if you give a child a wooden sword and tell them to swing it 10,000 times every day, they will never become a master swordsman.
'It's the method that counts.'
How to build a tower: Only a tower built solidly from the bottom up can grow higher and higher without collapsing.
Conversely, if the foundation is weak, not only will you be unable to build the tower high, but it may also even collapse midway through.
That means it must be built solidly from the ground up.
To use an analogy, Max's current swordsmanship and archery are like a tower with a messy foundation. In this state, the growth rate will slow down, and even if it increases to a certain extent, it will inevitably reach a limit.
I can say this for sure.
Why?
Because when it comes to the experience of ruining a protagonist's growth, I am second to none.
'It took a really long time to find the answer.'
At first, of course, I only looked for advanced swordsmanship. It was a very natural decision, as the formula for role-playing games up until now has been "advanced swordsmanship = strong power."
Until the early part, I thought that judgment was correct because I was able to pull out enough power to play the game without any problems.
But soon, I ran into a problem.
A message window suddenly pops up as if giving a warning while you're having fun playing a game.
[Your swordsmanship growth has now reached its limit.]
[The growth rate of swordsmanship proficiency is greatly reduced.]
"Fuck, what is this all of a sudden?"
A curse came out of my mouth in a loud voice.
Skill level must increase gradually before it can lead to a rise in rank. But growth is drastically reduced? Not a little, not average, but drastically? It's ridiculous.
I just ignored it and continued playing the game, but...
"... I'm done..."
The skill level was increasing smoothly.
But after that message popped up, it didn't go up enough to get an answer.
No matter how much training I did, no matter how much experience I gained on the battlefield, I grew very slowly, like a crawling snail.
Of course, the swordsmanship level did not move at all. Growth has virtually stopped.
Naturally, the game was a disaster.
"Oh my, where did I pick that fucking swordsmanship?"
I blamed the swordsmanship, and based on my previous gaming experience with other swordsmanship, I thought I had chosen a trap card that seemed plausible on the outside.
But the same message appeared again, and growth stopped.
"Crazy, is this another trap card?"
Another swordsmanship. Growth stopped again.
Another swordsmanship. Growth stopped again.
-Wow, I'm going crazy. What kind of trap cards did this game use to lay a minefield?
How many times have I failed like that? I realized that I had to go back to the root cause. It was an instinctive feeling that I'd missed something important.
From then on, I tried various things to figure it out somehow.
That's when I failed dozens of times more. I finally figured it out. What the problem was.
That's why I know it well now—how to increase my threshold and grow steadily and quickly. And that's exactly the path I was planning to take.
"Stop here."
The carriage stopped at my words.
The holy city of Leferia, where the Academy of Saint Leferia is located, was a large city.
Except for the imperial capital of the Hyass Empire or the royal capital of the Parene Kingdom, there were no cities that could be said to be significantly larger than the Holy City.
In such a city, like in other cities, light and dark coexisted.
A high-class area with clean, well-organized streets centered around the Academy, located in the center of the city, and lined with fancy high-rise buildings and large-scale houses.
This is where the upper class with high social status, such as nobles, priests, knights, magicians, professors, and merchants, live.
And a mid-level area where the middle class lives together.
Although it wasn't as flashy as the upper-class areas, the streets were still clean, and the buildings were neat.
People's faces were also full of life. But that was only up to the intermediate level.
The lower-class areas, located on the outskirts of the city, were so poor that it was hard to believe they were even part of the same city.
A narrow road that was broken and dented here and there due to poor management.
Old, shabby buildings crammed together so tightly on that narrow street that it was suffocating.
The streets were dirty with trash and filth, and the unpleasant stench they created stung my nostrils. People's faces were filled with sorrow and annoyance.
But that's not the end of the low-level regions.
A slum in a back alley, even in a lower-class area. It was a place where beggars and orphans lived, begging from day to day.
This is the appearance that Saint Leferia holds. The place I was going to was one of the lower-class places among them.
That's why I stopped the carriage—because it was a narrow road that a carriage couldn't enter.
"Hmm."
As I got out of the carriage and looked around, Dolph asked with a puzzled look on his face.
"Oh, Your Majesty. Is this the right place?"
Surely, he didn't think that I, a child of a prestigious family, would visit such a low-class place.
But people need to know that there are treasures even in the mud.
"Of course. You wait here."
I stepped into the lower level.