Dynamic Vision

Chapter Nine: Dynamic Vision

At the age of twenty, his sixth year after crossing over to Galintea, Lorist ran into a problem.

In truth, Lorist had been doing quite well these past few years. At the Mercenary Guild, he had become a veteran Black Iron-ranked mercenary, no longer a lowest-tier Bronze mercenary who only ran errands for others to earn enough to survive.

At Dawnlight Academy, Lorist was a famous top student. After earning certification in both Magical Beast Lore and potion-making last year, he enrolled in three more disciplines: Ruin Studies, archaeology, and linguistics. Only after spending a long time in the Mercenary Guild did he realize that those records of magical civilization were not baseless legends, but things that had truly existed.

Last year, Lorist and his companions had visited a small excavated and surveyed ruin, said to have been a mage's tower. The towering structure described in books had long since turned to ash and vanished without a trace. Yet the three underground levels that had been discovered and excavated were still breathtaking. The walls, built from enormous refined steelstone blocks, were smooth as mirrors. Even thousands of years had failed to leave mottled traces of time upon their surfaces. The crisscrossing lines on the floors and walls formed intricate three-dimensional patterns—the so-called markings of magic arrays. The stone slabs carved with neat, strange symbols were magic-array foundation stones inscribed with Ancient Elvish Script.

Afterward, every one of his companions dreamed of discovering a ruin and gaining both fame and fortune, but everyone knew how difficult that was. Most ruins within the range of human activity had already been excavated. Only by venturing deep into barren lands, remote forests, and mountain ranges rarely visited by people might they find something. But with their current strength, going to such places meant either feeding themselves to magical beasts or seeking death. There was no real difference, so they could only daydream.

Lorist, however, became full of curiosity and longing for the legendary magical civilization. Hadn't he, too, dreamed of becoming a mage after reading a book called "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in his previous life? Unfortunately, he had crossed over to Galintea far too late. If he had arrived several thousand years earlier, in that age of magical civilization, perhaps he could have become a great mage as well.

Dawnlight Academy's Ruin Studies, archaeology, and linguistics programs ranked among the finest of the many academies in Molent City. Lorist decided to enroll next semester. His certifications in Magical Beast Lore and potion-making were nearly complete this year anyway, and he had been considering what to study next.

Ruin Studies involved researching the engineering structures and intended purposes of ruins left behind by the age of magical civilization, as well as how to excavate them more effectively and explore an entire ruin while causing as little damage as possible. Archaeology was about identifying and preserving the tools and objects passed down within ruins. To put it plainly, it was determining what an item was used for and whether it was valuable. Linguistics was the most difficult. During the age of magical civilization, languages mastered by mages, such as Ancient Elvish, Dragon Language, and Goblin Language, were all imbued with magic. This made it impossible for people without magical talent to learn such magical languages. Even if they occasionally learned a few words, they only grasped the meaning; the pronunciation was merely similar.

Languages imbued with magic could not be passed down into the age without magic. Yet mages from the age of magical civilization had loved using such languages and scripts to inscribe records onto stone slabs. Modern linguistics could only rely on slabs found in discovered and excavated ruins, deciphering the strange symbols and characters one by one. The greatest achievement of linguistics so far was distinguishing Ancient Elvish Script from Goblin Script. As for what Dragon Language script looked like, that remained an unsolved mystery.

Ruin Studies, archaeology, and linguistics were interconnected. In Lorist's view, those three disciplines amounted to only one thing. In the words of his previous life, two words: tomb raiding. They were all roughly the same kind of work. The only difference was that on Galintea, it was perfectly legal. Discover a ruin, explore it, sweep away the items within, then return and announce the site, auction the loot, and gain both fame and fortune. After that, hordes of scholars and archaeological experts would descend upon it to investigate what the ruin had originally been, and so on.

Lorist believed that once he earned certification in those three disciplines and graduated, his future life would be wonderful whether he became a scholarly researcher or an adventurer who loved roaming everywhere. What he did not know was that his enrollment in three more disciplines had made him famous throughout the academy. Graduating with certification in seven fields of knowledge might not be unprecedented at Dawnlight Academy, but it would certainly be unmatched afterward.

For Lorist, studying those subjects was not troublesome. The problem was that his Battle Qi had already reached the peak of Black Iron Three-Star and was just short of a breakthrough. But without the manuals for the Silver Rank and Gold rank stages of Blazing Flame Battle Qi, he could not continue cultivating.

This situation was not uncommon on Galintea. Some noble families deliberately split their inherited Battle Qi, swordsmanship, and other supreme arts into separate stages when sending their children away to study, so as not to leak the family's secrets. They would only provide the next stage of cultivation methods after the child reached a certain level. But Lorist was different. He had been out of contact with his family for nearly three years. The powerful Krissen Empire in the north was engulfed in a fierce and inconclusive war as three princes fought for the throne, with flames of war everywhere. Under such circumstances, there was simply no way to contact his family in the north. The war there would likely continue for several more years. Could he really wait stupidly until the fighting ended before finding a way to contact his family and obtain the next cultivation manual?

Even if he could wait, his body could not be delayed any longer. Sigh, how should he put it? This was both his good fortune and the driving force that compelled him to keep cultivating.

A few months after crossing over, while practicing swordsmanship, Lorist had accidentally discovered that this body possessed a special innate talent: Dynamic Vision. Put simply, it was the ability to clearly track an object's movement even when it moved at high speed.

Lorist was no stranger to Dynamic Vision. During the seven years he had served in the military in his previous life, he had encountered an incredible man. During an exercise, Lorist led a squad against a special forces soldier who had infiltrated their base. He had thought capturing the man would be easy, but his entire squad was utterly defeated in the firefight. In the end, he had no choice but to rush in with a sensor grenade and take them both down together. Smoke rose from the sensors on their bodies, indicating that they were all dead. They sat against the wall and began smoking. Lorist offered the other man a cigarette, then curiously asked how he had evaded concentrated assault-rifle fire and whether Lorist could learn those movements for dodging bullets.

After taking a drag, the incredible man straightforwardly told him that he could not learn it, because he had been born with Dynamic Vision. No matter how fast a movement seemed in other people's eyes, it appeared slow to him. That was why he could always evade gunfire first and remain invincible in a firefight. He simply had not expected someone to charge in with a sensor grenade and fight desperately. Caught off guard, he had trapped himself in a corner with nowhere to dodge and was hit.

Lorist had drooled with envy at the man's special Dynamic Vision ability. The man said there was nothing to envy. Dynamic Vision could be trained; pilots, for example, had to possess it. The training process was just incredibly nauseating. Besides, there were many methods for training Dynamic Vision online these days. Lorist could look them up whenever he had time and see for himself what they felt like.

The man sighed and said that innate Dynamic Vision like his placed a tremendous burden on the body. It was unlike the Dynamic Vision gained through training. Though it could not compare to the innate kind, it was more than enough for ordinary people.

At the time, Lorist did not understand what the man was sighing about. Later, when he had time, he searched online and indeed found many methods for training Dynamic Vision. He tried one: sitting in a Spinning Chair and rotating rapidly while a comrade stood three meters away holding up cards with large characters written on them. While spinning, he had to remember what characters were on the cards. In less than ten minutes, he collapsed. He felt nauseated, wanted to vomit, and was too dizzy to stand. He could not even eat, and until the next day, his whole body still felt groggy. He even staggered crookedly when he walked.

Apparently, this method of training Dynamic Vision only worked if one persisted with it, continuing until one could remain expressionless and calm as still water. After succeeding, one could even clearly see the faces of passengers behind the windows of a speeding train.

But after trying that training method, Lorist and his comrades all wanted nothing more to do with it. It was too nauseating to endure. Besides, none of them thought being able to see passengers' faces on a train was particularly impressive. In the end, the training was abandoned.

Now, Lorist understood what that incredible man's sigh had meant.

When Lorist discovered that the body he had crossed into possessed innate Dynamic Vision, he had been overjoyed. For example, if a fly was in flight, Lorist could focus his gaze and instantly count how many times its wings had beaten. In sword duels, whether his opponent used some Lightning Sword Technique or called himself a swift-sword master, all their movements became painfully slow under Lorist's focused concentration. He could easily respond and break down their techniques.

However, using Dynamic Vision consumed a great deal of mental strength. At first, he could not maintain focused concentration for long. As he used it more often, Lorist found that his mental strength had also greatly increased. By now, it was no problem to observe things with Dynamic Vision for however long he wished while concentrating. Even when he did not activate Dynamic Vision, his mental strength remained highly sensitive to activity around him. He had received clear proof of this during his adventures as a mercenary and while hunting low-level magical beasts.

But that was not the main problem. The key issue was that his physical fitness and reaction speed could no longer keep pace with the growth of his mental strength. When Lorist first discovered his Dynamic Vision ability, his Battle Qi had only been Bronze One-Star. As he cultivated his Battle Qi, his physical fitness and mobility had been able to keep up with the reactions he displayed while using Dynamic Vision. That was why he had been unstoppable in sword duels at Dawnlight Academy, invincible among those of the same rank, and why the academy had hired him as an apprentice swordsmanship instructor last year.

But now that his Battle Qi was stuck at the peak of Black Iron Three-Star, Lorist discovered that his mental strength continued growing whenever he used Dynamic Vision. If this continued, his body would become a burden. His movements would not be able to keep up with his reaction speed.

Because Lorist had performed well last year and satisfied the academy, it planned to formally hire him as a swordsmanship instructor this year. However, this decision displeased many Silver Rank instructors at the academy. They constantly mocked him and even encouraged Silver Rank students to challenge him. When Lorist faced a challenge from a Silver Rank instructor some time ago, he discovered that something was wrong with his body.

At first, that Silver Rank instructor had encouraged students whose Battle Qi had reached the Silver Rank to challenge Lorist under the pretext of receiving swordsmanship guidance. After those students were defeated one after another beneath Lorist's sword, the instructor flew into a rage and personally entered the match. The moment the bout began, Lorist felt pressure. This Silver Rank instructor was clearly not one of those people who merely talked theory on paper. He had extensive combat experience. In battle, his swordsmanship discarded flashy but impractical tricks. It was direct, concise, and swift, every strike aimed at vital points. Some moves even sacrificed injury for injury.

Under Lorist's focused concentration, every move from his opponent was broken apart. To the spectators, Lorist appeared calm and unhurried, with plenty of room to adapt. But inwardly, Lorist was crying out in alarm. Several times, he clearly caught weaknesses in his opponent's techniques, yet his body failed to react in time, causing him to miss perfect chances for a decisive strike. Several other times, he could clearly see the path of his opponent's sword, but his reactions could not keep up and he nearly failed to dodge in time. That time, Lorist only narrowly won after a bitter struggle.