Recommendation Qualification (Part 2)

This is Fran's current status panel.

[Name: Fran

Class: Rune Warrior (Half-Star), Alchemist

Attributes: Physique 2.5, Spirit 2.3

Skills: Swift Wind Breathing Technique (Proficient) (Proficiency: 25/10000)

Pharmacology (Proficient) (Proficiency: 8621/10000)

Runology (Mastered) (Proficiency: 543/1000)

Star Gazing Art (Novice) (Proficiency: 76/100)

Wind Blade Art (Mastered) (Proficiency: 281/1000): Condense wind blades in your hands and release them to strike the enemy.

Sky Strike (Mastered) (Proficiency: 431/1000): Can only be performed in mid-air; deliver a heavy strike to the opponent from above.

Traits: Moving with the Wind, Skilled Alchemist

Mental Power (You can condense mental power into runes. After using them in battle, your mental power can be converted into strength at a ratio of 1:0.3, rounded down.)]

The current time is the end of the school year, and less than a week remains until the assessment following this swordsmanship class.

Over the past three months, Fran has pushed her status panel to an incredibly luxurious level; she feels she has practiced everything she possibly could.

First is the breathing technique. After long-term sparring sessions with Bella, her breathing technique finally reached the Proficient level, after which she stopped practicing with Bella.

Because Bella could no longer quite keep up with her; now that her strength is on par with Bella's while being more agile, Bella hasn't won a single match since she started using the breathing technique.

Her attributes have seen a massive boost due to the upgrade of her breathing technique and the acquisition of the Rune Warrior class. The stacking of melee skills has caused her Physique to surpass her Spirit for the first time.

Beyond that, she discovered a money-burning path in her practice of runology. She found that if she stops drawing a rune on a weapon exactly at the one-quarter mark, she still gains 1 point of proficiency.

Furthermore, because the space isn't fully utilized, she can draw on a single weapon three times, meaning one weapon can yield three points of proficiency.

At the same time, this method is much faster than carving a complete set of runes on a weapon, taking only half the time.

Since completing a full rune usually only rewards 2-4 points of proficiency, intentionally ruining the weapons is much faster than honestly carving runes.

The only problem is that the magic craftsmen seem unable to adapt to this high-volume output; even after pushing aside their other work, the delivery deadlines are being delayed again and again.

This has led to her orders piling up to over a thousand, and the price of White Mountain Copper has remained sky-high due to her massive procurement.

The Rune Warrior class also brought a trait called [Mental Power]. It's safe to say it's excellent; she has tested it, and the bonus can be toggled on and off at will, though spells cannot be used while the bonus is active.

She is already prepared, all for the sake of taking down Richter, a person she hasn't even met yet, in an instant.

Returning to the perspective of the spar with John, after the match began, Fran didn't use her breathing technique and instead lunged forward with a sword strike.

John had frowned when he saw Fran didn't immediately activate her breathing technique; it wasn't a good choice.

Did Fran think the strength he intended to display would change based on her current state? No, he had been gauging his performance based on his opponent's peak state from the very beginning.

Fran would suffer a heavy loss on the first exchange, so John thought for a moment and decided to slightly reduce his force.

However, the force transmitted after the wooden swords collided took John by surprise. He hurriedly increased his strength, and only after parrying the attack did he heave a sigh of relief.

How did Fran manage to get such a strong Physique? He felt this force was higher than Bella's when she wasn't using her breathing technique, though still a notch lower than when she was.

If Fran possessed this level of Physique in her normal state, combined with her already excellent agility, John had a thought that shocked even himself.

Fran could go and take the high-level apprentice assessment right now, and would likely even secure a fairly decent ranking.

He believed that Fran should only have reached this level of strength after one or two years of joining the Sword Chant School; it was simply illogical.

An apprentice who originally couldn't even perform the simplest of slashes had transformed into a formidable 'high-level apprentice' in just a few short months.

After another exchange of attacks, Fran realized John's force was increasing, and if she didn't activate her breathing technique, there would be no way to continue.

Fran instantly gathered wind around her and launched a storm-like barrage of attacks.

A bead of sweat appeared on John's forehead. Just as he had expected, after activating her breathing technique, her strength was a notch higher than Bella's.

He now deeply regretted not replacing the wooden sword in his hand sooner. During his previous fight with Bella, this sword had already been bent, and in the current battle, John could even hear the sound of it about to snap.

This wooden sword was never designed for this level of combat; he could feel Fran's wooden sword bending as well, but his was likely to be the first to give out.

John was forced to activate his breathing technique, his force and speed increasing significantly compared to before, shifting the momentum from Fran's slight advantage to his own.

For a split second, Fran wanted to activate [Mental Power]. She felt that if she did, she would certainly secure victory in the current situation.

But she ultimately dismissed the thought. She could still pass off her current Physique growth as the result of the Body Tempering Method, but a sudden jump in Physique during a fight would inevitably raise suspicions about some secret technique.

Besides, it wasn't necessary to use it. After slightly dodging an attack, Fran wiped her hand across her sword. The movement was extremely fast; she estimated that even if Bella saw it now, she wouldn't be able to react in time.

John saw the motion, but he didn't think it could accomplish anything and paid it no mind.

He had to go all out. Although he knew Fran's strength was somewhat off the charts, he would be laughed to death by his friends if he were truly defeated.

But the next attack exceeded John's expectations. The two wooden swords collided, but the sound of this impact was much quieter.

Because John's wooden sword had snapped, the majority of the blade absorbed the kinetic energy and flew off; the sword in his hand was now shorter than a dagger.

Bad. The thought jumped into John's mind. He wanted to block the next attack as quickly as possible and then retreat to create some distance.

But it was too late. Fran was more agile than he had imagined; even though he managed to block the strike, the blade still grazed his body from the side.

John lowered the now-ruined wooden sword, gave a wry smile, sighed deeply, and said:

"Fran, I look forward to the day you become a formal mage."

After this exchange, he realized that Fran would definitely pass the trial within three years and become a formal mage of the Sword Chant School.