Descent of a God

Bandits

Arthur POV:

What the f* just happened? Adam was completely overwhelmed by my brother. 

Is he also reincarnated? I always knew he was extremely talented. He was able to understand and follow me when I start meditating and formed a mana core at the same time as me even though I had the knowledge of ki. I always wanted to see how well he fought, and well now I did.

Even though I have some doubts about him also having been reincarnated, there is still a small possibility of him just being an absolute prodigy of the sword. I have never seen such fine swordsmanship even in my past life. The sword was vicious and fast, like a gale. The others seem to understand that his sword is purely from talent and don't ask him to teach them.

The same can't be said for me. Surprisingly, it was the quiet Jasmine who first asked me. Jasmine asked, "That was quite a.... unique technique. How did you do that?"

I answered, "It's a simple technique really. Since I was feinting to Mr Krensh's right side, I placed my right foot forward as the last step before the feint. There I instantly focused my mana into the right foot, pushing myself back, and at the same time I bring my left leg behind right, aimed at an angle towards where I wanted to go, focusing mana into my left foot this time, but with more power than when I used mana on my right so that I don't propel myself backwards instead of the direction I want to actually go to."

I looked around to see Adam, Helen, and even dad head towards the clearing, trying to test out what I just explained. When I turned back to face Jasmine, I only saw her back as she rushed towards the clearing as well. And so our journey continued.

Jude POV:

Dad and the other three augmenters seemed really interested in learning about Arthur's feint step. They probably are interested in my sword technique as well, however, didn't ask me after I lied about it being derived from my talent.

A few days later, we reached the foot of the Grand Mountains. During the journey there, Helen was the first one to go ask Arthur for further clarification. He explained it pretty well. My suspicion about him being reincarnated just continued to grow. 

To be honest, I do not know how strong or smart a genius child would be. My talent only awoke when I was almost an adult in my previous life, same with Cordelia. I thought his power was an anomaly, but I did not have enough information to justify the fact that he reincarnated. Perhaps there are other genius kids close to him in strength?

To further my strength, I will need to rely on my previous life's martial arts more than on this world. From what I understand, even the peak of mages, the white core is not truly that powerful. I would surpass the white core mage level if I opened the sixth door. A white core mage would struggle against a mere swordmaster, so I wouldn't count on mana as being the basis of my strength.

Jasmine was the first one to master the feint step. The other three learned it by the time we reached the Grand Mountains. They were all proud to learn such a simple, basic technique. 

My dad asked me, "Jude, you should ask your brother how to do it if you want to learn it too" I just shrugged my shoulders, got up and executed it flawlessly. The others face when they saw me execute it was priceless. Cheonmujiche is just great.

Arthur POV:

My brother just instantly executed the feint step. It's a basic move but to do it like that without practising... Honestly, why am I even surprised at this point?

Fortunately, our journey up the mountain was rather uneventful. I spent a lot of my time reading my book on mana manipulation, trying to find more discrepancies between mana and ki. So far, it seemed pretty similar except that, in rare cases, an augmenter's mana usage could take on the property of elements. Reading on, I noticed that for beginners who were able to dabble in this, it wasn't as distinct as what you might see when conjurers cast spells, but more like the quality of each distinct element.