Tap, tap, tap~
The hooves clacked crisply against the hard ground as the pitch-black horse pulled the equally black carriage towards the city.
Behind it stretched the boundless sea; through the gaps between the enormous ships docked at the pier, at the distant junction between blues, a sliver of orange-red light was sinking. Beside it, light wisps of clouds still floated above the sea surface, engaging in their final silent burn.
Night was about to fall.
Clack, clack, clack~
The sound of mechanical gears colliding came from the pier as the gray-black gangplank folded back like a bird retracting its wings.
Inside the carriage, Colin sighed imperceptibly.
He didn't mind the embarrassment of having to slink out of the shop due to lack of money; after all, being broke wasn't shameful, and the shop assistants had been polite from start to finish.
But the knowledge to advance to an Official Wizard was right before his eyes, yet as remote as the horizon... It was indeed frustrating.
"It's not urgent; after all, I am not even an Advanced Wizard Apprentice yet," he tried to console himself.
Soon after returning to his home on Palm Street and having dinner, Colin began his usual practice.
He went down to the basement and started with the Sunlight Breathing Technique.
His Knight Level had reached [Great Knight (99/100)], only a little bit away from breaking through to Ultimate Knight!
Maintaining a steady breathing rhythm, he meticulously performed the movements of the Sunlight Breathing Technique, which now in its second iteration of Limit Breaking was drastically different from its original form.
The muscles that usually didn't show off were now rippling under the stimulation of the Breathing Skill, pulsating like knotted tree roots!
Before long, beads of sweat emerged from his upper body—first on his forehead, then the tip of his nose, the nape of his neck, his back... His black cotton shirt was soon soaked through.
Time passed, he didn't know how long, or how many repetitions he had done.
At one moment, Colin suddenly felt a certain "blockage" burst open!
It wasn't as grandiose as when he broke through to Great Knight—this body transformation was completed in an instant, in a feeling akin to an electric shock!
As if the scene paused, his movements abruptly stopped.
Under the force of inertia, a glistening droplet of sweat from his nose was flung forward into the air.
The world seemed to slow down, he felt his breathing decelerate.
And that droplet of sweat moved sluggishly through the air like a snail, its trajectory visible.
Colin instinctively reached to catch the sparkling droplet, and as soon as he thought it, his body responded without delay!
Whoosh!
He actually caught the droplet in his hand, leaving a moist trace on his palm!
Colin's face showed a mixture of shock.
Under normal circumstances, even as a Great Knight, he shouldn't have been able to catch that droplet. It was related not only to his speed but also to his reaction time!
The droplet would fall in a parabola under gravity. For less than two meters, it would take only a fraction of a second—a few hundred milliseconds—to hit the ground.
A normal untrained person's reaction time usually ranged between two hundred to three hundred milliseconds; some exceptionally talented individuals, after training, could improve that to one hundred to two hundred milliseconds.
But that was about it!
Being a Great Knight, his reaction time was also within the range of hundred to two hundred milliseconds, a limitation of the human body.
A complete motion process starts from sensory inputs like sight, sound, and touch transmitting stimuli to the brain, which then sends signals through the nervous system to muscles, causing them to react.
This time is commonly acknowledged as reaction time!
It involves stimuli being transmitted to the brain and then the brain sending signals to muscles, the two major parts.
However, these signals depend on the nervous system, and the speed of the reactions is typically determined by how fast these signals are transmitted by the nervous system!
And the nervous system... is hard to alter after birth.
This means that by the time a normal person reacts, the droplet has already fallen a significant distance, making it difficult to catch.
Although he knew that with the Sunlight Breathing Technique and its second limit-breaking under the influence of the Golden Paper, the Knight System had veered into an unheard realm,
and that advancing into this realm would greatly enhance his reaction time,
he hadn't expected the effect to be so immediate!
"Perhaps with the help of the Golden Paper, I could move a few more steps further at the end of the knight's path..."
Colin mused inwardly, moving forward, adjusting to his body that felt newly revitalized.
…
After a while, the moon hung in the branches.
Having adjusted to his new level after the breakthrough, Colin left the basement and returned to the master bedroom.
He quickly took a shower, skipping the bath this time, and then hurried to the Meditation Room.
It was already late, but he hadn't yet done his daily meditation!
Plus, that morning during Demi's Transformation Technique, he had unexpectedly discovered that complex practices could improve the speed of progress.
But so far, he had only tested witchcraft and Transformation Technique; he hadn't tested whether the Meditation Method also worked this way, making him eager to start meditating!
He entered the Meditation Room, lit the calming incense, sat cross-legged, and easily slipped into a state of meditation.
This time, however, instead of following the standard path of meditation, he extravagantly took a more roundabout route.