Chapter 353 - Matheus’s Adventure 2

Matheus continued his training until he was nearly drained of all his mana. He was still in the Intermediate Mana Vapor Stage but had mana levels in the Initial Mana Sea Stage. The only problem was that he used up way too much mana during his training sessions.

He needed to learn how to control his mana and use it more efficiently as Cecil had always explained to him. He did ask once before that if he had mana levels at the Mana Sea Stage, then couldn't he be considered being at the Mana Sea Stage?

Cecil naturally shot him down and explained that the difference between Mana Sea and Mana Vapor was the quality of mana, not the quantity. Even if someone had the quantity of mana needed for the next mana stage, it wouldn't make them stronger than the one with a smaller amount of mana but was at a higher stage of mana cultivation.

Of course, there were always exceptions to this concept, one of them namely being Cecil himself, but most of the time this was the case that separated the power levels between these two stages. Naturally, if an individual had a mana quantity that was much larger than their current mana stage, it would be a very big advantage for them during the moments when they had to break through to the next stage.

After having understood that, Matheus found that he was quite lucky to have mana levels much higher than his current mana stage. At least this way, he wouldn't experience any bottlenecks until much later on.

Matheus was informed by his little brother that after spending more time with the family, Cecil had noticed that his family members who had gone through the bare minimum amount of training that all of the main branch family members had to go through would only have total mana levels around the initial to advanced Mana Sea Stage and their cultivation stages would start only at the Early Intermediate Level or the Late Intermediate Level of the Mana Vapor Stage.

Naturally, compared to his youngest brother who started with a Mana level at the Core stages, the rest of the Silvaria family didn't have so much of an advantage. The only other people who could compare with his little brother were his father and grandfather, who frankly, had much higher mana levels than what Cecil himself had initially started with.

Even now, those two old geezers were advancing leaps and bounds through their cultivation stages and were already at the Intermediate Mana Sea Stage and it only had been a month, almost 2, after his little brother had given the family their exclusive mana cultivation manual.

His eldest sister, Fatima, was already the one with the highest mana cultivation stage since she had been learning about mana earlier on in the Regulus Kingdom so after cultivating the family's official cultivation method, she had been progressing rather smoothly in her cultivation, at least, much more smoothly than Matheus himself.

He and as well as nobody had any idea how Gabriel was doing while Angelia was still young and currently had the most promise out of all of the family members since she started at the prime age of when one's cultivation would easily advance.

His brother, Luca, had no notion of even trying. Matheus himself wasn't all that talented in cultivation, but he was also not slow at it. He was basically above average but had the advantage of having Cecil being his brother so after receiving some tips and secrets to better cultivate his mana, Matheus had been doing much better off than his 2 uncle's and aunt's families.

For now, he was trying out the Energy level of Weapon Intent only to try and grasp the feel for it and it was also helping him out with his cultivation. Matheus did lament on the fact that for some reason, he couldn't learn Mana Burst, which was the most important skill in the arsenal of techniques written in his family's cultivation manual, at least, according to his brother.

No one in his family had been able to successfully cultivate Mana Burst whether it was from his immediate family or his uncle's and aunt's families. Even after reading through the very, very detailed manual of the technique, no one apart from his brother, Cecil, the original creator, had been able to cultivate it.

His brother had even gone so far as to give tips and guidance on how to use it, but no one in the family had been able to cultivate the technique for some reason. After monitoring everyone in the family for a while, his brother had discovered one thing that set him apart from everyone else, and that was the ability to lose his mind when his mana fell into very low levels.

When Matheus heard this, he immediately told Cecil that it wasn't some ability...it was more like a curse instead. His brother was naturally relieved to know that his family didn't experience what he did when he used up too much mana.

Cecil couldn't understand the difference in their constitutions, but it was all good since he had indeed forgotten to explain to them about this certain detrimental side-effect. After all, he had cured himself of this curse after gaining Ki and Ether so he no longer had to worry about it and he had long tossed away the thought to the back of his mind.

Also, no one in the family knew about this except for Matheus. His little brother had only told him because, during one of Cecil's rare breaks, he had agreed to train Matheus and had remembered about it all of a sudden.

Matheus shared his thoughts with his little brother at the time and said that maybe it was because of this condition, where no one in the family would go mad no matter how low their mana levels became, that they couldn't use the Mana Burst technique.

It was a little bit far-fetched but Cecil didn't disagree with him and wanted to further investigate as to why this was so. Matheus agreed not to reveal this information until his little brother came up with a conclusion since obviously, he didn't want their family to worry about their youngest brother and son turning into a mindless monster.

They had already witnessed him turning into a murderous and bloodthirsty monster when he lost control of his mind due to his weapons, which was once again something that only Matheus knows since he pried into it a little deeper during their previous discussions.

If this trait happened to appear in a few of his family members, then it would be a big deal. This naturally needed a little more investigation since currently, Cecil was the only case. No one else in the family experienced being slowly driven to madness due to them having too little mana in their bodies.

Of course, the substitute for Mana Burst was Elizabeth's creation, the Aura Manifestation technique, which was something that Cecil had originally given to each his uncle's and aunt's family. Now, it was something that even his immediate family members had to use. Their father, Kaiser, was especially fond of this technique since he was a martial artist who only used his body to fight.

******

It was a bit unfortunate for Matheus, but the rain didn't let up even after the day had passed by. It was already early in the morning the next day and it was still raining. The mood was gloomy and the downcast forecast made it even more depressing.

Matheus didn't mind it however since he was able to continue cultivating. He decided to focus more on his cultivation stage and would try to quickly raise it until he at least reached the bare minimum requirement needed to cultivate Ascending Blade.

Of course, this didn't mean he would stop trying to cultivate the Energy Stage of Weapon Intent, but he would focus his training more on his cultivation stage. He also needed to further train in their family's weapon arts and martial arts.

After all, the second stage of Weapon Intent required comprehension to attain. The name of the second stage was 'One with the Weapon', and it required the cultivator to achieve a state of mind where their weapon was no longer a weapon but instead an extension of their body.

The third stage was 'One with the World' and the last stage was called 'Soul Projection' or simply the state where the cultivator had attained their Weapon Intent.

The road for cultivation for him was long and Matheus was feeling a bit more motivated to walk this path because he was now going to become the king of his nation. Naturally, the king had to be a figure that the people could look up to, whether it was in times of peace or in times of need and crisis.

If he was weak, then his people wouldn't have much confidence in him. However, if he was strong, just like his father and his little brother, then he would be an inspiration to the people. The king or queen represented many things about a kingdom. If they were strong, then it would mean that the kingdom was strong. If they were weak, then it would mean that the kingdom was weak as well.

Since he was going to take up the responsibility, Matheus knew that he had to rise above his current self. This first step was to make sure he didn't regret anything after he took up the position. That was why he was journeying back to his kingdom by himself at the moment.

Of course, things didn't go as well as he planned. It was already his second day out on the road and he was trapped in the rain inside a tree trunk. He could only lament at the fact that reality was much worse than his expectations.

After having breakfast, Matheus continued cultivating until he heard a scream accompanied by a cacophony of monster roars coming from somewhere close to his location.

He immediately stopped cultivating, began loading his luggage back onto his horse, put on his armor, and readied his weapon. Matheus made sure that his horse was calm and wouldn't run away. He didn't tie his packhorse to anything just in case things went south and the monsters that were roaring out in the distance happened upon this place.

At least before that happened, his horse would be able to run away, and hopefully, he'd be able to find it somewhere down the road.

"You stay here. I'll go check things out. If any monsters come nearby, run and hide. I'll come to find you later, alright?"

His horse only neighed back at him. It was obvious that it didn't understand a word that he was saying but maybe what Matheus intended for the horse to do had gotten through to it.

"Alright, adventure, adventure... let's go hunt some monsters. I'm pretty sure I heard a woman's scream earlier, right? Hmhm~ let's go save the damsel in distress!"