Chapter 5: Details Determine Success or Failure

“Sugoi! so strong.”

Ron’s eyes brightened when he saw the hole in the ground.

Although its power was far weak from Zoro’s Flying Slash technique, or even the level of CP9’s Rankyaku, but looking at its destructive power, it was at least equivalent to a strong man with hundreds of FaJin power, holding a heavy sword and slashing it mercilessly.

As wind-based magic, the blade’s velocity was considered very fast. It can fly faster than the Profound Sword Qi (T/N: ancient powerful sword technique). It’s very difficult to dodge.

Ron kept staring at the chop mark in the ground, then looked away, he remembered the system prompt sound that just rang in his ear. He evoked the achievement system.

Switching back to the career system interface, Ron found, next to the wind rune, a new line of text.

[Mastered: First-level Magic Wind Blade]

“There should be a second level. But, how could this second level be obtained? Do I need to get enough achievement points in order to extract it?”

Ron kept looking at the panel of the career system, he was lost in thoughts. He felt that this should not be the case, because when he drew the rune previously, the listed elements corresponded to the four major attributes: earth, water, wind, and fire.

Hence, what he extracted should represent the entire wind magic attribute. However, here he was, releasing the first level of this rune in complete meditation, but he still got only first level magic…

What about the second level of magic?

What about the third!?

Just as Ron was mused, he suddenly noticed that there was a small ‘question mark’ on the side of the first-level magic wind blade.

Within a blink of an eye, while Ron was totally focusing on the question mark, the screen in front of him flashed for a moment, and a new window full of text popped up.

[You have mastered the first level of basic magic wind]

[Wind-based magic is one of the common elemental magics, with a total of five levels, of which first-level magic is released by a single rune meditation, second-level magic needs to be formed by a combination of 3 runes, third-level magic is a 9-rune combination, the fourth-level magic needs 27 runes, and finally the fifth-level magic requires a perfect Magic circle formed by 81 runes to be released.]

[In addition to the basic runes, wind runes also have 8 derivative runes, which are slightly different from the basic ones.]

[Derived runes need to be explored by the host]

After reading these lines, Ron nodded slightly as a sign that he gradually understood the magic system.

So, in conclusion, in addition to the basic runes, there were 8 derivative runes. They were only nine in total, including the basic runes.

To master second-level magic, Ron needed to construct 3 specific magic runes at the same time and make a perfect combination.

But the problem was that the system did not provide him any hint, nor did it say whether three identical basic runes could for sure be combined into the second-level magic. In short, there were many types of combinations. He was afraid that only a few could form the desired second-level magic. Other non-fit combinations would just collapse.

“Derived runes …”

Ron pondered for a while, then let go of his obsession with the second-level magic and the derivative runes.

There was no reason for it. He didn’t even fully master the most basic one, the wind blade technique. If he released it once, nearly one-third of his spiritual power would be drained, let alone second-level magic or even third-level magic.

At that moment, he didn’t have the energy to study or consider the use of the derived runes, nor the second-level magic. First of all, he needed to master the current wind blade skill, and then use the achievement points, also his meditation practice to continuously improve his spiritual attributes. That was the right order to do it!

The power of his wind blade was not tremendous, but wasn’t that weak either.

Aside from the fish-man Arlong, the highest bounty in the East Blue, for the time being, if ordinary pirates of three to five million berries bounties were hit without defending themselves, Ron was sure that he would split them into two halves! On the spot!

Even if they were prepared and tried to resist, they won’t be able to stop the blade, because of its tremendous speed, in addition to its destructive power. It could leave such a hole on the ground, so which ordinary person could defend against such a power move!?

Of course, none.

In its current state, his wind blade disadvantage was also so obvious; It was the required time to release is, it was too long.

Ron could release his wind blade technique after nearly ten seconds, needed to build a complete rune in his spiritual world, also not to mention he had to close his eyes during this process, otherwise, anything around could affect his spiritual concentration.

So, the most urgent thing for Ron now was to really master the wind blade. It was essential that he could unleash it without closing his eyes and meditating. He needed to directly condense and release the blade in one or two seconds.

Ron had to devote his time to the purpose of mastering this move.

This time, he managed to not release it to the ground, it was directed into the air, to avoid been seen or suspected by the fish-men. Ron, finally, got a grasp of the way to use his power.

Once…

Twice…

Three times…

Every three releases, Ron’s spiritual power gets exhausted, and then meditation was needed to restore his mental power to be able to draw the runes and release his magic again.

As the process went on and on, Ron discovered that not only the time needed for condensing runes become shorter, but the amount of drained spiritual power also became less.

It wasn’t that his spiritual attributes have improved, but thanks to his consecutive training, he became faster at meditating the runes. His skills neared perfection, resulting in a higher and more efficient transformation of spiritual power.

At first, one-third of the mental power could release a wind blade. In fact, most of the drained mental power was spent on rough Rune construction

And with the increasing number of attempts and practice, Ron also gradually discovered that the construction order of the lines of the rune would also affect the released magical power and the loss of spiritual power.

“Details determine success or failure?’’

Ron had such a thought in his mind.

But also,

Magic was different from swordsmanship and physical strength. It uses spirit and knowledge. Naturally, it was necessary to pay attention to the smallest details, rather than being violent and aggressive like simply fighting using armament Haki as a full-body armor.

The morning passed quickly, during which Nami came out twice. The first time, she took some white paper to her room, probably went to draw her charts. The second time, she went into the kitchen to cook, also prepared a meal for Ron.

Of course, there were a thousand Berries fees for lunch! (HAHA!)

But after finishing his meal, Ron was very decisive that he would make the next meal.

It wasn’t because of the huge extortion of one thousand Berries, but Nami’s cooking wasn’t that great, he could classify it only as “eatable”. He himself knew that his craft wasn’t as good as the top chef Yamaguchi, but at least his ordinary dishes were still very good.

He couldn’t let the nutrition problem become a drag on Nami’s development (T/N: Oppai-wise HAHA!), not to mention that he also needed good nutrition to practice.