"Damn! Could this kid be an orc in human skin?"

"I think it's possible..."

"Exactly! How could a human have such monstrous strength?"

The three battle priests kept exchanging their opinions about me.

"My goodness... This guy really is worthy of being chosen by the gods. He just lifted a five-hundred-pound stone so easily..."

The big battle priest muttered to himself, but I happened to hear him.

Chapter 10: The Power of Basic Battle Aura

"Gentlemen, now it's your turn to put on a show."

After saying this, I heavily set the stone block I was holding onto the ground, kicking up quite a bit of dust.

"Well... uh, this..."

The burly battle priest stammered, "We can definitely lift this stone. But battle isn't just about brute strength—technique is important too. Mark, show him some of our skills."

Another melee-type battle priest, trying to save face, deliberately walked up to the big stone. A layer of white light quickly covered his whole body, and gradually, all the white light gathered at his right fist.

This time, the white light was no longer just for show. I could feel that this layer of white light was almost tangible.

"Ha!"

Mark shouted, and his right fist slammed hard into the big stone. A fist mark, five millimeters deep, appeared on the stone.

"See that!? This is the power of battle aura! Only by learning battle aura can you unleash all your strength. Otherwise, if you hit the stone with your strength alone, you'd just end up with shattered bones."

Mark put his right hand behind his back, pointed at the hole he made in the stone with his left hand, and spoke to me with the air of a professor.

"Amazing, amazing! But... Priest Ma..."

I applauded and praised, but spoke hesitantly.

Hearing the compliment, Mark immediately puffed up and raised his voice:

"Hey, man, don't beat around the bush! Just say whatever you want!"

"It's really nothing major, it's just that there seems to be quite a bit of blood on the ground behind you, maybe you should..."

I said with a very sincere look.

"An accident, just an accident. I'll go find Priest Dete. You guys carry on."

Mark looked at his bleeding right hand, blushed, and ran toward the priest research institute. As he ran, he turned back and shouted to me:

"It really was an accident, battle aura really..."

Yeah, yeah! Battle aura really could be used to advertise strength pills. You'd better go get treated. Watching Mark leave injured, I really started to doubt what kind of world this was.

"Well... we can only teach you the basics of cultivating battle aura. As for what type you want to learn in the future, you'll have to go to the library and find it yourself."

The big priest said as he took out a few books from his robe. One was titled "Introduction to Battle Aura." Nice! These days, the basics are key! And the best part is, this book is only about thirty pages thick. That means I can finish it in a few days, hehe. The other two books were titled "Introduction to Swordsmanship" and "Introduction to Blade Techniques."

After handing me the books, the big guy pulled the other two priests along and jogged away. From a distance, I heard him shout:

"Kid, train hard! We'll come check your progress in forty days."

Frustrating! So frustrating! First, the priest abandoned me because of my lousy magical talent, and now the battle priests, after losing face in front of me, irresponsibly dumped me again.

After pulling myself together, I started to seriously read the "Introduction to Battle Aura." After all, I might always be an idiot when it comes to priestly magic, so I might as well learn some close-combat skills. After all, I used to be a well-known street brawler.

After reading "Introduction to Battle Aura" for a while, I finally understood what battle aura really was. Battle aura! As the name suggests, it's the aura emitted during battle. Normally, you can cultivate battle aura through your body's meridians, but if you only practice, you'll never develop true battle aura. True battle aura must be forged through constant fighting, absorbing all kinds of killing intent from the battlefield and various spiritual energies from nature, merging them into an aura—that's what real battle aura is. Of course, there are many levels of battle aura. From lowest to highest, they are: white, red, orange, green, cyan, blue, purple, yellow. And battle aura isn't something you can just learn casually. Most people never get the chance. Even if you do, you can usually only learn red battle aura. The techniques for higher-level battle aura are only taught to nobles or high-ranking battle priests, who have their own secret cultivation methods.

After reading twenty-nine pages about battle aura, I finally got to page thirty—the last page of "Introduction to Battle Aura." There was a diagram showing the body's meridians and the cultivation method. As for the other two books, they just introduced the appearance of various swords and blades, and only on the last page did they mention how to use them. "Introduction to Swordsmanship" said: Sword! It's for stabbing! Stabbing brings out the sword's greatest power! "Introduction to Blade Techniques" said: Blade! Best for chopping, cleaving, and slicing. Damn! That's all there is, and each book is priced at one blue gold coin. Looks like running a publishing house really is a good way to make money.