Bloodhound’s Regression Instinct

Chapter 22

Following the instructors, they arrived at the place after climbing the stairs.

In front of them was a gate made of purple sandalwood.

The trainees only gasped, unable to utter any admiration or appreciation.

The calligraphy is engraved on the plaque above.

Royal Arsenal#

As soon as they saw the four characters, they stiffened as if they had been struck by lightning on their heads.

Yan also felt the same impression.

Large, vast, and noble calligraphy.

As soon as he saw it, he felt a tremendous pressure pushing him down, and a majestic atmosphere that made him want to bow down.

In a word, awe.

‘How high did he reach that even after a thousand years, he could show such authority with just letters?’

That plaque was said to be made by the founder himself.

‘No wonder he was called the first gold coin…’

The founder, Bahamut Cabalan.

He was the hero and emperor who built the empire with his bare hands a thousand years ago.

How strong was he?

He cut down a thousand soldiers with one sword.

He sent ten thousand dead to hell with this sword.

He carved a new sky with three swords.

All mankind bowed down and praised and worshipped him under his feet.#

This seemingly absurd poem was said to best express the founder’s power at the time.

‘Cutting down a thousand soldiers with one sword sounds plausible.’

But the rest would have been godlike…

Yan shook off his thoughts as the chief instructor came forward.

“From now on, you will enter the Royal Arsenal. If you go beyond the floor that is allowed to you, or if you don’t come out after ten o’clock…”

The chief instructor smiled and put his palm on his neck.

“You’ll die. Got it?”

The trainees swallowed their saliva at the sight.

Creak-
“Don’t worry, even if you’re focused, I’ll ring the bell every ten minutes from thirty minutes before.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the chief instructor clapped his hands, and the instructors next to the gate opened the gate wide.

And soon, the sight inside.

“Wow…”

“Are those all books?”

“This is the Royal Arsenal I’ve only heard of…!”

Exclamations burst out among the trainees.

The view of the Royal Arsenal from the outside was like another world.

Hundreds of large red bookshelves.

And on those shelves were thousands of well-preserved books.

From heart techniques, martial arts, swordsmanship, and spear techniques, to martial theories, there were too many books to count.

And between them, the large and noble calligraphy that hung on the nameplates explained what kind of place this was.

Royal Arsenal, 1st floor.#

It was a report of martial theories and skills collected from all over the continent.

‘Maybe I should take a look.’

The absolute vision that made the founder the first gold coin, the Breath of the Divine Dragon.

He was looking forward to finding the rest of the pieces.

Yan’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

* * *

The Royal Arsenal was said to be built by the first emperor himself in his later years.

But no one knew why he built the arsenal in such a place, not in the imperial palace.

‘If I were the emperor, I might have some idea.’

But Yan had no clue.

He passed through the gate and looked around the inside of the arsenal with his tongue out.

There was a central staircase that led to the upper floors, and on each floor, there were instructors waiting to check the grades and open the doors.

The red bookshelves on the first floor filled the entire arsenal, and each one was packed with various skills and martial theories.

‘I don’t see anything useful at a glance.’

The well-known skills and visions seemed to be only available on the higher floors.

Yan tapped the wood on the wall and muttered.

“I could live a life of luxury if I could just take one of these.”

The wall looked shabby and worthless, as if it would break with a tap.

But the material of the wall, black ironwood, was actually worth as much as the same weight of gold.

In other words, this place was made of a huge amount of gold.

What a waste of money.

Yan thought so as he leaned against the wall and quickly looked around the skills.

Then he moved his steps to a skill with an eye-catching title.

“Wrath of the Thunder God”

It sounded like a skill that a knight who had influenced an era would use.

Swoosh, swoosh.#

‘This is just a loud name.’

But when he read it, it was nothing but a low-grade skill that couldn’t even produce sparks.

‘…Huh?’

Then Yan was surprised belatedly.

It took much less time to read a book, and his comprehension also improved.

‘Is it one of the effects of the potion I ate in the Lich’s Lair?’

Yan smiled with satisfaction that he didn’t know.

The income from Blade Mountain, which he thought was over, was not over yet.

‘Maybe there’s more I haven’t discovered yet.’

Of course, Yan was not satisfied with this opportunity.

He vowed to sweep away all the opportunities he knew.

‘To find the piece of the Breath of the Divine Dragon hidden on the first floor of the Royal Arsenal… I have to search through all the books that seem useless.’

Yan didn’t know how the emperor found the Breath of the Divine Dragon, so he had to find it by suffering.

Anyway.

‘There are about 20,000 skills and martial theories on the first floor.’

It was the number he had investigated when he was a special commander in his previous life. There might be some difference, but not much.

‘Even if it takes only ten minutes to read one book, it takes more than two months for ten thousand books…’

Even if he finds it by luck in two months, it would be useless if Yan didn’t notice the content.

All he knew was that there was a piece of vision on the first floor.

He sighed involuntarily.

“I have to try anyway. What can I do.”

Yan took out the book next to the Wrath of the Thunder God, “You Can Do It Too! 30 Days of Invincible Attribute!”

It was then.

Whoosh.#

Suddenly, the structures and contents of the Wrath of the Thunder God that he had just read came to his mind vividly.

The Wrath of the Thunder God always makes itself light.#

That was not all.

The structures gathered together like living creatures, and began to form a human shape and perform certain actions.

As if Yan himself was performing the actions that appeared in the Wrath of the Thunder God!

He saw the letter-made figure punch vigorously.

But the punch was so weak that sparks popped out of the end.

‘…?’

Yan came to his senses after a while.

He looked down at his own hand in the real world.

‘Did I overwork myself too much?’

He wondered if he had seen something wrong and quickly opened the book he was holding.

It was also full of nonsense.

Things like sticking your hand into hot sand heated by fire, or hitting your body with an iron hammer, are ridiculous training methods.

‘Someone who wanted to die wrote this crap.’

By the time he turned the last page and closed the book completely.

The figure who had finished the training of sticking his hand into the boiling sand pot was now swinging his hand towards the wood.

‘…!’

His hand failed to penetrate the wooden pillar and swelled up.

Yan laughed bitterly after returning to reality.

He realized that what he had seen was not a ghost.

“This is ridiculous.”

He seemed to have calculated unconsciously that this was useless no matter how much he learned.

It seemed to tell him if he could understand and embody it by just reading the book.

‘It’s not over with reading fast, is it?’

The answer was nothing else.

The opportunity in the Lair.

It opened the upper field.

The upper field was the place where the soul descended.

This meant that the soul, mana, and body were unified. In other words, he gained superpower.

That’s why Yan thought that all the amazing phenomena he had experienced were the effects of opening the upper field.

‘It was made for a thousand years. It wasn’t nonsense.’

Of course, the upper field wouldn’t have opened completely.

If it did, he would have already completed the ‘self-domain’ that could manifest the mind outside.

But still.

One thing was certain.

‘Valdes, who had taken the same potion in his previous life, was not like this.’

Valdes was definitely good at understanding various skills and martial theories. But he never said that he could keep them in perfect form like this.

‘I’ll look into this later.’

Yan focused on reading the remaining books, wanting to experiment more with his new ability.

“Great Tiger Sword Technique”, “Snake’s Venom Fang”, “Basic Imperial Swordsmanship”…

His reading speed also increased.

At first, it took 10 minutes, then 8 minutes, 5 minutes…

Most of them were just grandiose names, but some of them were quite useful.

They all piled up in Yan’s head without missing a single one.

The countless martial theories and skills were constantly broken down, established, and assembled in Yan’s head.

Time also passed quickly.

3 hours.

5 hours…

.
.
The sunlight coming down through the stairs turned red.

The sun was setting.

A long time had passed, but.

Yan was still focused on reading without resting.

Then he was left with only the last bookshelf.

“Wow! But where is it really? My eyes are going to pop out.”

But even after coming this far, he still couldn’t see a trace of the Breath of the Divine Dragon.

Yan looked around.

By now, there was no one else on the first floor except Yan. The other kids had already gone out, maybe because they had lost their concentration.

‘Where is it?’

All Yan knew was that the emperor had obtained the piece left by the founder here.

All he could do was read the rest as well.

Time kept flowing endlessly.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

Soon the bell rang, announcing the closure.

Then Lorena, Casa, and Cruel came down the central staircase one by one from the upper floor.

‘…He was still here?’

Cruel flinched when he saw Yan and quickly went out.

‘There are a lot of books.’

Lorena glanced at Yan, but she turned her head sharply as if she had no interest in the skills piled up next to him.

But Casa seemed to be interested in Yan.

“Wow! You’ve read all this already? I guess the first place is different no matter what.”

He smiled and approached with his usual sociable attitude.

And he started to talk nonsense.

Lorena was too arrogant and ignored him too much.

Cruel had a bad personality and it was better to avoid him.

He kept talking without stopping, but.

Yan didn’t react at all to Casa and only moved his fingers and eyes to focus on the book he was reading.

No, he didn’t seem to hear Casa’s voice at all.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

Another bell rang.

There were only 20 minutes left.

Casa sat down next to Yan. Then he tilted his head and asked.

“Are you really reading all of this?”

To him, it looked like Yan was barely skimming.

Of course, Yan didn’t answer properly this time either.

The only sounds in the arsenal were the bookshelves turning quickly and Casa’s voice talking to himself.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

When the last bell rang.

“Wow, you’re amazing. I didn’t expect to leave first.”

Casa dusted off his butt and got up from his seat, grumbling.

The chief instructor had warned him. If he stayed after the closure, he would die.

He didn’t want to risk that to stay here, so Casa was going to leave soon.

But he still looked at Yan with curious eyes, and finally walked towards the door.

But he didn’t forget to leave some advice at the end.

“If you don’t come out now, you’ll really get in trouble with that crazy chief instructor. But I don’t care.”

Yan still had no answer.

Casa finally shook his head and said.

“Fine. It’s your fate anyway.”

With that, Casa left the arsenal completely.

Thud.

The arsenal became quiet in an instant.

There was only one book left on the last bookshelf.

Yan took out the book and opened it with his eyes filled with anticipation.

But.

“Basic Mechanics of Mana and Aura”

“…This is not it either.”

He turned back to the first page with a hopeful mind, but it was also in vain.

The bell had rung 10 minutes ago, so he had about 8 minutes left.

Yan looked around the floor that was buried with books.

There were parts that were piled up like hills.

He looked at them one by one with disappointment.

His eyes stopped somewhere in the middle.

The first bookshelf, the far right. The place where the Wrath of the Thunder God skill was.

There was a new book that he hadn’t seen before.

No, it seemed like it had been pushed back and popped out when the space was empty.

Yan carefully took it out.

A shabby book that seemed to break at any moment.

It was an old book that he couldn’t even tell when it was written.

“The Birth of the Empire”

The title seemed like nothing more than a history book.

The content was the same.

Nothing special.

‘It was a false hope after all. But well, it’s not like I didn’t get anything today…’

Squeak-

He stopped turning the pages and cut his finger on the edge of the paper.

Then the blood spread. The corner of the paper turned red.

“Ouch.”

Yan bit his index finger in pain. And when he moved his eyes to the book again.

His eyes widened.

‘Before writing the words that announce the birth of the empire, the speaker wrote all the miracles that he saw the founder perform in this book…’

The preface praising the founder began to move like a living creature.

I, the dragon man Bahamut, in this piece of the Breath of the Divine Dragon.

I will record the beginning.

“…I found it.”

As Yan was immersed in ecstasy and shivered.

“Oh, what did you find?”

Shiver.

He felt his heart sink at the sudden sound from the side.

He quickly turned his head.

The chief instructor was looking down at him with a smile.