Chapter 741: Bottleneck and Transformation

Because Hearth Manor needed expansion, artisans from the Hephaestus Familia arrived early in the morning to demolish the residential houses in the surrounding area that had already been sufficiently compensated for and sold to their Familia.

The rumbling clatter was a bit grating; even with enough open space it wasn't very suitable as a morning training location, so when the tavern elf came looking, Broly took her to the new training ground agreed upon last night.

"Mr. Broly, are you here to find Miss Ais and the others?"

At the front door of Twilight Manor, the Loki Familia member on gate duty asked the Saiyan boy's purpose.

"Mhm, Miss Ais and I agreed I'd borrow your Familia's training ground here for morning practice together."

Broly nodded in reply; the gatekeeper didn't suspect anything — everyone in the Familia knew Miss Ais and the boy before her had a good relationship.

Rumor had it that it was precisely because of the other party's swordsmanship guidance that Miss Ais's strength had advanced so much in a short time.

"Then who is this?"

Letting Broly, a familiar face, in was no problem, but since the Saiyan boy was accompanied by a female elf carrying a wooden sword, the gatekeeping Loki Familia member still needed to ask her identity.

"This is the shop assistant from the Hostess of Fertility; she often joins me and Miss Ais for morning training, and she also agreed last night to come along."

Broly explained.

"Since Mr. Broly puts it that way, let them pass."

Hearing that, the gatekeeping Loki Familia member didn't make things difficult.

"Good morning, Mr. Broly."

As Broly led Ryu toward the Loki Familia training ground, they ran into some familiar faces on the road — Loki members who had gone dungeon farming together before; seeing him, they all enthusiastically greeted him one by one.

"Your connections in the Loki Familia are this good?"

Surprise surfaced on Ryu's face; she couldn't help but ask.

"Is that so? Maybe it's because I answered their requests for combat technique advice in the dungeon before."

Being strong and willing to guide others' combat skills — though not as wholeheartedly as he guided Miss Ais and the others — just a few pointers that could visibly boost their strength still made Broly, a non-Familia member, extremely respected by other Loki Familia members.

Hmm, no matter the world, a capable guy who's generous to others will always be relatively popular.

"Eh, is that how it is? Then you've guided quite a few people, and most of them are beautiful women..."

Ryu narrowed her eyes and said with pointed implication.

Just from those she recognized a moment ago, there was Anakitty, a core member of the Loki Familia Second Army known as the "Valuable Cat" — a cat-person woman with long straight black hair, looking quite pretty.

Besides her, there was also an elf woman titled "Pure Garden," golden-haired and large-breasted, with the air of a tolerant older sister.

Ryu remembered her name was Alicia; also a core member of the Loki Familia Second Army, and a quite powerful Level 4 Mage.

As an elf, she shouldn't have been that close to other races, but clearly she was very friendly to Broly too.

"Uh, that's because there are relatively few men in the Loki Familia who come to me for combat skill advice, though there are some."

Broly said this while greeting Raul Nord, who looked quite ordinary but was actually Level 5 and often served as the Loki Familia Second Army's leader, though his duties were more like a Logistics Officer: "Good morning, Mr. Raul."

"Good morning, Mr. Broly. As for Ais and the others, they're training at the training ground around the corner. By the way, have you eaten breakfast? If not, after training feel free to eat at our cafeteria; today's breakfast is supposedly seafood porridge."

"Alright, I'll come over after training."

"Then I'll tell the cafeteria chefs to make extra."

"Thanks, Mr. Raul."

After thanking him, Broly headed toward the training ground Raul had pointed out.

Before they got close, Broly and Ryu could vaguely hear shouts coming from that direction.

Rounding the corner, they saw Tiona and Tione, the Amazoness sisters, teaming up against Ais in the training ground not far away.

Same level; although Ais's ability values were higher than both of them, the Amazoness sisters weren't at a disadvantage fighting two-on-one.

No, one should say the Sword Princess holding her own one-against-two is the abnormal one.

"Ah, stop, stop, fighting you Ais just feels worse the more we fight."

Upon spotting Broly coming over, Tiona directly raised her double-headed greatsword.

"The real person to spar with you and take a beating has arrived."

Tione also sheathed her short sword; just one week of farming the Death Colosseum on Dungeon Floor 37, and the Sword Princess girl's strength had grown that much more — it really was a setback.

Ais stopped, looked at the two approaching, greeted Broly and Ryu, then without another word all three drew swords and launched straight into a morning practice free-for-all.

Still a contest of swordsmanship; however, after several days apart, Broly's updated stats began to seriously affect this morning practice that should have been mainly about exchanging sword techniques.

Tiona had expected to see the three-way dragon-tiger-leopard struggle from before, but the result directly became the household Sword Princess and the Hostess of Fertility's elf shop assistant struggling to hold on under the Saiyan boy's fierce sword light.

"No way, how long has it been? Ais with such huge growth can't even beat him now?"

Tione gaped; when they were grinding monsters for money at the Death Colosseum on Dungeon Floor 37, Ais had still looked a bit stronger.

"As expected, my feeling wasn't wrong; Broly's growth is indeed much faster than Ais's."

Tiona said from the side.

"Maybe he's already stronger than the Captain and them by now."

Tione wanted to retort, but watching that composed figure over there pressing the Ais who had just been fighting evenly with the sisters into pure defense, she found herself momentarily speechless.

Just when they thought this morning practice would end with Broly pressuring Ais and the elf shop assistant from start to finish, Broly suddenly stopped.

"Eh, what's wrong?"

Ais halted her sword in time at the upper right side of Broly's neck; Ryu's sword also stopped at the lower left side of his waist.

One was a diagonal downward slash from left to right aiming for the neck; the other a diagonal upward slash from right to left aiming for the kidney.

The pressure Broly gave was too great, making both Ais and Ryu — two people with no small sword skill — subconsciously strike at vital spots.

"I discovered a problem."

Broly answered Ais's question.

"What problem?"

Ryu was a bit puzzled.

"Is there something in my swordsmanship that still needs correction?"

The Sword Princess girl thought of something and hurriedly asked.

"No, your swordsmanship is fine, your training direction is correct, it's just that I feel you've hit some kind of bottleneck."

Hearing this, Eis was stunned.

"But I don't feel like I've hit a bottleneck; on the contrary, I feel my condition gets better the more I fight, my consciousness has gradually synchronized, and my body has seen a significant increase in capability values."

She replied.

"Should I say, am I the one who has truly hit a bottleneck?"

Roli was rather speechless; she was now the weakest among the three, far surpassed by the other two.

"Roli, your bottleneck isn't in technique, but in your capability values not increasing. Your swordsmanship has actually almost reached the maximum limit of strength your current capability values can display. To improve, you can only consider it from the basis of your capability values."

Broly explained in one sentence, then looked toward the Sword Princess girl again.

"On the contrary, Miss Eis, your strength has increased because your capability values increased, but your swordsmanship, which could have approached perfect execution at your previous capability values, has fallen behind due to the increase in your body's values."

I kept increasing the combat pressure on you just now, but you didn't display the maximum strength your current body's values can produce. Therefore, I speculate your swordsmanship skill has fallen into a bottleneck."

In the Six-Faced World, this kind of bottleneck for someone whose swordsmanship has reached the peak of King-level is called the Emperor Rank Threshold, and those who cannot break through will likely remain the strongest King-level for their entire lives, that is, Emperor Rank Gatekeepers.

Broly had fought many Emperor Rank Gatekeepers in the Six-Faced World, and Eis now gave him a feeling similar to such a state.

"Then what should I do to break through the bottleneck of my skill?"

Eis asked, and she trusted Broly's judgment on her current swordsmanship skill, because the Saiyan boy was far superior to her in swordsmanship skill.

"Uh, honestly, I've never encountered a problem with combat skill bottlenecks, so personally, I don't have much experience on how to break through bottlenecks."

For almost all physical combat skill moves, Broly only needed to see them once and try them once to roughly imitate them, and quickly become proficient, making them his own.

Eis's current situation was like a student without top-tier math talent asking a math genius with top-tier talent "How did you solve this math problem?", leaving the genius with top-tier math talent not knowing how to answer.

And this was also why there were many God Rank masters in the Six-Faced World, but their disciples and students found it difficult to become God Rank masters as powerful as their own teachers just through their careful instruction.

"Uuu..."

Facing the Saiyan boy's reply, the Sword Princess girl's face gradually showed a hint of worry.

"Uh, let me think..."

Seeing this, Broly also began to rack his brains; he had said yesterday he would do his best to help the girl, how could he be stuck by a bottleneck on the girl today?

And in his consciousness, some information soon appeared, giving him a flash of inspiration.

"I've got it; maybe this method can help you break through the bottleneck."

"Huh?"

The Sword Princess girl looked over in surprise.

My worry had only just arisen less than two minutes ago, and it was going to be solved just like that?

That's quite efficient.

"What method?"

At the side, Roli asked curiously.

"Isn't there a saying that the master leads you to the door, but cultivation depends on the individual? Since it's a personal bottleneck in skill, why not let Miss Eis face her own swordsmanship directly? I think facing her own swordsmanship from an objective perspective should allow her to more directly perceive the problems in her swordsmanship, thereby achieving a breakthrough."

This was Broly's personal realization from when he fought the counterfeit in the Xiao Yu World; back then his combat skill improved incredibly fast.

"Uh, so, Mr. Broly, you're planning to imitate Miss Eis's swordsmanship to feed her moves?"

Roli understood his meaning.

"Mm, more or less that meaning."

Broly nodded.

"However, to better replicate Miss Eis's current level of swordsmanship skill, I might still need to balance the numerical gap between us that currently exists."

"But how to do that? Are you going to tie a sandbag on yourself to restrict part of your strength?"

Tiona asked curiously.

"Actually that's not difficult; I'm still quite confident in controlling my own strength size and speed fast or slow."

"What's truly difficult is the height and body type gap between me and Miss Eis. Even if I use strength, speed, and swordsmanship the same as Miss Eis, the difference in body type will still bring a difference in swordsmanship skill."

"Then that might require considering the relatively rare Transformation Magic."

Riviria arrived at the side at some point, and after hearing about Broly's trouble helping Eis break through the bottleneck, she inserted herself to say a sentence.

"That kind of magic is too rare, right? Even if someone has this kind of magic, they might not necessarily be able to use this magic on other people, right?"

Tione said.

"Indeed..."

Riviria had just nodded in agreement when she saw Broly raise his hand.

"Uh, I do know this kind of Transformation Magic; otherwise, I wouldn't have proposed imitating Miss Eis's swordsmanship to feed her moves and break through the bottleneck."

"Huh?"

The several girls around looked over in surprise, and Riviria directly asked: "Since you have a way yourself, why did you still show a troubled look?"

"Uh, because the Transformation Magic I know can only transform into individuals whose body type isn't much different from mine."

Broly said, thinking it was better to let people see directly than to say it.

"Your mark belongs to me, my mark still belongs to me..."

He directly chanted the spell of the Transformation Magic 【Stove Ash Girl】 shared from Lili's side, and as the magic light covered his body, a child version of Eis appeared on the spot.

"The situation is like this~"

Broly looked at himself, who indeed maintained a child body type after transforming, and shrugged his shoulders to the others.

"Ah, so, so cute?!"

However, Broly's helpless posture after transforming made the two Amazon girls exclaim in amazement.

The childhood appearance of a companion by one's side is indeed not a common sight.

Tiona lunged over directly, grabbed the neck of the Saiyan boy transformed into little Eis form with one hand, and rubbed her face against his small face.

"Tiona, don't rub me, no, don't rub my childhood self, no, don't rub the face of Mr. Broly transformed into my childhood self."

The Sword Princess girl paused twice, then reached out and rescued the Broly transformed into his childhood self from the hands of the Amazon tablet girl.

"Don't be so stingy, besides, this isn't the real Eis you!"

Little Eis was snatched away by big Eis, and Tiona immediately complained somewhat dissatisfiedly.

"I know, but watching you rub like that, I feel somewhat uncomfortable, just like ants crawling on my body."

Eis protected her like a hen protecting her chick, holding the Trumpet-formed herself in her arms.

"This should be what they call shame, right?"

Riviria said this, then naturally walked over and reached out to pinch the little Eis's face in the girl's arms.

Sword Princess girl: "???"

She hurriedly held the Trumpet-self transformed by Broly, quickly twisted her body to the other side, not letting Riviria pinch her face.

"Ah, Miss Eis has two, no, one of them is small..."

Lefiya, who had thought about asking Fiery Wisteria about parallel chanting last night, causing her to get up relatively late this morning, rushed over to the training field this side at this time, and just saw the scene of big Miss Eis holding little Eis; this elf girl with an active mind immediately thought of many things.

"Could it be that this is Miss Eis's daughter?!"

The elf girl was like she had her soul sucked out in an instant, losing all strength, leaning forward in a dejected posture or2 on the ground.

(Chapter End)