Chapter 23: The Great Hammer's Essence!

"Mr. Ramak, I have finished reading this 'Study of Xerophytic Plants in the Sekmel Desert' and gained much benefit; thank you very much."

Aolang handed the thick, two-to-three-kilogram tome back to the elderly man before him and bowed lightly to express his gratitude.

The elderly scholar, appearing nearly seventy yet elegant and vigorous, smiled and nodded at him. "Aolang, you are a studious child who understands the importance of knowledge."

"But merely knowing the biology of desert regions is not enough, for I believe you will not spend your whole life in the desert."

"This 'Study on the Differentiation of Algae between the Old Wadrei Sea and the Reksei Sea' reveals the great through the small..."

"Enough, enough. This little one is a Hunter, not a scholar. Don't stuff books into him, or he'll turn into a bookworm just like you." A rough voice interrupted the old man's words.

A huge piece of roasted leg meat, along with a heavy roasting pan, crashed onto the dining table with a "clang," pressing down on the books there.

"I've never seen a Hunter who reads more books than he does. When I was his age, I couldn't even write my own name properly, yet I still made it all the way to here, didn't I?"

Facing his wife's twisted logic, the elderly scholar named Ramak sighed helplessly.

He and his wife Marydan were opposites in every way: one thin, the other tall and strong; one mild-mannered, the other fiery; one a scholar of the Royal Paleontology Scribe Team, the other a Hunter nicknamed "Black Roaring Dragon."

That they could end up together could only be attributed to the strangeness of fate, and, um... Marydan had been far too forceful back then.

After their daughter Haifa was born, he had tried to supplement her cultural education while her mother trained her muscles.

Unfortunately, his daughter was not very good at these things... well, to put it directly, she was a bit simple-minded and couldn't even grasp basic biological classification, so he had to give up.

Rarely encountering such a young man who was both martial and literary, with a nature eager to learn, he naturally wanted to teach him as much as possible.

While Ramak was still reflecting, Marydan had already wielded a utensil that looked more like a Short Sword than a table knife and cut off a chunk of meat the size of a human head.

She stabbed the meat with the knife and slammed it onto Aolang's plate. "Eat quickly! You are not allowed to leave until you finish!"

Aolang's eye twitched. Judging by the portion of meat, even for a Hunter it was truly a stretch, but he dared not say "I can't eat it" in front of her.

"... Thank you, Ms. Marydan."

"Why so formal? Call me Grandma Marydan!"

"Grandma... Marydan?"

"What's with that reluctant tone?!" Marydan's eyebrows shot up, and combined with her brawny arms and full-body indigo tattoos, she looked especially terrifying.

"He might feel that the meaning represented by the word 'Grandma' is too soft and doesn't quite suit you," Ramak said from the side.

Aolang looked at the old gentleman with a shudder.

He had originally thought such words, carrying obvious mockery, would make Ms. Marydan fly into a rage, but he did not expect her to simply lift her chin and say, "True. You two eat first; I'll go get the main course."

Seeing Marydan leave the dining room, Ramak turned slightly and whispered, "The word 'soft' is purely derogatory in her ears, so it's fine."

"... I see."

Is this the scholar's way of survival?

Aolang struggled to eat that huge piece of roasted meat, rested for half an hour, and was then dragged by Ms. Marydan into the yard to aid digestion.

If swinging a Great Hammer weighing several dozen kilograms could be called "aiding digestion."

In the three-plus months since joining the Citadel Guerrillas, he had repeatedly accepted missions to accumulate practical combat experience.

Sometimes he cooperated with Sahaj, the Nuri Asa brothers, or other seniors on hunts; other times he was taken by Reshala to participate in patrols.

As for his free time, he often came to Ms. Marydan's home to keep the elderly couple company on one hand, and on the other, he himself benefited immensely.

Mr. Ramak was a senior scholar of the Paleontology Scribe Team; no question in biology had ever stumped him.

Many of the books he lent were unavailable on the market, and the knowledge within gave him a completely new understanding of various animals and plants, the ecosystem, and even this world.

Ms. Marydan was entirely in another direction; she might not be able to articulate the difference between the Dog Dragon Superfamily and the Velocidrome Superfamily, but in martial arts and practical combat, she was an absolute expert.

Based on his current physical condition and combat habits, she had tailored his daily training regimen, and recently she had begun systematically teaching him the arts of using the Great Hammer.

He had now learned a fourth Weapon type in addition to the One-Handed Sword, Dual Blades, and Great Sword.

Although, like the Dual Blades and Great Sword, he still had deficiencies in practical combat, he was confident that if he immediately set aside the One-Handed Sword and the other two weapons to focus solely on the Great Hammer, he could master the path of the Great Hammer.

It would just be somewhat of a waste of his talent.

"Feet loose! Inertia broken! What are you distracted thinking about!" A deafening roar of anger erupted beside his ear.

Aolang quickly retracted his thoughts, adjusted his breath, and put down the Great Hammer. Turning around, he saw Marydan's pitch-black face and hurriedly explained, "Ms. Marydan! I suddenly thought of a question regarding Inertia!"

Hearing this, Marydan paused. "What question? Speak!"

Aolang thought to himself: As Mr. Ramak said, Ms. Marydan is not good at thinking about two things at once.

If she showed signs of anger, one could distract her attention with another thing she cared about; she would forget the matter of "being about to get angry," but one must not do it too obviously, or if she realized it, the result would be terrible.

Fortunately, the "question" he asked was not a lie made up on the spot; rather, it was actually the main purpose of his visit today.

"I understand Inertia in swings and rotational attacks, but what does Inertia have to do with a Striking Combo?"

"How could it not have anything to do with it?" Marydan looked strange.

"But..." Aolang suddenly didn't know how to explain.

At this moment, Ramak, who was watching from the side, spoke up. "The 'Inertia' you understand and the 'Inertia' she speaks of might not be exactly the same thing."

Marydan raised an eyebrow and asked Aolang, "What is the 'Inertia' you understand?"

Recalling the knowledge from books and combining it with his own understanding, Aolang organized his words. "A force that maintains an object's state of rest or stable motion?"

"What kind of nonsense is that!" Marydan blurted out immediately.

Ramak's expression was also somewhat strange; although he was a scholar of biology, he certainly possessed basic knowledge of physics.

Aolang's explanation was a case of understanding a bit, but not completely.

He wanted to explain properly to Aolang that "Inertia is not a force, but an inherent property of matter itself" and that "there is no such thing as a 'stable motion state'; it should be 'uniform linear motion state'."

But after glancing at his wife's expression, he decided against it; from the perspective of ease of understanding, Aolang's phrasing wasn't entirely wrong.

"Marydan, tell me, what is the 'Inertia' you understand?"

"It's strength that hasn't been fully used up and can be figured out to be retrieved and used again!" Marydan crossed her arms, looking entirely matter-of-fact.

Ramak closed his eyes in pain; as a scholar, hearing such words was more unbearable than taking a punch to the face.

The old scholar had no desire to speak again in the short term, but his purpose had been achieved; whether she accepted it or not didn't matter, as long as Aolang understood.

Hearing Marydan's words, Aolang finally understood that the "Inertia" spoken of by Great Hammer wielders was not the kind he had imagined.

To put it more plainly—it was the recovery and utilization of force.

For example, if a One-Handed Sword misses, it misses; it is nothing much, but if a Great Hammer, weighing more than ten times the One-Handed Sword, misses, it not only consumes a great deal of stamina, but the massive Inertia also easily rebounds upon the user.

Therefore, Great Hammer wielders would continue to swing the Great Hammer after a miss, reusing the force that would otherwise be wasted, even stacking it onto the next attack.

Based on this, they developed various Striking Combo techniques.

Impatient to explain with words, Marydan walked over, snatched the training Great Hammer from Aolang's hands, and headed toward the massive target stake in the courtyard.

"Pay attention to my thighs and waist, and see how the 'Inertia' of the Striking Combo is used!"