Chapter 39
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Great Heavenly Cycle
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A week had flown by since that day.
It was an oddly quiet week.
After the sword-breaking incident, Lancelot and his gang hadn't come near Charlotte or Joseph. And since Charlotte and Joseph hadn't gone anywhere else either, nothing particularly noteworthy had happened.
Isaac, Russell, and Jerome were swamped with preparations for the knight order's ceremonial training ahead of Shadow Blade Day, which only made things even quieter.
If there were any minor events, it was Jerome and Russell circling Charlotte's room a few times, or the fact that Joseph now polished off every last bite of the lunchboxes she brought him each day without leaving a scrap behind.
During that week, Charlotte served as Joseph's sparring partner, training both external and internal arts side by side.
At first, Joseph had hesitated to go all out against her. She kept dropping the wooden sword because she couldn't grip it right, or her body wouldn't follow what her mind knew, sending her tumbling off balance.
But day by day, as she improved at a breakneck pace—like a totally different person—he began clashing with her in earnest.
Still, Charlotte knew it wasn't his full strength.
To unleash his true power, something had to be done about his current physical state.
So she threw herself into internal cultivation just as hard as external training.
Half for her own sake, half for his.
Ever since the Second Prince's tournament win, the already lopsided power balance had tilted even further.
She didn't want to watch the Cheiker Kingdom fall into his hands and turn into a living hell.
The elder First Prince wasn't even in the running for emperor—no one mentioned him as a contender—so all that was left to check the Second Prince was Third Prince Joseph.
She hoped Joseph would take the tournament crown partly for that reason. And also...
For his own revenge.
Was growing up to slaughter the entire imperial court really the best revenge?
No. She figured the ultimate payback would be proving he was still standing strong despite all the abuse.
To Lancelot. To the emperor who'd treated him so heartlessly. To the empress and Second Prince Ricardo.
That's why she wanted him in peak condition on tournament day, no matter what.
The training grounds were the one place he could fight as a true warrior—fair and unrestricted.
If that happened, everyone would see the protagonist Joseph's skills were second to none.
And right on the one-week mark, Charlotte wrapped up her predawn breath regulation meditation and quietly opened her eyes.
Vitality sparkled in her emerald gaze.
She drew in a deep breath.
The qi gathered in her dantian through her breathing had coalesced into a fairly large sphere.
In the martial world, it'd take a solid ten years of training to build up a mass like that.
And it was pure, unadulterated energy, forged purely from the Mount Hua Sect's heart method.
The thought of reaching—or maybe surpassing—the realm she'd known in her past life sent her heart pounding with excitement.
Charlotte steadied her mind once more.
'...Now's the time to try the Great Heavenly Cycle.'
The Small Heavenly Cycle and Great Heavenly Cycle were about slowly circulating qi along the body's meridian paths to clear and secure them.
Even ordinary folks had natural qi flows, but martial artists developed extra bypasses, channeling qi via their heart methods for overwhelming power.
She'd completed the upper-body Small Heavenly Cycle five days back.
This Great Heavenly Cycle would circulate qi through every meridian in her whole body.
If the Small Cycle was the foundation for superhuman might, the Great Cycle was mastery.
Gently closing her eyes, she focused inward and guided the dantian sphere per the Mount Hua Sect method.
First-timers often botched it by rushing the qi and wrecking their meridians, but Charlotte stayed patient.
It was her first go in this body—she'd just waited for enough qi to build up. But she'd hit this level before.
She rolled the qi orb slowly: from lower dantian to perineum, perineum to crooked center, crooked center to bubbling spring...
She let it linger long at each acupoint, widening the paths, before easing it to the next.
Her surging, wave-like qi abundance faithfully unblocked her body's passages at her command.
At some point, she'd lost all sense of self, fully immersed in the flow.
Only after passing through the crown point and drawing the orb back to her lower dantian did she exhale a long, long breath.
"...It's done."
When she slowly opened her eyes, the sun had set, and her room brimmed with a faint plum blossom scent.
"...Charlotte?"
Even after seeing her face every day for a week, Joseph murmured her name like it was brand new.
Charlotte had shown up at the training grounds at first light. His reaction cracked her up, and she laughed with crinkled eyes.
"Why say it like that?"
"...No, just... thought you were someone else for a sec. My mistake."
Amused, Charlotte ruffled his hair gently.
"You're so sharp and intuitive. This big sis nailed the Great Heavenly Cycle."
"Enough with the big sis already... Great Heavenly Cycle? What's that?"
Charlotte let out a soft laugh.
"Something good. Like tuning up the paths inside me. Anyway, didn't take as long as I feared—lucky break. So what this means is..."
As she picked her words, Joseph fixed her with that deep, ink-black gaze, staring long and hard.
At first, those looks had made her self-conscious. Now? She was so used to him eyeing her suspiciously, it barely registered.
Her face brimming with confidence and excitement, she started to explain—then paused, mouth shut.
What she planned was fixing the chaotic qi flow in his body.
Even in the martial world, masters rarely activated a junior's meridians for them.
It demanded immense mental fortitude and internal power. Botch it, and if they didn't know the heart method cold, the patient could end up a total wreck—a vegetable.
In short: high risk.
She'd been buzzing with readiness, but this wasn't the mood to rush.
Cooling her thrill, she met his eyes straight on and spoke carefully.
"Hear me out first."
"Alright."
"Your body's like... four-horse carriages barreling down a super narrow mountain trail."
"...Aura, you mean?"
"Right on."
"Aura's external—we just pull it in and use it..."
"Theory's one thing. But you've felt it, yeah? Every Aura use tanks your condition harder. Or when you're off, you can't tap it at all."
Joseph stared at her face a good long while before nodding, a beat behind.
"Exactly. You've instinctively routed Aura through your body's existing paths. Local swordmasters don't push Aura that hard, so no blowback. Not like you."
Joseph blinked slow as he took it in, his petal-long lashes fluttering lazily.
Peering into his eyes, Charlotte pressed.
"You get it? You understand?"
"You look like some cult leader right now, Charlotte."
"...Do you get it or not?"
"...Never heard a word of this before, nothing like it... Fine. Say that's how it is. And?"
His extra blinks, like he was willing himself to buy it, were kinda cute.
For talk this alien, he could've told her to beat it. Guess she'd built up that trust.
Feeling proud, Charlotte tugged her lips into a smile, then went serious again.
"Yeah. So I'm offering a real fix—the root solution."
"Root... like widening that trail?"
"Bingo. That's what we've been doing—clearing path blockages, temp smoothing the flow?"
Joseph nodded slow.
Charlotte laid it all out, dead serious.
"But that's just a band-aid. I'm talking new paths. Ones buried in you, never touched."
"New paths..."
He mouthed the words slow, like they'd never crossed his mind. But his call was swift.
"Fine."
Joseph nodded—quick, resolute.