"This room really is great."
I had just put down all of my stuff. And by all of my stuff I basically only mean my greatsword, my bow together with my quiver and the katana I had just recently gotten a few hours prior.
After reaching our sleeping quarters, which was also the place, which we would train at most of the time, the 'master swordsman' and the old man told us that for the rest of the day we were free to do what we wanted, we could explore most of the area, only some areas were off limits, because of certain reasons they didn't specifically explain.
But I still remember their remembered their last words, before they left.
"If I were you I would use this day wisely. To you the next few days will probably feel like the longest and hardest days ever."
I wasn't one 100% sure but I had a rough idea of how the next days where going to look like.
My guess was that they would let us perform multiple different kinds of exercises, physical exercises as well as exercises to test our magical capabilities. They would would put stress on our body to test out our limits and maybe even let the teachers take notes, which could be used to create different kinds of exercises, which were suitable for us.
In a class as small as the lion class it wouldn't be too difficult to do something like that, so it was my at what they meant.
"I'll find out tomorrow either way."
There was not point in thinking about it too much, it wouldn't really change any of my plans anyway.
So without wasting any more time I got back up and only picked up my katana to use in case of something happening, I couldn't imagine anyone trying to attack me here, not the other students, nor someone else from outside, but better be safe than sorry.
So the first thing I did was thoroughly investigating my own room, maybe I would find some things, which could be helpful for my training.
The door, the first thing you would see before even entering the room was already luxurious enough to be in the royal palace, it had the same theme as the rest of the room.
It was a typical Japanese room with the slight difference of the overall size of the room and the obviously expensive objects, which had been carefully prepared in every room. It was massive and there were even doors leading to other rooms, which should also belong to my room.
There were sword holders on the one side of the wall, were you could place any kind of swords. Greatswords, katanas, shortswords, you even had a place to store your bow together with the quiver. Additionally there were a few other types of weapons, which could also be placed there, but the only other ones I could make out were daggers and of course spears.
There were a lot of other types of weapons, but I didn't know them at all from the form of the weapon holders or stands.
After immediately using it to store my bow and greatsword, which I didn't need at the moment I inspected the rest of the room.
There was of course the bed I just slept on, a table and what caught my attention, a few bookshelves with a few books already inside.
I inspected the books' titles until I found something, which would catch my eye. I found something interesting and decided to inspect it further.
The title was 'Basic principles of magic cultivation'. A straightforward title, already a good sign.
I opened it up and after skipping the foreword for now I immediately skimmed through the first few chapters to find out if it really was what I hoped for.
A list of the most common elements, always listing one of the greatest fighters ,who used that power. A quick explanation on magic stones and the most common and most useful types...
I quickly skimmed through it, it was useful knowledge and if I had the time I would definitely completely read the beginning, but I wasn't interested in that at all at that point in time. After all I already knew the basics and there are two many things, which I have to at least know the basics of.
"Is this it?"
The first few sentences seemed promising and you could often see a drawing showing exactly how it's supposed to be done right next to the explanation.
I didn't take my time to read through it right now, because this day was too important and maybe I wouldn't be able to explore the other parts of the building any time soon, so I let it rest for now and put it back into the shelf.
I knew that I should concentrate on the most important things first and after reading through the titles of the other few dozen books, which were still left I didn't find anything as important as the first one, although there definitely were some interesting books.
After finishing that and not noticing any other crucial things in my room I decided to go out and explore the whole building for myself.
I hoped that some of the other students would be dumb enough to stay inside the whole time, it was precisely, because I didn't really want to encounter any of the other students besides the princess, after all she is the only one I am friendly with and I also owe her a lot at this point.
Part of it was not to reveal my inexperience in certain normally really obvious things, the other part was that I wanted to minimize the chance of being attacked or rather tested by the other students.
The chance wasn't high, but if it were to really happen they would be on edge after not knowing anything about me and I was 90% sure that I wouldn't be able to defeat even the weakest one of them.
I just needed a little bit of time to catch up, after all I knew my rough growth rate and although the mana I can see is influenced by both, magic and physical properties, like strength or speed I would guess that most of the students couldn't match my raw physical capabilities.
I didn't think that they were necessarily weak physically, but their magic should contribute more to their mana than their physical strength. Their magic should be stronger than mine, after all I had a huge disadvantage when comparing the time they and I had already been training for.
They should've trained their magical power for multiple years longer than I while I only just got obtained my magic a few months ago and wasn't able to control it as good as I would like to be and it also isn't on the level of strength I would want it to be.
So keeping these things in mind not confronting them in the first week would be the best outcome.
So with keeping that in mind I walked through the large hallways and always used my senses to hear, smell or feel them before they would be too close.
The range I could sense mana in was a lot smaller than the range of my normal senses, so I relied my normal senses.
And like that I evaded a few of the students I would normally run into by quickly turning around or taking another path than originally planned.
I was able to find out quite a bit about the building.
While exploring I found multiple different sized rooms, some underground, some on the upper floors, which were solely dedicated to one specific weapon or magical power.
I found rooms, which had a very high temperature, the contrary was also the case with a very low temperature, I evaded those for now, because I didn't have a magic suitable for using them.
There were also rooms, which when taking a look inside had many different kinds of katanas, with a lot of scrolls and books solely focused on the katana. I would probably come back there in the future if I had enough time to do so, but for now it wasn't time for that and I still didn't explore everything you could see.
So as I resumed I was also able to find different kinds of rather weird rooms. Some of them looked like a parkour, for example rooms, which you would have to quickly change direction in and some were focused on jumping further and further the further you got.
These type of rooms honestly looked extremely fun and I would've really wanted to try out these parkour-like training rooms, but I had to hold myself back, at least for the time being.
I didn't just mindlessly walk around the building, I did have to take a few detours, but my strategy was to explore from the bottom to the top, most of the magic and weapon training rooms were located under the ground level and in the first few floors you would pass when you went up the stairs.
I had actually developed a good sense of coordination over the months, since I trained my senses. At first it was helpful to me to find the goblins inside of the cave, only because of my senses was I still alive and as I was depending on them they naturally got better and better.
That was my initial goal. But unknowingly I managed to develop another useful ability by carefully moving around through the corridors in the cave. It was a kind of sense, which I didn't know what to call, but I guess you could call it spatial awareness.
Spatial awareness was basically the ability to faintly and only if I didn't need to concentrate on something else use my sense of touch to locate walls or objects, which were directly next to me.
I could at first only faintly and then bit by bit feel most of the things surrounding me as if they were lighting up, but instead of seeing them I could feel them.
I didn't really have all that much use for that ability, because when fighting against goblins I couldn't concentrate enough to make use of that ability and the range was also lacking, so it was easier to just hear footsteps of goblins and react to that.
But it had gotten better and better in the cave and although I didn't really need it afterwards it was helpful to me the day before, when I searched for the princess in the palace. I made use of all of my senses and that special ability to make myself a rough picture of the palace. While walking naturally the range stayed the same, but I managed to find out more and more of what lied in front of me, while at the same time letting the things behind me fade away.
And the longer I walked around in here the more that ability also got strengthened little by little, I couldn't feel the progress, but I knew it was there.
And in a situation like the one I was currently in, when I was in such a gigantic building complex I would've really wished to have this ability to a level, where I could make myself a picture of the rooms and hallways, stairs and objects on the way.
It would be incredibly convenient.
And well if I didn't have that ability I would've totally missed the secret passage hidden right besides me.
It was a combination of all of my senses plus this special ability and a little bit of my mana sensing.
If I wasn't as proficient in them as I was I would've not been able to notice it and if I stood a bit further away I would've also missed it.
It was honestly so much luck that you could've said it was fate, but I didn't believe in that and I was quite hesitant, but just proceeding could've lead to me not remembering the exact location of that secret corridor.
I could also completely forget about it, after all I didn't know how hard the training the next few days would be.
The floors all looked relatively similar and I didn't feel any great threat from inside, so I decided to take the slight risk to possibly get a high reward.
And more than everything something like this, finding a secret passage. It sounds fun as heck, doesn't it.
Before there had also been things I could've done, which would've given me joy, but these things were different. I knew what I could expect from theme, but I couldn't say at all what lied behind that wall.
So without thinking anymore I just did it.
I stepped through the seemingly completely normal wall, at first It didn't let me through, but by applying pressure on the wall from one moment to another I faced through the just a few moments ago perfectly normal wall.
But now I was in a hallway, which was quite narrow. I couldn't see anything, but from observing the rooms next to the secret passage for a few seconds I wouldn't have known how there could be a secret room. But now that i was inside I realized what it was, the wall which would normally connect both of the rooms was actually two walls and in between them there was this narrow corridor.
I still didn't feel anything dangerous at all, so I proceeded, my expectations rose and rose and meanwhile I thought that the danger decreased and decreased the longer nothing bad happened.
It was at least nothing alive or a magical trap, I could've felt that, so the only danger would be a normal trap.
Now I had a perfect opportunity to make use of my previously pretty useless ability.
While slowly proceeding I strongly stomped onto the ground making my feet able to feel the waves, which had been send back by the walls they hit. They bounced back and it was a weird feeling, but from that I was able to tell if there was a wall next to me or not.
If there was suddenly nothing in front or next to me I would be able feel it and like that I went further and further until I felt that there was nothing next to me. The wall seemed to stop, or at least the corridor expanded.
I tried to use my hands to touch the ground and after I touched it I quickly took a step back, but I couldn't feel anything happening, nor did I hear or feel anything, so I just proceeded slowly to make sure I wouldn't fall into any kind of trap.
And then I suddenly felt a wall in front of me again. I could feel the mana, but it was extremely hard to feel, even when I concentrated on solely focusing on sensing the mana.
"It would be a waste if I were to turn back now,but is it worth the risk?"
"Yeah, let's just do it."
And without thinking anything more I applied pressure onto the wall, the same way I did before.
After a few seconds I managed to pass through and I was blinded by the sudden appearance of light.
"Fu*k!" I cursed as I was completely taken by surprise.
It took a few seconds until my eyes got used to the light again.
Now I was really curious. I wanted to see if it was worth it coming here, it wasn't even really fun at all it was honestly a bother, where I couldn't even see anything, not that there probably had been anything to be seen in that narrow passage.
So for it to be worth coming here I had high expectations, otherwise I would be severely disappointed.
"Now what do we have here?"
There was a single table, together with what seemed to be a single letter lying on the table. It looked extremely old and there was dust everywhere, which I had to first remove.
"How long had this been lying here for?"
Now I got kind of curious, who would take all of that time to create two barriers and a secret passage on a seemingly random floor of the building the lion class resides in. And for what?
My curiosity got the best of me and I only felt a faint amount of mana from the letter, so I just grabbed the latter not anticipating anything bat to happen at all.
But right as my finger touched the latter I felt a single short cut appear on my finger.
"What?!"
It was so sudden that I instinctively took a step back, but nothing else was happening afterwards.
The only thing that changed was the cut on my finger and... the blood that had dripped onto the letter.
The blood seemed like it got absorbed by the letter and it shined up with a white glow. The letter itself didn't seem to change at all, it just had a faint glow.
As I tried to reach out to it again it seemed to willingly fly into my hand.
I was confused, but it seemed like there was no immediate danger to me.
It just seemed like... through my blood I had been connected to the letter.