The System Awakens: Rise of the Champion - Chapter 92

Chapter 92: Chapter 92: Table Talk – 2
“There is something I wanted to ask you about,” Damian turned his gaze back to Sir Holloway.

“I want to know what I have to do to become a Grandmaster.”

“Grandmaster?”

The plebeian vampire’s eyes widened in surprise.

He definitely didn’t expect someone as impulsive as Damian to be interested in becoming a Grandmaster.

After all, walking down the road to becoming a Grandmaster requires immense patience.

Something Damian obviously didn’t seem to possess.

He was also very young, and it had only been a few months since the system arrived in his home world.

He shouldn’t have had enough time to reach such a high level that he would already be thinking about the Grandmaster realm.

“Wow, thinking about becoming a Grandmaster already? Aren’t you quite ambitious? Which path are you taking? Spears or swords?” Sir Holloway asked, smiling slightly.

“How about everything?” Damian replied with a grin.

“You are joking, right?” Sir Holloway frowned.

“…” Damian simply smiled.

“…You are joking… right?”

Sir Holloway’s frown deepened upon seeing that Damian’s expression hadn’t changed.

“I’m not joking. I really am going to become a Grandmaster in everything, whether it is swordsmanship, spearmanship, or archery. I don’t see why you would find that funny.” Damian shook his head.

“Of course, I would think you were joking, considering how ridiculous your claim is. I can accept you becoming unnaturally strong at a ridiculous rate or even possessing all sorts of powers, but that is entirely different from reaching the realm of Grandmasters.”

“There are specific stages for an Awakener to become a Grandmaster. First, an Awakener must develop a martial skill like swordsmanship and train it to the highest level, which would be becoming a Master Swordsman.”

As explained before, skills are something that must be developed.

For example, swordsmanship can be created by learning basic sword techniques and can be improved by increasing one’s understanding of the skill.

To improve one’s understanding, one must learn and polish their techniques by reducing faults, flaws, weaknesses, mistakes, inefficiencies, errors, and missteps.

Essentially refining the skill and making it as close to perfect as possible.

However, we say “close to perfect” because skills can always be improved.

There is no true perfection in any type or form of skill.

When one reaches this near-perfect level of swordsmanship, the skill is considered to have reached the Master realm.

This is just the first step one must take to even think about the Grandmaster realm.

It takes years of training, fighting, and experience to turn one’s skill into the Master realm.

Even this, however, is considered incredibly easy compared to the next step in reaching the Grandmaster realm.

Sir Holloway’s expression became serious. “The final step in becoming a Grandmaster is easy to understand but astronomically difficult to achieve.”

“Some people, no matter how many thousands of years they train, never even seem to grasp it. It involves applying concepts to swordsmanship.”

“What do you mean by concepts?” Damian asked, his expression intrigued.

“Concepts… Well, I suppose you could say concepts are what define your path to ascension in this universe. I don’t have much information on how Awakeners create concepts because, as far as I know, a concept is something that defines you, your beliefs, and your understanding of the universe.” Sir Holloway continued.

“Other than this, I know nothing. I have never met any Awakeners who have managed to achieve the Grandmaster realm. The only information I have on Grandmasters comes from ancient texts I came across many years ago.”

“The reason I said it’s vastly different from everything else is because of these concepts. Something beyond the physical. It requires enlightenment at an extreme degree.”

“This cannot simply be forced to happen like leveling up or obtaining power the way you do. And what I’ve explained is for a single martial skill like swordsmanship.”

“Yet here you are, casually saying that you want to reach the Grandmaster realm in every martial skill. It’s not theoretically possible and is utterly ridiculous.”

The workings of every martial skill are vastly different.

The more one increases their understanding of one martial skill, the more different another martial skill seems.

This is the nature of martial arts.

It already seems impossible to achieve the Grandmaster realm in a single martial skill.

Yet Damian had the audacity not just to say it but to truly be ambitious about achieving Grandmastery in every skill.

It was beyond ridiculous.

“…Is it really that hard to reach the Grandmaster realm?” Damian frowned.

He didn’t like this one bit. Hearing an experienced vampire and researcher say that it was impossible only made Damian hate the statement even more.

But then he remembered his beliefs.

So what if the vampire said he couldn’t do it?

He was definitely not going to stop until he saw and realized for himself that he truly couldn’t do it.

“You know what? I don’t need your opinion on whether I can do it or not, so keep it to yourself. Just tell me how I go about creating my own concept,” Damian said, resting his chin on his hand.

“I don’t know… Even my master, who has been alive for more than 8,000 years, hasn’t achieved this yet and doesn’t even know if there is a way to do it,” Sir Holloway replied.

“I asked her about this once. She said it was not about finding a way to increase her understanding of the skill but about finding herself.”

“What kind of nonsense is that? ‘Find oneself’? What does that even mean?” Damian scoffed, feeling like the vampire was spouting nonsense.

Or rather, that his master had fed him nonsense, and now he was passing it on.

“I don’t know what she meant, but I have tried to formulate this process into stages. I don’t know if it will work because it’s just a theory based on what I have observed from different martial artists. Do you want to hear it?” Sir Holloway asked.

Seeing Damian nod, he quickly brought out a book from his system inventory and opened a particular page.

“I will say this in advance. This is just something I formulated based on things I have observed and read in ancient texts, so if it doesn’t work for you, don’t blame me,” Sir Holloway said, holding the book tightly as he narrowed his gaze at Damian.

“Oh Lords, I won’t hold you accountable. Believe me, you won’t even get a chance,” Damian smiled confidently.

The poor plebeian vampire sighed, shaking his head.

He could never get used to how confident Damian was.

Telling him he wouldn’t even get a chance clearly meant he was determined to make it work and successfully become a Grandmaster.

Was this confidence or overestimation?

Sir Holloway couldn’t decide.

Sir Holloway handed the book to Damian, who started scrolling through the pages.

It took him only a glance to memorize the contents while Sir Holloway began explaining his theory.

“The first stage toward becoming a Grandmaster is creating a martial skill like swordsmanship,” Sir Holloway continued.

The levels of martial skills can be ranked as follows: Basics < Intermediate < High < Master.

To increase your rank in a martial skill, you don’t need to do anything other than improve your understanding of the skill.

This is done by refining your techniques and removing errors, faults, and flaws, which can be achieved through training and gaining more experience.

From a technical standpoint, after the Master rank comes the Grandmaster rank.

However, progressing from Basic to Master rank requires only experience, whereas achieving the Grandmaster rank requires the application of a concept to the skill.

So, the next stage in becoming a Grandmaster would be applying a concept to your skill.

To apply a concept, you must first create one.

In the world of Awakeners, a concept is something that defines the very essence of an Awakener.

A concept shapes an Awakener’s growth.

“Concepts are an entirely different topic in the world of Awakeners, but we don’t need to get into everything. We only need to focus on how they relate to the Grandmaster realm,” Sir Holloway continued.

“There are two types of concepts, as far as I have learned. One is an existing concept, and the other is a self-created concept. However, on the path to becoming a Grandmaster, you only need to focus on self-created concepts, as these are developed by Awakeners themselves.”

Sir Lucian Holloway went on. “To create a concept, you must first gain enlightenment. Legends say that once you achieve enlightenment, the next step, [Concept Creation], will naturally come to you. But how one achieves enlightenment remains unknown.”

“But in my opinion, based on what I have learned in my life, it is similar to the process by which mages improve their understanding of their elemental magic,” Sir Holloway said.

“You mean observing and learning?” Damian asked, starting to understand.

As a mage himself, he knew how he had improved his own understanding of elemental magic by watching, learning, and performing magic.

“Well, not exactly. I don’t know for sure, to be honest. It’s just a theory after all. I guess it’s similar to how understanding comes to your mind.”

“…You could even say it’s a form of enlightenment, except on a minuscule scale, like comparing a drop of water to a river.”

he continued. “Once you gain enlightenment, it will force you into a state where [Concept Creation] naturally appears to you. As for the type of concept you would create, no one can say for certain, but it would most likely be related to yourself.”