The Innkeeper
chapter-1310

Lex looked at Cornelius, unsure of how to answer that question. Was he asking literally or philosophically? After a moment, Lex gave the best answer he could think of.

"It comes from your cultivation. The better your cultivation, the more strength you have."

Actually, there were quite a few more things he could say about where strength comes from, but relying on a system or getting a unique cultivation technique were not really something that could be applied to the general public, so he refrained from mentioning them.

"I suppose you could say that," said Cornelius. "You could also be wrong."

Putting on his new armor did not take long, though for some reason he did not put on any gloves. Once he was ready, he pulled out a simple, wooden longbow and a single arrow.

"Cultivation is just one part of the puzzle, Lex. Strength is the sum of your entire being. While such a statement might sound abstract, I am being quite literal when I say this. I am going to give you a simple demonstration. The armor I'm wearing now has been specially designed. It can limit my strength and body to any realm I so wish. At the moment I have limited it to the average mortal human born in the Crystal realm. The bow I hold has similar enchantments, where the weight of the draw can be set to any limit I want. I have currently set it to the average Foundation level treasure."

He notched the arrow, pulled up the bow and aimed towards a particularly large boulder nearby. Then he began to pull.

Both the hand that was holding the bow began to tremble, and so did the hand pulling the arrow, yet the string had barely moved.

Lex's eyes narrowed when he noticed that the strong began to dig into Cornelius' fingers, causing them to bleed. At that exact moment, the King let the arrow loose.

Despite the fact that the arrow was barely pulled, there was enough force in the string to send the arrow flying, though all it did was strike the boulder and bounce aside.

"What I just replicated was the draw of an ordinary school teacher. I am not making this up, for I am replicating the result from an actual test we conducted. This was prior to cultivation being widespread across the realm, so not all humans had access to it. Now, with the exact same strength, I am going to replicate the draw of an ordinary farmhand - still a mortal."

This time, while the bow still trembled, it was considerably less than the first time. Much more importantly, as Cornelius pulled the strong, and it began to dig into his fingers, cutting them, he did not let it loose. Instead, he continued to hold, managing to pull it just a little bit farther before letting go.

The arrow flew, and though this time it still bounced off, there was a tiny crack on the boulder.

"What do you think is the difference between those two, Lex?" Cornelius asked.

"Will power," Lex said. "The farmhand could tolerate more pain and so he was able to pull the string more, increasing his strength."

"Once again, right, but also wrong. Back then I was just a teenager when I saw this during a competition, and I was curious, so I went up and asked both of them what they were thinking. "The teacher said that he understood that the string contained enough strength to send his arrow to the target, so there was no reason to suffer. He was right, his arrow reached the target, and though his aim was off center, at least he hit it.

"The farmhand, on the other hand, said it was a force of habit - one he did not want to break. On his farm, they often had to hunt wolves, and while the bow would have had enough drawing power to hit the target, the strength of an arrow would not have been enough to break the hide of the wolf. He also hit the target, and was much closer to center. From start to end, his own pain was not a part of his consideration at all."

Cornelius paused, his eyes unfocused as if he was recalling days past.

"At the time, I could not tell which one was right or wrong. Both of them had a valid reason behind their actions, and both of them met their objectives, so which one was better? It was such an irritating question, and one that bothered me for years, so much so, that a few decades later, I went and found those two again.

"The teacher, still a mortal, had trained one of the best bowmen in our country during that time, teaching him principles of physics, combined with the principles of cultivation which had, by then, begun to spread. The farmhand, by then, had become a farm owner. Though he was still a mortal, to combat increasingly stronger beasts that attacked his farm, had mastered bow intent. Back then, I did not even know mortals could master intent!"

Cornelius pulled the bow again, using the same strength as before, but this time, Lex sensed a new kind of power filling the bow. Cornelius managed to pull the entire bow this time, and the arrow he shot cut through the entire boulder as if it was butter, leaving behind only a tiny hole, the size of the arrow itself.

"You see, that confused me even more. I was a cultivator and a king, yet I was stumped by two mortals. So I conducted an experiment. I charged the teacher and the farm owner to design a training regime for an archer, using the best of their experiences, and then I assigned them ten young students. I returned five years later and discovered the most unexpected situation.

"During those five years, the teacher had actually died shortly after compiling his syllabus, and the farm owner, lacking a background in education, could not even bring about a result in his students up to par with what the teacher had been doing before they both started working together.

"I decided, then, that I was just searching for meaning in something that was plain and simple. There was no greater lesson there. But, on a final whim, I decided to look over the training regime that the simple, mortal teacher had compiled. That, Lex, is when I encountered a mortal arrogant enough to title his paper as 'The Recipe for Perfection'."