Adrian looked at both of these staffs on the screen and he really couldn’t see a logical reason for picking one over the other based on looks alone.
The first one looked pretty sleek and smooth. It looked pretty minimalistic which is something that Adrian sort of liked when it came to his weapons. He didn’t like overly flashy things that screamed for attention.
But the second one just hit home for his inner nerd. It looked extremely cool.
Adrian just couldn’t pick between the two of them.
But he was a wealthy baron who didn’t have to care about raw materials thanks to his dungeon. Which meant that he didn’t have to choose.
He looked at the system.
"Give me both of these staffs. Spawn one of each and I’ll just test out both of them right here and pick one based on how it actually feels in my hands."
[Affirmative. Deducting required mana and materials.]
"Wait. Also don’t make them completely plain looking. Put some cool intricate designs on the outer parts of the staffs without impacting the usability of it."
[Affirmative.]
That was basically it.
It didn’t even take a few seconds. Almost after like five or six seconds, two different metal staffs appeared right in front of Adrian and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.
He grabbed both of them and tested their weight. He rested them on the wooden floor before he sent the thick Monkey King one directly into his spatial storage.
He picked up the first staff, which was the sleek one.
He looked at it up close. There were intricate designs etched directly into the Orichalcum. They were minute designs which one wouldn’t really be able to tell were there if Adrian was rapidly moving it around in a fight. But just looking at it up close it looked pretty beautifully made. It looked almost like heart and soul were put into designing this masterpiece.
Adrian just picked it up with one hand.
It was pretty damn heavy.
But Adrian knew that with his knight rank and a little bit of exercise and practice, he could get used to it pretty fast. He lifted it up and just moved it around in a basic spinning motion in the middle of his bedroom.
He almost immediately smashed a lamp.
He awkwardly stopped the spin and sighed. He could tell right away that he literally had no idea what he was doing with the staff.
He sent the sleek staff back into his storage and brought out the second staff next.
This one was slightly heavier in terms of weight. But he did see one massive difference here when he tried to grip it. It was much harder to hold the end parts of the staff for close quarter blocking because the cylinders were just much thicker than the other one.
It obviously hit pretty hard because it was heavier on the ends. But because of that, he was basically sacrificing a ton of versatility just for more blunt force.
So at the end Adrian just decided the first one was better.
He put the Monkey King staff back into his storage and equipped the sleek first design.
He held it in his hands and looked at the system screen again.
"Now give me a training method where I can do my mana breathing and increase both of my knight rank and my magic circle level at the exact same time."
He gripped the staff tight.
"Make progress towards both of them simultaneously. And I need this to happen while I move around and actively train with the staff. And not just train... I want the progress to happen even while I am fighting people too."
[Affirmative.]
[Running simulations.]
[Compiling multiple sources.]
Adrian waited patiently. He knew this was a massive request since it went against the way almost everyone trained in this world. He didn’t wait for too long though, just a few minutes.
Then the blue screen suddenly flashed again.
[Mana Training Method Creation Completed.]
[Note: The newly generated method fits all requested criteria. However, due to the multi-tasking nature of physical movement and internal mana routing, the efficiency of drawing ambient mana into your body is 5% lower than your current stationary mana training method.]
Adrian looked at the text and shrugged.
"Well a five percent decrease in efficiency really isn’t that big of an issue when I am able to literally train my actual fighting technique at the exact same time. It’ll be much more useful during wars and fights since I’ll also be able to train passively while fighting people."
He nodded to himself.
Then as he said this, he suddenly paused. A totally degenerate min-maxing idea popped into his head.
He just stared at the system.
"Wait. Can you make me a method that increases the efficiency of my training conditionally or something? I don’t really know what I’m talking about right now but it’s basically like this."
He gestured randomly with his hands.
"When I’m fighting someone or training and my mental focus is extremely high. Or something like I go into a deep flow state. Or when I’m fighting someone who’s like so ridiculously strong that I’m barely able to defend myself and I’m about to die."
He grinned.
"I want the efficiency of the training to increase drastically during those moments. I want it to be like those trashy cultivation novels from Earth where the main character just randomly breaks through during a life or death fight. That is going to be extremely cool."
[Taking new input into consideration.]
[Running advanced psychological and physiological simulations.]
[Calculating...]
After a few seconds another notification popped up.
[Created custom training method to fit all new requirements.]
[Trait added: The more the host is in mortal danger or in a state of absolute hyper-focus, the efficiency of mana absorption will dynamically increase up to a maximum ceiling of 200%.]
[Penalty added: In return for this variable spike, the baseline usual speed of development of your mana veins and overall mana capacity decreases to 50% of your current stationary mana training method during normal passive states.]