In Mushoku Tensei with an A.I. Chip

The Original had researched deeply into souls and spirits. Soulbound oaths and Trial's Eye contracts were commonplace back in the Magus World. But much of that knowledge had been lost in the spatial storms, and the split soul had retained only very little regarding the study of souls. The soulbound oaths and contracts might not even work on the natives of the Six-Sided World. 

And trying to summon an Trial's Eye emissary to this world would be akin to lighting a beacon for every thug with a club to come swaggering to the Six-Sided World knocking on his front door. If Luke had his way, he would hide this world from extraterrestrial visitors forever. They were simply too great a threat to this world that seemingly had no World Will nor World Barrier to protect itself. 

He would need to spend some time researching souls in this world before he could design functional soulbound oaths and contracts that would work properly here. Until then, the Last Words poison would be his backup plan in case of treachery. 

Other than the potions, Luke had also imparted a Knight Training Manual to them. As long as they diligently practiced the breathing techniques, they would find their physiques improving drastically. 

As a result of Luke's generous investments, his bodyguards all found their stats seeing improvements ranging from 50 - 100%. Their magic power had all rocketed in quantity as well. 

Some, like Jude, who had less magic power than the average person, saw enhancement in the magnitude of a hundred times. 

The point wasn't to raise an army of magicians. It was to provide a greater foundation of fuel for them to draw on for their touki. With more mana to work with, the more touki they had access to even if they could only use a fraction of it at a time. 

Other than just strengthening their physique and mana pool, a select few were also granted the privilege of learning from the three Saint rank swordsmen in Notos employ. 

Grant, Ward and Bernard were not required to impart their skills. It had not been a term of their employment. They had done so for Luke as a personal favour to Amarant. 

It wasn't really their fault Luke didn't take to swordsmanship as they had wished for him. Touki was just not as easy to grasp as magic was for him. 

He knew how Touki theoretically should function. But he simply didn't have the intuition necessary to hone it to a higher level. He managed to achieve a rudimentary layer of bodily reinforcement that increased his stats by roughly 20% when applied. But it was far from what his tutors were capable of. 

Had Touki been the sole avenue of strength available for Luke to pursue, he would have undeniably put all of his focus, effort and zeal into training Touki. 

But that was not the case, and Luke already had his hands full with so many other matters that he did not find it regretful to not excel in this one aspect. It was simply not worth the opportunity cost to sink more time into something that may not bear fruit. 

Perhaps it was something he could explore when the A.I. Chip finished its analysis of touki. Currently it was stuck at 38% and progress was slow. Most of its processing power was in recreating recipes and similar knowledge from the Original after all.

Progress on that was satisfactory but still not comprehensive. Luke now had on hand a second recipe for a potion to increase his magic power. Something to celebrate, except the key ingredient for this brew was somewhat tricky to acquire. 

Months ago, the procurer for House Notos had luckily stumbled upon a rare ingredient. Dragon's blood. 

Unlike the Magus World, dragons weren't exactly rare here. They were just troublesome to deal with. A typical dragon was rated as an S-rank threat. Which meant it would take an S-rank adventuring party to deal with one. 

This wasn't the troublesome part yet. The tricky part was where they were located. 

Black dragons were native to the Demon Continent. There were Water Dragons that lived in the ocean. Whereas Red Dragons could be found, fortunately enough, on the Central Continent. The vial of dragon blood the procurer brought was precisely from a red dragon. 

The thing was, they all nested in the aptly named Red Dragon Mountain Range, in hordes of hundreds or thousands. It was one of the few danger zones on the Central Continent, where even World Powers were said to avoid. 

Killing a single Red Dragon was simple enough even for Luke. But a swarm of them numbering in the hundreds was too risky to even consider. The problem was with Luke's mana capacity, which was ironically the reason why he wanted to hunt these dragons in the first place. 

He simply wouldn't have enough mana to last in a drawn out fight against dozens or hundreds of dragons. It was perhaps possible for him to obscure himself with stealth magic that could obfuscate the senses, but red dragons were known for their fire breaths. 

Besides, it was a moot point anyway. Although fortunately the red dragon mountain range was not far from the Milbots region - roughly a few days travel from Notos Keep on horseback - Luke didn't have the freedom to simply run off to go on a dragon hunt whenever he wished. 

Being born an aristocrat was a privilege, but it also had its obligations. Especially in the Notos Greyrat household where 'running away' was a taboo topic to even bring up. 

He'd have to set up a bounty in the Adventurer's guilds for dragon's blood. It would be expensive, no doubt. If it was just a vial or two he needed, it would still be affordable. But the problem was with how much blood he would need to distill just for a single concoction. 

It would not be a sustainable operation in the long run, especially not when he would be able to imbibe the magic power raising potion more than once like the Cerulean Ocean. Only three times, according to the A.I. Chip, but each would bring massive gains, pushing him into the realm of King rank easily or even touching Emperor rank. 

Perhaps when his personal guards were all modified to be Branded Swordsmen, he could send them to bring back a couple dragon carcasses, but that would be still be a few years in the making. 

He still needed time for his bodyguards to reach full maturity before branding them with magical runes and modifying their biology with alchemical elixirs that would halt the natural growth of their bodies which would in turn limit them from reaching their full potential. 

But Jude would make an excellent first subject for conversion to Branded Swordsman. His natural growth was already reaching its limits, with the nourishment potions pushing his development to its threshold. 

He was the one of the select few that had been taught directly by the three Saints. Grant, the Sword Saint, was fond of the young man. Something about his straightforward nature, simple minded sincerity and blunt manner of speaking endeared him to the Sword Saint. 

And the Sword God style was unsurprisingly well suited for the admittedly dim witted young man. Its emphasis on speed and aggression, where the main focus is to strike down the opponent first, meant it did not need fancy tricks like the North God style or patience and keen perception like the Water God style. 

Grant had declared Jude an Intermediate-rank Sword God practitioner after just a year of training. 

But Luke didn't want his personal bodyguards to rely solely on any one of the three main sword styles. Each of them, while well established in this world, had its own weaknesses and flaws. 

The Water God style, for instance, focused entirely on defending and counterattacking. Although it may be considered practical for actual bodyguards whose sole duty was meant to be protection, it would not suit Luke's purposes nor his intentions for his personal troops. 

Techniques wise, the Knight Training Manual he imparted to his bodyguards had its own techniques for attacking and defending. Not as well developed as something like the Longsword of Light, but practical and varied at least. 

And it was also coincidental that despite having learned the Sword God style, Jude's preferred weapon was a spear. 

"Sword swing slow. Spear stab faster." Jude explained. 

It was impeccable logic that even Grant could not refute. 

Speaking of Jude, his sister was also well on the road to full recovery. Luke might have already fully cured her genetic disorders if he had put all his time, effort and resources into it, but frankly he had better things to do. The A.I. Chip's processing power was a finite resource, and expending all of it on curing one girl, however talented she might be, was folly. 

And her talent was the real deal. Marie had a naturally keen intellect, and a burgeoning grasp on spellcasting. 

Luke introduced the girl to Anthony but took on the bulk of her learning himself when it became clear his mentor wasn't interested in having another student. Thankfully she was clever and independent enough that he didn't need to spend too much time teaching her. 

Though a commoner, Marie had taught herself to read when she was young yet lacked access to books. Now given near unrestrained access to the Notos library, she consumed books like a true book worm. So Luke gave her the job as a librarian to satisfy her hunger for consuming knowledge. 

Luke only needed to assign her readings and homework, and Marie would even take the initiative to go beyond the intended curriculum even during her free time. 

Her education was slow and meticulous. Like Luke, he made sure she mastered every type of magic at each rank before advancing to the next level. He was cultivating her to be something akin to a research/personal assistant and secretary. She would need a comprehensive grasp on the foundation of magic to do so. 

As a result, despite it being a year since she became his student, Marie was still technically an Elementary-ranked magician. 

And unfortunately, Luke was not able to impart his ability to casually cast spells without incantations to his first student. Marie could not grasp the concept of chantless spellcasting, no matter how Luke broke it down and slowly explained his methods to her. It was similar to Anthony, who for some reason just couldn't wrap his mind around silent casting. 

It was strange, Luke judged. There was perhaps more to the inability of chantless spellcasting for most natives that met the eye. But it was something he put a pin on to look into if he had the time in the future. 

Though she failed to cast spells silently, Marie instead learned how to shorten her incantations instead. Truncated spellcasting allowed her to reduce an original incantation by half or more. 

For instance, the original incantation for Fireball was 26 words long: "Let the great protection of fire be on the place thou seekest. I call the bold heat of a torch here and now. Fireball!"

Marie managed to reduce it to just 5: "Heat of a torch. Fireball!"

This was one of her most familiar spells. She didn't have as large of a truncation with the others. That was one of the conditions for truncated spellcasting. 

The caster had to be familiar with the spell, and practiced it dozens or hundreds of times before becoming familiar enough with the mana flow and visualization required to shorten the magic chant. 

After learning of this, Anthony had been intrigued by the girl but ultimately stuck with his decision not to take her as his student. As he had said, "She is talented, but there are hundreds of talented magicians in the world. And once you've watched lightning carve its name into the sky, even the finest candle seems a timid thing, trembling in the dark.

What he was referring to, naturally, was the comparison of Marie's truncated spellcasting and Luke's effortless and masterful manipulation of magic that broke all modern preconceptions of arcane studies. It was an unfair comparison, but Anthony was stubborn when it came to things like this with what little time he had left. 

"Young master?" Clara asked once more, having silently waited for Luke's reply to no avail. 

"Hm? Ah, pardon me Clara, I was lost in thought." Luke responded, "It's still a little early. I will sleep for another hour or two. Though, I will need your help again when I wake up later." 

Clara blushed at his hidden meaning, "Of course young master, it would be my pleasure."

Smiling contentedly, Luke closed his eyes and went back to sleep.