Aria nodded slowly.

"Knights don’t have mana veins," Adrian explained. "Their training methods force mana directly into their physical blood."

"Into their blood?"

"Exactly. The blood carries the mana that they breathe straight to their muscles. It heals tears and gives them a lot of stamina compared to mages and regular people. That’s why they can run all day." he said and thought about it for a second before adding, "A mage no different than a regular person when it comes to their physical capabilities."

Aria looked down at her small hands.

Back in her past life, she had reached the absolute peak of magic. She knew how to cast world ending spells. She already knew that her mana didn’t interact with her physical body.

But she had never really bothered to learn how the meathead knights managed to do what they did.

Now she had the answer.

She stayed quiet for a long moment before she decided to finally speak.

"Papa," she said.

"Yes?"

"What if there is a method for mages to use the mana inside their mana veins to interact with the rest of their body?"

AAdrian actually stopped breathing for a second and just stared at her.

"Say that again?" he asked.

"What happens if a mage connects their mana veins to their normal veins or well.. their bodies?" Aria repeated.

Everything just clicked in Adrian’s head as he heard those words.

It felt like someone threw a brick at his face which had the divine secrets of this world carved into it.

If a mage actually pulled that off, they would completely break the power scaling of this world.

’A person who has the massive mana capacity of a mage, combined with the physical reinforcement of a knight.’ Adrian thought.

His heart started beating faster.

’They would be absolutely overpowered.’

He started running the math in his head based on the world’s population.

Out of a thousand regular commoners, maybe one or two were born with the mana veins required to become a mage.

And out of a group of a hundred mages, maybe ten of them actually had decent talent.

The other ninety were completely doomed from birth. They had F rank or E rank mana veins, which only helped them reach the second magic circle and the spells that these mages could use weren’t too useful for wars or fights.

’Like me before I got the system.’ Adrian thought.

Those untalented mages would spend their entire lives meditating and struggling. The absolute peak of their potential was reaching the second circle by the time they were old.

First and second circle mages were practically useless in actual combat.

The most dangerous thing they could do was light a campfire or shoot a weak gust of wind. If they went to the front lines of a war, a basic foot soldier would chop their head off while tanking their spells. There was no need for knights to even get involved.

Because they were useless in a fight, ninety percent of all mages ended up working in the production fields.

They became runesmiths, alchemists, mana engineers or took other supportive roles in the society.

True war mages were incredibly rare. A mage only became a real threat on the battlefield once they reached the fourth circle and gained access to highly destructive or effective area of effect spells.

Adrian’s mind raced.

’But what if I change their class entirely?’ he thought.

What if he took all those weak, untalented first and second circle mages and trained them as knights instead? What if he found someone with S rank mana veins and taught them this hybrid trick?

If he figured out how to bridge the gap between isolated mana veins and physical muscles, he would have a monopoly on the strongest soldiers alive.

"Papa?" Aria called out.

Seeing that he wasn’t responding waved a hand in front of his face and then gently tapped his cheek.

Adrian snapped out of it. He looked at his daughter and started grinning.

"Aria, that is a genius question."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Adrian said, standing up. "I’m going to figure this out. I’ll do the research and make a custom manual. If everything works out well, we will probably end up being the strongest force in this continent, let alone this empire."

Aria smiled.

"Go get some rest," he told her. "You worked hard today, so just let the medicine work."

She nodded and hopped off the chair, heading down the hall to sleep so her body could use recover well.

With his daughter gone, Adrian sat back down at his desk.

He didn’t want to wait around. The urge to test this out was extremely strong, so he pulled up his system screen and linked it to the dungeon.

Going through his storage room, he pulled out a few books. He tossed the True Knight Training Manual and the Royal Knight Training Manual onto his desk.

Then he reached for the nameless leather book that Aria had given him weeks ago.

He carefully made a copy of the first two pages of the book.

These two pages contained the simplest instructions for breathing ambient mana and absorbing energy directly from mana crystals.

He placed the two torn pages on top of the knight manuals.

’System,’ Adrian thought.

’By using these items as base materials.’ Adrian told the system. ’Can you create a new knight training manual specifically designed for those who have mana veins?’

He focused on his exact goal.

’I want a method to make the mana inside the mana veins interact with the physical body. I want the mana to flow directly into the physical heart.’

[Affirmative.]

[Calculating new manual parameters based on provided materials.]

Adrian leaned forward, waiting for the book to appear.

Usually, the dungeon system only took a few seconds to spit out a newly combined item.

This time, a floating blue loading bar appeared and barely moved.

A minute passed, which then turned into ten minutes.

Adrian stood up and started pacing around the room. He checked on the refrigerators downstairs. He drank two cups of water. He stared out the window at the setting sun.

An entire hour passed.

Then, another few minutes ticked by.

Finally, the system let out a soft chime.