Chapter 35
Morning arrived on Theron's rest day.
"Theron, I heard you're excused from training today?"
"The Head Instructor personally told you to rest?"
"Lucky bastard."
Theron calmly ate breakfast while listening to the jealous comments of his comrades.
Then he left the dormitory.
He headed toward a hill behind the training facility.
There...
He lay flat on the sunny grass.
And pretended to sleep all morning.
To the observer watching from a distance...
Theron looked like the perfect trainee obediently following orders to rest.
And surveillance...
Naturally weakened when there was nothing interesting to watch.
Few things were more exhausting than staring all day at someone who had been ordered to rest...
And was actually resting.
As the morning passed...
The observer's presence visibly relaxed.
Shift changes became later.
His gaze wandered elsewhere more often.
An order directly from the Head Instructor...
Had lowered the perceived threat level of Theron to almost nothing for one day.
Thanks, Berton.
Theron would make excellent use of it.
Around noon...
The watcher on the hill yawned and turned his head.
During that brief moment...
The boy lying in the grass silently disappeared.
Southwestern Hell Island.
Sulfur valley.
Deep inside a ravine where white steam rose from the earth...
Theron stood alone.
Neither trainees nor instructors normally came here.
The air was filled with choking fumes.
Warm geothermal energy rose from the ground.
It was the hottest valley on the island.
Theron chose this place for two reasons.
First...
No one came here.
Second...
The heat of this land is perfect.
Theron sat cross-legged on a rock and closed his eyes.
The wall he intended to cross today...
Was Four-Star.
Aura.
The realm where mana accumulated inside the body could be drawn outside and given form.
If Three-Star meant filling a container with water...
Then Four-Star meant lifting that water beyond the edge of the container and making it stand.
Theron already knew the path.
He had walked it before.
The only problem...
Was this twelve-year-old body.
My total mana has reached the threshold.
The Bracelet of Warmth.
The Advanced Cultivation Room.
The Dark Tempelst Mana Method.
Those three gears had turned relentlessly for weeks.
His vessel was finally filled almost to overflowing.
But quantity alone was not enough.
Aura was not overflowing water.
It was a sharpened blade.
Density.
Mana that naturally wanted to scatter had to be twisted into a single strand.
As thin as thread.
As hard as steel.
And for increasing that density...
There was no better whetstone than the heat of this valley.
A memory from his previous life appeared.
The day Theron first reached Four-Star.
He had already been over twenty.
He spent months practically imprisoned inside the underground cultivation room of the knight order before finally breaking through.
His reward for reaching that wall?
Not celebration.
Only heavier assignments.
The stronger he became...
The deeper into darkness they sent him.
Back then...
Aura was nothing more than a tool for killing people.
But not this time.
In this life...
Theron intended to sharpen that black flame for something else.
The same strength...
Could become a different kind of strength depending on why it was held.
"...Haaaah."
Theron opened his breathing.
As he inhaled...
The heat dissolved in the surrounding air entered his body.
Fwoosh.
Hot energy settled over the mana flowing through his veins.
Theron wrapped the violent heat in mana.
Held it.
Compressed it.
Twisted it into one strand.
What he was doing now...
Was similar in principle to what nearly four hundred trainees would need to do with Red Flame Herb two months later.
Theron memorized the sensation deep into his bones.
If he intended to teach them...
He needed to fully understand it himself first.
One breath.
Two.
The sense of time disappeared.
Only the flow of mana remained.
Mana heated to an extreme moved from his mana hall toward his heart.
From his heart...
Into his arm.
Toward his fingertips.
There...
It touched the final wall.
Skin.
...Here.
The boundary between Three-Star and Four-Star.
Inside the body.
Outside the body.
In his previous life...
Theron had spent months against this wall.
But now...
He knew exactly what waited on the other side.
Of course...
Knowing did not mean the wall would open itself.
Hummm!
Mana struck the boundary and recoiled violently.
The blood vessels of his twelve-year-old body screamed each time.
His skin felt as though it was burning.
His heart pounded like it might explode.
A gateway that had taken months with an adult body...
Was now being forced by a body that had not even finished growing.
Endure.
Theron caught the rebounding mana.
He heated it further using the valley.
Compressed it more.
The denser the mana became...
The greater the pain.
Theron did not care.
Reaching the path once was difficult.
But knowing the route meant he could endure.
His whole body felt as though it were burning away.
But Theron already knew the sweetness waiting behind this pain.
I can...
No.
I have to.
Theron bit his lip and raised the mana with even greater force.
Then...
BOOM!
Without fear.
Without hesitation.
The first strand of sharpened mana pierced through the wall and appeared outside his body.
Crackle.
A dark flame-like energy flickered above his fingertips.
Thin as a strand of hair.
Darker than shadow.
...It's out.
Aura.
The same black, shadow-like Aura he had possessed in his previous life.
Mana refined through Dark Tempelst carried its dark nature even after leaving the body.
ROOOAR!
The first strand created a path.
Then the dam burst.
Mana poured outward.
Dark currents wrapped around Theron's entire body in a vortex.
Steam and dust across the valley were blasted away.
Four-Star.
The wall had finally collapsed.
Eight years earlier than in his previous life.
Aura at twelve years old.
The world suddenly became unbelievably clear.
The texture of rock.
The movement of steam.
Even wind dozens of meters away.
Theron stood.
Now...
