Faint motes of invisible red light approached Ardor from all directions. They sunk into his body as if it were a sponge and eventually gathered into his dantian. 

He followed a particular breathing method as mentioned in the manual, and thought of his body as a meeting point for fire elements, as a spark that needed little more flame to burn and as a black hole, no, a red hole that sucked them all in.

Perhaps his method of visualization following his Crimson King’s Records was so abnormal that despite being above the ocean, it attracted plenty of fire elements to him and they gradually accumulated in his dantian.

A few hours went by. His dantian was filled with red by now. Ardor’s body was spent sweating buckets as if he’d run a 30 day marathon. His stamina was at an all-time low and his stomach grumbled as if he’d been starving for days.

Ardor finally realized he had been too eager to leave his mortal coil behind and welcome a more powerful self. Hours of training for the first time had put an unnecessary strain on him, and he was simply experiencing its side effects.

Still, Ardor didn’t stop, realizing that he was feeling a breaking point mentioned by his training manual. Stopping now would mean it would become much more difficult to feel the same thing in the future without a lot of effort.

‘One last push!’ Ardor thought with eagerness. ‘I’m a single step away!’

A few minutes of struggle later, he took that step. His red dantian cracked at a point. From there, the crack expanded in a zigzag fashion and kept moving in all directions, almost randomly. But that crack’s line didn’t connect.

Like a person playing a famous snake game in Ardor’s past life, the crack ingeniously grew and eventually, after forming so many lines, that made one question why the egg’s shell pieces were not falling apart, it went to its origin and created a complicated line.

*Explosion*

Ardor felt his dantian burst, but didn’t panic, for he knew what was to come. Like the birth of the world from a big bang, an empty round space bigger than before formed inside him as his dantian’s capacity increased.

Now, he could feel the fire elements even better, as if he had gone from being their neighborhood friend to their second cousin.

As the euphoria of getting stronger faded away, he was faced with the negative effects of being too hasty.

Every part of his body felt painful. His skin was hot, and he noticed his body hair simply vanished, or rather, they burned away. In horror, he touched his head and felt his lush hair still present, less, but present.

“Aha… ha ha ha!” After sighing in relief, he began laughing amidst the pain. Then he realized. “Why am I so hungry!?”

Immediately, he put on a pair of clothes and rushed to the door. After underestimating the strength brought about by his transformation, he ultimately failed to stop in time and crashed through it, breaking it into pieces.

*Crash*

*Coughs*

The people present there, waiting for him, got the first servings of a newbie at controlling his strength and moved aside, dodging the wooden splinters flying towards them.

He looked at the mess he had caused and scratched his head while feeling awkward. Then he saw his love.

This time, he was careful and walked over slowly. Jeanne didn’t understand why he did that, but the other ladies, who were no longer mortals, had an expression of ‘wow’ plastered over their faces.

As he stood in front of her, he held his arms open and waited for her to hug him, which she did. Now, even more careful, he gently hugged her back, and he softly murmured in her ears in delight, “I’m finally a Beginner Apprentice Warrior!”

Jeanne’s expression changed in surprise and she hugged him tighter. “I knew you could do it!” she exclaimed.

Ardor smiled brilliantly, feeling all that pain was worth it. Now, despite his stomach’s protests to feed it and his body’s protests to rest, he remained in that hug that gave him mental satisfaction.

Seeing the couple stay still, Lance couldn’t wait to know what was going on.

‘If I disturb him now, he won’t kill me right?’ he thought, still unsure. Thankfully, that never happened, as Ardor let Jeanne go.

He looked at the others and their surprised and curious faces.

“I’m officially a Beginner Apprentice Warrior!” he announced.

…

After sharing some details of his advancement upon their request, Ardor finally looked at Alse and Isabella, who felt different somehow. He just couldn’t put a finger on it.

Jeanne broke the news to him.

“They’ve advanced as well.”

“Really?” His eyes widened, then saw both of them nod.

“I’m now officially a Warrior,” Alse said.

He looked at Isabella. “I’ve just become an Advanced Apprentice Warrior.”

Both the ladies didn’t feel they had done something special, seeing Ardor’s results. In fact, after seeing him, their joy of advancement diminished by a lot.

Ardor saw Lance’s grinning face and knowing himself well, he had an idea of the cause of that.

<What happened?> he asked. <You’re acting as if you’re the one who advanced instead of them.>

Lance looked at Ardor.

<Don’t you see it? Now I can get quadruple LPs with both Bella and Alse! It’s soon gonna be raining points baby!>

Ardor smiled at his clone’s happiness and felt pleased as it would benefit him as well.

‘After all, 50% of whatever he earns will come to me!’ he thought with glee.

“I’m famished,” he told Jeanne.

“I noticed,” she replied. “But the lunch’s already over. We already ate without you.”

After seeing Ardor’s face lower in disappointment, she added, “Of course, I brought some for you. But… you kind of poked it too many times.”

She pointed to a center table upon which lay multiple plates of food. Only, the food wasn’t edible anymore with all wooden splinters poking it.

Ardor looked away in embarrassment and decided to head out to the buffet and pay some money and have them cook for him.

“We’ll come as well,” Alse and Isabella said in unison, as if they’d practiced this beforehand. After seeing Jeanne’s unfriendly gaze, Isabella added, “We didn’t eat since we were advancing.”

Hearing the reason, she didn’t bother with the women anymore and went to her room thinking of ways to grow stronger while trying to remember her old memories of training.

Ardor felt uncomfortable at the thought of eating with women he didn’t like and looked at Lance, who immediately got the meaning.

“Ah, it seems I didn’t eat enough.” Lance rubbed his belly as he stood up. “I’ll have a quick bite as well.”

“But master, didn’t you eat a table’s worth of food telling something like ‘he’s not here, so I get to do what I want’? You even took my chicken leg piece!” Minnie pouted, sending an arrow straight into Lance’s heart.

But this arrow was not one filled with love, it was a black one of bad luck.

As Lance awkwardly looked at Ardor, who was staring daggers at him, he hurriedly said, “I can explain, I can explain! The food today was different. It was much better!”

Seeing the excuse not work, he added, “And you were not present, so I had to remind everyone else of your presence by eating your share!”

“Do I eat half a table’s worth of food?” Ardor asked in annoyance.

Lance remembered and had an answer in his heart. ‘Two to three plates?’ He looked at Minnie with some resentment, who looked back at him in innocence. He soon shrugged. ‘Let’s face whatever’s going to happen.’

“Let’s go. Stop wasting any more time,” Ardor insisted as his stomach hadn’t stopped growling for a single moment. Unlike what the others thought, he was not a born noble and cared little about table manners of not eating too much.

After they had their fill, they returned and found the broken door was as good as new.

“I called them to fix it,” Jeanne said and received a nod of approval from Ardor that made her smile.

“Come sit,” he told everyone as he put a piece of paper on the round table set in the room’s center and others dragged their chairs closer and sat as they would around a campfire.

But what was cooking in the center were not some marshmallows, but their future.

“Nutmeth, Elementary Tower, or Vuzax. We have three options in front of us,” he said.

As the others noticed from his tone that this was not a discussion but a decision made by him, they listened closely and saw him draw the symbols of three camps.

“The Academy of Nutmeth has all kinds of mages, while the Elementary Tower has Black Mages in majority practicing offensive magic. Then the Tower of Vuzax with most Red Mages believing in strengthening themselves through the power of bloodlines from various creatures.” He let that sink in.