Chapter 1168: Edge of a Breakthrough

While Sein was experiencing a strong sense of fulfillment and tremendous growth, Leena and Grimm were growing just as quickly.

Grimm, who had been right on the edge of a breakthrough, finally reached demigodhood in his third year of traveling with Sein.

Throughout that time, Sein had offered plenty of guidance.

Now that Sein stood at a higher level and possessed broader insight, and with both of them specializing in the pyro element, they had a lot of common ground to explore.

While Sein could not solve every bottleneck or clear up every doubt Grimm had, their ongoing discussions helped Grimm progress far more quickly than he could have managed on his own.

As always, Grimm remained as introverted as ever.

At one point, Sein suggested, “You know, those academic salons organized by mages are actually pretty fun. You should give them a try sometime.”

“Even the Alveroth Empire hosts public lectures at its academies quite often. I’ve attended a few, and they were honestly good,” he added.

Sein used to think of himself as reserved, but Grimm was on another level. Perhaps this was just a common trait or quirk among gifted mages.

Grimm nodded. He had to admit that talking to other mages and sharing ideas did offer a different kind of experience compared to working through things alone.

However, his social circle was too small, and most of his close contacts were those within his faction.

His senior, Vlad, was kind to him, but Rank Four mages were usually busy, especially those like Vlad who lacked strong backing and had to manage the early stages of running their own divine tower.

Vlad could offer occasional advice, but expecting him to take on the role of a full‑time mentor was unrealistic.

Besides, Grimm had taken a path quite different from the rest of Master Archimedes’ apprentices.

While Vlad pursued the deeper study of pyro elemental laws, Grimm had chosen something far more extreme—the unique path of Obliteration magic.

It was a road only he could walk, just like Sein’s path of harnessing the power of ashes.

Fortunately, Sein had remarkable knowledge. In certain areas of elemental theory, his insight even surpassed that of Grimm’s late mentor, Archimedes.

However, he was clueless when it came to Obliteration magic.

But thanks to the legacy knowledge left behind by Master Jorces in the Faceless Mask, he still managed to dig up plenty of elemental knowledge that Grimm could learn from.

That fresh information helped Grimm gain new clarity and progress rapidly.

While Grimm was growing by leaps and bounds, Leena’s progress was not far behind. Naturally, Sein paid closer attention to his own woman.

He had hoped to remove the Faceless Mask and let Leena tap directly into Master Jorces’ legacy knowledge. Unfortunately, the mask had already attuned itself to him alone.

With Sein’s current abilities, he could not unlock the mask’s full potential yet, let alone extract specific knowledge suitable for Leena.

Master Jorces truly lived up to his reputation as a learned ancient mage.

Beyond the four elements he mastered, he had dabbled in umbra elemental magic, necromancy, summoning arts, astrology, and more.

The only field Sein could not find within the Faceless Mask’s archive was mechanics.

Apart from that, he found at least partial introductions to nearly every major knowledge field in Magus World.

At one point, Sein even suspected that Master Jorces was a Magus. After all, only a Magus would explore such a wide spread of truths.

Aside from giving Leena more attention and guidance, Sein also decided to gift her the Demon Eye Mask, along with one of the robes woven from the Spider Queen’s divine silk.

He owned only three of those robes and lacked the raw materials to make more.

Now that he had the Faceless Mask, Sein no longer had any use for the Demon Eye Mask.

Imbued with the power of multiple laws and a divine relic, the Demon Eye Mask would be a great asset to Leena at her current stage.

Wearing such a powerful artifact in a place as dangerous as Blackhaven was not exactly a smart move, but after the chaos on its outskirts, Leena and the Black Tower of Cinderbones had likely gained enough of a reputation to keep most troublemakers at bay.

Most people would think twice before crossing her—the Rank Four Tower Master of Bone, now locked up in Atlan Interstellar Prison, was proof enough of that.

On top of that, Sein also planned to ask the Spider Queen to keep an eye on Leena.

Since he now served as the Queen’s divine messenger, he figured that was not too much to ask.

***

Twenty years flew by, and Sein had basically solved nearly all of the problems that had once stumped him before he was a demigod-level mage.

Only a handful of puzzles remained—topics the knowledge stored in the Faceless Mask’s archive did not cover.

After all, the mask is just a tool. It was not like Master Jorces had come back to life to guide him personally.

Times had changed.

Knowledge from a hundred thousand years ago had been refined and reworked countless times since then.

The mystery of ashes that Sein had been exploring was not even mentioned in Jorces’s legacy.

When it came to these trickier concepts, Sein could only sigh and plan a trip back to the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring to seek advice from his mentor.

Still, there was no denying how much of a boost the Faceless Mask had given him.

Without the mask’s suppression, the raw elemental energy swirling inside him would have forced him to ascend to Rank Four long ago.

For mages, knowledge was the real key to advancing. Focus, mana, and constitution levels all came second.

By now, Sein had checked almost all the boxes.

It was his own perfectionism that held him back from pushing through to Rank Four.

Until he unraveled the remaining baffling mysteries, his advancement would feel imperfect to him.

Through Master Jorces’ teachings, Sein had come to understand that the more solid his knowledge foundation was before reaching Rank Four, the broader his future path would be.

Rushing Rank Four ascension might leave hidden problems in both his body and foundation.

Right now, Sein’s biggest hurdle was figuring out how to convert his power of ashes into a “lawful body”.

It involved not just the Law of Ashes, but multiple elemental disciplines and mastery of a body-tempering technique—something Sein placed great importance on.

That was not a problem Lorianne could solve for him. He needed the guidance of Grandmaster Feylis.

With her superior insight, Sein was confident she could show him a clear path forward.