Chapter 68: Interlude – The Furnace

I was burning up from head to toe, like someone had poured oil into a blazing fire. The elixir that had slid down my throat surged through my body like a tidal wave, threatening to rupture every vein and vessel. It was as if a small trickling stream had suddenly turned into a raging flood.

“

Ugh

!”

The sudden rush of mana shook my very consciousness, but I willed myself to focus. I reined in the violently rampaging mana, albeit with much difficulty, and slowly guided it toward my soul stigmata.

Mana flooded into my soul stigmata, overflowing as if it could burst out at any moment. The increase was way more than I had expected. It was like I had downed two or three high-grade Soul Stigmata Amplifier Potions at once. My mana could have gone out of control right then, and I wouldn’t have been surprised; however, mana control was the one area where I surpassed all my peers.

Controlling this level of mana was nothing. Even in my Incarnation state, where my mana expanded toward infinity, I had no trouble managing it. No matter how potent the elixir was, it couldn’t make my mana spiral out of control.

Good. If I just condense the mana into my soul stigmata like this...

I believed I could absorb the elixir’s effects without incident, until something happened. Suddenly, the Primordial Flame ignited fiercely. It felt like I had been thrown into a blazing furnace. Agonizing heat swept through my entire body.

“

Argh

!

Gah

!”

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

W-what the hell is this?

The Primordial Flame, which had only ever reacted to death, was now responding to the elixir. I didn’t even have time to make sense of it. The Primordial Flame surged through my blood vessels, spreading across my entire body. Just like when I invoked Ignition, gray ash-like smoke began pouring out from every pore.

“

Ah!

Urgh

.”

My head burned, and my body was aflame. I couldn’t breathe. Every cell in my body seemed like it was incinerating, and it felt as though even the last spark of my soul could vanish in the ash.

There was nothing but heat, burning, burning, and burning. Then, my bones twisted. Muscles throughout my body expanded and contracted as if a child were kneading clay in random directions.

A wave of unbearable pain struck like lightning. I clenched my teeth, suppressing the scream that threatened to escape, and waited for the Blessing of Resurrection to activate. However, even as my bones contorted and muscles and mana circuits twisted chaotically, the Blessing of Resurrection never triggered.

What is this? What’s happening? Don’t tell me... It’s gone? No, that can’t be.

If the blessing was so easily lost, I wouldn’t have survived centuries chasing death in my previous life. So, if it hadn’t vanished, the change happening in my body right now probably had nothing to do with death. That realization opened my senses to something new, something I had never felt before, even in the depths of agony.

Suddenly, I realized that my twisted bones were realigning into a new form. Hair, teeth, and nails that had fallen out were regenerating. Shredded skin peeled away, replaced by fresh new layers.

I wondered what it could be. Having experienced countless revivals, this experience was supposed to be a familiar feeling for me, like breathing. But something was different. My body wasn’t simply returning to its original state. It was transforming into something new. It was like being reborn and being recreated from scratch. A brand-new body was being forged into existence.

A low breath escaped me. “

Haa!

”

When the gray smoke pouring from my pores slowly faded away, I glanced around, taking a deep breath. “Is it over?”

At that moment, an acrid stench, like that of rotting flesh, filled the room along with the smoke. “

Ugh

. What the hell is that smell?”

It was unbearable. I opened a window to air out the room. As fresh air wafted in from outside, I sensed something different.

“

Huh!

”

Despite not reinforcing my body with mana, I could smell the soup being boiled in the cafeteria hundreds of meters away. Moreover, it wasn’t just my sense of smell. I could feel the breeze brushing across my skin more clearly. The chirping of insects rang sharper in my ears. Even the scenery outside looked crisper. It was like I had been looking through a dusty lens my whole life, and someone had finally wiped it clean.

Suddenly, I recalled something and

rushed to the sink. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My height had grown slightly, and my shoulders had become broader. Every muscle on my body was now defined like that of a statue carved by a divine artisan. My skin was soft and flawless, like that of a newborn child.

I had heard of this before. Heroes who possessed an overwhelming amount of mana often had their bodies reconstructed to accommodate that immense power. Yuren and Senior Sophia had gone through the same thing in my previous life.

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as having a lot of mana. The body would undergo reconstruction only after one had reached a level worthy of such power.

“This elixir shouldn’t have effects on that scale,” I muttered.

Even considering my past life, this was undoubtedly the best elixir I had ever taken. Still, I had possessed only about half the average mana of a cadet. It shouldn’t have been enough to trigger something as extreme as a complete bodily reconstruction.

Wanting to check how much my mana has increased, I summoned the mana slumbering within my soul stigmata. It had increased by roughly sixfold. That meant I was now sitting at about three times the average cadet’s mana, which roughly put me just slightly below Professor Kane. Compared to Yuren, who held far more mana than even Professor Kane, I was still more than twice as weak.

I had gained a massive boost in mana. However, even this massive boost wasn’t enough mana to justify a complete bodily reconstruction.

“So if it wasn’t the mana, something else must’ve caused the reconstruction,” I muttered to myself.

It wasn’t hard to guess what that something else was. I focused on my left chest and summoned the power of the Primordial Flame. Up until now, the flame only reacted when I experienced death. But now, I could feel it shifting ever so slightly, responding to my will.

To think I’d end up being able to control the Primordial Flame like this...

A hollow chuckle escaped my lips. Though it was still a minuscule amount compared to its full power, being able to wield even a portion of it at will marked an extraordinary change.

I wondered if the reason I couldn’t control it before was simply that my body wasn’t strong enough. If the body were a vessel, then my previous form had simply been too weak to hold something as immense as the Primordial Flame.

It meant this transformation turned my body into a proper furnace for that flame—a furnace, a crucible forged for the Primordial Flame.

“

Whew!

”

I felt like a storm had blown through my mind, overwhelmed by all the unexpected changes. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I decided to summarize my gains.

My raw mana had increased sixfold, I could now partially control the Primordial Flame, and my physical body had been reshaped as if it were reforged in mana itself.

“All that from just one elixir?”

Honestly, even I had trouble grasping just how strong I had become. It was a level of explosive growth that defied reason.

At this rate... Have I already surpassed my former self?

I wondered.

In my previous life, I had graduated at the bottom of my class and spent ten years scraping by as a no-name mercenary. Then, I had formed a party with comrades like Yuren and Berald. We fought for another ten years before I earned the title of one of the Final Five Heroes and faced off against the Demon God.

That was over twenty years of blood, sweat, and tears. Yet, barely three months into my second life, I was already catching up, maybe even surpassing all that hard-earned progress.

“No, maybe it’s too soon to say I’ve surpassed it just yet.”

I decided to put the Primordial Flame aside for now. Purely in terms of mana, I definitely possessed more of it now than I did in my previous life.

I recalled how it had been for me. “Back then, I nearly bled myself dry chasing after rare elixirs and artifacts just to increase my mana a little bit.”

But in this life? I just had to die four times a day, and my mana grew steadily; then, one lucky elixir later, I had surpassed my former self. If the past me had heard that, he probably would’ve foamed at the mouth and thrown a fit.

“But that only applies to raw mana.”

Back then, I had powerful weapons and tools to make up for my lack of mana, like the cursed demon sword that granted power in exchange for blood, the forbidden grimoire that demanded life force in return for deadly spells, or the cursed armor that drained one’s body every time they wore it, slowly consuming their flesh.

Those were the weapons that had earned me the title of one of the Final Five Heroes, the Undying Fiend. I didn’t have any of them yet.

“So all things considered, I guess I’m about even with my past self right now.”

At least, that was excluding the Primordial Flame, which was practically in a category of its own.

“

Hah!

Should I be happy about this? Or feel empty?”

It was a strange feeling, knowing I had surpassed twenty years of hardship in just three months. Like someone who saved every penny for decades to buy a house, only to watch someone else win the lottery and buy the same house instantly. I was the lottery winner in this case, so I wasn’t exactly bitter, but it was bittersweet nonetheless.

“The one downside is... I can’t use the Soul Stigmata Amplifier Potion anymore.”

I glanced over at the glass vial filled with blue liquid resting on the table and clicked my tongue. Soul Stigmata Amplifier Potion worked by forcefully overloading the user’s soul stigmata, allowing a surge of mana in the short term.

Now that my body had been reforged and my soul stigmata’s stability had skyrocketed, the current Soul Stigmata Amplifier Potion was too weak to push it into overdrive. I could probably force an overload if I used stronger ingredients, but that was a matter for another time.

It was best to put that plan on hold for now. After all, I had gained a new technique: Ignition.

“Alright. I’ve gathered enough mana for now.”

It was time to move to the next step: determining which of the weapons from my past life would be the easiest to get first. The answer was probably one that wasn’t too far from the academy and one I could retrieve with my current strength.

I didn’t need to think too long. “The Demon Sword, Veskal.”

With a grin, I recalled the bloodthirsty sword sealed deep within the ruins, just waiting to be awakened.