‘Kuh!’ Zich quickly regained his senses.
‘Did I lose my consciousness for a bit?” That seemed to be the case. Even if he had mentally prepared himself, the clash between the fire mana and his own mana was beyond imagination.
‘Thank goodness I gained back my consciousness right away.’
Even though he had fainted very briefly, it was for a long period of time considering his current situation. If he hadn’t tightly gripped onto the flames’ mana as soon as he regained his consciousness, he would have turned into ashes like Lyla said.
‘I can’t let that happen!’
The reason why he was trying this extremely dangerous method in the first place was to win, and he had no plan on dying pointlessly in this place. Soon, it seemed risking his life had paid off.
‘It cracked!’
The mana that hadn’t even budged when he tried his hardest broke out. Like a farmer cutting wheat during harvest season, Zich collected them all.
‘Good!’
Zich transformed the mana into forms that he could use and immediately mobilized them to help control the fire mana.
‘I am going to do it one more time.’ Zich moved the fire mana again. He put his guard up to not faint this time.
Craash!
‘Kuh!’ He didn’t lose his consciousness this time, but he was on the verge of doing so.
‘It’s really not an easy task.’ He grumbled. Zich collected the escaped mana and made them readily available. Then, led the fire mana again.
Bam!
Bam!
Baam!
The fire mana and Zich’s mana continued to clash, and every time they did, the mana that had been locked deep inside Zich’s body broke free. Zich worked hard collecting them and did it a couple of more times.
Blink! Zich opened his eyes. A stream of light passed by his eyes, and everyone looked at him nervously.
“Haa!” Zich sighed. It was a sigh filled with several meanings: it conveyed the relief for the mind-numbing pain to finally be over and the fatigue that was dragging his whole body down. Yet, the biggest part of it was the happiness he felt from the mana currently filling up his body.
“Are you okay?” Lyla asked carefully.
“I am fine. There’s nothing wrong with my body.”
“Thank goodness.” She stroked her heart. After checking his condition, she asked if Zich achieved his goal, “How’s your mana?”
Zich didn’t answer immediately. He circled his mana all over his body and checked his gains. Then, he gave a thumbs-up. “I couldn’t have done better.”
He felt mana overflowing from his body.
* * *
Although Zich had gotten hold of a lot of mana for risking his life, it wasn’t the end to his struggle. Since he had gained so much mana in such a short time, he had to make up for the rest by pure effort.
“Huff! Huff!” Zich’s breathing was rough. Although he was rarely out of breath, he couldn’t help it now; sweat poured down his body like rain, and all the muscles in his body constantly screamed. Yet, Zich pressed on, ignoring his muscles’ pleas and pushing them harder. From a distance away, his companions stood watching.
Gulp! Somebody swallowed their saliva down. It was hard to tell which one of them did it; perhaps even the person did it without unknowingly, seeing how difficult the level of Zich’s training was.
“…I need to self reflect, senior.”
“What?”
Snoc and Hans quietly talked to each other.
“Whenever Sir Zich said things like, ‘This is light training,’ or Iisn’t this easy?’ while training us, I thought it was a bit irritating, but I think I know now…” Snoc sighed, “He wasn’t exaggerating.”
Koo. Nowem let out a sound in agreement. Hans also nodded. Compared to the training that Zich was undergoing right now, all the training they had received was like child’s play.
Crunch! They heard a chilling sound. Everyone’s faces darkened. Unable to withstand the intensity of the training, Zich’s wrist cracked; according to the sound, it seemed that his bones were broken. Yet, even with this considerable pain, Zich’s face didn’t even flinch. He picked up the potions that he prepared by his side beforehand and poured it over his wrist. The swelling wrist immediately healed to its original state. Then, as if nothing had happened, he returned to training. Everyone stared at Zich in utter shock.
Zich turned to them. “What are you guys doing just watching me? Are you guys not planning to train?”
“N-no!”
“We will get onto it then.”
Koo!
Hans and Snoc moved in a panic. Nowem planted himself tightly on top of Snoc’s shoulders, and Elena slid her body closer to Lyla. After chasing away his onlookers, Zich commenced his training again.
‘I have to make my body even sturdier.’
His new supply of mana would be a huge additional asset for him. Yet, it could be a double-edged sword; no matter how strong a fortress was, it would collapse instantly on a soft foundation. It was the same for the body. Even if he held a huge amount of mana, if his body was too weak to handle it, then it would shred into pieces from the sheer force. Thus, Zich needed a sturdier physical body for the strong mana he obtained.
‘It’s hard,’ he thought.
Of course, it was; for a couple of hours now, he was literally abusing his body without using any mana. It wasn’t a good training method at all. This kind of excessive method tended to ruin the body instead of helping it. Yet, Zich used potions to overcome these negatives.
‘I don’t even have many potions left now.’
Since he used the potions for all kinds of situations, even his giant supply of potions was reaching its end now. It was actually surprising that the supply had lasted this long considering how he used potions like water.
‘Since I have to save some for emergencies, I can’t continue this training for too long.’
It was a bit disappointing since he was enjoying the fact that he was getting stronger and stronger.
‘I’ll be able to get back some of my power to a certain extent.’ Zich moved his mana inside his body. His body hadn’t adjusted to his mana yet, so pain swept through him.
However, the flow of mana didn’t stop. If he hadn’t forcibly awakened his mana through the Flame’s Tear and used his mana like this, he would have severely injured himself. Even though his training was extremely crude, the results were astounding.
‘I’m going to increase my skills as much as possible here.’
Zich held the Flame’s Tear again and walked into the magic circle that Lyla drew.
* * *
All of their plans in Shootuol ended. Zich and his companions began walking to head towards Violuwin again. Their travels were the same as usual; they walked straight through dense forestry and harsh terrain. Of course, during the night, they camped in the wilderness. From time to time, Zich continued to utilize the Flame’s Tear.
His power didn’t exponentially increase like the first time he used it. Since they were no longer near the Tree of Water and couldn’t get the support of the surrounding water mana, he needed to be much more careful about using the fire mana inside the Flame’s Tear. However, even this greatly increased his strength.
“Fwaa!” Zich let out a deep breath and opened his eyes.
Hans and Snoc stared at him with curiosity in their eyes.
“You guys want to try it?” Zich jokingly pushed the Flame’s Tear closer to them.
Lyla scolded him, “You want to kill them? Don’t offer something like that to them.”
“W-we’re all right.” Hans refused while stuttering, and Snoc fiercely nodded his head.
Zich immediately withdrew the Flame’s Tear. He wasn’t serious about it anyway.
Lyla stared at the fire and lamented, “We’re going to Violuwin again. It’s definitely not a place I would like to visit again.”
When Lyla saw their statues in the middle of the city, she felt an indescribable sense of embarrassment. “We should disguise ourselves again, right?”
“Yeah. If we want to avoid troublesome affairs.”
Elena was unable to understand Lyla and Zich’s conversation. She asked Snoc who was quietly standing next to her, “What are they talking about? Is there a reason why they might be targeted in that city?”
“Something happened but it’s the opposite of what you’re thinking.”
“The opposite?”
“We’re not trying to hide our identities because the city is hostile to us, but because they are too welcoming. Do you remember how I told you what happened in Violuwin last time?”
Elena nodded.
“After that event, the whole city became extremely favorable towards us.”
“Then, isn’t that a good thing?”
“Yeah. It’s good, but the way they show their favor is too much.”
Snoc finished his thought by saying, ‘You’ll know when we get there’, and Elena tilted her head.
A few hours later—
“Woaaaaaaah!” Elena’s mouth was wide open as she saw four statues standing in the middle of a large square. She looked especially touched while looking at the statue of Lyla and didn’t hide her emotions.
Lyla was embarrassed. “Stop looking at it!”
However, Elena could not repress the sparkle in her eyes, and Zich burst into laughter. In the end, Lyla’s hand slapped Zich’s back, but Zich still did not stop laughing.
These were all events that happened on the day Zich and his companions arrived back at Violuwin.
* * *
“Teacher, you’re really impressive!” After entering the city, Elena seemed very impressed. She hadn’t imagined that her companions would be heroes great enough for a city to make statues for them. Even though she lent a helping hand to save Shootuol, they hadn’t received such extravagant treatment like this.
Moreover, Elena was able to see how loved they were by the decorations showing their gratitude scattered throughout the city and by the songs that praised their achievement and skills.
“Look at this, Snoc!” Elena held up a small necklace from a shop. There was a small metal decoration on the necklace. “It’s supposed to represent the magical beast of one of the heroes who saved the city.”
Koo?
At Elena’s playful tone, Nowem reacted faster than Snoc and stared at the decoration on the necklace. Nowem’s mouth gaped open as he saw that his appearance had been extremely glamorized into something that looked like an ancient dragon.
Koo!
In response to Nowem’s strong protest, Elena burst out into laughter. Snoc comforted Nowem as he was causing a small commotion on his shoulder. Elena loudly laughed while seeing this sight. Then, she hung the necklace on Nowem’s neck. After finally calming himself down, Nowem got agitated again and began fiercely biting on the decoration with his teeth.
“Ah, no, Nowem! Don’t chew on weird things!”
Koooo!
Again, one person and one animal began causing a scene. As the instigator of this scene, Elena furtively retreated back and headed towards where Lyla was.
“Teacher, I clearly understand why you and the others have to disguise yourselves. It’s really an amazing amount of popularity.” True to Elena’s words, everyone except Elena had disguised themselves. “But will this amount of disguise be enough? It doesn’t seem like much has changed.”
“In the first place, there are not many people who really know us. It’s also hard to say that the statues look exactly like us. Moreover, people are surprisingly bad at telling apart people who are not close to them. They might just think that we look similar to the statues. When we came here a second time in the past, no one recognized us.”
“Is that so?” Elena nodded. “But if someone recognizes you and the others, I wonder what kind of person they are?”
“Who knows? Won’t they be a person who knows our face for some reason or another? They might have seen us in battle, and we helped restore the city. We also met the higher-ups of the city as well.”
“Or they might be an extreme fan.”
“Yeah, that might also be true.”
Lyla smiled softly and agreed to Elena’s odd words.
* * *
Zich was exploring the city by himself to assess the atmosphere of the city; nothing much had changed since last time. ‘It’s so ordinary that I wouldn’t have imagined that the Tree of Earth was under this city.’
However, this could also be said for Shootuol. There was nothing to gain by wandering around the city. Zich was about to return to his companions when—
“H-hello!” Someone called out to him.