Episode 68. Interlude – The Furnace of Flames

My body feels as if oil has been poured into a raging fire.

“Ugh…!”

The energy of the elixir surged through my throat, violently coursing through my entire body like a flood breaking through a small stream.

In an instant, the overflowing magic power shook my consciousness.

‘Focus.’

I controlled the wildly surging magic power and slowly guided it to the Holy Mark.

‘It’s more than I expected.’

The amount of magic power felt as if I had consumed 2-3 Holy Mark Amplifiers at once, filling the Holy Mark to the brim and threatening to overflow.

Even though the amount was enough to cause a magical rampage, ‘Magic Control’ was the one area where I was ahead of my peers.

‘Controlling this much magic power shouldn’t be difficult.’

I had even controlled the near-infinite magic power in the Fire God state without issue.

No matter how much the elixir’s effect exceeded expectations, it shouldn’t be enough to cause a magical rampage.

‘Good. If I can just contain the magic power within the Holy Mark…’

Just as I thought I could safely absorb the elixir’s energy…

Whoosh!

Suddenly, the Primordial Flame reacted violently and ignited.

“Ugh! Cough!”

A horrifying pain spread throughout my body, as if I had been thrown into a pit of fire.

‘W-what’s happening now?’

Why is the Primordial Flame, which only reacts to my ‘death,’ suddenly reacting to the elixir?

Sizzle!

Before I could even finish my thought.

The Primordial Flame spread through my blood vessels, covering my entire body.

Like when using ‘Ignition,’ gray ash-like smoke poured out from every pore of my body.

“Ah, ugh.”

My head is burning.

My body is on fire.

I can’t breathe.

Every cell feels like it’s being burned, as if even a handful of my soul is turning to ash.

It’s just hot.

Hot, hot, hot.

And then.

Crack!

The sound of bones twisting.

Like a child haphazardly mixing clay, my muscles repeatedly contracted and expanded.

“……!!!”

A dizzying torrent of pain struck my brain like lightning.

I barely swallowed the scream trying to escape and waited for the Blessing of Resurrection to activate.

But.

‘What?’

Even as my bones twisted and my muscles and blood vessels mixed, the Blessing of Resurrection didn’t activate.

‘Has the Blessing of Resurrection… disappeared?’

No.

That can’t be.

If the blessing could disappear so easily, I wouldn’t have wandered for thousands of years chasing death in my past life.

‘If it hasn’t disappeared.’

Then the changes happening to my body now are unrelated to ‘death.’

Realizing that, I felt a new sensation amidst the terrible pain, something I had never felt before.

‘What is this…?’

Crack! Crack!

The sensation of twisted bones realigning.

The sensation of pulled-out hair, teeth, and nails regrowing.

The sensation of crushed and torn skin regenerating.

For me, who had experienced countless ‘resurrections,’ this should have been as familiar as breathing.

‘But something’s different.’

It’s not the same as usual.

Instead of my burned body returning to its original form, it was changing into something ‘new.’

‘Like…’

As if being reborn.

As if being remade.

A new body was being born.

“Haa.”

I let out a low breath.

Sizzle, sizzle.

The gray smoke pouring from my pores gradually subsided.

“…Is it over?”

I looked around and took a deep breath.

“Ugh. What’s this rotten smell?”

A foul stench that could twist my nose filled the room.

Thud.

I opened the window to let out the smoke filling the room.

The outside air seeped in through the open window.

“Huh.”

Even without strengthening my body with magic power, I could smell the soup being cooked at the Student Restaurant hundreds of meters away.

It wasn’t just my sense of smell.

The texture of the air on my skin, the sound of insects in my ears, the scenery of the school visible to my eyes.

Everything felt as clear as replacing an old filter with a new one.

“This is…”

I hurriedly went to the bathroom and checked my reflection in the mirror.

A slightly taller height and broader shoulders.

The muscles of my entire body were perfectly sculpted as if by a god, and my skin shone flawlessly like a newborn baby’s.

“……”

I’ve heard of it.

Heroes with an excessive amount of magic power have their bodies reconstructed into vessels capable of containing that power.

‘In my past life, Yuren and Senior Sophia were like that.’

Of course, simply having a lot of magic power doesn’t mean the body will be reconstructed.

Only after achieving a state befitting the magic power does the body get remade.

“…This elixir shouldn’t have that kind of effect.”

There’s no denying that this is the best elixir I’ve ever taken, including in my past life.

But even so, it shouldn’t have contained enough magic power for someone like me, who had only half the average magic power of a Candidate, to experience ‘body reconstruction.’

‘Let’s check how much my magic power has increased.’

I stirred the magic power sleeping within the Holy Mark.

Compared to before taking the elixir, my magic power had increased about sixfold.

Since I previously had only half the average magic power of a Candidate, it’s now about three times the average.

‘This much… is just slightly less than Professor Lucas.’

Compared to Yuren, who has much more magic power than Professor Lucas, I’m still more than twice behind in terms of magic power.

‘My magic power has increased a lot, but.’

Even so, it’s not enough to cause ‘body reconstruction.’

“Then it must be due to something other than magic power…”

It wasn’t hard to guess what that other reason was.

I focused my mind on my left chest and stirred the power of the Primordial Flame.

For the first time, I could feel the Primordial Flame moving slightly according to my will, something that had never happened before unless I experienced ‘death.’

“Ha.”

A hollow laugh escaped my lips.

‘Who would have thought I’d be able to control the Primordial Flame’s power like this?’

Although it’s still only a tiny fraction of the Primordial Flame’s full power.

Being able to control the Primordial Flame’s energy at will was a tremendous change.

‘Then does that mean the reason I couldn’t control the Primordial Flame before was because of my body?’

If my body was a vessel, it had been insufficient to handle the immense power of the Primordial Flame.

‘So this time, it completely remade my body.’

Into a furnace capable of containing the Primordial Flame.

“Phew.”

Perhaps because so many unexpected changes happened at once, my head felt chaotic.

I took a deep breath to calm my excited mind.

‘So to summarize the current situation.’

My pure magic power has increased about sixfold.

I can now control a tiny portion of the Primordial Flame’s power at will.

And my body itself has been strengthened as if magic power had been poured into it.

“…Just how much stronger have I become from taking one elixir?”

Honestly, even I can’t gauge the extent of this explosive growth.

‘At this rate… have I already surpassed my past life’s level?’

After graduating at the bottom of my class and struggling as a lowly mercenary for 10 years.

Meeting comrades like Yuren and Berald, forming a party, and becoming the ‘Final Hero’ to face the Devil God in a final battle took another 10 years.

In just under 3 months since my regression, I’ve surpassed the growth that took over 20 years in my past life.

“Well, maybe it’s a bit early to say I’ve surpassed it.”

Excluding the Primordial Flame for now.

In terms of pure magic power, I’ve definitely surpassed my past self.

‘In my past life, I went through hell to increase my magic power with all sorts of elixirs and artifacts.’

But after regressing, just clicking four times a day automatically increases my magic power, and with a bit of luck, one elixir has pushed me beyond my past life’s level.

If my past self heard this, he’d probably foam at the mouth and throw a fit.

‘But that’s only in terms of pure magic power.’

Back then, I had various weapons to compensate for my lack of magic power.

For example, the Demon Sword, which grants immense power at the cost of blood.

For example, the forbidden sorcery that could only be used at the cost of life.

For example, the cursed armor that eats away at the body with each use.

The powerful weapons that made me one of the Final Five Heroes and earned me the title ‘Undead Ghost’ are still out of my reach.

“Considering that… I’m probably about on par with my past self now.”

Of course, this is excluding the ‘Primordial Flame,’ which is an irregular power.

“Sigh… Should I be happy about this, or feel empty?”

Even so, thinking that I’ve surpassed the power I gained over 20 years of blood, sweat, and tears in just 3 months makes me feel both happy and hollow.

It’s like the feeling of someone who saved for decades to buy a house seeing someone win the lottery and buy a house outright.

Of course, since I’m the one who won the lottery, I don’t feel wronged, but the bittersweet feeling is unavoidable.

“The only downside is that I can’t use ‘Holy Mark Amplifiers’ anymore.”

I clicked my tongue as I looked at the blue liquid in the glass bottle neatly placed on the table.

Holy Mark Amplifiers are potions that deliberately cause the Holy Mark to go berserk, granting immense magic power for a short time.

Since my body has been reconstructed, the Holy Mark’s stability has drastically increased, making it impossible to force it to go berserk with the existing Holy Mark Amplifiers.

‘If I find stronger ingredients to make a new one, I might be able to force it, but…’

For now, I decided to put that plan on hold.

After all, I now have a new technique called ‘Ignition.’

“Now… since I’ve built up some magic power.”

It’s time to move on to the ‘next step.’

‘Let’s see… which of the weapons I used in my past life is the easiest to obtain now?’

A weapon located not too far from the school, and one I can easily obtain with my current power.

I didn’t have to think long.

“Demon Sword Veskal.”

Remembering the sword trapped deep in a ruin, starving for blood, I smirked.