Once the idea took root in Alan's mind, it refused to be suppressed.
He truly felt this approach had the potential to succeed.
The principle of Mana Compression was to absorb the surrounding elents and mana to strengthen various physical attributes of the body.
Since the body could be enhanced through this process, why couldn't the soul?
What's more, the mana core created through Mana Compression wasn't a physical object—it was a byproduct of mana itself, intangible and energy-based.
Which ant his soul could theoretically carry it around without conflict.
If that worked, he would essentially be traveling with a highly concentrated mana supply, and the earlier symptoms of ntal sluggishness from overextending his soul's range would never happen again!
Without hesitation, Alan put his thoughts into action. He began casting Mana Compression, drawing vast amounts of mana from the environnt into his body, compressing them into an intensely dense mana core.
Then, he once again detached his soul from his physical body and cautiously reached out to the newly-ford mana core.
"Wait… this feeling is… nghh… AAARGHHH!"
Before Alan could react, the highly concentrated mana core reversed course and began absorbing his soul!
A searing jolt like an electric current surged through every fiber of his existence, making him feel as if he was being torn apart from within.
It was an agony beyond words.
anwhile, Alan's physical body began showing signs of sothing terribly wrong.
Black web-like patterns spread from his eyes, quickly crawling across his entire body like a parasitic network.
Upon closer inspection, one would see that his flesh remained undamaged—those eerie black marks originated not from physical trauma, but from injuries on the soul level!
…
While Alan was conducting risky experints, trying to graft the mana core onto his soul form, his three companions—Francis, Fort, and Blanche—had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into brutal training.
Even without the late Headmaster Gayle supervising them or barking orders from the side, all three had doubled, even tripled their training routines voluntarily.
Partly because they could no longer suppress their urgent desire to beco stronger.
But also because, in burying themselves in ceaseless drills, they found a temporary escape from the grief of losing Gayle.
What had happened in the capital was sothing none of them would ever forget—the tiny sun that fell from the heavens and the final words Gayle left with them before he vanished.
Those mories had beco thorny spikes embedded in the softest part of their hearts.
Though Alan had led them to victory and destroyed Lioncrest Academy—avenging Gayle's death—the scars remained. No matter how complete the revenge, emotional wounds don't simply vanish.
To make things worse, Alan himself had suffered a major blow. Losing his eyesight was a devastating setback for soone who relied on mana as their core strength.
"996… 997… 998… 999!"
At the back mountain of Sirius Academy, along the steep path leading to the Gayle Do, Francis dragged behind him a mass of boulders and thick logs bound to his waist—each weighing hundreds of kilograms—as he trudged up and down the mountain trail.
This intense endurance training consisted of five sets daily. Each set required one thousand repetitions.
He didn't use any gravity magic to lighten the load—not once. In fact, sotis he even added weight to increase the difficulty.
He needed to feel the brutal weight of gravity firsthand in order to truly understand its terror and train his own gravity-based magic.
Whenever Alan saw Francis these days, the young man's face would be pale and haggard. His feet were bloodied and raw, stripped of skin, almost no healthy flesh remaining.
Fort's training regin, on the other hand, was even more extre.
He had literally chosen the path of walking through blades and fire.
In the forested cliffs behind the academy, Fort had selected a vertical rock wall and embedded countless sharp blades into it. Below, he had dug a pit two ters deep, filling it with burning-hot coals glowing red with heat.
Each day, Fort would begin at the bottom and climb up the cliff, his body scraping against the blades. Every inch he advanced left his skin torn and bleeding, a grueso sight.
When he finally reached the top, Fort would not hesitate—he would leap down, plunging straight into the blazing pit and endure three hours of searing flas.
It was said that true gold fears no fire. During this literal trial by fire, he had to maintain his Sharp tal Elental Physique the entire ti. If he relaxed it for even a second, he would be consud by the flas and perish.
That was why he had asked Blanche to accompany him during training—not just for company, but for ergency healing if he failed to maintain his form.
With ti, Fort's control over his bloodline had grown increasingly refined. He could now maintain his Sharp tal state for up to twelve hours a day without exhaustion.
His power was advancing steadily and thodically.
anwhile, Blanche had beco sothing of a bystander. Her only task was to watch Fort and keep him alive.
With little else to do, she took to wandering the areas around the academy, quietly absorbing the subtle differences between this new ho and the old one.
At so point, her steps led her to a secluded spot—not far from the academy's grand hall, yet sohow isolated by geography.
Even at noon, when the sun blazed in full glory, the area remained shrouded in cool shade, with a faint chill in the air.
Curious, Blanche stepped into the unfamiliar space and soon ca upon a small, oddly shaped building.
She pushed open the door and was imdiately struck by what she saw inside.
The room was filled—no, packed—with tombstones. Hundreds of them, arranged in tight, respectful rows.
Each stone bore the na of a student who had fallen during the academy's bitter internal strife.
Just then, Alan erged from behind one of the tombstones.
Startled, Blanche quickly approached. "Alan… what is this place?"
Alan froze for a mont. He hadn't expected anyone to find him here, let alone at this hour.
"This... is a kind of second cetery," he finally explained. "A morial site for Headmaster Gayle and all the senior students who died. I was afraid if I left their tombstones at the Gayle Do, the wind and rain would wear them down in a few years. That's why I built this place instead."
"It's not bad, right? No sunlight reaches this place, no wind disturbs it. Ti itself feels like it's stopped here. A perfect place for eternal rest, don't you think?"
"I… I don't know what to say…" Blanche mumbled, flustered and at a loss for words.
She suddenly felt foolish, naive even. Alan had thought through everything far more thoroughly than she ever could. In a strange way, he seed more like Gayle's true heir than any of them.
Alan gently patted her shoulder. "Don't overthink it, senior. I did all this… because I was bored."
"Bored?" Blanche blinked, puzzled. "Haven't you been training? You've always been the strongest among us. I assud you were pushing yourself even harder…"
Alan laughed—a hollow, self-deprecating laugh.
"I wanted to train. I really did. But… my current physical condition is far more complicated than you think. Until I break through a specific barrier, staying idle like this is actually safer than blindly attempting anything."
"And besides, spending ti here isn't completely wasted. I need spiritual strength—and the souls of our predecessors… they help soothe the damage I've suffered…"
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