CHAPTER 123: IMPROVEMENT

Over the past few days, my aura had grown noticeably clearer—so clear that anyone watching me train could tell I was using real, unmistakable aura.

Feeling that gradual improvement stirring in my body... I couldn’t stop.

Every day, I pushed myself harder.

"Hey, Louis! Your sword tip is wavering! Focus."

"Yes, sir!"

Lycan’s voice snapped like a whip.

Ever since the day we crossed paths by chance, he’d been training me relentlessly—almost obsessively.

Apparently, he’d taken a liking to me.

Or maybe he just saw potential he couldn’t ignore.

Either way, I swung my sword with everything I had as Lycan observed from only a few steps away.

"Stop. That’s enough."

"Huff... huff...!"

The moment he gave permission, I let out the breath burning in my lungs and practically collapsed onto the floor.

Sweat dripped from my chin, soaking the ground beneath me.

My chest rose and fell as if trying to break free from my ribcage.

Every muscle in my arms and legs throbbed violently, screaming protests I had long stopped listening to.

It hurt.

It really, really hurt.

But underneath that pain—like a faint warmth glowing beneath cold water—was something indescribably addictive.

A thrill.

A quiet confidence.

A sense of accomplishment growing day by day, reminding me:

I’m improving.

I’m actually getting stronger.

The pain became... tolerable.

Almost welcome.

Because now, I knew it wasn’t meaningless suffering.

It was progress.

Evidence of change.

Growing pains.

And the more I felt them, the more I wanted to push forward.

Lycan dropped down to sit beside me, crossing his arms as he looked over my exhausted mess of a body.

"You’re doing well," he said gruffly. "Better than well, actually."

I turned my head slightly, still gasping for breath.

He smirked.

"Keep training like this, and your aura will settle in no time."

My aura...

Just hearing those words made my heart beat a little faster—this time not from exhaustion but excitement.

I clenched my drenched hands, feeling the faint pulse of energy inside me.

I wasn’t there yet.

But I was getting closer.

"Louis, you definitely have talent. Your growth rate is unbelievable."

"Gulp, gulp... Thank you."

I wiped my mouth, still catching my breath as I drank the last of the water.

A talent I once buried...

A potential I had long dismissed because I thought effort meant nothing.

Now, it was finally surfacing.

"But no matter how talented you are, there had to be limits," Lycan continued, arms crossed but tone gentler than usual. "The reason you’re growing so quickly is because everything you’ve been through—every hardship—is becoming fertilizer. You must have lived quite a rough life until now."

Rough... yeah, that was one way to put it.

Fighting golems that shot lasers.

Battling a tattooed lunatic with a red wolf on his skin.

Surviving countless chimeras with abilities that made no sense.

Normal students might spend all four years of the academy without experiencing even one of those things.

I lived through all of it within a matter of days.

Experience points? Yeah, I’d earned more than enough of those.

And those life-or-death fights were now the very foundation pushing me forward—faster, stronger, sharper.

"I’ve tried to live earnestly in my own way," I said quietly.

Lycan let out a low hum.

"I see. Those experiences... that’s what shaped who you are today."

He tossed a towel my way.

I caught it without thinking.

Lycan looked like the type of orc who’d break a boulder with his forehead just for fun, but...

Over the past few days, I’d learned something.

Despite his rugged tusks, towering frame, and ferocious appearance—

he had one of the warmest hearts I’d ever seen.

And somehow, that made his words hit even deeper.

"But it’s strange. How exactly did you break through your dantian?"

Lycan watched me closely, hand on his chin, eyes narrowing every time my magical power bottomed out again.

He wasn’t being accusatory—just genuinely puzzled.

Honestly, I felt the same.

No matter how many times I thought about it, my breakthrough didn’t make sense.

I shouldn’t have had enough magical power to manifest aura yet.

Not logically, not according to every textbook, and definitely not according to my past failures.

Yet here I was—with aura wrapped around my blade.

Eventually, I couldn’t keep the question bottled up anymore.

That same night, the night I first awakened aura, I opened the Sage’s Bookmark.

If anything knew the answer, it would be that relic.

"How did I break through the wall?" I asked.

A moment later, glowing text floated up on the page.

— Frequent use of magic. Weakened wall.

I stared at the short, fragmented response.

At first glance, it felt too simplistic. Almost vague.

But as I mulled it over, the pieces clicked together.

"...Ah."

I nodded slowly.

The Orb of Dreams.

I had used it far more often than I probably should have.

Every battle with it forced me to draw up magical power again and again—much more intensely than normal training ever could.

Even if the magical power didn’t belong to me originally, the strain my body went through was real.

I hadn’t realized it at the time, but...

All those nights, all those fights inside the Orb...

They had been hitting the wall of my dantian over and over, wearing it down bit by bit.

Not enough to break it all at once.

But enough that, eventually, it couldn’t hold anymore.

"So the wall weakened because of that..." I murmured.

It wasn’t a dramatic moment of enlightenment.

No divine intervention.

No explosive final push.

Just repetition.

Accumulated pressure.

The kind that quietly builds up until the barrier gives way.

And without even knowing it, I had been preparing myself for this breakthrough all along.

After hammering away at that wall over and over, my tightly sealed dantian finally gave way.

It felt as if something inside me—something that had been dormant my entire life—had quietly clicked open.

Normally, the only way to awaken the dantian was simple: pour in magic until it burst.

But I had taken a different path entirely.

A narrow gap. A shortcut.

Something born from coincidence... or luck.

Honestly, it was a miracle that it worked at all.