’Don’t tell me that every time that mysterious benefactor of mine interferes with my fate, I become even more unlucky!?’

’Are the rewards given to me all given by putting a massive luck debt on my back!? Ah hell nah, man! That’s too horrible!!’

The massive and deadly negative luck stat was too painful to look at, so Zephyr turned his focus on other things to distract his mind.

’Oh, the technique is only at rank ’F-’ right now... I need to gain better mastery and understanding over it if I want to increase its level...’

’Wait, I am only at ’F’ Rank right now!? I have so many talents and good skills, and yet I am still only at rank ’F’!?’

Zephyr clicked on the rank tab to get more information about it from the system, and only then did he realize why his rank was still so low.

It turned out that an individual’s rank is directly influenced by the quality of mana that resides in their body and how much control they have over it!

Skills and techniques also play a major role in determining a person’s rank, but the most direct way to increase your rank is indeed by accumulating more higher-quality mana in your body.

It sounds simple, but it is not.

Through the martial art technique that Zephyr pulled from the system, he realized that the technique had a dedicated section of memories where a mana breathing and condensing method was described in detail.

The user needed to meditate and absorb mana from the surroundings into their body, and once mana was full, they could condense it by making it circle through their entire body and pressuring it with the help of their ’spirit’ and ’aura.’

People with weak ’spirit’ and ’aura’ can’t even reach higher realms even if they somehow manage to awaken mana through a chance encounter.

To be a successful awakener, you need to have the spirit, resolve, and determination to keep walking the ’Path’ to the ’Destination Point,’ which solely depends on you alone.

Talent and skill can only take you so far, but if you yourself do not possess the resolve to walk on a ’Path’ of your dreams, then it’s all pointless.

’Well, thankfully, my spirit stat is already quite strong because of the ’Perfect Combat Sense’ skill!’

Zephyr could already feel mana passively entering his body because of the unconscious influence of his powerful will and spirit stat.

His base mana capacity was increasing slowly but steadily; eventually, he would be able to reach the next realm once he gained more control over his skills and mana.

’The skill that I wanted the most has also appeared, which is good news.’

’Basic Body Strengthening’ was the skill that Zephyr wanted the most.

This skill granted its user the ability to passively and actively boost their physical stats to a higher level with the help of mana.

This skill would work like a steroid for Zephyr in combat; the only difference will be that it would have no side effects! 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

In fact, activating this skill for longer periods of time and using it regularly will even help increase the base stats of his body, as mana will penetrate more deeply into his cells and enhance them permanently!

’This skill is likely the main reason why Xinran was able to shrug off that upper-cut I landed on her jaw so easily.’

’Her mana range is massive enough to cover the entire hundreds of kilometres big town of giants, which means that her mana control must be at a very high level and her ’Body Strengthening skill’ is likely very strong too...’

’If I ever want to defeat her, I must improve my offensive ability by improving the ’Shattered Firmament Martial art’ and improve my defense and physique by improving the ’Body Strengthening’ skill...’

Zephyr knew that Xinran was very strong and was likely already many ranks higher than him.

’From how massive her attack range was and how insanely powerful she was... I won’t be surprised if she turns out to be an A-ranker or even higher than that...’

Of course, Zephyr could also just buy Xinran’s status information through his hint system, but he didn’t have so much spare BP to waste on this matter at the moment, so he could only keep his curiosity suppressed for now.

’Welp, I gotta get moving now or the people in the live stream will notice that something’s wrong with me!’

Although it seemed too much time had passed, it had actually only been a few seconds since Zephyr’s awe-inspiring speech.

His perception had improved tremendously after the awakening, so Zephyr could increase his thinking speed quite a bit.

Although Zephyr had gone through an entire rebirth by now, not much time had passed outside.

’Now that I have mana, I can finally sense why this torch was giving off such an unsettling feeling earlier...’

Zephyr snapped out of his daze, glanced at the torch, and finally realized that the flames of that wooden torch had insanely dense mana around it.

For a normal person, just getting close to that torch was a death sentence, as the mana waves coming off from that torch would be enough to instantly obliterate the person from inside out.

’It would be like holding a nuclear fuel rod of a nuclear reactor in your hands! The radio-active energy from it would pulverize your entire body’s DNA and would destroy your bone marrow completely!’

Mana was a powerful form of energy that could bless people and make them stronger, but if a non-awakened person came close to a source of dense mana energy, they would suffer a fate worse than radiation poisoning!

’Man, this world is really not fit for ordinary people; even a random torch is deadly... Thankfully, I managed to awaken before things could escalate...’

’This knowledge of awakening is actually quite beneficial for humanity... someday, if I manage to find a proper opportunity or excuse, I will tell the people back home about the method of awakening too...’

’For now, I have to keep it secret...’

Zephyr was planning to survive until the end of this horror game; he had plenty of time, and there was no need to spill all of his secrets right now.

There would be better opportunities in the future for that.

’Let’s start the trial...’

With a smile on his face, Zephyr walked towards the torch and took it off the wall, and this time the unsettling feeling in his heart was gone.