“Not even here for a day and you are already making a name for yourself," Cassandra stated with a laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“You seemed to gain Elder Huan’s curiosity, which is not an easy feat.”

“Really? Is that why he was asking me all those questions?”

“Undoubtedly, that man is as cunning as a fox, but don’t worry. He is one of the good elders. How did you find him and what did you end up telling him?”

He quickly gave her a summary of what happened. He also told her of his question regarding that void shard.

“That’s my bad. I should have told you where my residence was,” she said with a chuckle.

“So what do you think I should do?”

“Accept it. If it's what I believe it is, you will be very glad for it. Especially given your proclivity to hurt yourself.”

“What is it supposed to do?”

She smirked. “I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Just accept it already.”

He looked at her suspiciously, but she didn’t seem to be misleading him, and he doubted that Reinera would give him something that would hurt him. So with a heavy sigh, he brought up the notification once again.

Would you like to assimilate Dimensional Void Shard with your soul?

Yes.

“Don’t worry, I will help you with the after effects,” Cassandra purposely noted after he had already accepted.

He stared at her with betrayal, but couldn’t focus on her. The shard, which had been slowly growing more and more agitated the longer it floated in his soul, finally stopped its vibrating. He was about to head into his soul space to see what was going on, but he fell to his knees, dry heaving on the ground.

The black shard melted like snow in the summer heat. He noticed that Drasil and Seraphyne had retreated deep into his soul space, watching as the shard broke down. It wasn’t just breaking down either. It felt like it was being assimilated into his soul space in a way that he didn’t understand.

The spatial properties infused into his soul, leaving faint traces of the shard littered in his soul. The pain was quite extreme too, which was saying a lot considering his recent death experience. However, the itching sensation throughout his entire soul was more irritating. It was like someone was tickling his soul with a feather, and he couldn’t stop them.

It was torture.

Cassandra strolled over to him and rubbed his back. “You doing good?”

He glared up at her. “Y-you could have warned me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

It felt like forever, but eventually the pain and itchiness abated, as if it had never been there. He let out the deep breath he was holding and shivered.

“That sucked,” he muttered and scowled at the woman kneeling down in front of him. He could feel her using her senses to examine him, and despite his desire to slap her attempts away, he allowed her to do her thing.

“Okay, I think it went well. I don’t sense any soul damage, and it looks like it absorbed all of it,” she said with a satisfied nod.

“What was that?” He asked, stumbling to his feet.

“Take a look for yourself.”

He frowned and did as she said. He delved into his soul space and instantly found what she was talking about. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a chortle.

“See? I told you it was a good surprise.”

“Is it really what I think it is?”

“Yep. And don’t worry about the size, it will grow over time. But now you have something that is practically impossible to break. Your current ring is actually already good enough, but you don’t have to worry about the off chance it gets destroyed.”

He nodded as he inspected the new space inside his soul. It was like the shard had been transformed into a separate space. It was very similar to how his storage ring acted, but he felt much more connected to it. He felt every inch of the space.

“So it’s a storage space?”

“Yes, a dimensional storage space bound to your soul. A very precious thing. I assume that was one of your rewards from the tournament?”

He nodded. “Yeah, you said it will grow over time?”

“Yeah, it will grow alongside your soul. Considering its strength, I suspect it is already quite large.”

He didn’t know how large ’ large ’ was, but he could tell that the dimensional space was only a little bit smaller than his storage ring. Given that it couldn’t be accessed or destroyed, it was definitely a priceless treasure.

“Do many people have these kinds of storage?”

She scoffed. “Of course not. You won’t believe how rare they are. They are even more rare than the affinity treasures you are looking for. Though I am not surprised the royal family had one hidden away. That princess must really like you.”

He smiled and reminded himself that he needed to thank her the next time he saw her.

“Oh, by the way, since you are here, I wanted to talk about some things,” she said with an excited look on her face.

He looked at her with a hesitant frown, looking around to see if there was something hiding somewhere.

“What are you doing?” She asked with pinched eyebrows.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Nothing, go on. I’m listening,” he said, while activating some of his skills. He had quickly learned to be worried when he saw that smile on her face. But he could at least hear her out.

***

He woke up to Drasil poking him in the face.

“What?” He asked groggily, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He had been up late, practicing that new technique from Tezuko. If there was one thing Julius was certain of, it was that the man was a maniac. In fact, ‘maniac’ felt like it was an understatement.

Tezuko was batshit crazy. Julius couldn’t understand how the man had come up with such a technique. Not to mention, continuously using it to such an extreme degree.

It was no wonder the man had gone insane and started to kill everyone. Julius had only practiced the technique for a few hours, and his mind felt on the brink of insanity. The technique had several massive flaws.

For one, it purposefully forced the user to channel as much ‘destructive’ energy alongside his life mana. The destructive energy served an important purpose since the technique relied on balance. Life couldn’t exist without death or destruction. And vice versa.

By using his ruinous aura in tandem with his life mana, it cast an enormous shadow in which his life mana could carve itself into, further fueling its strength and creating a canvas for Julius to paint the technique. It was a technique that was both stupidly deranged and ridiculously amazing.

He didn’t care about the person Tezuko eventually became. The man was a genius.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t an easy technique to use. It took everything in his power to control both of the energies. Even then, he kept failing. This led to him being bombarded by the backlash.

That wouldn’t be bad in itself, after all, he was used to handling his ruinous aura. But the real issue came with the emotional turmoil that followed.

The key to harnessing all the potential of the destructive energy was to tie it to his intent and emotions. That was the key, according to Tezuko, and ultimately the reason he became a murderous psychopath.

On the bright side, his aura didn’t really have any murderous thoughts. But the urge to destroy some things was quite strong. Funnily enough, it was his crown that lent a hand. The vicious little thing helped filter out the emotional baggage and turn it into ruinflames.

It seemed happy to do so as well. He had a feeling that absorbing this kind of destructive energy was good for its growth. He also had a feeling that it was feeling a bit insulted that something else was doing its job. The crown was supposed to make him go crazy, not some dead man's forgotten technique.

But he wasn’t about to complain; he was happy that the crown found something it enjoyed. Drasil and Seraphyne were quite helpful, too.

Their added life essence helped him keep the balance whenever he felt himself losing control. It was a safeguard in case his ruinous aura went on a rampage.

He was brought out of his thoughts when Drasil poked him again. The little spirit was tapping his wrist impatiently, as if he were wearing a watch. He let out a depressed sigh. “Okay, I’m getting up.”

Julius would have loved to stay in bed all day, but today was the day he was supposed to teach the class on willpower training. He had officially been recognized as a teacher. Something that Cassandra had gone to extreme lengths to ensure.

He got up and pulled out his lunchbox from his soul. Inside it was a nice array of items, which he quickly ate for a quick breakfast. The food was like medicine for his soul, and his headache was already fading away.

He made sure to clean up the crumbs from his blankets and made his bed. Drasil was hanging off his shoulder as he walked out of the bedroom. Julius flinched, and Drasil let out an annoyed whistle when the heat blasted them, vanishing back into Julius’s soul space.

The Sunfire Pavilion was an amazing place to cultivate his fire mana, but it was extremely hot. Julius wrapped up some fire mana around himself to block out the heat, letting some of it infuse into his skin. Only then did it start to feel amazing. It was like being injected with pure caffeine. Who needed coffee when you had an ocean of vitalizing mana to scorch you every morning?

On a different note, he had finally taken a look at the final treasure he got from the tournament. However, that was proving more difficult than he expected. It was essentially a big black cube. He wasn’t able to sense any mana from it and nothing he tried with his aura worked either. Cassandra lent a hand, but even she wasn’t able to tell what the thing was.

It was a proper mystery.

And so he played with the cube as he made his way to the outer court, where his class would take place. He walked past many other inner disciples on his way to the gate. Some of them stared at him curiously. He had been in the sect for a few days, and rumors were already spreading.

Having an honored guest at the sect was always something that garnered attention. Additionally, having been seen with Elder Huan and Elder Malric fueled these rumors. Though after the first couple of days, the stares had mostly died down.

When he finally arrived at the outer court, he found the place where he would be doing his lessons. It was an open courtyard that was full of disciples. He was a little early, and it would appear that another class was in session.

He didn’t have anything else to do, so he sat down on the side of the courtyard waiting for the lesson to finish. He listened in on the lesson, which was being led by a youthful and energetic woman.

She was in the middle of explaining how a particular fire skill worked, demonstrating how to use one’s mana to replicate it. He suspected it was one of the skills the sect often taught to its members.

“As all of you should already know, [Burning Shroud] is not like other shield-related skills. It combines movement, body strengthening, and defensive properties into a single skill. It is versatile and offers plenty of opportunities for evolution, but it also requires a certain level of skill to properly control. You need to use it in conjunction with your other skills if you want to increase its level,” she explained while a shroud of red fire danced around her figure.

She twirled her hand, and the shroud flowed off her body and into a compressed orb. “At higher levels, it becomes a source of fire that is both easier to manipulate and quicker to respond. In a fight, that slight advantage makes all the difference.”

All of the outer disciples hung onto every word of hers like they were gospel. It was clear some of them, especially the males, were infatuated with her. He didn’t blame them either. She was very pretty and had a warm, bubbly air about her.

The outer disciples nodded along with her explanations, and when she was satisfied they had gotten the message, she finished up the lesson.

Once the courtyard was all clear, he was approached by this same woman.

“I assume you are Julius?” She asked him amicably.

He nodded. “Yep, that’s me. Is there something I can help you with?

“Yeah, I was given instructions by Elder Malric to help you out for your first lesson.”

He smiled in relief. He was glad that he wasn’t alone with this; he was a little concerned about what he should do. “Thank you, that will be a real help. Do you happen to know how many people are coming?”

“I was told that the disciples were hand-selected for this class. There should be around a couple dozen of them.”

“Okay, that sounds good. What's your name?” He asked with a smile.

“My name is Elder Sarei, but you can call me Sarei. Being called an elder makes me feel old.”

He reached out his hand. “Well, it's nice to meet you, Sarei. I hope you can help me out. I don’t really have that much experience with teaching.”

She shook his hand and nodded brightly. “No problem! I didn’t have anything else planned for the day anyway. But I am fascinated to see what you have to teach. You’re helping them with willpower training, yes?”

“Yes, though I am not sure how to teach it to a large group.”

“I can help with that if you’re open to it,” she offered.

“Help how?”

“I can use the control panel while you teach, so you’re not distracted.”

“Control panel?”

She tilted her head in confusion. “Yeah, is that not why you had them come here? There is a willpower tempering zone with the appropriate enchantments already set up.”

He shook his head.

She frowned, but eventually shrugged. “Well, I can handle it, and afterwards I can show you how they work if that’s okay with you.”

He let out a chagrined smile. “I appreciate it. First day and I am already making mistakes.”

She waved her arm at him. “Don’t worry, Elder Malric wouldn’t let you teach if he thought you had nothing to contribute.”

He laughed. “I hope so.” But internally, he was worried that he was out of his depth. Still, only time would tell.