Eric, Lyria, and Livy were so drained that none of them had even a shred of strength left to move a finger.

  Only now did they realize that it was actually raining, and very heavily at that.

  Eric tried to move, but his body refused to budge even a centimeter.

  Lyria had fallen face-down while Eric lay slightly sideways, but the worst off was Livy. She was face-up, and with her mouth wide open in the torrential rain, she was quite literally drowning.

  If Livy truly died like this, it would be both funny and ridiculous, but she didn’t have an iota of strength left to move.

  Both Eric and Lyria could barely hear Livy’s muffled cries, but they, too, lacked the strength to help her.

  Just as Livy felt she was gone for good, Hannah rushed in and scooped her up, along with the other two idiots from the rain, and dragged them to the shelter area near the wall.

  Hannah quickly took care of the drowning Livy, and only then did she release a deep breath of relief.

  “What the hell were you brats doing?!” Hannah thundered at all three of them, her voice matching perfectly with the roaring thunder in the sky.

  Eric, Lyria, and even Livy blushed with shame, but they didn’t have the strength to respond and continued to gasp for breath.

  Hannah had previously heard from other workers at the orphanage that the three eight-year-old overgrown kids had gone to Eric's training ground, so she waited, but even after the sky darkened, they didn't return. It was still acceptable, but even after it started raining, the three idiots still didn’t return to the main building!

  After some time waiting, Hannah finally lost her patience and dashed toward the training ground in the heavy rain.

  When she arrived, she was startled as not one of those brats was visible, but soon after, she heard someone's drowning voice along with two other heavily breathing ones.

  Thankfully, they were still near the gates, so she managed to hear them even in the heavy rain. Without hesitation, she shot forward to rescue the three fools.

  Hannah noticed that all three were breathing as if they hadn't breathed for an entire day, so she let them be and waited for them to recover.

  After over half an hour, finally Lyria managed to utter under her breath, "W-We went... a bit... a bit too far… sparring."

  She was truly embarrassed. Perhaps due to her pride over never losing to anyone, she wanted to beat Eric so badly that she even forgot to keep her own condition in check. Not only that, she even forgot about their surroundings, the only thing left in her dead-set mind was to hit Eric and make him fall, no matter what!

  This was the same for Livy as well. They were all so engrossed in this duel that they didn’t even notice when it grew dark and began to rain.

  Hannah was speechless. So, they'd nearly killed themselves while training? Were they planning to conquer Ringwood Town? Why push themselves so far? She felt all three of them were complete idiots; even ants had better survival instincts than these three!

  After another fifteen minutes, Hannah noticed all three idiots had recovered barely enough to breathe normally. She proposed, “It’s already night, and the rain won’t stop anytime soon. We have to go back and change into dry clothes, or else we’ll all catch a cold. Two of you wait here. I’ll first carry Livy inside, then come back for both of you.”

  Eric, Lyria, and even Livy simultaneously shook their heads. They would walk by themselves! For some reason, in their current completely beaten-up condition, all three of them seemed to have developed some brain issues and decided to be completely unreasonable.

  In truth, Eric, Lyria, and even Livy felt that if they took any help from Hannah at this moment, they would lose something. Perhaps it was just their own self-esteem and pride, but whatever it was, they refused to lose and back off just because it was extremely difficult.

  All three idiots used the wall closest to them as support and, with a soft war cry, stood up on their wobbling legs.

  All three of them felt as if they were currently carrying an entire planet over their entire bodies. But despite that, they stood up and slowly started dragging themselves toward the gate.

  Hannah was even more speechless watching the three morons' foolish determination, which made no sense.

  In the end, she laughed in annoyance, "Fine!" She spoke while gritting her teeth, "I will see how far you brats can go by yourselves!" She was certain that they would soon fall over and wouldn't even be able to stand back up without her help, as the ground outside was not only dark and muddy, the path to the main building, though not long, was uneven!

  Eric, Lyria, and Livy didn’t respond and silently dragged themselves forward at a snail’s pace, to the point that with each step, they needed to wait before taking the next.

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  But none of the three fell behind, continuing to drag themselves as if trudging through hell. One wrong move, and they would be finished.

  Hannah felt like laughing, but in the end, she stayed quiet throughout the long journey.

  A mere one- or two-minute walk took them nearly 20 minutes! But during the entire duration, none of the three lost their footing. And from a certain point onward, they had even started leaning on each other’s shoulders, as if returning from a bloody battlefield, supporting one another, having become the best of brothers!

  Hannah was utterly speechless and didn't know what to say.

  After they arrived at the main building, without any surprise, all three idiots refused to take any help and crawled through the stairs to the first floor.

  "Alright, good job, everyone!" Hannah applauded as if she was very satisfied with Eric, Lyria, and Livy's performance. She felt she was the cold-blooded instructor who had forced the three naive eight-year-old kids through a torturous training session in heavy rain, as they were all completely drenched in rainwater.

  "Now you all need to continue to crawl to the bathroom, and I will go and collect dry clothes for all of us."

  After saying this, Hannah went downstairs to her own spare room. All the orphanage workers have spare rooms on the ground floor. Although they don't always stay overnight, sometimes they do, so Hannah already had her own extra clothes prepared.

  Eric, Lyria, and Livy continued to drag themselves to the end of the corridor where the bathroom was.

  Eric went inside the men’s bathroom and took a clean, fresh bath. After that, he recovered just enough strength to also wear the dry clothes that Hannah had brought for him.

  After his bath, he went straight to his room without meeting anyone. His room was lit up with a candle burning silently.

  Eric didn’t care about anything else and dropped onto his bed.

  After a while, he sighed with deep exhaustion.

  This day’s training and the amount of exertion he had subconsciously pulled out were unprecedented, even counting his previous life, and he had been through a lot as an adventurer on Earth.

  Normally this wouldn’t even be possible, as all three of them should have long lost their breath to continue fighting, and wouldn’t arrive at such a level of exhaustion. It wouldn’t even be a surprise if they had all fallen unconscious from pushing themselves so far. But strangely, they had managed to go far beyond what any eight-year-old kid could do.

  Eric guessed that it was due to everyone’s determination and dead-set mindset that they managed to bypass all that and still continued to fight, as if their entire lives depended on it. This also showed just how tough both girls were, not just in their physical capabilities but, more importantly, in their unbending spirit. He didn’t think any girl from Earth could push this far so easily.

  Eric no longer wanted to think further on the day’s events and just wanted to sleep, but sadly, his entire body felt as if it were burning internally and would soon melt, so he also couldn’t fall asleep yet. He could only sigh inwardly and close his eyes to at least try.

  After some minutes, Hannah silently entered and blew out the candlelight. Noticing Eric was already 'asleep,' she didn’t bother him and left. She knew all three were in no condition to have dinner. They might as well recover for the night and eat the next day.

  Eric slowly opened his eyes and stared at the completely dark room while listening to the rain, which was still pouring heavily outside his closed window.

  His body was still in a terrible state. He could only pity them—they were too foolish to choose him to be born with, and now they were stuck getting tormented until their end!

  Eric laughed crazily inside his mind, as if he were enjoying the suffering of others.

  Eventually, he quieted down and waited to fall asleep while admiring the complete darkness in front of him. He was sure he would fall asleep in a few minutes.

  Just as Eric was about to fall asleep, he suddenly recalled a certain memory from a few years ago, and it completely woke him up.

  Some years ago, when Eric was three or four years of age, within a similar room filled with utter darkness as he recalled all the various audacities he had committed in his past life, he was suddenly pulled into a completely different space.

  At first, Eric excitedly thought he had received an invitation to a world where only Evil ruled, as the entire place was pitch black. But then, subconsciously or rather, intuitively, he clearly understood that he was inside his own 'mind'.

  He was completely speechless as he never knew one could even go inside their mind. More importantly, he never knew his mind was so dark. It seemed he was truly born to become the Ultimate Dark Lord!

  The entire place was immeasurably big and filled with 'nothing', yet, strangely, he could see everything clearly. Despite this, he couldn’t find any border or end to this empty universe.

  Eric also noticed he was standing on 'nothing'. In other words, he could move up or down without any problem. Since he had already arrived in such a weird place, he thought he might as well take a night stroll through his darkness-endorsed mind.

  While strolling, Eric realized it wasn’t his physical body but a perfect replica, as he could still feel his real body outside. All he had to do was wish, and he could return to it. He also sensed he could easily come back to this place by simply concentrating on the dark space.

  As Eric considered heading back to test his other hypothesis later, he spotted something on the horizon. With his tiny legs, he rushed toward it. He was internally shocked as this wasn’t supposed to happen; his mind shouldn’t conjure a devil so quickly!

  When he arrived, he was truly-utterly-completely speechless. A tiny girl slept quietly inside his mind!

  This girl was of similar height to him and also perhaps the same age, with dark hair just like his, but none of that was as shocking as what he was feeling, or rather sensing from the girl's existence.

  Eric felt as if he were glancing at his other half, or rather a part of himself. It was a very weird feeling, yet as clear as daylight to him. Maybe he was imagining things, but no matter what, the girl had to answer his questions: Why was she living rent-free inside his mind?!

  At first, Eric tried to be gentle. He spoke some vulgarity to wake the little girl up, but she remained like a princess, quietly waiting for Prince Charming to wake her with a kiss.

  Sadly, there was no Prince Charming or kiss, anywhere- only the new Dark Lord!

  So, Eric decided to slap her awake, but then his hand struck an invisible shield or rather, an invisible coffin, and stopped.

  Eric was speechless again. That was the day he felt most speechless after arriving in this new world, though the record was broken later.

  He understood the girl was currently protected and probably wouldn’t wake up anytime soon. So, after trying a few other things, he left the dark space.

  Since it existed inside his mind, Eric decided to call that place 'Mind Space.'