Belfray's POV

  By the time Young Master managed to drag himself to the river, I had already made a mess of my shirt and was about to eat the rest of my nails.

  “He did it,” Radek said as he leaned back into his chair, the knuckles of his right hand whitened from how hard he clutched the hem of the cloth resting beside the Dimensional Sphere.

  “I’ve never doubted him,” I said with strength, my mouth twitching.

  I was partly sure I looked perfectly in control of my emotions from the outside, save for the little accident I unwittingly subjected myself to in the middle of the fight. That was inevitable since Young Master so cleverly decided to ignore a tailed creature’s most dangerous body part.

  Its tail.

  “It was clumsy work.” The Grand Marshall didn’t look impressed as she glared at the dimensional square hanging across the sky. “He was lucky that creature’s barely a year old.”

  There was an odd feeling.

  A sense of pressure.

  A claustrophobic sensation similar to being in a narrow basement.

  I caught the source of it by the Grand Marshall’s feet. Wisps of deep, violet energy had begun rising from the ground, stretching ever so slowly about the air, making my skin crawl.

  “My Lady,” I urged her with a fast-growing panic and earned myself a glance that made me feel as though I were an annoying fly. “I have to warn you to keep to yourself lest we’re going to have a Grade D plane crumbling right on top of Young Master.”

  “We can’t have that,” Radek agreed. “It’ll take too much effort to patch the dimensional holes.”

  “Can you actually do that?” I asked.

  A Heart Mage could hardly be considered an expert in the dimensional field.

  “I may have to call a friend, considering Payem’s out sealing deals for our future kingdom,” Radek said. “But then we’ll have to explain to that friend the presence of a Celestial Knight’s aura here inside a Grade D plane, which will undoubtedly pave a fertile ground for rumors.”

  “I’m a Celestial Knight,” I countered.

  Radek glanced at me, smiling derisively, before his eyes swiveled to our Lady. “You know what I meant. There’s a difference.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “We can’t let rumors spread across the Planar System, indeed,” I said. The whole point of having a Dimensional Celestial Mage like Payem roaming about the worlds was to ensure our presence in this world remained a secret. “But we can’t allow anything to disturb Young Master’s trial, either.”

  “Enough. The two of you.” Grand Marshall so kindly drew her internal energy back, and we could both breathe again. “I'm not going to break this plane on a whim. Tell me about the kingdom’s situation. I need a distraction.”

  Radek began right away. “I’ve heard Marcus has taken the first step. There’s talk about a potential heir already circling inside the royal palace.”

  “A bastard child is about as good as a just cause gets,” I said. I was particularly proud of having come up with the idea. “Lord Master has them plenty, as it appears, of which none seems entirely inspiring. Young Master will shine like the morning sun.”

  “Make sure the other nations will get the whiff of it,” Grand Marshall ordered. “I don’t want them to try something stupid to keep that man on the throne.”

  “We have approached Lord Garlor with an offer he can’t refuse,” I said. “Marcus told me the Head Secretary has seemed greatly motivated to support our cause. He has most of the nearby nations’ ears, so he will help us to keep them happy.”

  “His retirement?” Grand Marshall asked.

  “A fancy villa in the Harlox. He was promised enough resources to push him to the Herald stage if the coup succeeds, on top of the aforementioned land in one of the most prized worlds across the Planar System. If he ever manages to complete the long trip, he will enjoy a retirement many a Mage can only dream of," I dutifully answered.

  He wouldn’t, of course, get to enjoy those privileges.

  “Unlike Depenhart, he’s a rather ambitious man,” Radek said. “I like those who feel strongly about certain things.”

  Of course he did. Those were the kind of people a Heart Mage could play as much as he wanted.

  “General Depenhart is indeed a problem,” I said. Grand Marshall raised an eyebrow at those words, after which I explained the situation. “It seems the bond between the Lord Master and this Depenhart fellow is deeper than we thought. He was the one who supported the Lord Master’s ascension from when he was just a kid. Rumor has it that it was Depenhart who butchered the former royal family and suppressed the Three Dukes and Five Marquises of Palark.”

  “He’s a cold man,” Radek said. “I daresay not many will miss him once he’s gone.”

  That was the plan.

  The main reason why I decided on this world was that underneath the surface, the current nations were no different than a group of tribes masquerading as kingdoms. This also meant that their production left much to be desired. Across the 57 planes available in the world, not a single one of them was being worked at 100% efficiency. Between the abuse of slavery and using an untrained and mortal workforce to manage these lands, it was rather odd that the Calant Dominion hadn’t interfered yet.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  According to my estimation, we could double the production in a few years after taking the world by using a simple method the Pioneers had once relied on. A single individual to take the whole plane in control, followed by a rigid settlement process carried out in clear, organized steps.

  “What of the rebellion?” The Grand Marshall asked.

  She demanded a distraction, but her eyes never once left the small figure hiding inside a tree in the dimensional screen. I could only oblige, however, as I wasn’t sure if words alone could satiate my Lady’s temper.

  “Nothing unusual,” I said. “The low-class folk lack a certain spark to initiate a real movement. They’ve been kept under a tight leash for too long. There are a few promising individuals, but General Depenhart seems to be aware of their rather troubling potentials. He has men keeping an eye on them.”

  “They’re not happy. That’s enough for a start,” Radek said. “The moment they think there’s any hope, we will have thousands marching side by side.”

  “A territorial conflict is the current plan,” I said. “Lord Master has been clever in dealing with the rich houses. He supplied generous amounts of land and resources to the Three Dukes and Five Marquises of Palark. In return, these eight families mostly kept to themselves and diminished into irrelevance. They’re like children with plenty of toys. We will take those toys first, then have them settle their long-lasting differences, and ensure there’s enough fuel to escalate the matters to involve certain ambitions of the crown—”

  “He’s going to eat it.”

  I blinked as my speech got cut short by the Grand Marshall, whose eyes widened at the screen. Or rather, at the figure inside the screen, now busy with the round sphere clutched in his hand.

  “A Bronze Core for a start.” Radek crossed his arms and leaned forward. “This will be fun.”

  Fun?

  I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t call a Knight’s first Core consumption, one that had been carved out from an untamed beast, fun times. It almost always came with generous amounts of pain, inner damage, and a great deal of blood.

  Then again, that was what the Undying’s for. To patch the holes when there’s a need.

  …..

  Leo's POV

  I sat in the hollow of a broken tree, nestled awkwardly in the narrow space, watching the waves of the river splash against the banks. I’d already refilled my water supply and found myself a couple of fruits to serve as a late dinner.

  It was dark in the forest now, the particular stretch I was in illuminated slightly from the bronze hue radiating from the Core I clutched in my hand. It was a palm-sized sphere, my first real loot in this place, and I was just about ready to have a go at it.

  For good measure, I waited until The Undying made fast work of the bruises around my chest. That was the beauty of it. Coupled with my Grade 2 Internal Energy Rune, I had more fuel than I needed to fix myself straight.

  That done, I focused on the Greytooth’s Internal Core.

  It was a little tricky to deal with.

  Mages could easily utilize the mana residing inside a Mana Core. The source didn’t matter. It could belong to a powerful beast or another Mage. They could either absorb the Core’s mana or use the mana inside it to fuel their spells.

  The first option wasn’t really efficient since the second the host died, the Core that belonged to them would begin to leak. There were certain practices to manage this leak, but even if the Core was preserved in good condition, ultimately, the absorbing process itself was a menace to deal with. Most of the Mages would count themselves lucky if they could suck in a tenth of the mana inside.

  That changed with Internal Energy Cores, for internal energy was a resource unique to each individual, and that meant I couldn’t carry this thing with me and use it as an extra battery. Even now, when I tried to probe it with my internal energy, it hardly reacted. The energy inside was like an alien source of power my body couldn’t recognize.

  So then, my options were limited.

  I had to eat this sphere.

  How, you ask?

  Simple.

  I had to break it into little chunks that I could swallow.

  This was the only viable way I could make the Greytooth’s energy my own. By allowing trickles of it inside my body, I could have my internal energy overpower the creature’s inner will and slowly absorb it into the Core. Sort of like taming a beast by turning it into a bunch of puppies, only these puppies wouldn’t become my own without a fight. They would likely try to wreck my innards with vengeance.

  Another difference was the amount of internal energy stored in the Core. It wasn’t much. Unlike Mages, who had only their Mana Cores to store their mana, most of a Knight’s internal energy resided in his energy channels. The Internal Energy Core only served as the brain of this complicated circuit, meaning it only housed enough energy to run itself.

  If I had to make a guess, the Greytooth’s Core only carried about a hundredth of its entire energy reserve. So in theory, I had to find a thousand Greytooths to push myself to the brink of the Bronze rank.

  Yeah, that wasn’t happening anytime soon, but better to get a start than nothing.

  I worked Beatrice’s sharp tip into the solid Core, cracking it with little effort, sighing at how easy it was to break open this thing. I carved nail-sized pieces of it, and by the time I was done, they looked like a bowl of magical cereal dropped here into the hollow of the tree.

  Then I picked one.

  This was going to hurt.

  But I mean, what didn’t, right?

  I swallowed it in one gulp and tapped into my soul vision. The Undying’s reaction was quick. My Core pulsed a strong beat that served as a general notice to my energy channels that there was something strange inside the body. Tendrils of my own energy stretched under its guidance, slowly wrapping themselves around the tiny piece as it sank to my stomach.

  They studied the chunk like curious children, but since I’d shattered the Core before swallowing it, already it was leaking a ferocious energy that didn’t take kindly to all this poking and began its assault.

  Then there was pain.

  I clenched my jaw and banged my back to the tree, stifling a pained grunt as I pushed my Core into action. With that, The Undying’s energy streaks ditched their earlier spectator approach and instead came up with a fast response by catching the stray energy wisps one by one.

  A gasp escaped my lips, sweat pouring down my face. It felt as though I got two angry babies inside of me, and they were taking serious jabs at each other.

  No wonder Belfray told me to do this in small chunks. Even this little back and forth that happened between the two energies in a short while, with one side being at a painful disadvantage, left me with some internal damage. I didn’t want to imagine what would’ve happened had I swallowed a bigger chunk.

  Soon, though, the chaos settled as the stray wisps of Greytooth’s energy got forced into my Core under The Undying’s control. Meanwhile, there was an extra effort from my own reserve to take care of the internal damage in quick succession.

  All in all, it wasn’t that bad.

  I’d survived worse.

  I’d been drilled by a hundred needles once and ate three courses of mild poison for food.

  Then again, this was the first bite, and from what I could see, there were about fifty more waiting for me to gulp them one by one.

  The things I did to become strong…

  I didn’t even feel tired.

  Where had this motivation been in my first life?

  How come I’d become a man purposefully seeking opportunities to torture himself?

  I guessed Radek was right. So were all those videos I’d watched just to make myself believe there’s always a hope. Change was really painful, and that pain depended on each individual’s own story.

  …….

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