The Academy Was Originally Red (1)
[Predation Ω] [Elemental Unification] [Thought Acceleration] [Physical Adaptation] [Domination Ⅹ]
My body felt weightless.
It was far beyond simply feeling refreshed or in good condition. I was so buoyant I felt as if a gentle breeze could lift me into the sky. Taken aback by the bizarre sensation, I tensed my muscles, and my mass immediately settled back down to its familiar heft. It was downright eerie. Something had clearly happened to my physiology.
"You're awake?" Belba greeted me warmly.
"Yeah. How long was I out?"
"Just about a day."
Less time than I'd expected. Seeing that I was fully conscious, Belba dispersed the protective soap bubble she had cast around us, popping it with a light shimmer. The instant the barrier collapsed, a rush of small feet came pattering inside.
Hmm... I surveyed the commotion with a furrowed brow. Where's Miho? And for that matter, why are there four kids?
Three of them were familiar, but the fourth was a face I had never laid eyes on. She had vibrant crimson hair, porcelain skin, and distinct, vivid facial features that looked as though they had been painted on with makeup. The elongated outer corners of her eyes were tinged with a delicate blush of red. In all my life, I had never seen a child who looked quite like this. Exceedingly suspicious.
"Who are you?" I demanded, fully prepared to eliminate her on the spot if she made a wrong move.
"Haaah..." Belba, who had been relatively quiet lately, let out a massive, exasperated sigh and tore into me.
I never in my wildest dreams imagined she would transform into an actual human child, like a Nine-tailed Fox straight out of mythology.
Holding the weeping Miho as she threw herself into my embrace, I glanced over at Belba. "Do foxes normally mature this fast? I could've sworn taking human form was supposed to be a monumental hurdle."
"Not under ordinary circumstances, no. She was likely influenced by your dimensional power, Yeon-ah. Her appearance and the uncanny resemblance between you two—close enough that anyone would mistake you for family—are almost certainly because of that resonance."
Is that so? I stared intently at Miho's tear-streaked face. I don't really see the family resemblance, though.
"The aura she gives off is completely different, of course," Belba added. "After all, the child is gentle and pure."
...What is that supposed to mean?
Putting the jab aside, I told Miho to shift back into a fox. In a split second, a cloud of smoke wrapped around her, and she reverted to her original vulpine form. Monitoring her mana consumption revealed that, aside from a trivial expenditure during the shift itself, there were no noticeable drawbacks or lingering costs. A marvelous development. Shrinking one's physical footprint offered massive advantages for survival in this wild world.
After giving the once-more-human Miho a fond pat on the head, I stretched my limbs with vigor. Now, it was time to verify what had changed within my own body.
Let's see. I had sustained injuries so horrific that merely being alive bordered on miraculous, yet nowhere on my body ached. A routine level-up shouldn't have granted such an absurdly potent healing factor. On top of that, this wasn't a standard bump in power. The stat increases were completely off the charts, and my skills had evolved across the board.
As welcome as the upgrades were, I couldn't afford to overlook the details. Stretching my arms high, I asked Belba, "What on earth happened while I was knocked out? Everything changed way too drastically."
"I'm not entirely certain myself. What I know for sure is that a special transformation took place—one fundamentally different from an ordinary level-up."
"A toddler could tell me that much."
Brushing off Belba's useless answer, I began conducting a solo inspection. Along the way, my hair—which had somehow grown all the way down to my waist—kept getting in my face. Why the hell did this get so long? With no apparent logic to connect the dots, I couldn't help but feel suspicious.
Regardless, taking stock of my condition was downright surreal. Is this really me?
Stats were not just arbitrary digits on a status screen. Having double the numerical value did not simply make you twice as strong. In mortal combat, overcoming a gap of just one or two points of Agility required grueling tactical foresight and ruthless psychological reads. Strength likewise demanded proper posture and biomechanical precision to exert fully, and Stamina was something a fighter could never have enough of.
So watching my attributes soar by dozens all at once made me feel like an edgy teenager drunk on sudden omnipotence. Ah, my boundless, uncontrollable might...
The bottom line was simple: I had become incomparably stronger than my former self. To put it into perspective, I felt as though I could take on those primordial dinosaurs I first encountered and actually stand a chance.
"Isn't that a bit of a stretch?" Belba chimed in.
Well... To be honest, I lacked absolute confidence, but indulging in a little bravado never hurt anyone. I had transcended mortal limits long ago, yet squaring off against towering, multi-story fantasy behemoths was still far from a guaranteed win. It just meant there was a plausible shot at victory now.
Even so, the growth was staggering—and that was accounting for raw attributes alone. I needed to properly test the skills that had mutated alongside them. Doing so would only elevate my mood further. Fantastic.
"Belba, look at this. My weight is acting completely insane."
I pointed out the anomaly. From roughly thirty kilograms all the way up to a hundred and fifty. Watching my body mass slide up and down purely at my whim—like adjusting the weight pin on gym equipment—I questioned Belba. Even for a superhuman vessel, this was somewhat disturbing. It broke fundamental physics.
"It looked as if your muscle fibers were actively altering their properties and composition, but... I don't really know either," Belba admitted. "To be frank, I gave up trying to comprehend your physiology a long time ago."
"You're doing the exact opposite of what an Observer is supposed to do, you know that? Outstanding work, Belba."
Clicking my tongue in mock pity, I decided to test Elemental Unification first. As anticipated, elemental immunity was completely passive and built-in, while my pre-existing skills like Lightning, Freeze, and Ignite operated without a hitch. As I ran a few more trials, I finally grasped why the word 'Unification' was attached to the skill.
"Whoa!"
"..."
"Whoaaaa!!"
"Aren't you cold?"
My entire body was encrusted in frost. No, that wasn't accurate—it wasn't coated; I had literally become ice. I was wholly unified with the element I commanded.
Staring down at my pale, frostbitten hands wrapped in opaque rime, I exhaled into the air. Glinting snowflake crystals drifted from between my lips. Turning one's physical form into solid ice was an entirely novel sensation.
Riding the momentum, I willed myself to turn into fire. The transition wasn't instantaneous; my body first reformed into its base state before bursting into raging flames, consuming me from head to toe. In that state, I pushed a hand directly into my own torso. It slipped right through without meeting the slightest physical resistance. Kinetic impacts couldn't touch me like this.
It was a bizarre, alien sensation. Is this what natural-element Logia users feel like?
Granted, I couldn't exert physical force either, the cast time was noticeable, and merely maintaining the state drained substantial chunks of mana, rendering it impractical for standard melee. But above all else, it looked outrageously cool.
Releasing the unification and welcoming back the grounded tactile feedback of flesh and bone, I moved on to Thought Acceleration. When a skill possessed no numerical rank, it usually meant its intensity could be scaled at the user's discretion.
Stepping on Thought Acceleration like an engine's throttle, I gradually revved up the tempo. Past a certain threshold, a violent wave of vertigo struck my skull, and warm blood trickled from my ears and nose.
Drip. Drip.
Driiiip...
By the crawl of the falling crimson droplets, I could precisely gauge the dilation of my perception.
"At this level..."
It fell roughly just short of the Elixir of Awakening. An even better skill than I'd anticipated. In reality, rather than an arbitrary gift from the system, it was Belba's interface quantifying an innate capability my body already possessed. If I truly set my mind to it, I could push the acceleration even further.
Slowly withdrawing my mana, the sluggishly creeping world accelerated back to its natural flow. If I throttled it gently enough to spare my brain the strain, I could likely sustain it during everyday tasks. As for the final skill, Physical Adaptation... it was probably responsible for the wild fluctuations in my weight. An ability to reshape and tune my body at will? It was hard to say for sure. I would have to experiment through trial and error to get a proper feel for it.
And that wrapped up the inspection. To sum up my comprehensive evaluation...
Stripping away all mundane practicalities and focusing purely on combat: I had achieved an astronomical breakthrough. If I had to battle my past self, I was confident I could take on ten of her simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It wouldn't take ten minutes to beat every single one into a pulp. That was how profound the leap had been.
The foundation of that confidence did not rest solely on inflated stats or upgraded skills. It was rooted in how immaculately refined my baseline senses had become.
Fwoosh!
Channeling a sliver of mana to the tip of my index finger, I forced it into visible form. A halo of pure, brilliant white light swirled over my skin. With a flick of my wrist, I drew a line through the empty air, leaving a razor-sharp trail of aura lingering in its wake.
Only yesterday, I had barely managed to manifest aura after chugging an alchemical elixir. Now, I could forge it almost effortlessly. While part of that ease came from having unlocked the knack once before, the far greater factor was that my fundamental realm of existence had elevated. Put bluntly, I was incomparably superior to the creature I was yesterday. It felt as though my very species had changed.
Perhaps it sounded arrogant. But right now, it was the most objective assessment I could render.
"Am I a genius or something?"
"How can someone say something so obnoxious with such confidence?"
It was time to get moving. Idling here served no purpose. Though I had grown stronger far faster than anticipated, there was no room for complacency. Scooping Miho up with one arm and tucking her against my waist, I lined the three young demons up in front of me. Keeping them in plain sight was the safest arrangement.
By my reckoning, our destination was roughly a day's march away. That place would become my very first stronghold—a sanctuary built to gather, protect, and educate scattered sapient beings. If we managed to avert the Great Cataclysm according to plan, that shelter would eventually become the cradle of civilization itself.
Should I decide on a name in advance? Probably a good idea.
"Belba. I'm trying to settle on a name for the shelter I described. Got any suggestions?"
At my question, Belba pondered for a brief moment before uttering a familiar word.
"How about 'The Academy'?"
"The Academy?"
"Yes. After all, it's destined to be the very first place in this dimension where knowledge is taught. Don't you think it fits?"