Meeting the Sacred Fire
I could tell the moment I saw her. The woman standing boldly inside the training room like she owned the place—her presence was on a completely different level. It was enough to make the director look like a child in comparison.
She took one step forward. Judging from the director’s earlier reaction, she wasn’t supposed to be here yet. I swallowed my fear and quickly ran through the most rational response I could think of.
There’s a way out… but using it would mean throwing my entire Plan B in the trash.
Still, survival came first. I sharpened every sense in my body and turned my attention to the blazing sun burning inside my heart. I still didn’t know how to handle it properly, but I had the game knowledge to fall back on. Trusting in that, I focused on my heart—
“Oh! So you’re the Plea Wilhelm told me about? Nice to meet you! I’m Dana, your new ability instructor. Let’s train hard together from now on!”
“Wha… I mean, who are you?”
“Hmm? Wilhelm didn’t tell you? I’m the teacher assigned to handle your ability training starting today.”
“Well… you did say that. But is there really a reason I had to wait?”
This crazy old man. I shot the speaker a look of pure contempt, and the director cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Well, it would’ve been dramatic… but honestly, I was just too excited to see the little kid Wilhelm praised so highly. Can’t we let that much slide?”
The director clicked his tongue in disappointment while the mysterious woman stared at me with curious eyes.
“You really do look extraordinary.”
“?”
“Hey, kiddo. Do you happen to know big sister’s name?”
Her sudden question made me scramble to recall her face. Since I had no memory of her from my previous life, we clearly had no connection before I possessed this body. Is she famous? If so, was she one of the characters from Cyber Psycho?
As I stroked my chin and sank deeper into thought, she laughed awkwardly and gave my head a couple of light taps.
“Haha, you don’t have to think that hard. Just call me Sister Dana.”
“Dana…?”
The moment I heard the name, a memory surfaced. I remembered seeing it in some of the stories that occasionally came up in the original game.
“By any chance… are you the Sacred Fire Dana, one of the Five Greats?”
“Oh! You knew!”
The woman’s face lit up with obvious delight when I correctly guessed her title. She was an upper-tier S-rank powerhouse and one of the Five Greats—the strongest heroes in the country. Third seat, Sacred Fire Dana. And the only other name I knew for her was…
Witch of the Fearful Flame — Dana
An S-rank demon who appears in the latter half of Cyber Psycho. She was once an S-class hero and member of the Five Greats, but after being consumed by her own sacred fire, she became a monster that tried to burn the entire world.
However, ten years ago in the present, she was simply a pure-hearted woman who had just been appointed to the Five Greats and was full of happiness.
“That’s right! When I was newly selected as one of the Five Greats, the whole country went crazy. They called it the birth of a supernova! Said that at this growth rate, reaching second place would be no problem. They advertised it everywhere, so it’d be weird if you didn’t know! Right?”
The moment I mentioned her title, her face broke into a huge grin and she started dumping all her personal TMI on me without pause.
“So? What’s your first impression of big sister?”
Those sparkling eyes were honestly a bit overwhelming. First impression… if I had to be honest, I’d say she looked like her brain was sparkling clean. But that clearly wasn’t the answer she wanted, so I added a little grease to my words.
“Hmm… reliable? And pretty?”
“Exactly! You’ve got a good eye, kiddo! There aren’t many heroes who are both as reliable and pretty as me.”
After a bit of lip service, she nodded vigorously and gave my opinion an enthusiastic stamp of approval. They say even a whale will dance for praise, but the way she got so excited over a few compliments made her seem less like a hero and more like an overly dramatic neighborhood auntie. A very pretty neighborhood auntie, though.
“Neighborhood mutt?! How can you say something so mean to a newly appointed member of the Five Greats and a rising star! Plea said I’m pretty and reliable, right? Right?”
When I reluctantly nodded, she glared at the speaker like she’d won some kind of victory.
“…I remember, so please stop putting so much pressure on me.”
With those final words, the director ended the call, saying he had work to do. That left only me and her inside the training room.
“The nag is gone, and since today’s the first day of class, how about we just play? It’s basically an unwritten rule to play on the first day and start properly the next.”
I shook my head vigorously. If this were normal school or college lectures, I would’ve raised both arms and cheered, but right now I couldn’t afford to.
One day becomes two, two becomes three…
If we started playing now, my mind would inevitably turn to mush. Plus, judging by Dana’s personality, tomorrow would probably be more chatting, a few stories, and an hour or two vanishing in the blink of an eye. If I didn’t want to waste time like that, the best move was to set a firm tone from the very beginning.
“I’d rather train than play right now.”
“Uh… really?”
When I spoke with a straight face, Dana—who had been muttering to herself about what they should play just moments ago—visibly deflated. It was a little pitiful, but my situation was too urgent to go easy on her.
“Then what should we start with?”
When I pressed on without mercy, Dana looked visibly flustered. What? Had the director given her some kind of warning? I stared at her like I was interrogating her, and she finally mumbled in a tiny voice like a crawling ant.
“Um… since it’s the first day, I didn’t make a lesson plan yet…”
“Ah.”
“Haha… that can happen.”
“Hehe, right?”
“That’s…! Y-yes, of course…”
Her shy answer made heat rush to my head and I almost shouted that it absolutely could not happen, but I managed to swallow the words with extreme self-control. No matter how airheaded she was, she was still my ability instructor. It wouldn’t be right to treat her carelessly.
I steadied my breathing and endured the awkward silence until she offered the best solution she could come up with to break the tension.
“Hmm… can you wait a bit? Let me think for a moment.”
“Of course!”
Now that I’d gotten the answer I wanted, I wiped away my earlier prickly attitude and beamed at her with a bright smile. Of course I wouldn’t interrupt while she was making a lesson plan.
After Dana spent a long time groaning and struggling, she finally seemed to organize her thoughts. She jumped up with a much more relaxed expression.
“Alright! Then let’s start with a simple test.”
“A test?”
“Yeah. You might not know this, but places like the Academy always do some kind of test before admission. It helps them figure out the students’ growth direction and assign recommended courses. Same idea here—I want to test your basic abilities first so I can decide how to structure our lessons.”
Recommended courses… so that’s what those recommendations after the entrance exam in the game were for?
“I understand. What should we start with?”
“How about a physical ability test first?”
“Eh.”
I froze like a statue, but she didn’t seem to notice and pointed at three pieces of exercise equipment nearby.
“A healthy body houses healthy mana! Let’s start with sit-ups, long-distance running, and leg splits, shall we?”
“Ah.”
I swear on my life—calling Dana’s test hell would be an understatement.
“Come on! Just a little more!”
“Graaaaah!”
Even when my abs were screaming from the sit-ups, Dana kept shouting “One more!” and forcing me to continue. It was the kind of relentless pressure that would make even a seasoned personal trainer shake their head. She literally pushed my body past its limits.
The result?
Physical Ability Rank:D
“Hmm… your physical ability is quite bad…”
“Your physical stats are pretty terrible. Your stamina barely passes, but your flexibility and strength are a complete disaster. At your age, it should be impossible for your flexibility to be this bad…”
“…When I spend more than twenty hours a day lying down, how could my joints not stiffen up?”
When I pouted, she let out an “Ah!” and quickly changed the subject.
“Ahaha! Look at me. Alright, let’s wrap up the physical test here and move on to the next one, okay?”
A single bead of cold sweat rolled down her forehead. She looked genuinely flustered, so I decided not to press the issue and quietly followed her lead.
“Next is the mana test. The method is simple—just release as much mana as you possibly can.”
“At what?”
“Me!”
“?”
“Ah, I didn’t explain enough… My ability takes a while to explain, so I’ll keep it short. I’ll put up a barrier, so just touch it and pour your mana into it with everything you’ve got. Do you know how to release mana?”
I nodded. Basic mana ejection was all over YouTube. On days when I still had some energy left after mana extraction, I’d watched videos about mana usage. I could at least manage the basics of ejection.
“Good. Then let’s get started.”
Dana confidently raised a barrier. I placed my hand on the red-tinged wall. The method for mana ejection was simple. Draw up the mana gathered in my heart, focus it in my arm, then fire it using the same sensation I felt during extraction.
“Here I go!”
-Vwoooooong…
Mana began pouring out of my heart in a powerful torrent. The overwhelming volume created by my nuclear fusion ability. As that mana gathered throughout my body, an omnipotent feeling like I could do anything spread through me.
Soon, I had drawn up as much mana as my body could handle. All that remained was the release. I braced my core, took a deep breath, and—
“W-wait…!”
I thought I heard Dana’s voice, but… it was probably just my imagination.