Sovereign of the Ashes

Aside from getting in touch with Leena, Sein also completed his work with the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Soul Crystal and the Body-Tempering Stalactite Liquid.

The bed crafted from the Ice Soul Crystal exceeded Sein’s expectations, significantly enhancing his concentration.

Likewise, the portable alchemy table he fashioned from the same material proved to be an invaluable tool, leaving him thoroughly satisfied with its performance.

As for the Body-Tempering Stalactite Liquid, which was only enough for two uses, Sein consumed one portion himself. However, Natalya declined the remaining portion.

Unlike Sein, whose body-tempering progress had plateaued, Natalya believed that her body still had room to grow naturally.

She felt that using the liquid prematurely, in her current state, would not only be wasteful but could also make her eventual bottleneck even harder to overcome.

Sein was taken aback by her decision.

He studied his once reckless and impulsive legal wife carefully, noting how much she had matured over the years.

Rather than using the remaining Body-Tempering Stalactite Liquid, Sein decided to hold onto it until Natalya reached her bottleneck.

***

Life at the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring was both fulfilling and well-ordered.

Day by day, Sein immersed himself in learning and research, gradually shedding the naivety of his youthful years. Over time, he grew more mature, both in demeanor and in thought.

Although he had not reached 150 years old, the depth of his accumulated knowledge gave him the air of a seasoned scholar who had lived for a millennium.

Fifty years later, at the Jewel Sea outside the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring...

Standing atop the serene turquoise water, Sein gazed into the distance. A smile graced his face as he watched Tourmaline play in the water.

Tourmaline had awakened six months ago after a twenty-two-year nap, just in time to celebrate Sein’s 200th birthday.

The celebration held at Grantt Castle was very grand. Although Leena and the others in the Western Archipelago could not come, the party was attended by members of House Grantt, House Ernst, and House Farion, as well as friends from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring and the Order of the Steel Fist.

Since returning to the Magus World thirty years earlier, House Grantt had undergone significant expansion and renovation.

During this time, the Rank Two Reverse Winged Lion King had contributed greatly to the efforts.

Tourmaline was frolicking among the waves in her majestic and powerful original form.

Since advancing to Rank Four, her horns had grown longer. Their emerald-green hue had also deepened, while her claws had become immeasurably sharper.

She currently maintained her size at around three thousand meters in diameter, but Sein knew this was far from her limit.

Tourmaline could grow even larger if she desired, though such an increase in size could disrupt the delicate balance of the Jewel Sea.

Even a careless movement from her massive form could spark a devastating tsunami, with waves powerful enough to wreak havoc across the region.

The Jewel Sea was now home to numerous sea races, including three demigod-level Sea Kings, all of whom were now Tourmaline’s lackeys.

Tourmaline had once caused a catastrophic disaster that devastated the lives of countless coastal inhabitants, prompting a personal visit from Lorianne to intervene.

Since then, Tourmaline had shown much greater restraint.

Even in her most playful moments, she now ensured her size remained below three thousand meters.

Tourmaline’s true form was a dragon turtle of immense strength and power.

Yet, when she transformed into her human form, it was almost impossible to associate the sweet, adorable little girl she appeared to be with a massive dragon turtle stretching thousands of meters in size.

As Tourmaline frolicked in the water, two enormous emerald-green arm ribbons hovered and fluttered around her.

These mysterious ribbons, each thousands of meters long, could change their size at will, just like Tourmaline herself.

Lorianne had known about these ribbons for decades.

When she first learned of them, Sein could still vividly recall the mixture of excitement, envy, and longing in his mentor’s eyes.

However, no one aside from Sein—Lorianne included—had ever succeeded in borrowing the ribbons from Tourmaline.

Lorianne had even gone so far as to abuse her authority as Sein’s mentor, compelling him to ask Tourmaline for the ribbons on her behalf—not once, but twice.

Each attempt ended with Lorianne returning the ribbons, the dark circles under her eyes betraying sleepless nights spent on fruitless research.

Lorianne’s failure came as no surprise. She was not an alchemist but a Dendromancer with exceptional expertise in apothecary.

Now, on the surface of the sea, the green arm ribbons swirled and danced around Tourmaline as she showcased her incredible mastery over water.

Elemental water dragons surged from the sea, twisting into colossal columns of water that spiraled and sprayed, encircling Tourmaline in a mesmerizing display.

A crowd of mages from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring and creatures from the Magus World had gathered at a safe distance, watching this breathtaking performance.

No one but Sein dared to stay so close to Tourmaline.

The onlookers, unaware of the full extent of Tourmaline’s abilities, failed to grasp that her true power lay in her sheer strength rather than her mastery of water manipulation!

Elemental water dragons intertwined with the green ribbons, scattering light into a dazzling rainbow across the sky.

As Tourmaline reveled in the beauty of her creation, Sein clapped his hands at just the right moment, offering his praise.

“Alright, you’ve had enough fun, haven’t you? Let’s move on to the blood test,” Sein said, pulling out a metal syringe nearly as tall as himself.

“Huh? You’re going to poke me with that again?” Tourmaline pouted, her expression shifting to one of reluctance.

Given Tourmaline’s terrifying size, the syringe in Sein’s hand—though two meters long—should not have caused her any pain.

Yet, the dragon turtle, who had once wielded her formidable combat prowess to stand against a Gorilla God more powerful than herself, seemed to harbor a clear dislike for it.

Sein had sought his mentor’s assistance to forge a needle capable of piercing Tourmaline’s thick scale armor.

Lorianne had been more than willing to help, probably because Sein had promised to share a portion of Tourmaline’s dragon blood with her after each extraction.

Sein’s intention in extracting Tourmaline’s dragon blood was not simply to torment her out of his boredom.

Ever since his constitution and mana had reached the limits of a Rank Two mage over a decade ago, his progress had been stagnant.

Breaking through the barriers of life was indeed not an easy feat.

Sein had reached the threshold for all the necessary stats—except the time required to overcome this plateau.

Sein wished to minimize wasted time. Though he had explored various elemental magic—such as dendro, hydro, electro, and geo—none of them really captured his interest.

His true focus had always remained on pyro elemental magic, alchemy, and body-tempering, followed closely by apothecary and lumen elemental magic.

Despite his decent affinity for umbra elemental magic and necromancy, they had taken a back seat.

Sein’s daily time and energy were finite, and he had no interest in diluting his efforts by retraining in another elemental magic outside his core focus.

He was determined not to waste another hundred years of his life waiting for a breakthrough.

After careful research and deduction, he theorized that stimulating his body with the blood of a powerful creature might catalyze the cellular metamorphosis needed to push past his current limits.

Over the years, Sein had managed to piece together significant insights regarding the mysteries of elemental qualitative transformation essential for Rank Three mages.

Part of his progress was owed to Grandmaster Feylis, who had sent him an eerie, grayish-white natural flame.

This gift, imbued with unique elemental energy, enabled Sein to consolidate years of research and finally grasp a fragment of the elusive elemental transformation process that only Rank Three grand mages could comprehend.

According to Lorianne, the flame was Feylis’ reward for Sein’s success in infiltrating the Verdant Wilderness World.

Grandmaster Feylis was truly a busy person. It had been ages since the end of the Wild Gorilla World War, and only now had his grandmaster sent this invaluable gift.