Ron's days at the Fire Mausoleum passed by slowly, and yet, they also seemed so fast. It felt strange, but as Ron lounged casually on a chair, sipping at a sweet drink, he found himself not really caring.

His tutelage under Loki had been going far better than he would have ever expected. He was soaking up everything his teacher, as well as several other professors during public lessons, taught him. Despite it only having been a little over a month in this academy, he already considered it home.

His only real regret was that he basically didn't socialize with anyone outside of his teacher. Firstly, he was always busy, and secondly, even when he could talk to people, he'd always end up feeling awkward and just act as though they didn't exist.

And god forbid for anyone to take the initiative to talk to him directly. Despite being only 9 years of age, soon to be 10, he was already considered the genius of geniuses to ever grace the Fire Mausoleum, and while many people absolutely despised him for it, there was also a growing number of people who took the opposite route.

Just thinking about it made him shiver. He could still remember when one particular student thought it a good idea to throw herself at his feet and beg to be stepped on. Literally.

Still, he didn't actually mind the trouble that came with being considered one of the 'geniuses' of the school. Sure, it was risky, and he might just be assassinated, and he knew there were always people watching him, but for all the disrespect of his privacy this brought, it also had plenty of benefits.

For one, he was never asked to take up missions. The library, all of it, was always open to him for free, the labs were also all free for him, and there were a great many other subtler benefits, such as being able to order food directly to his room or, on the odd day where he went to buy it himself, people would always just move to the side and allow him to get what he wanted first.

As he thought of this, Ron could only smile wryly. While people would normally feel crushing pressure under these expectations placed on someone, especially a child so young... He really didn't mind.

For one, everything he did always came extremely easy to him. Cooking? Piece of cake. Complicated math questions that could make his old world's professors get a headache? Easy as piss. Memorize spells and the theory behind them? Walking took more effort than that.

'Alright, let's not exaggerate here. It's not that easy'. He thought to himself, reining in his arrogance. Still, as Ron put away his glass and headed towards his lab, he knew that tonight, he would solidify his status once and for all.

The Ten Sacred Flame technique, while he still lacked a greater understanding of it, thrived on absorbing fire particles. And the one thing the Fire Mausoleum did not lack one bit was, well, fire particles. Hence, one sitting of meditation here was basically equivalent to 10 days outside.

Hence, it wasn't surprising that he flew up to the stars in terms of cultivation. He was at the very cusp of becoming a rank 3 acolyte, and tonight, he would finally achieve it.

As for his knight rank? He'd long since broken through to the Grand Knight realm, and then promptly stopped bothering with it. While knights were powerful, in front of magi, they came up a bit lacking.

Still, it had been an almost overwhelming experience breaking through. While he'd been expecting it, the feeling of life energy flowing through his veins like a river and constantly changing his body had been... pleasurable. Very much so. The revolting smell afterward? Less so.

Being both a grand knight and a rank 2 acolyte, most acolytes were simply not his match at all, regardless of their rank. Sure, he lacked real-time combat experience, but that could be easily acquired by venturing out... Or he'd just get assassinated. Who knows.

Sighing, he flexed his thin arms, and with an ease that would have boggled the mind of his previous self from the other world, he grabbed onto a rock and crushed it. With his bare hands.

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Smiling wryly at his obvious show-off attempt, he threw the stone into the trash. It was his day off for the week, and while he'd usually just do some experiments by himself, testing out the various things he learned during the week, he decided to dedicate this entire day to breaking through at long last.

'Technically speaking, most acolytes can live up to 150 years, and rank 1 magi can go up to 300. A couple of months is kind of insignificant...' He told himself, once again feeling a conflicted at knowing that immortality really was a possibility in this world.

He liked living, of course, but he'd always done so under the assumptions he would one day inevitably die. To suddenly know that there was a possibility of not doing so... Really didn't stir him all that much.

After all, he thought as he sat himself down in an isolation ward that prevented contamination, he would probably die way before ever reaching his old age. 95% of people in this world did, after all, and that was a very conservative estimate.

Taking a moment to clear his mind of all of those odd and useless thoughts, he focused the entire might of his improved mind on one thing alone: The Ten Sacred Flames.

Taking a deep breath, he fell into a trance as he began to perceive his sea of consciousness, or also called the spiritual sea, which was where every magi's spiritual energy and soul rested.

His own sea of consciousness only contained a single, very small flame that lightly sat atop the small puddle that was his spiritual energy. Compared to official magi, rank 2 and especially rank 1 acolytes really were nothing but jokes. Their sea of consciousness, as the name might imply, truly were seas incomparable to Ron's meager puddle.

As instructed by the Ten Sacred Flames, Ron began to pull in the vast amounts of fire particles around him into his body, feeding it all to the small flame. In fact, this flame had only appeared very recently, signifying that he was indeed beginning to truly start cultivating the technique. Beforehand, all he did was roughly absorb the energy, slowly accumulating it.

However, with the small flame helping him out, the energy was purified by the flame and then absorbed by his sea of consciousness, strengthening both. After all, while the amount of energy being taken in directly wasn't as big, it was leagues ahead in terms of purity.

As each minute passed, Ron began to sweat slightly as his body temperature gradually increased, and the flame only became hungrier and hungrier for more. His little puddle was also expanding at a rate almost visible to his naked 'eye', and he could tell that he was about to reach the critical point.

After several more minutes, the moment did indeed arrive. The little flame suddenly expanded, immediately consuming every single fire particle Ron sent it. Then, when Ron couldn't keep up with the sudden surge, it tried charging towards Ron's puddle of spiritual energy.

However, he'd long since prepared for this. Ron had been slowly accumulating fire particles at the side, not yet consuming them and simply keeping them close. With the fire's insurgency, the time came for those particles to play their part as he quickly absorbed them and sent them to the flame.

It swallowed them all up hungrily, and when the small tide of energy finished, the flame looked as though it had been satisfied for now, decreasing in size.

Despite the danger, the benefits had been immense. Ron struggled to keep up with both feeding the flame and absorbing the wonderfully pure energy that it gave off, allowing his little puddle of spiritual energy to take the final step and breakthrough.

He let out a small moan at the sensation, feeling as though his soul itself was expanding. He shivered in excitement as the warm reaches of his new and improved spiritual energy began to weave itself into his veins and distribute throughout his body.

His strength that had been stagnating ever since he became a Grand Knight increased by a substantial bit once more, although it wasn't really enough to be called a breakthrough in that regard. However, his little puddle was a whole other story.

While it wasn't even close to being a sea, or even just a lake, it was still far, far bigger than it had been beforehand, and it felt far purer than before.

Finally, after almost ten minutes of just sitting, Ron was at last able to shake off the remaining shock out of his system. He shot up, grinning.

"Fuck yes! I did it! Rank 3, you're MY bitch now!" Ron happily shouted to himself, only to instantly feel his cheeks turn crimson at what he just said and immediately shut up.

'Fuck. I forgot people are probably watching me right now...' Ron felt humiliated, but it wasn't even close to enough to ruin his amazing mood.

Unlike his knight breakthroughs, becoming a rank 3 acolyte hadn't caused him to smell worse than the worst sewer in existence, which was a welcome change.

He paused for a second as he was putting back on his regular clothes. Perhaps he should go visit his teacher? The man did promise to tell him more about his meditation technique when he broke through, and Ron was sure he'd be happy about Ron's success too.

With the next course of action decided, Ron grabbed the small box given to him by his benefactor, Professor Fiona, which he'd always kept safely locked away, and headed out into the crowded walkways of the academy.