Alice let out a long, relieved breath. She'd finally reached the bottleneck after two days wholly focused on meditation, and boy did it feel good.

Her sea of consciousness now looked like a large lake, and the flame hovering above it only continued to grow bigger and purer, looking as though it was on the verge of becoming something even greater.

She did a few stretches, getting the soreness out of her muscles. She'd been more or less immersed in meditation for two days straight, and while she knew she could keep going for a bit longer, she was also aware that taking care of one's body and mind was a priority.

Hence, she allowed herself to get a good 8-hour long sleep. Then, She ordered some food to be delivered to her room, and while she waited for that, she took a nice bath.

Like most people in the Fire Mausoleum, Alice had begun to enjoy... peculiar baths, which is a kind way of saying that she enjoyed bathing in waters at borderline boiling temperatures.

Thus, as she allowed the stress of mediation to be metaphorically washed away by the rising steam, she groped her undeveloped breasts in curiosity.

Thanks to Loki, Alice wasn't in the dark regarding her own body. He'd had her research extensively on both the male and female body, even bringing her some real corpses to look through. Hence, she was well aware that puberty was on the horizon, and when the time came, her body would change with it.

Musing about how uncomfortable she'd be when the time came, Alice just allowed her mind to wander around without aim, which was something she rarely did these days.

She ended up snorting and inhaling some steaming water when she thought of her teacher in his birthday suit dancing around like an idiot. Blushing brightly, she was forced out of her dreamy state, returning to reality.

After carefully washing her hair and drying up, she went back to her room and ate up the large, delicious meal that had been brought over to her room. She dug into the tender meat of some sort of bird, enjoying the feeling of the meat literally melting within her mouth and flowing down her throat.

When she was nice and full, she cleaned up as best she could. Then, after glancing at the clock, she decided that the time had come to shed the chains that still held her back from becoming an elite of this brutal world.

Smiling wryly at the sudden change of mood, Alice sat back down on the mattress that had become the only thing saving her butt from aching after two days of standing completely still in a wholly uncomfortable position.

After mentally preparing herself, knowing full well that the chances of success for her first attempt would be low, Alice sank once more into meditation.

She could feel a wall trying to block her from advancing. However, unlike most peak rank 3 acolytes who encountered it, Alice knew that she could break this wall rather easily, she just needed time and effort.

Of course, there wasn't actually any sort of wall, but rather, it was a metaphor. What she needed to do was to have a breakthrough on her sea of consciousness, allowing it to finally and truly form a sea of spiritual energy instead of a mere lake.

Thankfully, her Ten Sacred Flames had the perfect solution for this. She took in a deep breath, and then her body went completely still, looking as though she'd turned into a statue.

Then, the six Flaming Flamingo Feathers surrounding her trembled slightly before levitating upwards to her chest level. With an unseen signal, they all began to emit large amounts of energy-rich smoke, which was directly absorbed into Alice from every pore on her body.

The flame inside of her, feeling the approaching mass of energy, trembled in joy. It automatically expanded to twice its previous size, and as large amounts of smoke entered it, it only continued to grow.

Below it, the sea of consciousness had reached a limit on its current form. It kept absorbing the leftover energy that the flame gave off, and yet, it didn't seem as though it was growing any larger.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

'Now comes the hard part...' A silent thought echoed within the confines of Alice's sea of consciousness. The flame that had grown to 5 times its previous size trembled violently, and suddenly, it grew twice as big as it had been, totaling a 10 times increase from its original size.

The feathers outside her body also began to shake, and with an unhearable cry of pain, they exploded into vast amounts of smoke that congregated around Alice's body, continuously entering it.

With such large amounts of energy flowing into her body like a river, the flame that had been struggling to consolidate its size and shape let out feelings of joy and hunger, only visible to Alice herself. Thanks to the vast smoke, it was able to not only fill itself up with energy until it could stabilize, but it also kept growing even bigger.

Finally, as though it had had enough, the large amount of smoke waiting outside Alice's body charged into her, causing her previously statue-like expression to show pain.

Still, she kept going. When all of the smoke finally entered her, a dull, glass-shattering sound resounded within Alice's mind, and her spiritual lake exploded in size.

It was as though the chains that had been holding it back finally snapped. Previously, large parts of her sea of consciousness had been empty, but now, the sea filled it in its entirety. Then, the large flame above the expanded sea also broke through.

Its size increased dramatically, growing until it was akin to a fireball the size of a house. Of course, sizes were relative within the sea of consciousness, but regardless, it had still grown to be at least 50 times its original size.

Not that Alice noticed. She'd fallen into a state of semi-unconsciousness as her very soul seemed to be baptized by the energy, her body strengthening and improving in untold ways.

Under the direction of a mysterious force, the fireball within her glowing with fiery rays as strange runes appeared on its surface before gradually fusing into the fireball itself, vanishing from sight.

Unknown to Alice, Loki had appeared near to her room, surrounding it with his own extremely powerful spiritual energy, which prevented Alice's berserk spiritual force from accidentally causing hundreds of weaker acolytes to be burned to ashes.

"How peculiar... I'm pretty sure Fiona's advancement wasn't as extravagant as hers..." Loki murmured to himself, observing his student's advancement with great interest and also some slight worry. While it was true that most advancements amongst official magi would cause damage to their surroundings, if Loki hadn't acted, the entirety of his student's room and beyond might have just been burned to nothingness.

Alice, however, didn't notice Loki even as her consciousness began to return to her. She could feel that her promotion wasn't quite over yet, but still, she forced herself to act.

She willed her spiritual force that had improved drastically to drag a certain box to her, and with a thought, it forced the box open, revealing the strange fruit inside.

Her craving for her fruit had been harsh, but still manageable before. Now, however, it was irresistible. She lurched forward, snatching the fruit from the air and shoving the entire thing down her throat, her tableside manners getting thrown out the window.

Her sea of consciousness had already begun to stabilize after the improvement, but the moment the fruit entered Alice's body, it was as though another explosion immediately happened. Her inner flame that had now officially become her first Sacred Flame charged at the fruit that had somehow appeared in there, engulfing it within an instant. Spiritual force literally gushed out of it, falling into the sea below like a waterfall.

Immediately after eating the Blazing Tree Pomelogram, Alice could feel a connection to the fire particles around her that completely and utterly dwarfed anything she'd felt before. It was as though she herself had become one with the fire, and it only seemed more and more eager to obey her every whim and command.

Instead of just giving out pure fire energy as the feathers had done, the Pomelogram worked in more mysterious ways. It's consumption allowed Alice to experience yet another drastic upgrade in her strength, almost causing her to become intoxicated.

It took a full hour before Alice was able to stabilize herself from her sudden and drastic advancement. When her eyes opened, the bountiful fire particles within the Mausoleum seemed to shiver in joy, and as her gaze accidentally landed on a random table, the poor thing exploded in a fiery hell, turning to dust within moments.

Suprised and inwardly panicking a bit, Alice swiftly closed her eyes, and yet, she could not stop the radiations emanating from her body from causing havoc.

Thankfully, someone else could. "Calm down, Alice. You're alright. Breathe." A calm and relaxed, yet at the same time, firm voice said in her ears. Instinctively, Alice obeyed, taking deep breaths as her rampaging emotions began to settle down, causing her spiritual force to settle down as well, which in turn, calmed the berserker energy around her to also return to normalcy.

She could feel two strong arms holding her down by her shoulders, but strangely, they did not feel alien at all, and with her adrenaline draining away, Alice felt more tired than she'd ever been in her entire life.

Every single cell of her body ached, and despite brimming with untold power, Alice could barely even lift her eyes up to see the gentle face of her mentor.

"You've surprised me, dear student. I'm proud of you, but for now, sleep. I'll deal with the rest." He murmured his silent voice traveling to her ears. With a small and weak nod, Alice allowed herself to fall into blissful sleep, feeling safe in the arms of possibly the only person she truly trusted within the academy.