‘If only it were that easy.’

Ackster sighed. Unlike fantasy stories, where the main characters could just get started with working hard and powering up before facing their next adversary, Ackster would have to put a little more thought into what he was going to do.

At least, now that he had his Nomi card, he could take advantage of the adventurer profession and grow his stats by killing all the monsters he encountered. Well, he could grow three of them, Strength, Agility, and Fortitude.

He wasn’t sure what Spirit did. He just knew that it had been more of a supplementary stat for The Hero that supposedly helped with a little bit of everything. He had no idea how to train it, even with the adventurer profession. Ackster didn’t even know why he had it on his Nomi.

Only the four base stats of Strength, Agility, Fortitude, and Mana were supposed to show up unless some specific condition had been fulfilled. Ackster was pretty sure that The Hero had it unlocked from the beginning due to the identity of one of his helpers.

But Ackster didn’t have anything like that. The only thing that came to mind was his transmigration. Maybe getting a new ‘spirit’ and replacing the original Ackster had been enough for the Nomi to read and display his Spirit stat.

But, in addition to the Spirit stat, there was another stat that Ackster couldn’t train at the moment. He couldn’t grow his Mana stat since he hadn’t awakened his mana yet.

And while his Strong Body skill wasn’t reliant on mana, and he could probably become quite strong with Strong Body as the core of his growth, Ackster didn’t want to miss out on an avenue that could make him as strong as possible.

Ackster didn’t need to learn magic to use mana. He could use it to strengthen his body the same way knights and warriors did. He also had something else in mind that might be incredibly vital to his growth if his Strong Body were as strong as he felt it would be if he grew it a little more.

But Ackster wouldn’t even be able to attempt it if he didn’t awaken his mana first, so that had to be his first objective. Ackster realized that he might also be able to use mana to supplement his Strong Body’s raging desire for food as soon as he used it a little too much.

However, if he were going to awaken his mana and train it properly, not just rely on the Nomi card’s miraculous function, he would have to do it the best way possible. Besides, if he found a profession with better stat growth than the adventurer profession, he also wouldn’t be able to rely on that to grow his mana.

He would have to grow his mana the old-fashioned way by training it manually. Since knights and adventurers or mercenaries using mana were pretty common in Badhurst, the country he was in at the moment, Ackster was sure he could find a copy of some training manual pretty easily.

But there were two problems with that. Money, which he could solve by killing a bunch of monsters. It would take a bit of work since he would have to grow strong enough to kill valuable monsters and afford a manual like that.

The second problem was the quality of the manual he would find. The low-quality things he could find in markets in big cities or the slightly better ones he could find in exclusive shops wouldn’t be good enough, even if he could scrape up enough money to afford them.

If Ackster were really going to confront The Hero and stop the destruction of the world, he would need something that was at least as good as The Hero’s Blessed World Manual.

Technically speaking, since the Blessed World Manual was a gift from the world itself, there shouldn’t be anything that could compete with it. But the Blessed World Manual was specifically designed and adjusted to suit The Hero. So, it wouldn’t be the best for Ackster, even if he could somehow get his hands on the skill needed to get that manual.

So, Ackster would have to find a manual that was both good enough to compete with the Blessed World Manual and that suited him.

Fortunately, there were a handful of manuals that stood at the very peak of mana training manuals, right next to or slightly below the Blessed World Manual.

However, Ackster wouldn’t be able to get his hands on them, even if he toiled day in and day out every day for the next ten years. Well, maybe if Strong Body was good enough and he used another manual to awaken his mana, and if he was as talented in mana as someone with Ackster’s potential should be, there might be a chance for him to put his hands on one or two of them.

But it would be too late by then. And it would be useless if they didn’t suit him.

Fortunately, Ackster already knew what attribute might be most suitable for him.

It was something that even Melia and Gerrick knew, despite being there when he activated his Nominus Card, since it was something that was only confirmed in the future. It was the fact that the seemingly random light that shone when someone put their blood on the card was an indication of their attribute.

But it was merely an indication, and colors weren’t necessarily specific with their indication.

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Ackster’s color was blue. And the most logical attribute would be water. When one thought of a representation of nature that was blue, water, seas, and oceans came to mind. So it wouldn’t be strange if Ackster’s most suitable attribute was indeed water.

However, lightning could be blue, there was blue fire in some places of the world, and the blue color could be an indication of Ackster’s main attribute being closely tied to that kind of blue fire. The sky was blue. There were a lot of things that could be blue.

However, Andrea Phileam, Ackster’s biological mother, was a water mage. It would make most sense if Ackster’s attribute were water.

But that still left two manuals that could work.

The Sea God Manual and the Ocean Unison Manual.

While starting on his journey south, Ackster thought about the two possible manuals that might work. If he wanted to become as strong as he needed to fight The Hero on a somewhat even footing, which he would most likely have to do, no matter what, he would have to devise a perfect way for him to grow that strong.

And the quicker he got his hands on as good a mana training manual as possible, the better.

The Hero already had an almost twenty-year lead on Ackster. But Ackster had the advantage of the knowledge that came from having read the original story. It wasn’t impossible for him to close that gap.

However, even with all his knowledge as a transmigrator, Ackster still didn’t want to face The Hero unless he was prepared to the utmost limits. The Hero was such a monstrous bastard that it wouldn’t be possible to face him unless everything aligned in Ackster’s favor, which, if Ackster played his cards right, he could make happen.

But all that hinged on him evading The Hero’s detection until the moment of his choosing.

And if The Hero even so much as got a whiff of the fact that Ackster Phileam, someone who he was supposed to have killed, was still alive, Ackster wouldn’t get a chance to control the circumstances.

The Hero would look for Ackster and make preparations in case Ackster did something.

With the original Ackster’s reputation, The Hero might not make any serious preparations. But the fact that Ackster had faked his death without The Hero noticing would be enough for The Hero to be wary and take him seriously.

To prevent The Hero from ever finding out that he had survived and was plotting something, Ackster would have to make sure The Hero didn’t even find out he existed or that someone like him existed.

Ackster would have to fly so low below the radar that not even insects would register his actions.

If The Hero realized that someone, not necessarily Ackster, was gaining strength, amassing resources, and recruiting powerful people, he would track them down and make sure they wouldn’t be a threat, either by having them prove it or by making sure they wouldn’t ever be a threat.

Fortunately, it wasn’t an impossible endeavor. It was close to impossible. But it would still be doable.

The evidence was in the original story. Even at the end, there were mysteries that The Hero hadn’t gotten to the bottom of. Of course, with the destruction of the world, those mysteries ceased to exist, so it didn’t matter in the end.

But if others could evade The Hero and remain undiscovered long enough, Ackster could too. His knowledge would hopefully make up for the difference in time to amass power and resources.

However, to guarantee his success with that strategy, Ackster would either need a foolproof alias and cover that not even The Hero could doubt or never catch The Hero’s attention.

And since Ackster wouldn’t be able to get such an identity easily, at least not quickly enough for it to make a difference, he would have to evade The Hero’s notice from the beginning.

It would take a lot of work since he wouldn’t be able to use legitimate means to gain money and strength since those ways also came with some kind of credit or renown. He wouldn’t have to trick only The Hero. Ackster would have to fool the entire world.

Fortunately, he had a decent starting point.

His identity as Ackster Phileam would be gone in a couple of hours. Hopefully.

He had left Degrest with a Nominus Card that didn’t have his name on it, which meant he could influence it and use his profession as confirmation of his identity. And with how many adventurers there were in the world, no one would suspect anything.

And if Mas, the adventurer, never showed up again, it would be easy to assume he had died futilely trying to chase his dreams of a new life and a fresh start.

But doing things in an illegitimate manner meant he would break the law, which wouldn’t be a problem as long as he wasn’t discovered. But he would have to do things morally questionable to achieve his goals.

If he were to go through with this plan, Ackster would have to do things he had never considered doing on Earth. He would have to throw his ethics and moral high ground in the trash.

Ackster had felt guilty at making the kitchen worker, who brought him food, exercise. He wasn’t sure he could do it.

However, he couldn’t see any other way that he could possibly save the world, to live longer than ten years. He didn’t have a choice.

Regardless of what happened, of what situations he would go through, Ackster would have to do whatever it took to succeed.

Ackster subconsciously gritted his teeth hard as he firmed his resolve.

For now, he could focus on taking the first step toward gaining the strength he needed to make the choices he had to make.

As a bottomfeeder adventurer, Ackster would go unnoticed as long as he didn’t cause too much of a commotion. And even if he did, he could quickly lose any attention he caught by faking his death and changing his identity again. He just had to get a little better at disguising himself.

Ackster was fortunate that he hadn’t encountered any higher-leveled knights or adventures in Degrest since they would have been able to see through the dirt he used to hide his blue hair at once.

But he could think of ways to solve that as he continued south toward the sea.

Since he decided to go unnoticed throughout the entire world on his journey to save it, Ackster couldn’t aim for the Ocean Unison Manual. To begin with, getting it would be a hassle, and the consequences would distract him from his goals far too much.

And, most importantly, getting married to the Mermaid Princess would bring way too much attention to him. There were bound to be concerns regarding his identity, and if The Hero showed up at the ceremony… Death.

That meant he had to go for the Sea God’s Temple, which no one in the current world knew about.