After last night’s affairs, Chris felt energized as he quietly slipped out of bed while trying not to wake the three beauties that were fast asleep.

Dressing himself, Chris had decided to keep the nicer clothes from yesterday. The reasons were because he like the cool guy look more than the chuunibyou look.

Walking through the spacious halls of Kelros Castle, Chris noticed that there were countless traps and guards hidden in one place or another. He could help but admire Burdock for this level of thoroughness, the way everything was set up made it impossible to pass and area without running into some trouble.

After around ten minutes, Chris was spotted by a group of mostly younger maids following an older maid. The older maid told him breakfast would be ready soon. Getting directions from the maids Chris went to the dining hall to wait for everyone. As he left several of the younger maids followed him with heated gazes and letting out deep sighs, making the senior maids scowled them.

While making his way to the dining hall, Chris extended his [Terra Network] to map the whole castle. It was even large then Chris had anticipated, hundreds of rooms made up the humongous castle. Under neither the castle, Chris was expecting a dungeon or something of that manner, but instead he found several large storage rooms filled with organized items.

Finally arriving at the dining hall, Chris found Ostan and Mia were awaiting as well.

“Yo” [Chris]

“Morning Chris, did you sleep well or did those girls keep you up too late?” [Ostan]

“Well, no details, but those three have too much energy.” [Chris]

“ I would think with the oversized beating stick you would be fine.” [Ostan]

“That the size doesn’t matter though it helps. What matters is stamina, remember that my friend. That is if you want to last long enough to get a second date.” [Chris]

“Hahaha, duly noted!” [Ostan]

Both men had lewd and mischievous smiles on while they joked back and further. If it had been anyone else Chris would have probably retorted coldly or punched them, but Ostan was his friend, so it felt natural to talk to each other about that kind of stuff.

Mia who was sitting next to Ostan blushed hearing the two men’s inappropriate conversation. Being only thirteen she still found that kind of talk embarrassing to listen to the two men.

Finally after several minutes Mia shouted at the "lecherous morons" to stop. The two halfheartedly apologized causing Mia to pinch her brow.

Finding a new topic, Chris asked Ostan and Mia if they had made any new discoveries involving healing his soul.

Chris had asked the siblings about the matter almost a week ago, but Ostan said he didn’t know. Luckily, Ostan had a book that belonged to his family in order record information on spiritmancy that earlier generations had discovered.

“After studying the record book, I managed to find a way.” [Ostan]

“Really!?” [Chris]

Ostan nodded though his face darkened as he continued.

“The only way to do so is if the spiritmancer is a lower realm 1st stage S rank at the very least. Then a massive amount of pure souls or spiritual power must be gathered.” [Ostan]

“How many of these pure souls are we talking about here?” [Chris]

Chris leaned in while asking, Ostan thought for a second then answered in a tired voice.

“Normal it would be ten to fifteen, but your soul seems to be special, so my guess would be fifty to one hundred.” [Ostan]

“Fifty to one hundred, that doesn’t sound so bad.” [Chris]

“Well, if it were ordinary souls no it wouldn’t be. Sadly pure souls only appear in one out of ten thousand, so gathering even fifty of them could take decades.” [Ostan]

Chris stiffened, then his shoulders drooped. It seemed that he would just have to wait the nine more months for his soul to heal.

A short time later, Helina entered the room. When Chris asked where the other two were, she said they would be there shortly.

Helina then while slightly nervous took a seat next to Chris, he sighed as he saw her trembling slightly. Leaning over placed his arm around her and pulled her in while whispering into her ear.

“Calm down, it’s not like my feeling have changed because of one night.” [Chris]

He paused then a mischievous smile formed on his face, and he continued to talk softly into Helina’s ear.

“No, actually I think after seeing you act that way last night my feels have grown stronger.” [Chris]

Helina’s face turned bright red, and she looked down in embarrassment, and Chris laughed. Ostan had guessed what Chris had said and sighed.

“Hoho, so I was right, last night was heated hmm. Well good for- GAH!” [Ostan]

“Quiet stupid pervert.” [Mia]

Mia jabbed her brother in the ribs to keep him from making Helina even more embarrassed than she needed to be.

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After that everyone came to eat.

When breakfast had finished, Burdock had Chris follow him to the storage rooms under the castle.

When they had made their way down an extreme long flight of stairs at the bottom was a wide hallway that could fit twenty men shoulder to shoulder and had to be seven meters height. The hallway had eight three meters tall double door, each with a number on each them.

Burdock brought Chris to a door that had a five on it and pushed opened the doors. Walking inside Chris stared at a forty by forty foot table that was covered in plants.

There was a wide variety of plants; some were covered in fire, some gave off a sweet scent, others were clouded by a poisonous looking mist.

“These plants are the best I can offer; each one is at least an A rank magical plant worth around one thousand gold.” [Burdock]

Chris on the other side still wore his usual calm smile, but inside a waterfall of drool flowed.

“Mr. Sennel are you sure about this, I mean by the looks of it there has to be at least fifty plants.” [Chris]

“There are exactly fifty-seven plants, and boy I thought last night I told you to call me dad.” [Burdock]

Chris still felt awkward about call Burdock father or something along those lines. Though, after last night it seemed easier to do so.

Sighing Chris turned to Burdock with a wide but calm smile.

“Thank you, old man, this is far more than what you had to do.” [Chris]

“Haha, ‘old man’ again, fine I’ll except you calling me that, for now at least. Now, stop thanking me already, I told you yesterday, that I want you to become strong to protect Helina you hear.” [Burdock]

"Right, though I doubt Helina would just sit back and let me be a knight in shining armor." [Chris]

"True" [Burdock]

As the two laughed, Burdock had a fatherly smile on his face, as he spoke with Chris.

Chris stepped forwards to stand at the end of the table. Then he raised his hand and the plants all wavered. One by one the plants turned liquid like and flowed into Chris body, the whole process took about five minutes.

Within those five minutes, Chris could feel a tremendous amount power enter him. when he had absorbed the last of the plants Chris took a deep breath.

Chris quickly became nervous, he hadn’t receive any skills or even seen a window pop up.

Suddenly, unimaginable pain pulse through his body and he fell to the ground. Chris writhed in pain, Burdock wide eyed quickly left the room to get a team of healers.

Chris’ body felt as though it was being ripped apart, the mana in him wanted to explode. By sheer force of will he kept the overwhelming amount of mana in him from rampaging to the point where it would erupted.

After what seemed like an eternity of pain, a window popped up. Even though Chris’ eye were shut he still could read it.

Warning: the amount of mana you have absorbed exceeds your bodies limit.

“dammit, am I going to died, is this the end.” [Chris]

“………” [Chris]

“No fucking way it isn’t! I refuse to die like this, if I do, I will never get to teach those bastards that are being called heroes a lesson. I won’t be able to help Ostan and Mia kill that damn earl or rescue their mother. I -” [Chris]

Chris paused for a moment, then continued.

“-If I die here Claira, Sara, and Helina they…” [Chris]

The image of his mother dieing and how he felt afterwards surged into him mind. The pulsing pain slowly became more intense, still he endured.

“I won’t leave them, I won’t let them feel that pain again. They all have lost too much, I…I need to stay alive, to protect them, to keep them safe. They are my lights in this world of darkness!” [Chris]

With everything he had, Chris fought for control. Finally after what seemed like hours two window popped up and Chris sighed with relief.

Mana levels have stabilized, now converting and merging mana to a safe state.

Enter a state of hibernate for 60 days for easier conversion and merging process.

With the pain gone, Chris relaxed and tiredness enveloped him. He could hear voices now, but they slowly faded as he drifted off to sleep.