Jake Pellantz remained uneasy the entire way home.
He rode in a separate carriage from his parents, but he was terrified of how much they would rage once they arrived.
And his prediction came true.
SLAP—!
The moment they reached the office, Atun struck Jake across the face.
There was real force behind the blow, sending Jake helplessly rolling across the floor.
“Get up.”
At his father's command, Jake staggered to his feet.
SLAP—!
Atun's hand struck him again.
He showed no mercy whatsoever when hitting his own son.
“D-dear! You're going to kill him……!”
His startled wife grabbed his wrist and tried to stop him.
She was also angry that their son had performed below expectations.
But seeing Atun beat the child as though he intended to kill him, she could not simply stand by.
At his wife's pleading, Atun stopped using his hands.
Of course, that did not mean his anger had subsided.
He looked down at Jake sprawled across the floor.
‘Because of this bastard, our family's honor has fallen into the dirt!’
He had even given Jake a chance to restore their honor, only for him to be toyed with even more thoroughly.
‘And by a branch-family bastard……!’
The more Atun thought about it, the angrier he became.
THUD—!
He kicked Jake.
“Because of you! Our family! Just thinking about the humiliation we'll have to endure from now on……!”
“…….”
Jake silently endured his father's violence.
“Did we raise you without enough support? How can someone from the direct line lose to a branch-family child……?!”
THUD! THWACK!
As the kicks continued, his wife once again tried to restrain Atun.
“Dear, stop hitting him! Jake was still among the top trainees at the training center.”
“You call that an excuse? Of course he should have ranked near the top! Do not defend an idiot who could not even defeat a branch-family brat……!”
Atun turned back toward Jake and poured out his rage.
“I even gave you poison to use if you truly couldn't beat him!”
Jake did have something to say about that.
Shuren had already known the poison existed.
If Jake had tried to use it in that situation, Shuren would have been fully prepared.
Shuren had even personally warned him about it.
The poison was certainly effective, but it was a double-edged sword.
If the main family learned that Jake had used poison, their family could have faced an even greater crisis.
But Jake did not bother saying any of that aloud.
He knew perfectly well that nothing he said would get through to his father right now.
“Stand up properly, Jake.”
Atun's words forced Jake to drag his battered body upright.
“We paid an exorbitant price and endured humiliation to make sure you passed for one reason: so our family would not have someone who failed the exam. We did everything we could. But you failed to meet our expectations.”
“……!”
“You are as good as nonexistent in this family now. Live as quietly as a dead mouse until your life runs out.”
The words struck like a bolt from the blue.
“What are you doing? Get out.”
Jake had frozen in shock, so Atun ordered him to leave.
Jake trudged out of Atun's office.
Still dazed, he headed toward his room.
“So you finally came back? You disgrace to the family.”
Waiting in front of Jake's room were none other than his second and third older brothers.
Neither looked at him kindly.
Jake could tell they had not come with good intentions.
“We heard all about how you behaved at the Knight Training Center.”
“Pathetic bastard. You really dragged the family name through the mud, didn't you?”
“Father even took support that should've gone to us and poured it all into you. How did you still manage to produce a result like that?”
His two older brothers bombarded him with mocking remarks.
Jake was tired of everything.
He only wanted this situation to end.
“……So what are you trying to say?”
“That's how you speak to your older brother?”
THUD—!
His second brother's fist slammed into Jake's stomach.
“We came to give you some special education.”
His third brother cracked his wrists and loosened up.
Then the one-sided beating began.
Jake could not even resist as his two brothers battered him.
“Whew.”
Once they had beaten him to their satisfaction, the two left with refreshed expressions.
“Urgh…….”
Jake groaned.
The pain was bad enough, but what truly hurt was how miserable his situation had become.
Barely holding his aching body together, he entered his room and threw himself onto the bed.
‘I'm furious.’
The first thing he felt as he lay there was anger.
It was not as though he had not worked hard.
If anything, Jake had tried to do even more than his parents demanded of him.
And yet the result was being treated as though he no longer existed within the family.
For the still-young Jake, the situation felt deeply unfair.
‘What am I…… supposed to do now?’
His parents would no longer try to make him do anything.
The rest of the family would undoubtedly stop paying attention to him as well.
For someone who had always simply worked hard at whatever was given to him, this situation felt utterly unfamiliar.
‘……!’
Suddenly, Jake thought of Shuren.
‘Father called him a lowly branch-family brat. And I agreed with him.’
Yet Shuren, who had received virtually no proper support, was the one who had caused an upheaval at the training center.
He had even toyed with Atun and forced him to accept a deal.
Jake recalled his duels with Shuren.
‘His presence was different.’
That was exactly why Jake had disliked him.
Shuren was the same age as him and in an even worse situation, yet he had calmly accepted his circumstances and proved his strength.
‘Even when all of us rushed him together, he defeated us with pure skill.’
Remembering the scene sent a sudden chill through Jake.
‘I want to become as strong as him. No…… I want to beat him.’
Even after being abandoned by his family, Jake's circumstances were still better than Shuren's.
‘In the end, strength is what overturns everything.’
With that thought, Jake pushed aside the pain and forced himself upright.
He grabbed the sword leaning against the wall and headed straight for the training ground.
***
From early morning, the front of Shuren's house was packed with visitors.
“This is the chest of gold coins sent by Lord Lairan Pellantz.”
The gold promised by each family after the previous exam was arriving one shipment after another.
Shuren's father, Canyon Pellantz, was overwhelmed handling all the deliveries.
Fortunately, the families had coordinated the delivery dates, so everything arrived on the same day.
“Whew.”
The administrative work did not finish until the sun was beginning to set.
Shuren also helped his father check whether any family had failed to send what they owed.
‘Everything arrived safely.’
With that much gold piled up, they would not have to worry about money for quite some time.
“Son. We've accepted all of this, but I still don't know whether it's truly all right…….”
Shuren's father was worried.
They had sent the gold now, but he feared they might hold a grudge and cause trouble later.
‘Father really does worry about everything.’
Perhaps it was because this was the first time he had ever been on the receiving end of something like this.
“Don't worry. The deal wasn't made in secret, and all the families who were at the training center that day witnessed it. If they hold a grudge and cause trouble later after that? They'd be too ashamed to do it.”
Shuren reassured his father.
“I suppose that's true.”
“Yes. So please don't worry and use it for the household.”
“Are you sure? You earned all of this through your own strength…….”
Shuren shook his head.
“What would I even need money for? I'm going back to the training center in two months anyway. So repair the damaged parts of the building and buy whatever my older brothers and sisters have needed but couldn't afford.”
Shuren knew his father would not waste the money on anything foolish.
“Son…….”
His father's eyes reddened at Shuren's thoughtful words.
“Our youngest really is admirable, isn't he?”
“Of course. Of course.”
His mother, standing beside them, also praised Shuren happily.
‘So the two of them can smile this brightly.’
Seeing them, Shuren felt warmth spread through his heart as well.
Just how difficult had their lives been for mere chests of gold to make them this happy?
Shuren was reminded once again of how well his parents had endured despite their poverty.
‘Thanks to those families paying up, we won't have to worry about finances for a while.’
His ultimate goal was to make the Flamer Family independent and restore its former glory.
He had only taken one small step.
“Then I'll just take this.”
Shuren picked up the box containing the elixir from among the others.
“That one was sent by Lord Atun.”
“Yes. I squeezed a little extra out of him because his side annoyed me.”
With that, Shuren returned to his room.
‘It's about time I increased my Internal Power and prepared to properly control the Calamity Flame.’
The reason he had not done so yet was because he had not reached Two-Star.
If he had blindly focused only on accumulating mana, he could have reached Two-Star long ago.
But that would have prevented him from reaching true greatness.
‘I can't ruin everything because I'm impatient.’
Shuren hated the Pellantz Family enough to want to turn it upside down.
That was precisely why he wanted to grow through the proper path.
‘And this happened to fall into my hands at just the right time.’
Slosh.
The elixir he had extorted from Atun.
To Shuren, it was worth more than all the gold he had received today.
‘So this is the same thing Jake took.’
An elixir of this quality was not easy to obtain.
Once again, Shuren was reminded of just how formidable the resources of a direct-line family were.
Gulp, gulp.
Shuren drank every last drop of the elixir.
FWOOSH!
‘That's an enormous amount of mana!’
Shuren felt mana flood his entire body.
He straightened his posture and calmed the mana raging within him.
Most mediocre people would panic after feeling such a tremendous amount of mana.
Shuren remained calm.
‘If I absorbed all of this, I could probably reach Three-Star immediately.’
But he decided not to be greedy.
He had no desire to absorb more mana than his body could handle and burden himself unnecessarily.
Shuren kept only the highly pure mana that had entered his body and expelled the rest.
‘It's a waste, but…….’
He decided to look at the long term.
There was no reason to rush and ruin everything.
Still, the elixir was so high in quality that even after keeping only the high-purity mana, a considerable amount remained.
Shuren concentrated the mana raging within him near his solar plexus.
‘……There!’
At last, the mana formed a Ring.
Two Rings now revolved near Shuren's solar plexus.
Compared to others, his rate of advancement was astonishingly fast.
But Shuren had no intention of being satisfied with that.
‘Now I can finally use some of the Flamer Family's secret arts.’
Feeling the abundant mana within him, Shuren smiled.