Soon enough, Ethan’s number was called.
He stepped forward, walking toward the central stage in complete solitude.
No one stayed behind to cheer him on; his father and brother had already departed, wrapped up in the celebration of Arthur’s triumph. Unfazed, Ethan climbed onto the stone platform and immediately assumed a cross-legged position.
Closing his eyes, he initiated his mana-breathing technique. Drawing upon a hundred years of accumulated combat and spiritual experience from his past life, Ethan’s breathing was flawless.
He pulled in ambient mana with terrifying efficiency—drawing it through his nose, his skin, and every pore of his body. The sheer volume of spiritual energy he gathered instantly dwarfed anything he had achieved in his youth during his past life.
With this much mana density, can I also awaken a High-Grade Flame Element this time? Ethan wondered coldly.
Just then, an attendant hurried over and handed him the multi-colored awakening potion. Ethan drank it down without hesitation.
Within seconds, his core surged with heat as the medicinal liquid forced his spiritual pathways wide open. A powerful wave of energy erupted from his frame.
At first, it burned with a brilliant, aggressive crimson hue, filling Ethan with a surge of satisfaction as he felt the formidable presence of a High-Grade Flame Element taking root.
But the next moment, Ethan’s eyes flew wide open in utter disbelief.
Alongside the scorching red flame, two foreign, terrifying energies—one pitch-black as the void, the other blindingly white as pure light—suddenly flooded into his meridians.
Space and Time Elements?!
Ethan’s mind reeled in shock. What are the Space and Time elements doing here?! Nothing like this ever happened in my past life!
Before he could even process the anomaly, a violent mana blast tore out from his body, turning his facial complexion deathly pale.
The three elements instantly locked into a brutal, chaotic tug-of-war inside his core, each desperately trying to establish absolute dominance over his body and soul.
The backlash was excruciating. Agony unlike anything he had felt before wracked his nervous system, threatening to shatter his mental sea entirely.
Bang! Crack—!
Amidst the surging shockwave, two of the towering monoliths stones standing around the platform—the pure white pillar representing Time and the jet-black pillar representing Space—suddenly fractured, splitting apart with loud cracks before shattering entirely.
Gasps of absolute horror echoed through the Grand Hall.
The elders stared at the ruins of the two pillars in sheer paralysis, completely unable to comprehend why the Time and Space monoliths had broken.
Meanwhile, the red Flame pillar continued to flare with intense, blinding brilliance, signaling a successful High-Grade awakening.
Whispers broke out among the stunned onlookers. "Monsters... those two brothers are absolute monsters! Both of them awakened high-grade flame elements!"
Ignoring the gasps and stares of the crowd, Ethan abruptly stood up, turned on his heel, and strode out of the hall. He didn’t have a second to waste; his body was on the verge of tearing apart, and he needed to stabilize these chaotic elements immediately.
Realizing his family estate was too far away, Ethan sprinted toward the outskirts of the town, searching for a secluded hideout.
His destination was an old, dilapidated abandoned cottage—a forgotten ruin where he and Arthur used to play and pretend it was their secret base during their early childhood.
Bursting through the rotting wooden door, Ethan collapsed onto the dusty rubble on the floor, crossing his legs as he forced his focus inward.
Inside his mental sea, the three elements were playing a destructive game of tug-of-war. The Flame Element, despite being high-grade, was being completely suppressed, flickering weakly like a dying candle under the immense pressure of the cosmic Space and Time elements.
Gritting his teeth through blinding pain, Ethan channeled every ounce of his century-old willpower. "Steady... steady yourselves!"
Relying on his profound mental fortitude, he accelerated his breathing technique, sucking in wild streams of environmental mana to feed and anchor the volatile energy. Slowly, inch by agonizing inch, the chaotic storm began to quiet down, losing its absolute randomness as Ethan forced the turbulent forces under his command.
His next goal was monumental: to guide the three elements into a harmonious circular rotation and forge his very first Mana Ring, successfully stepping into the ranks of a First-Rank Mage.
But the difficulty was astronomical. While ordinary people struggled to harmonize a single common element, Ethan was attempting to bind three—and not just any elements, but the supreme and perilous Space and Time elements, of which he had zero prior knowledge or cultivation blueprints.
The moment he tried to shape the ring, the Space and Time energies violently overpowered the flames. A fresh surge of blue, black, and white auras burst from his skin.
Panting heavily, Ethan threw his consciousness back into his mental sea.
There, floating at the center of his spiritual core, a newly formed elemental ring hung suspended. But it was a bizarre, terrifying sight: the ring was split strictly in half—pitch-black on one side and blinding white on the other, representing the overwhelming dominance of Space and Time.
As for the proud High-Grade Flame Element? It had been compressed and marginalized, making up a mere three to four percent of the entire ring’s structure.
the newly forged ring pulsed with an blinding dual-toned brilliance, completely eclipsing everything else.
Ethan let out a heavy sigh, a complex mixture of frustration and awe washing over him.
While he possessed a lifetime of comprehensive knowledge regarding the Flame Element from his past century of combat, he had absolutely zero understanding or cultivation blueprints for the Space and Time elements.
Yet, against all odds, he had accidentally awakened both of them at once.
Suddenly, Ethan’s vision began to blur, and a thick, foggy haze clouded his mind.
He had absorbed an astronomical, reckless amount of ambient mana in too short a time, pushing his physical body and spiritual core far beyond their absolute limits.
The agonizing backlash tore through his nerves. Unable to fight the overwhelming exhaustion any longer, Ethan collapsed onto the dusty floor, losing consciousness entirely.