Emil sat on the ground in a small clearing. His eyes were closed and the air around him was beginning to distort, different colors of anima drifting around him in small specks. He continued to breathe in and out deeply.

Above him, the Night Sage stood with his arms crossed over his chest and a rare serious expression on his face. “What do you see, Emil?”

“I can see the flow of anima,” Emil answered easily. He had this ability for a long time so it wasn’t difficult for him to do at least this much.

“Look deeper.”

Emil’s face tightened and he grinded his teeth. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You will. So do it.” The Night Sage snorted and waved his hand. With his movement, a thick aura of orange colored anima surrounded his body. Its color was extremely pure and bright, which caused Emil’s eyes to hurt. There was an invisible pressure that weighed down on Emil and made him feel as if his bones were going to be crushed to dust--this was the effect of the Night Sage casually manipulating the anima around him.

Subconsciously, his mind’s eyes forced themselves shut to stop the pain.

The Night Sage noticed this despite nothing changing on Emil’s outward appearance. “Your body is different from others, Emil,” he reminded the boy with a grim tone. “Look!”

Emil hesitated. “I…” He swallowed the trepidation that was building up in his soul.

The Night Sage was right.

Emil was not like others and couldn’t circulate anima through his body and store it momentarily. Instead, all the anima would be steadily absorbed into him. The difference seemed small, but in reality, it meant the world. Even when he was not trying, there was a steady stream of anima merging with him.

Because of this, Emil’s potential could be called limitless. But if he wanted to increase his strength significantly, he would have to force himself to absorb more anima than he naturally did and increase his threshold. If he continued at his natural rate, then his development would be too slow.

With a deep breath, Emil forced himself to look at the Night Sage. The second that he did, the orange aura around the man began to stream towards Emil. Unlike before, he didn’t shut his eyes and allowed it to come towards him.

He let out a sharp gasp when the energy invaded him. He felt the circuit in his body immediately become oversaturated and pain overwhelmed his senses. It was similar to two years ago when he had forcibly made an anima circuit. Now he was forcing more and more into his body, expanding the limits that had been set.

Emil shut his eyes tightly, trying to control the orange-colored anima.

He crushed it into a ball as it continued to be absorbed into his essence, making the sphere become denser and denser.

Blood dripped out from the corners of his mouth and his bones were creaking as if they were to shatter at any moment. He tried his hardest to remain calm as he slowly drifted the shrinking sphere to the core of his being. The amount of agony he was in sharply increased and Emil almost passed out from it. He fought against the strong desire to lose consciousness and continued to merge it with his essence, feeling his greedy heart attempting to devour what it couldn’t handle.

His fingers tightened, digging into the flesh of his palms.

There!

Reaching his ultimate threshold, Emil severed the connection and the anima retreated back to the calm Night Sage.

Emil coughed, blood specks flying into his palm as he covered his mouth. “Teacher, I’ve upgraded my anima circuit to at least the third rank Argenti… I’ve sealed the rest of the power away to work on absorbing later.”

The Night Sage nodded his head. “Good, good.”

He had been pushing for Emil to do this for a while now. His body had endless potential to grow, but it was originally at a low starting point which was next to nothing. Emil needed to force his body through these originally unmoveable boundaries. No one else could upgrade his anima circuit’s potential grade like Emil could--but it couldn’t come without a price.

The Night Sage patted the young boy’s head. “Go ahead and rest. Your father has already prepared some medicine for you.”

Emil’s face brightened at the mention of his father. Felix had gone out to the city to gather supplies, so he hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks.

Without waiting for his master to say anything else, Emil darted towards the cabin.

The Night Sage smiled lightly and shook his head. Through everything, the only thing about Emil that hadn’t changed was his deep love for his father. It wasn’t a bad thing, though.

He scratched his chin in thought. Emil’s growth rate was even greater than he thought it would be… he was sure that within the next year, the boy would be able to enter the Argenti stage.

He was considered a genius himself, but he had only achieved that level by age fifteen. He thought back to those days many centuries ago and missed the fresh feeling of growing stronger. He had been stagnant for too long.

But, he was certain that his protégé would reach even greater heights than he had.

The Night Sage laughed contentedly once more and followed after Emil.