“Normally you’d have to train long and hard in order to rectify the mistakes in your build.” Bacchus stated. “To prevent that, most people try to be somewhat well-rounded, balancing their stats since day 1!”

“Can’t I just kill some monsters using my physical strength or whatever, and upgrade those attributes that way?” James asked.

“The system isn’t that easy to fool.” Bacchus sighed. “You already have a high level and many powerful tools at your disposal. So in order to level up anything, you’d have to fight level-appropriate monsters. And at this level, using your physical strength, you’d probably be unable to leave so much as a scratch on any monster who isn’t much weaker than you.”

“So that just leaves doing it the hard way, huh?” It was disappointing, but James was ready to do anything. Hesitating and moaning about it won’t take Garantep down or keep his friends safe. “So how do we do this in a way that won’t take years of training?”

Bacchus rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a bit awkward about proposing something so insane. But after he saw what James was capable of, it seemed like insanity wasn’t something unusual to this individual.

“Look, normally I wouldn’t even bother mentioning such a thing, it’s utterly ridiculous. But you just have so much mana, you’re not a normal person in any sense of the word. If anyone can do it, you can. It’s still a bit ridiculous though, even for you.”

“Ridiculous is my middle name. Spill it out, mate.” James replied with a grin.

“It’s also unnatural, and thus very, very painful and uncomfortable. But since you’re saying that you have a skill that makes pain less of a factor, I’m slightly less anxious about it.”

“I constantly torture myself to activate some of my skills, and I also survived having parts of my flesh dissolved. I’ll be fine, so out with it, man!” James put his hand on Bacchus’s shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. He could see that the man was hesitating, but he really didn’t have a reason to. Whatever his idea was, it couldn’t be half as insane as the stuff he did just in the last few months.

“Well, it’s nothing too complicated in theory. It’s basically replicating the effects of normal exercise. You’d just be using your mana to expedite the process … by a lot.”

“Sounds perfectly sane! I don’t see the problem.” James replied.

“Well, that’s just the gist of it.” Bacchus answered awkwardly. “You see, the more effective you want this process to be, the harder you’d have to be on yourself. And since we really don’t have that much time, especially if you want to have time to train a bunch of other stuff and not just your physical attributes in these three months, then we’re talking about a degree of discomfort and effort that you have to experience to understand.”

“Let’s do it.” James didn’t hesitate for a single second. His friends were already working hard, sweat pouring off of them as they ceaselessly practiced their skills. He wouldn’t allow himself to let them down.

“Close your eyes and try to visualize everything I say.” Bacchus instructed.

James began listening carefully to Bacchus’s guidance. During this training camp, he didn’t have any desire to come up with his own weird solutions, nor did he have any objections to being instructed. Time was of the essence, and he had slacked off way too much already. He wasn’t in the mood for his own idiosyncrasies.

“Progress means facing resistance and pushing past it with great efforts.” Bacchus stated. “The greater the resistance, the harder you have to push, and the better the rewards. That applies to everything, from killing stronger monsters for better XP rates, to building muscle.”

James nodded, it’s the same concept as in any other universe. Life was a constant struggle, and the more it is that you want, the harder you have to fight for it.

“Luckily for us, physical attributes are the most straightforward to train. Improving and enchanting your body is all it really takes. But straightforward doesn’t mean easy, far from it. Especially in our case. What we’ll have to do is to take mana, and use it to replicate the effects of grueling exercise. Other than purely building muscle, training your body is also a process of an arcane breakdown and reconstruction of your physical self.”

“What does that mean?” James asked, a bit excited by the fact that he actually understood the theory behind what the dwarf was saying.

“Usually, it’s a process that takes years.” Bacchus answered. “People work out intensely, or they kill monsters using their physical prowess, and their bodies are slowly reconfigured, enchanted, forged through a slow but constant process that basically breaks down their existing cells, and replaces them with stronger and stronger ones, akin to replacing gear with better items, enchanted to be stronger, faster, more durable.”

“How do we use mana to speed up the process?” James asked, the mana in his veins yearning to be used.

“Instead of breaking down, reconstituting and enchanting your body through constant exercise and training, we’ll be using the mana to be doing the breaking down in a matter of minutes, and to reconstruct it and enchant it just as quickly.”

“That’s it? We do that and we’re done?” James was shocked at the simplicity of the concept.

“We do that over and over and over several hundreds or even thousands of times, and then we’re done.”

“Still, it doesn’t sound that bad.” James replied.

“That depends on just how good that anti-pain skill of yours is.” He said with an awkward, unsure smile.

Bacchus then put his hands on James’s head.

“I’m not that good at mind magic or divination, most of my knowledge is just theoretical.” Bacchus said. “But I still have some tricks up my sleeve. I realize this is a lot to ask, but I’m no threat to you, master Cadmus personally assigned me to help you. So please try to leave your mind undefended. I’ll keep my hands on your head, which will allow me to somewhat see your thoughts and mental images, and I’ll also be able to send you my own mental images. Thus, I can correct any uncertainties and mistakes during the process of breaking down and reconstructing. Miscommunications would make the process much less efficient, so unfortunately this is quite necessary.”

James wasn’t the most trusting of people, especially since various entities had tried to hijack his mind multiple times. But he liked these dwarves, and he really didn’t sense any animosity from them, so he allowed Bacchus to enter his mind.

As soon as James let his mind’s defenses down, Bacchus went pale. What he saw was even more shocking than James’s previous displays of power.

His dormant demonic powers, his chaotic powers, the eaten remnants of the entity from the Bloodwell. They were enough to create a quite … ‘special’ mindspace. But along with the constant self-inflicted torture, the Split Mind skill, the simulations and meditations, the trances – they had created something that even the knowledgeable Bacchus had never seen before.

He couldn’t look at it for a second longer, immediately lifting his hands from James’s head.

“P-please begin focusing on the process of deconstruction.” Bacchus asked sheepishly and respectfully. He hesitated for a few seconds before putting his hands back on James.

James noticed the obvious shift in behavior. He realized right away what had happened, but he didn’t know what to say. He felt sorry, he really didn’t intend to intimidate this nice person.

The best apology would be doing a good job, so he got to work.

James activated his [Split Mind]. Immediately, one of his eyes, an arm and a leg stopped working. But that was a small price to pay for not feeling as much pain.

He began visualizing his body. His arms, legs, chest, back. He expanded his consciousness to cover every single part of his body.

With his hands on James’s head, Bacchus was able to see what James was picturing. The images were vague and opaque, as if he was watching them through a veil, but he was still able to see.

“Now that you’ve visualized each part of your body, try to visualize each and every single cell that comprises those body parts.” Bacchus stated.

With a pulse of mana, Bacchus introduced an example into James’s mind.

He saw tens of trillions of cells intermingling and intertwining, with mana and the elements and various other unknown magical forces constantly floating within and without.

“This image is my understanding, the way I visualize the human body. Now you need to apply the same visualization to your own body. First, use your mana to inspect each part of yourself.”

James did as he was told. He conjured a strand of mana, imagining that his thoughts and consciousness were guided by it. Starting at his feet, James slowly imagined the strand coiling and crawling over each square inch of his own body.

He continuously supplied more and more mana to the strand, allowing it to detect and sense increasingly more particles, wavelengths and forces.

The more mana he pumped into the strand, the more information entered his mind. He could feel his dormant darkness powers, he could feel the tinge of chaos magic, as well as traces of every element he had ever used.

There were many forces he wasn’t even familiar with, present in minute quantities, but the mere awareness of their existence felt like it expanded his knowledge of the arcane in an important way.

He kept feeding the strand mana, until it coiled all the way to the top of his head.

“Now that you’ve inspected your entire body, it’s time to coalesce the images of your body parts together.” Bacchus said.

It was a lot to keep in mind, and James never had the best working memory. But it was his own body, the memories and images seemed to be stitching themselves together all on their own.

He could feel the mana surging through every part of him, yearning to be used.

“Brace yourself, because this is the hard part.” Bacchus warned him. “Now infuse your own mana into every square inch of your body. Imagine you’re bathing in your own mana. And don’t be stingy with it.”

Bacchus stepped back, taking his hands off James.

He didn’t need to be told twice. As if the mana had a will of its own, it shot out of James and coalesced around him. It was like a valve had been broken, the sheer force of the mana was almost enough to send the dwarf flying.

As he submerged himself in a proverbial bath of mana, James could feel a bit of pain even through [Split Mind]. The mana expenditure was staggering, at least several hundred Prongs’ worth. If it was anyone but him, the mana cost alone would be prohibitive. Although, any other person would’ve probably just trained themselves in a more normal, balanced way.

“I warn you, this will hurt a lot more. The mana ‘bath’ should’ve made many of your cells vibrate. They are the cells that are capable of being reforged and enhanced. I need you to attack those cells!” Bacchus shouted.

As crazy as attacking his own cells sounded, James was used to crazy. At least this time around he was almost sure it would work, instead of blindly pioneering and going out on a limb with his own, untested crazy ideas.

Without hesitation, James attacked his own cells.

He felt a stabbing pain over every square inch of his body, not even [Split Mind] being able to completely block the pain of literally deconstructing one’s own cells.

“I knew it. God damn Murphy’s law. These spells never work properly.” If not for the pain, James would’ve burst into laughter. He knew it was too good to be true. It would’ve been too convenient if [Split Mind] had actually done its job and fully blocked the pain. “There are way too many exceptions to these pain-suppressing skills, I hate the inconsistency.”

“Quite frankly, the fact that you’re still able to speak is a miracle. That skill of yours is more impressive than you think. Now focus, keep attacking until they’re completely destroyed!” Bacchus shouted. He felt the need to shout because James’s screams were getting louder by the second.

Even though the pain was excruciating, James didn’t stop. He kept stabbing at his own cells, each stab felt like he was sending bolts of lightning throughout his body.

Slowly, through his mind’s eye, he could see the vibrating cells dissipating as the mana grinded them down.

The pain only got worse with each passing moment, as if the cells were protesting their own destruction. James howled and screamed, but he couldn’t even hear himself, his mind filled with pain.

He didn’t stop though, not even for a second. He kept literally grinding himself down, not daring to even think about the passage of time.

After what seemed like an eternity, the vibrating cells had finally been destroyed.

“Now I want you to pump as much mana as you can into your body, rebuilding the very cells you destroyed! The more mana you can pump into them, the stronger they will be reforged and enchanted!”

As soon as the pain from the grinding down of his cells stopped, a new pain began, the pain of regrowing each and every single cell he had just destroyed.

Somehow, the pain was even greater. He was still conscious though, so at least it wasn’t all for naught. He didn’t even want to imagine what it would’ve felt like without [Split Mind] absorbing most of the pain for him.

After another session of seemingly interminable pain, the reconstruction process was over. Sessions of pain were happening way too often in his life, but nothing was free. Not in this universe, or any other. It was the price he had to pay for increasing his power so swiftly.

But at the very least, he could already feel it working. He moved his hand, but it didn’t even feel like his own. It was like watching a movie of someone else’s hand.

Just one session of self-torture, and he felt like he was in an entirely different body.

He felt lighter, stronger and more durable.

Bacchus came over and poked him with his finger again, the rune noticeably bigger than before.

“That doesn’t hurt at all!” James beamed gleefully.

Bacchus then poked him again, with a lot more mana infused into his finger this time around. James screamed in pain again.

“I can’t believe it worked! This is amazing! Now let’s do it a thousand more times. We won’t rest till you can take a punch at my full power and not feel anything at all.” Bacchus announced with a sly grin.

James wasn’t nearly as giddy though. The thought of having to go through this again almost made him want to keep being a squishy mage.