Raising A Few Wives in a Beast Apocalypse

Muku hastily covered his junk after realising that the flames burned. He ignored the pain and focused on protecting his dignity.

{Don't worry about that. I made your clothes fireproof. And even if they weren't, do you think they could prevent me from taking a peek? Of course, I'm not that shameless. And have zero interest in that. Anyway, continue the trial without worry} Mrs C's voice sounded in Muku's head.

Hearing what she had to say he calmed down. There really was nothing he could do if she wanted to see. Fortunately, she didn't seem interested in that anyway. Then again, she was his mother, so of course she wouldn't care.

Anyway, with that matter taken care of. Muku focused on the trial again. This time he didn't jump in. He held out his hand while standing at the edge.

He wanted to see if he would build resistance like Mrs C said. He trusted her of course, but still, it was a painful experience, so he wanted assurance. That was something he could only get from himself.

Anyway, like before, his hand was assaulted by an unimaginably high level of pain. There was nothing he wanted more than to take it back or even cut it off. But he didn't do that.

He let it burn. And burn it did. It was at the moment he was about to lose hope when something happened. He felt a burst of energy in his hand.

The energy wasn't mana, bloodline power, force or any energy he remembered ever using before. However, for whatever reason, it felt familiar. More familiar than mana. Like it had always been there since day one.

And to his surprise, the pain in his hand began to lessen. What was even more surprising was how it was actually healing and returning to normal. That was more than surprising actually, it was scary.

Even his bloodline power didn't have such an abnormal healing factor! What the hell was going on? While the healing wasn't too quick, it was quick enough to notice. And the more he healed, the less he felt the pain in his hand.

Around thirty minutes later. His hand was returned to its pristine state. It looked better than the rest of his body, after all, the rest of him was still charred from before.

The difference was quite exaggerated as the hand even looked rosy. It was like a living hand was attached to a dry corpse.

Anyway, the event made Muku feel that he had definitely come across the energy somewhere before. However, he couldn't pinpoint where exactly that was.

And Mrs C wasn't giving him information on it like she usually would. So, he decided to ignore it for the time being. He'll ask about it after the trial.

That would be better. After all, it would suck to have idle chatter only to be thrown into burning flames soon after that. Idle chatter should be followed by a meal or something.

With that said, Muku jumped into the Flames head-on this time. It was better to get it over with as soon as possible. It was only thirty minutes, he could tank that.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh...."" An expected scream of pain escaped from Muku's mouth. However, it didn't ring out for too long before it was stifled when he covered his mouth with his hand.

It turns out, screaming in a sea of fire will get your tongue and the inside of your mother burned too. Who would have thought?

As for why his reaction was so much worse than when it was just a hand getting burned, it was simple actually. There's no way the pain from getting burnt on one part of your body would be anywhere close to that from getting your whole body burnt.

Anyway, one hour into the painful experience Muku realised something... His body was still burning without recovering! Sure, the flame was at a level where it couldn't burn him to death but it hurt like hell.

However since he had already burned for so long, he decided to stick it out. To his horror, it was after another hour that he began to see any improvement in his state. The energy which had been quick to act when he was burning had finally made its appearance two hours later.

He felt like he had been fooled. He had only jumped in because he thought that it would only take thirty minutes for everything to be done.

And yet it was after at least an hour and thirty minutes beyond the expected end that the process began.

He wished he could curse out loudly but that would mean he would have to open his mouth. And there was no way he would ever do that. He wasn't one to apply for extra pain.

And so, he could only scream in his mind as his eyes and mouth remained closed shut. He wished he could close his nose too because it was going through a world of pain with the rest of his body.

His eyes would have been tearing up because of the pain in his nose if they weren't dry. Even the they could, the tears would evaporate the moment they peeked out of the eyelids.

With that said, Muku realised what was happening after the process began. It seemed that the energy worked more slowly when there was more ground to cover. He had assumed that every part had it and it would work on that part alone. But it seemed that it was finite and supplied itself equally in every body part which required attention.

It travelled slowly so it took a while to reach every part of his body. And he felt it seemed to work on a cellular level. So his whole body got itchy as it began its work.

When it was working on his hand there wasn't any itching. Or maybe there was and he only missed it because it wasn't as bad and was overshadowed by the pain.

Anyway, since the process was going to take a long time. Muku chose to sit down and adopt a meditation pose.

It was better to take on the pain while sitting down than standing up. He could also study the changes in his body better.

And so, Muku sat down for around 7 hours as the flames burned him and his body adjusted to them. His resistance steadily increased as he groaned in pain. The groans decreased with every second that passed by until there were none left in the last two hours.

He could feel the pain but he had gotten used to it. It wasn't just his flame resistance which was increasing, his pain resistance was improving beside it.

By the time everything was done, you'd think charred black skin would be covering the improved skin below like how it's said in novels.

However, there was no such thing. Muku's body just looked spotless. Which made sense, like, why would skin which couldn't resist the magical flames leave behind charred remains? It wasn't a normal flame after all. It was a Rank 4 flame too.

So, even if Muku's physical defence was R4. That only worked against physical attacks. It was still weak to energy attacks. It could possibly work against solid spells like Metal, Earth, Ice and so on, but against fire, poison, lightning and such, he was still weak.

There was a difference between magic and physical resistance after all.

Anyway, after everything was done. Muku got up off the ground and advanced. There was no need to delay.

He could even open his eyes a bit now. While they were covered up by his eyelids, the energy worked from inside, so they also got a little improvement from the process. Not as much as the parts directly exposed to the fire, but enough for them to work a little in the flames. He had to squint to the max, but it was better than nothing.

He could finally see his surroundings a little bit. He first looked towards where he was going. And he was met by a rather mesmerising sight. Of course, it was mesmerising in a dangerous way.

He saw flames in an even deeper shade of gold than the ones he was walking through. This definitely signified danger. But he couldn't help but find them beautiful. Like a thorny rose. Everyone knows that roses are dangerous if handled wrongly due to their thorns but they still can't help but appreciate their beauty and be drawn to them.

He then looked behind him and saw flames which had a fainter shade of gold. It was definitely level zero where he began.

He also realised that he was walking in a flaming corridor with golden walls. It looked quite beautiful despite the pain it caused. He couldn't help but wonder if the structure was built to keep the flames in or keep him in.

Well, whatever, knowing that wouldn't change the fact that he had to walk through everything if he wanted to get out. And it wasn't just walking, he had to let himself get burned for hours before he could walk forward.

He could try to speedrun everything, but that would be a death wish because he was sure the resistance from the previous level was factored into the following level. So, speedrunning through was simply asking for death. He would definitely get burned to death if he skipped a level.

With that said, Muku put on his most resolute expression and soldiered on. As they say, No burn, no gain!...