Sovereign of the Ashes

After settling matters with the Goddess of Wealth and the Dark Elf Queen, Sein could finally throw himself into the experimental research he had been itching to do.

This time, his focus was mainly on body tempering experiments.

Although his ongoing alchemy work was still unfinished, Sein was a master of time management. He never clung to a single experiment unless he was completely absorbed in it.

His development plan was to progress steadily in all areas.

While becoming an "all-around expert" was never his goal, the last thing he wanted was to fall behind in the fields he already excelled at.

Now that he had reached Rank Four, time was on his side. Hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of years hardly mattered.

He ensured that he structured his time, switching between experiments in a planned and systematic way. It also gave his mind a break between intense projects.

Helping him with the body tempering experiments was Yuri, not Reina or Natalya.

Those clumsy knights would probably just break the precision instruments in the laboratory and were far more likely to get in the way than to assist.

Yuri, on the other hand, had been with Sein for thousands of years. Back during the Faeloria days, she often helped him with these kinds of experiments.

On top of that, she had been training hard to enhance her mental focus and was practically a half-mage by now, making her the perfect lab assistant.

Even Natalya sometimes got a little jealous and joked that Yuri was more like Sein's lover. After all, she was the one who spent the most time at his side.

Besides tempering his own body, Sein also occasionally worked on enhancing Yuri's body.

Peyton, the alchemy master from Sky City, had been hanging around the Divine Tower of Ashes for quite a while.

In fact, he had already been there when Sein set off for White Sand World.

And by the time Sein came back after the war, the old man was still there!

The silver mecha from the Neisse Civilization, powerful enough to match the strength of a Rank Four, had completely captivated Old Peyton, who was now knee-deep in the field of mechanics.

Under normal circumstances, he would never have the chance to get his hands on a Rank Four mecha, let alone the freedom to take one apart and study it.

The research focus of the Heavy Industries Laboratory in Sky City, where Peyton worked, had nothing to do with this kind of single-pilot combat mecha.

Based on Peyton's research, Yuri's current life level and mental focus were still too low to pilot the silver mecha.

If she insisted on trying, she would need to rely on alternative methods, like using her physical body to compensate. Her body would have to bear much of the pressure normally handled by the brain.

It was a bit of a brute-force approach to piloting, but it came with one key benefit: Yuri would get early exposure to a higher level of power.

In addition, the heavy strain and external pressure involved in piloting the mecha could stimulate her evolution.

As for how to further enhance Yuri's constitution—well, Peyton had no idea. That was not his area of expertise, and he certainly could not just turn her into a half-mechanical being like himself.

Fortunately, that just so happened to be Sein's specialty!

At that moment, Yuri was naked and submerged in a massive green, semi-transparent glass tank. It was an experimental chamber Sein had custom-built just for her.

Several specialized pipes were connected to various parts of the tank.

Some were attached directly to Sein's experimental table, while others ran down to the elemental pools at the base of the Divine Tower of Ashes.

Thanks to the abundant energy drawn from the bottom of the tower, Sein no longer had to burn through piles of energy crystals to power his high-consumption experiments.

In the past, he had always needed to rely on Lorianne's resources for this kind of work.

Now that he had his own divine tower, he finally had everything he needed for large-scale experimentation!

Inside the chamber, Yuri's eyes were half-shut, wearing a pained look on her face.

Body tempering was never a painless process.

Unlike Reina and Natalya, who usually had a blast in the gravity training room, Sein was taking a very different approach with Yuri.

By stimulating her cells directly with specially designed potions, he could greatly accelerate cellular transformation and passive evolution!

After all, Yuri's combat style was nothing like Reina and Natalya's. Since she mainly relied on her mecha, there was no reason for her to train like a knight.

The training pathway she was on now was one Sein had carefully designed, built on science and truth.

Her current evolutionary trajectory had already deviated significantly from the traditional route followed by Neisse Civilization engineers.

***

It was easy to lose track of time during body tempering experiments.

Sein was eventually interrupted by an unexpected visitor and had to pause his research.

Very few people had the authority to interrupt him these days.

It turned out to be Lorianne, bringing with her a tidy sum of 6,410,000 magicoins, exchanged through the Capiche Business Alliance.

The amount was slightly higher than expected.

In front of Lorianne, Sein did not dare show any irritation at having his work interrupted.

After safely storing the mountain of magicoins in his space ring, he let out a small sigh. "We won't see a profit this big all at once again."

"Once White Sand World stabilizes and enters long-term development, I'll be content if it brings in a million magicoins every few centuries," Sein added with another sigh.

And that was assuming White Sand World remained resource-rich.

If it had been a barren low-level plane, the returns would have been even lower.

Lorianne, however, did not feel the same. She was already satisfied with what they had earned, unlike Sein, who was always hungry for more.

She had not come just to deliver funds this time.

"Come with me to the Divine Tower of Floating Flame," she said.

"What? Right now? I still have an experiment running..." Sein hesitated, glancing back toward his divine tower.

This time, Lorianne hardened her tone, leaving no room for negotiation as she replied, "NOW!"

***

At the Divine Tower of Floating Flame, Lorianne and Sein handed over the war spoils to Berecca, then put on a little performance.

In front of Bernice, Lorianne reprimanded her apprentice sharply.

As expected, Berecca was also at Bernice's divine tower rather than with her own knightly order.

Throughout the scolding, Bernice kept a smile on her face and remained silent.

Berecca stood quietly behind her like a wooden statue.

Of course, the entire "scolding session" had been planned in advance by Sein and Lorianne—staged specifically for Bernice and Berecca to watch.

The idea was to smooth things over after Lorianne's well-meaning but clumsy move had nearly offended Berecca.

Bernice watched it all with an amused smile. And once Lorianne was nearly finished, she finally spoke. "That's enough. Sein probably didn't mean anything by it."

"This brat is always making strange friends. Maybe you should give him a good beating, Bernice—maybe that'll make Lady Berecca feel better," Lorianne added, as if wanting to continue scolding Sein.

This was actually the first time Sein had ever been yelled at by his mentor.

And he had to admit... her scolding voice was oddly pleasant to listen to.