[SSS-grade Talent: Destruction and Rebirth]
Destruction and Rebirth: You wield the powers of both destruction and rebirth. As your strength grows, these abilities will evolve accordingly—granting boosts to power, speed, perception, and more. When your power reaches a certain threshold, destruction will permeate everything, even space and time, while rebirth will grant you the capacity to recreate everything from nothing.
"Damn," Link muttered to himself as he read the description. "Just reading this makes me feel like I'm supposed to be the next messiah or something…"
But he knew better than to let that thought inflate his ego. Talents like this didn't instantly grant godhood. For the abilities to manifest at their peak—collapsing time, destroying space, and creating life anew—Link would likely need to ascend to the Saint stage or beyond.
Even so, the sheer potential of this talent was exhilarating.
Without wasting a second, Link eagerly began testing the other talents he had recently acquired through Cannibal Devour.
[SS-grade Talent: Child of the Elements]
Child of the Elements: Greatly enhances your elemental affinity, making it significantly easier to manipulate various elemental forces. Your elemental abilities now deal 50 times more damage, while consuming less spiritual power.
While not as flashy as Destruction and Rebirth, Link knew better than to underestimate this one.
What made Child of the Elements truly powerful was its versatility. Fire, water, poison, lightning—every element that mattered—he could now wield them all with incredible ease.
No more worrying about lacking elemental affinity. No more being unable to use skills because his body couldn't attune to the element. This talent eliminated a long-standing bottleneck.
[S-grade Talent: Child of Poison]
Child of Poison: Greatly enhances your poison affinity. You can now manipulate poisons with extreme ease. Your poison-based skills deal 200 times more damage, with reduced spiritual power cost.
Although Child of Poison was slightly weaker overall compared to Child of the Elements, Link still welcomed it with joy. Especially when paired with his unique Toxic Body trait, the synergy was simply terrifying.
Now, if he wanted to end his own life instantly for strategic purposes, he could do it with zero delay—and minimal pain.
The only disappointment was his spatial talents. He had only acquired a few, so the S-grade talent Spatial Shift couldn't be further enhanced through devouring. That was something he'd need to work on—gathering more spatial abilities for fusion.
For now, though, he pushed the thought aside and returned to training.
Thanks to the stash of psionic potions he'd received from the camp, he had plenty of fuel for intensive practice over the coming days.
Time flew by.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
By the end of it, Link's Power Values had climbed to 981—just a breath away from breaking through to Tier-1 Esper.
That number might seem small, but Link knew better than most just how immense that final step could be. Many human Espers had spent their entire lives stuck at this point, unable to cross the threshold.
Still, Link was satisfied with his progress. After taking a brief rest, he resumed his meditations.
Power Values and mind power were like two sides of the same coin—growth in one would often fuel growth in the other. As Link focused inward, he sensed that his mind power had already reached 999.9—just shy of the final leap.
It was like something thin, transparent, and taut stood between him and Tier-1.
And that veil was tough—unbelievably tough.
That's why so many humans failed here. Without a stroke of insight or a miracle of will, that final barrier would never crack.
Link inhaled deeply, pushing down the unease that crept in.
He followed Lib's advice, refocusing his mind and adjusting his thought patterns. Hours blurred into failure after failure… but then—
Crack!
A crisp shattering sound echoed in his mind.
Like a bird breaking free from its shell, Link's mind power surged forward.
He had done it.
He was now officially a Tier-1 Esper.
Unlike Power Values, which were tangible and measurable, mind power was subtle—an invisible force that governed thought, memory, emotion, and spiritual depth.
For Link, it was far more important than brute strength.
Especially because many of his most powerful talents, like Death Rewind, were directly tied to mind power. The stronger his mind, the more often he could rewind death.
In theory, if he pushed it far enough, he could even keep dying repeatedly, rewinding all the way back to the day before he awakened any talent at all.
Link opened his status screen and stared at the numbers.
[Name]: Link
[Power Values]: 981 (Level 9 Esper)
[Mind Power]: 1042 (Tier-1 Esper)
[Flesh Forging Art]: DragonFlesh Forging Art – Chapter1
[Meditation Technique]: Frost Meditation Technique
[Skills]: Spiritual Powers Compression, Shadow Arrow, Rocksolid Greatbow
[Talents]:
UR-rank: Death ReplicationSSS-grade: Death Rewind, Supreme Library, Veil of the Impostor, Spiritual Powers Manipulation, Cannibal Devour, Destruction and RebirthSS-grade: Child of the Elements, Mutant S-Class, Mind DeceptionS-grade: Life-Bound Pact, Child of Poison
For a long while, Link said nothing.
He simply stared.
"Just… how long has it been since I arrived at the frontlines? A few days?"
Yet his panel looked like something that belonged to a battle-scarred legend, not a newly awakened student.
A bitter thought struck him.
If I hadn't been in a coma for that whole month… where would I be now?
He clenched his fists.
So much time—wasted.
If only he could go back and erase that lost month. Patch over that blackout. Recover what was stolen from him.
But even as the idea flashed through his mind, he sighed.
"No… that's not realistic."
To rewind that far back would mean discarding all the progress he'd made in the past few weeks. Everything he'd achieved—all the death loops, all the talent harvests, all the insights—gone.
Worse, changing the past could destabilize the future. If he rewound too far, there was no guarantee that everything would unfold the same way again.
Even Death Rewind had its risks.
If he had to go that far back someday, he'd need to create a dummy body or illusion to lay comatose in his place—just to keep the timeline consistent.
And that would require careful planning. A single mistake could cause everything to spiral out of control.
No, unless absolutely necessary, rewinding that far was off the table.
Link shook his head, clearing the thought.
More pressing matters awaited.
Ryze should be arriving soon.
Then, almost involuntarily, a wry smile crept onto his face.
"Sorry, Headmaster Ryze… I really didn't want it to come to this."
Elsewhere…
In the blood-soaked expanse of Longriver Valley, the figure of Headmaster Ryze shimmered into view.
He stood still, eyes sweeping over the bleak, war-torn terrain. His gaze held a quiet sorrow, tinged with nostalgia.
Once, long ago, he too had fought here.
This valley had tasted his blood, seen his victories and his failures.
And now—decades later—it remained the same.
A ceaseless, grinding battlefield. A machine that devoured life with every breath.