Chapter 17. Grand knight, rank 3 acolyte

After a week,

In his dorm,

Tirus was sitting on his bed, meditating.

All the muscles of his body spasming uncontrollably

Drops of sweat were forming all over his body.

During this past week, he had gone on killing missions along with Bilan and Rick several times which brought him closer and closer to reaching the realm of grand knight and tonight, he knew he'd be able to break through.

After 3 hours,

*crack*

*crack*

Sounds of bones cracking reverberated in the entire room as Tirus's body excreted large amounts of black liquid from every pore of his skin.

"I finally broke through!" He rejoiced as he opened his eyes, filled with excitement.

"This breakthrough process was really difficult, the pain I had to bear while maintaining my breathing was extremely difficult."

Thinking that, he waved his hand and soon, his entire body was washed by water.

He waved his hand once again and his entire body was dried. All the impurities that he excreted were now washed away.

"A.I. chip! Show me my current stats!"

[Name: Tirus Van Elrod, Occupation: grand knight, rank 2 acolyte, strength: 6.2 agility: 8.4, vitality: 6.8 spiritual force: 6.7(magic power is in sync with spiritual force) status: Healthy]

"Such a great boost in all these stats!"

"Is this how it feels to be a grand knight?" He pondered. The moment he became a grand knight, all his senses became sharper than ever. And with such high vitality, he knew that his current lifespan was already around 150 years.

He also noticed that his agility was a lot more than that of an ordinary grand knight's.

"Now I just have to wait for a week before I make my break through to rank 3 acolyte!"

.....

The next day,

"Hm, you actually became a grand knight! Excellent!" Professor David exclaimed.

"Tirus, now that you're also nearing the peak of rank 2 acolyte, I'm going to give you some important information about the breakthrough."

"First, as you might know, rank 3 acolyte is the final step before official Magus. They have exponentially greater spiritual force than regular humans. They have a more profound understanding of spell theory and its uses in combat.

Furthermore, they are masters of techniques like instantaneous casting, which enables extremely rapid casting of prepared spells.

Even Grand Knights are not their opponents. Rank 3 acolytes have always been considered the preparatory stage to becoming an official Magus.

The faster one advances as a rank 3 acolyte, the higher their chances of eventually becoming an official Magus. Since you are only 15 years old as of now, you can become an official magus by the time you're 20 years or a bit older than that, that is only of you don't die.

But breaking through to rank 3 acolyte has a lot of harsh conditions, if any one of them isn't met, then death is assured.

Breaking through to a rank 3 acolyte requires mastery of three spell models, but you've already mastered several spells, so that's not an issue.

You break through to rank 3 acolyte by smearing an elixir called the reactive elixir all over your face, limbs, and chest and then your body will experience a terrible itch.

Then you have to enter a deep meditative state, under this condition and remodel the mind runes, making them stick together into one greater rune, to reinforce your sea of consciousness and create a sturdy foundation.

Afterwards your sea of consciousness, will experience a pitch-black space devoid of light, and by breaking out of that black space, you will enter rank 3 acolyte, but if you should fail, your organs will fail, and you will die.

You can break out of the black space by using all your focus and mental energy to destroy it, you may not quite understand what I'm saying right now, but you will once you reach that state." David looked at Tirus, wanting to know if he understood what he said.

"I understand master." Tirus answered loyally.

"Good, it will take you a few more days to reach the peak of rank 2 acolyte, when that time comes, I'll give you the reactive elixir." David said with a smile on his face.

...

Days passed,

Bilan tried to flirt with several times, and not only her, but also several other girls from the academy.

Tirus already knew that the reason why they were trying to get closer to him was that they wanted potions to assist them in their cultivation, but Tirus had a problem with it.

He knew that he was popular in the academy only because of him being a genius in the field of transfiguration and somewhat knowledgeable in the field of alchemy, able to refine some low-level potions.

"But if you want benefits from me, give me benefits in return." was Tirus's principle in life even before he reincarnated in this world, he had always been quite the rational person.

What could these girls give him? Their bodies? No, no thanks, they could keep it for themselves.

Potions? It would like selling medicine to a chemist. And if they had the luxury of giving potions to others then why would they even come to him?

Most girls, including Bilan soon understood this and simply chose to keep an amiable relationship with him.

Rick also came to him to consult him about which kind of body modification he should get done on him, Tirus advised him the use of Green Metal Tree, which would allow him to become like incredible hulk, greatly boosting his strength.

He also kept focusing on his acolyte cultivation, becoming closer and closer to the peak of rank 2.

Currently, he was refining another strength potion.

"Hah, It sure can get annoying once you refine the same potion over and over again." He sighed.

'I wonder what's happening in the Elrod estate?' He thought, took deep breaths to calm his mind and went to his dorm to rest.

.....

A few days passed,

Tirus was sitting cross-legged, without any clothes on his body, he had the sunlight ruby hanging from his neck, on his bed with a batch of yellowish potion near him. It was the reactive elixir, he had already reached the peak of rank 2 acolyte and now was trying to break through to rank 3 acolyte.

Tirus smeared the Reactive Elixir over his face, limbs, and chest.

The potion felt rather cool wherever he smeared it. However, after a few moments, a wave of heat gradually coursed through his skin. In an instant, his skin started to shudder and turn beet red.

[The Reactive Elixir is taking effect, medicinal properties under surveillance!] The A.I. Chip's voice intoned.

As the potion continued to take effect, Tirus felt as if the potion coating his skin had come alive and was worming its way through his pores and into his body

An itch!

An unbearable itch!

Tirus felt that his bones had split open and many ants came crawling out from within. An extremely itching sensation was coursing through his body at this moment.

But he endured it as he entered a meditative state.

During the meditation, Tirus seemed to have come to a place.

The surroundings were a grayish blur. Up in the air, there were many lights which seemed like stars, illuminating this place.

Tirus lifted his head. In the air were 24 mysterious runes- glowing with a fluorescent light- which gathered to form a circle.

These were the mind runes that he had painstakingly constructed during the past few years.

Although these mind runes were all constructed through various special means, each one of the construction required a huge amount of effort and time. Previously, Tirus had spent more than a year before he could finally construct them in his mind.

"The mind runes of a level 2 acolyte cannot be considered to have fully consolidated. A level 3 acolyte has to integrate the mind runes together based on the foundation set in level 2 acolyte. Moreover, there needs to be a reinforcement of the sea of consciousness!"

Tirus was extremely curious towards that state as he had read in the canon that it was a mysterious feeling when one was inside their sea of consciousness.

Not long after, a layer of tangerine-yellow light continuously permeated over the blurry, grayish mist. Not long after, the whole of the sea of consciousness turned into a bright tangerine-yellow.

The tangerine-yellow light immediately rushed up into the sky, as if it wanted to dye the 24 mind runes into a tangerine-yellow color too. Before the mind runes could reject this foreign substance, Tirus had already forced the mind runes to accept the yellow light.

Under the contamination of the light, the many mysterious patterns appeared on the surface of the mind runes.

These patterns continuously kept extending until they had completely covered the surface of all the mind runes.

*Bang!*

The 24 mind runes finally stuck together, forming into an even greater rune.

In Tirus's sea of consciousness, many patterns also appeared. And after the presence of these patterns, the sea of consciousness turned even more resplendent and transparent, as if it were being reinforced.

After the reinforcement, as if listening to some command, the tangerine-yellow light hurriedly retreated, immediately vanishing in the sea of consciousness.

The large mysterious rune let off a glow, and Tirus's consciousness was pushed out from it.

"Okay, now this is the black space mentor talked about."

Tirus thought calmly, he was in a mysterious place. The area was pitch-black, with no light whatsoever.

He wanted to reach out, but there was no concept of "hands" as if he never had any hands before.

In this manner, he floated in the air with no concept of time, yet he couldn't move.

To Tirus in this space, every minute was like a dozen years.

This feeling could completely drive a sane person over the cliff.

"A.I. chip! Break out of the black space!" Tirus immediately ordered the A.I. chip as the A.I. chip broke the black space in a second.

*Buzz* *Buzz*

Tirus opened his eyes as the A.I. chip gave him a prompt.

[Beep! The Host's spiritual force has some change and is more lively. The Host has advanced into a level 3 acolyte! Spiritual force increasing…] The A.I. Chip's voice intoned.

Following which, Tirus felt somewhat dizzy, and his spiritual force increased at a rapid speed.

7.2

7.3

7.5

…

9.7

10.1

"Finally, I broke through."

"A.I. chip, excrete all the residue of the reactive elixir from my body." He ordered as a large amount of yellow liquid was expelled from every pore of his body.

To be continued.....