Advances and surprises

The problem was, that Kayden didn't care. If this was nature's problem putting shackles on his progress, he would simply step over it. His base this time was already ready since he returned from the epiphany.

But he wanted more. He spent all his time up until now just fixing small, insignificant errors and strengthening his overall structure. Now was simply the moment of truth.

"Circle." He had been through this before, but still, the pain was unbearable. His entire body, every inch, every piece of skin felt like it was on fire. Gritting his teeth, the boy continued.

He didn't know how much time had passed. He couldn't even remember any sensation other than pain. For a few seconds, the boy just thought about giving up.

But his memories of his first life came flooding back to him.

He just continued.

Crack!

A shattering sound came from his heart when the boy finally stepped forward. Sighing, he simply let nature finish its progress. Your heart has simply been reshaped.

Your veins have increased strength and length. The boy simply marveled as he saw his strength increasing, even though the pain was now almost doubled.

The heart was simply being remodeled and expanded several times. Kayden didn't know what exactly caused this change, but he had a strong feeling it was the second part of his epiphany.

All the mana in his body completely dried up. This represented the end of their advance. When the boy opened his eyes, he found himself with the dark sky above him and alone in the vast field of grass. Even the tents had already been emptied.

"Finally." A bitter voice caught Kayden's attention. "That was the longest advance I've ever seen, kid. I've been waiting here for three hours."

Three hours? Kayden was surprised again.

Your resistance to pain has increased a lot. It was two hours in that hellish state that, not even two years ago, would have made him give up his advance and consider another path.

With a hand of wind, Kayden didn't even have time to respond to the officer as he was hoisted at high speed into the sky. Because of his annoyance, the officer used his speed to the maximum.

The ground seemed a blur to Kayden. It didn't take long for the officer to slow down, and with that, Kayden was able to see the orphanage jutting into the horizon. Almost as if scared, the officer kept his distance.

"I brought the child back safely, elder," the man remained hunched over as he waited for Han's response. Which was nothing more than silence as he pulled Kayden to his side.

The disrespect from before really wouldn't be forgotten anytime soon by the stingy old man. And when the officer saw this, he just ran. Kayden found himself levitating into the living room where the old man was eating dinner.

"Rank six, well done, Kayden." One of the rare compliments came out of the old man's mouth, as this time he was truly surprised. Kayden was four months ahead of Heimer at his age and still had low-level talent.

Before Kayden could respond, his stomach growled loudly, cutting off any response he could give.

The last month, Kayden has spent just fighting at the club and training alone. His latest breakthrough was much better than he expected. Now, his strength and ability to utilize mana were more or less at the level of a seventh-rank intermediate apprentice.

And when he used transcendence, he arrived at the beginning of the eighth rank. Considering that his strength was already in the middle of the seventh rank, he was sure that the transcendence force only pushed him about his ability to retain mana, which was equivalent to his rank.

With the time he spent fighting in the club and his increasing victories, Kayden managed to accumulate around 5 gold coins. It wasn't a big fortune, but it was certainly a lot of money for his age.

With that amount, the boy bought himself a cell phone and still had enough money left for many things. With some more savings, Kayden could even buy an apartment in a relatively isolated neighborhood.

But those were plans for a very distant future. At the moment, his focus was completely different.

"Kayden, did you get everything you need?" Han asked the boy for the tenth time. The boy was going to watch Heimer's test at Academia Sol, his friend was going to try at just 13 years old.

But he was already at the peak of the ninth rank and there was no reason to wait. If you lost, it was just a matter of trying again next year.

"Very good." Seeing Kayden's nod, Han took the two of them and headed towards the city. As the distance was long, they would go by train, it would take about 12 hours at the locomotive's maximum speed.

A few hours later, Kayden was inside the train looking at the landscape passing around him at high speed. This was the first time he would go to the capital in his life and he was looking forward to seeing the famous city of the sun.

"Dad, what's the capital like?" The boy asked curiously. Han, who was reading a book, paused for a few seconds as he thought about the answer.

"It is colossal, everything can be found inside. Each district is larger than a large city and has a duke as sovereign. The imperial palace stands above everyone, floating on a piece of land. There's no way to describe it."

After that, the old man didn't say much and told Kayden to simply wait and he would see for himself. The boy really couldn't imagine a city that big.

A few hours later, the walls of the capital could be seen through the train window. Kayden let his jaw drop in shock. The walls easily reached a height of 500 meters.

It was surreal. The entire wall was made with a kind of black stone that shone in the sun. The train entered through tunnels at the top of the wall, but it also had an open white gate. Its height was about 3 thirds of the wall, with a length easily reaching 200 meters.

An endless line of cars and trucks were stopped to enter the gate. Each of them was checked by a drone that scanned the entire vehicle and pulled everyone's ID.

Another visible thing was the buildings projecting above the wall, monstrous skyscrapers, or rather, cloudscrapers, as some didn't even have their tops visible.

The closer Kayden got, the more impressive the city became in its size. When the train entered it, he saw thousands of people moving through streets specifically for pedestrians, something that in his previous life was unimaginable.

Huge airships were flying past in different directions, carrying different goods or people. Trains passed hourly in the air and hourly underground, but the confusion of tracks left the city with a futuristic air, as they floated in the air.

"Why are there only a few people flying Dad?" Kayden saw a few mages flying and considering it didn't even need to be a big deal to do that he was confused.

 "Only nobles above viscount or high levels of government are allowed to fly" This was probably to avoid messes with too many people flying overhead.

 The three remained silent as the train passed through different districts, Kayden saw the architecture of the cities change drastically, almost as if they were not glued together.

Author's note: we're getting close to the real beginning of the novel, but don't get excited, there's still a bit to go, from now on I'll post an extra chapter every 10 pebbles XD