An''s body regained its natural color once he let go of his LifeSkill. His face returned to the youthful appearance as it was before, with no trace of rotting flesh in his skin.


    Despite its horrifying appearance, his new Berserk LifeSkill was a trump card that he appreciated dearly.


    Just as he thought, the bloodline transformation was like a mutation, except this one transformed his whole body.


    Now that he knew its usefulness, An decided to upgrade it to the 2nd stage. It was better to invest in it now because that one-stage difference could mean the difference between life and death. He could always reap more deaths in the future and with his trait, all of it would be multiplied by 10, making it quite easy to gain a lot in a short amount of time.


    [You have sessfully advanced through the 1st Stage Student Realm of your B ss Berserk LifeSkill Bloodline Transformation]


    [Consolidation period: 364 days]


    A whole year?!


    An didn''t expect the consolidation period to be so long. If the Pre-Intern realm already took this long to consolidate, then how about the Specialist Realm? Do they have to wait an entire century to advance to the next stage?


    Perhaps it was because he was raised from the Unimed Lands, but his time perception waspletely different than those that lived their whole lives in a God''s Territory.


    For them, a century might seem as short as one year, but for An, it was enough to live a full life.


    If he was them, then he couldn''t wait that long to advance his LifeSkills. Who knew what would happen in the meantime? An anomaly could ur at any moment, with each one getting worse and worse than the previous one.


    An was lucky that he got a head start to consolidate his Pre-Intern LifeSkill. He was d that he paid for the 100,000 experience now. He could gain ten times that much in an entire year.


    He slumped down on the bed and slept soundly. Hisfortable bed and pillow constantly reminded him that he was far away from the hot gray sands of the Unimed Lands.


    ###


    The next morning, An woke up seeing that one of his LifeSkills reached the next stage.


    [You have sessfully advanced your SR ss Scout LifeSkill Thermal Vision to the 2nd stage of the Student Realm]


    And without missing a beat, he spent another 2000 experience to upgrade it to the next stage. In about 2 days, it would level up to the 3rd stage.


    Even though this LifeSkill had no damage-dealing capacity, it gave him vision throughout the battlefield. Because he upgraded it to SR ss, he could now see through walls and see the temperature difference between a human and a Canzer with great detail.


    And just as he activated his Thermal Vision, he saw that there was a horse mount parked right on the curb in front of his house.


    The owner of this mount walked up to his porch and elegantly knocked on his door.


    Even though he couldn''t see her face, he recognized the general outline of her body. She had straight hair with sses on her face. Not only that, her battle suit had different intersecting lines that glowed red hot around her body. This was not a Vanguard. This was an Operator.


    Why is she here?


    An opened the door and saw Pterina Pterodinus standing opposite him. It hadn''t even been a few days since they first met in the church, but she already looked quite haggard and stressed out.


    She nudged up her sses and put away her tablet as she greeted An with a bright smile.


    "Good morning, An."


    "Good morning…what are you doing here?"


    "May I?"


    An gestured for her to enter. They went over towards the kitchen where he poured her a ss of water.


    "Thank you." She took a sip. "Ahh…it''s been a while since I''ve had cold water."


    She took her time drinking the water as if this was the first sip she''d ever had in an entire week.


    "Are you here to arrest me?" An asked.


    It wasn''t hard to guess that HeadQuarters already knew that he was at that partyst night. They probably questioned all of the participants and his name must havee up in the conversation. After all, he was the onlypetitor who was able to go fromst ce to first ce.


    Thankfully Pterina didn''t seem to be here for that. She quickly shook her head to ease An''s worries.


    "Don''t worry. I''m not here to arrest you for your participation in that illegal party. If you were caught yesterday, then we would have punished you the same as the others. But the fact that you were able to circumvent our security means that you have a good ability to think on your feet. We need that nowadays."


    An was relieved that he wasn''t going to get punished with a one-year cklist in missions.


    "What are you here for?"


    "As you know, I am an Inquisitor. My job is to find out everything there is to know about the incidentst night. If you didn''t know, that monster you all faced was at the 1st stage Specialist difficulty.


    You were lucky you preserved your SoulTime. Others weren''t so fortunate. There were about 3 Olympians and 20 Genesians that lost their SoulTimest night. It was tragic. They''ll need about two or three years of recuperation in the church to regenerate from a single blood cell back to their original bodies."


    An kept silent. No matter how much they tried, those blood will die. They won''t regenerate back into life.


    "Because of this, the regtions on Pocket Remediums have be stricter. Tsk. tsk. Tsk. The Orioness family is quite in a delicate situation right now. They are responsible for opening up their Pocket Remedium in such a turbulent time.


    By the way, I heard from a lot of people that you shed with the youngest Orioness, Obek. Did you happen to know what happened to him after you defeated him in the race?"


    An felt the air change.


    He saw Pterina''s entire body glow brighter as she used her Inquisitor LifeSkill to inspect An''s next words.