The taxi hummed quietly through the evening streets.
Soren sat in the back seat, head resting against the window, watching the city lights blur past. His body felt a lot better than it should have, thanks to Seria's treatment and his Accelerated Regeneration ability. But the deeper exhaustion was still there, settled into his bones like sediment.
'I am gonna sleep like a log today...'
He closed his eyes with a smile.
Ding!
As the familiar chime echoed in his mind, Soren's eyes opened.
[Investment detected.]
[Target: Moro Vil / Nick Vil]
[Analyzing investment...]
[Investment: You carried an injured comrade out of a Gate under extreme physical strain, administered emergency treatment with your own supplies, and transported two critically injured individuals to medical care at significant personal cost — all for people you had known for less than a day.]
[Analyzing target response...]
[Your actions directly preserved both lives.]
[Evaluating investment significance...]
Soren watched the floating text quietly.
[Evaluation complete.]
[Investment grade: MODERATE-HIGH]
[Calculating returns...]
[Calculation complete.]
[Returns granted:]
[1. Constitution Evolution: Fortified Body (D-rank) → Ironclad Body (C-rank)]
[2. Iron Will (Passive) — Mental fortitude against pressure, fear, and intimidation]
[3. Intermediate Emergency Treatment Knowledge]
[4. Advanced Grade Healing Potion x2]
[5. Adrenaline Burst (Active) — Short-term explosive boost to strength and speed in crisis situations]
[...]
[Integration complete...]
The messages faded, and Soren leaned back against the seat.
He wasn't particularly surprised.
By now, he'd come to understand how the Authority worked. It responded to genuine effort, genuine sacrifice. And today had been nothing short of that.
'...I'm just glad they made it.'
He exhaled slowly, watching the city lights drift past the window.
Moro had come into that Gate already injured, just to watch over his son. And Nick, for all his loudness and bravado, had frozen when it counted most and nearly paid for it with his life.
A father and son. One too stubborn to stay behind. The other too eager to prove himself.
'...Honestly.'
A tired smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He closed his eyes again and let the hum of the engine carry him the rest of the way.
______ ___ _
The taxi pulled up in front of the house at 7:42 PM.
Soren paid the driver and stepped out into the cool evening air. Warm light spilled from the dining room window, soft and steady against the darkening street.
He pushed the front door open quietly.
Clara and Ethea were seated at the table together, a simple dinner spread between them.
Clara was speaking softly about something while feeding Ethea, who was listening to her without a word.
Neither of them had noticed him yet.
Soren stood in the doorway for a moment.
The last of the tension he'd been carrying since the gorge came undone quietly, without fanfare.
'...I'm home.'
"Hmm?" Clara noticed the change in Ethea's expression and looked up first. "Oh, Mr. Valmere!" Her expression warmed immediately, then shifted as her eyes swept over him. "Are you alright? What happened?"
"Nothing to worry about," Soren replied. "What about you guys?"
"We were perfectly fine!" Clara said warmly, already rising from her seat. "Come, come, sit down. I'll serve you."
"Thank you, but—" Soren glanced down at himself. "Let me wash up first. I won't be long."
Clara hesitated, then nodded. "Alright. Take your time."
Soren headed to the bathroom, cleaned up quickly, and changed into fresh clothes. By the time he returned, Clara had already laid out a full plate at his usual spot.
He sat down and ate.
It was an ordinary dinner. Clara filled the silence with easy conversation, her usual motherly warmth carrying the table. Ethea ate slowly beside her, not speaking, but present in that way she had become lately.
Soren didn't need it to be anything more than that.
And after dinner, he bid farewell to Clara at the door and helped Ethea back to her room. He settled her in, adjusted the blanket, and turned off the main light.
"Good night," he said.
Ethea's eyes followed him briefly, then closed.
Soren reached the futon, started to lower himself onto it, then stopped.
He straightened slowly, a small frown forming.
Something felt off.
He focused inward, and his eyes widened slightly.
His Core was full. The Mana inside was pressing outward with a quiet, steady force, like water pushing against the walls of a vessel it had finally outgrown.
Soren stood there in the dark for a long moment.
'...Of all the nights.'
He almost laughed.
He'd been running on fumes since the gorge, had carried a dying man across a canyon on his back, and had been looking forward to collapsing into this futon for the past two hours.
And now this.
It seems like sleep was no longer an option.
He pulled out his phone and opened the Hunter Network forums, searching for Second Circle breakthrough accounts.
There was plenty to read.
From what he gathered, every Hunter's cultivation was built around their Core: the dense sphere of compressed Mana that formed at the moment of awakening and sat at the center of the chest like a second heartbeat. Everything a Hunter did, every technique, every ability, every act of cultivation, fed back into that Core. Strengthening it. Filling it.
The term First Circle referred to that original Core. One sphere. One boundary.
Breaking through to the Second Circle meant pushing past that boundary entirely — forcing the Mana to expand beyond the limits of the original Core and form a second, larger layer around it. Two rings rotating around each other. The inner one dense and compressed, the outer one vast by comparison.
That was why each Circle felt like a completely different existence rather than a simple upgrade. It wasn't just more Mana. It was a fundamentally different structure.
Soren read through several more accounts, cross-referencing them carefully.
The consensus was the same across almost every post.
Fill the Core to its limit. Let the pressure build naturally. When the stillness comes, push outward evenly and hold until the boundary gives way.
He set the phone down and opened the Glacial Emperor Scripture in his mind, and after a few moments, frowned.
Because the Glacial Emperor Scripture operated on a completely different principle from everything he had just read.
The method was called Absolute Zero Conquest.
According to it, rather than expanding at the moment of peak pressure, the cultivator was supposed to drive the Core toward a state of total stillness. Suppress all Mana movement completely until even the particles themselves ceased to move entirely.
In that absolute stillness, the Core would become so dense it would collapse inward for a single instant. That implosion would generate a shockwave powerful enough to annihilate the boundary entirely rather than simply push through it. And the destroyed boundary would be absorbed back into the Core as raw material, making the second layer denser and stronger from its very first moment compared to the conventional method.
'Hm....'
Soren stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
He understood the theory. But there were things that still gave him pause. Things the Scripture didn't elaborate on clearly enough for him to attempt this blindly.
He slowly straightened up and glanced at the bed.
"..."
Ethea was still awake, eyes open, staring quietly at the ceiling.
'...Should I... ask her?'