Chapter 62: Gate of Life

Two years have passed since Angus bought the mysterious box from the Golden Trade's auction. He also understands a few things about the mysterious box and the bracelet.

He found that the strange bracelet could also absorb any excessive mana he releases during the use of a skill. Normally, any mana based skill always produces excessive mana consumption towards the surrounding.

The higher the mana consumption, the higher its excessive mana. This thing is natural and could be prevented at all. Of course, an expert like Angus has a little excessive mana when using skill since he still retains his mastery over skill from his past life.

After absorbing the excessive mana, it will transfer it to the box no matter how far it is through some unknown means. What Angus knows is that all the excessive mana contained inside the box become part of it.

Angus also found that it could absorb any excessive mana produced inside the manual battle system. This makes him certain that the manual battle system is real and could get him killed for real.

Fortunately, he always plays safe during all his battles inside the manual battle. Although it is playing safe, it didn't mean he will take an easy route and make his progress slow. Rather Angus became harsher in his training.

During these two years, Angus has a lot of progress. All of this could be looked at from his stats.

Host: Angus Victory

Age: 10 Years Old

MP: 100/100

Heritage chi: ???

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 30

Vitality: 32

Soul Point: 199

As the point gets higher, the conversion rate for each point is higher. Passing the 20 marks, it needs 40 soul points. Passing the 25 mark it needs 80 soul points. To pass the 30 marks it needs ridiculously 160 soul points.

Even though Angus only increases his stat once a month to control his advance, he feels that his soul points never enough. Now, he just barely has enough soul points for an emergency case.

He also found that his vitality could be increasing by one every month due to his body growth. However, his strength and dexterity are stuck at the twenty marks.

No matter what he did, he still couldn't make it to this bottleneck. From what he knows, the old dwarf Balrug says that he finally reached the limit of his physical strength as a kid. 

After that, the old dwarf didn't say anything and told him to wait until his puberty ended. In Firuman, there are a lot of different kinds of races from orc, elf, dwarf, halfling, giant, demon, etc. All of these races have different ages of maturity according to their race.

So, commonly people could be considered as adults if they reach puberty. Be it 10 years human or 50 years old elf they will be considered as an adult as it is their puberty age.

Puberty is not only a symbol of adulthood but also a sign that one's body finally fully developed. As Angus's body finally almost developed, he now could learn secret techniques from the old dwarf Balrug.

From what he inquired, the technique is very dangerous that could kill its user if they couldn't do it. The technique is called Gate of life.

After a person reaches their physical limit, they need to break through their limit to increase further. This limit could also be called the Gate of life.

By opening the gate of life, they could increase their limit further until they reach another limit. No one knows how many gates could be opened. On the ancient record of the dwarves race, the highest gate someone successfully opened was five.

However, that same person died after trying to open the sixth gate of life. Some speculated that it is like mana core grade that could be upgraded until seven. But, to open the gate of life is many times more difficult and dangerous than upgrading mana core.

This is because increasing physical strength is hard when it reaches a certain point. The first requirement for opening the Gate of Life is to reach their limit. If Angus didn't have his system, he also feels he will reach his current physical strength like now. 

Moreover, failing using the technique means dead unlike upgrading mana core which only dealt few backlashes except for upgrading grade six above.

Because of the danger of the technique, Angus needs to wait for his body and mind to be fully developed and ready before using it.

Now, Angus is having an afternoon nap inside the Spring Dorm's garden after attending all his courses during the day.

Not far from him, two teenagers are facing each other and ready to fight. These two teenagers are Ian and Princess Jayna.

During these two years, the princess managed to learn [Heart of Perseverance], which made her have absolute control over her emotion. This way she will hardly get into the [Possession] state and create destruction nearby.

The [Possession] state is a kind of blessing and curse. It could increase the user combat capability by a huge amount but also kind of dangerous if not fully controlled.

This is the reason why many people from the Heart Kingdom enemy try to assassinate her many times. She may not be a threat as she could not control it for now, but at a later date, she could even have combat power as strong as a seventh-grade combatant.

After learning [Heart of Perseverance], Princess Jayna could control her moody feeling more. Combined with the technique Angus taught her before, she has now become more refined as a lady.

However, her passion for being number one is still there. During all these years, no one could truly match her except for Angus. 

After all this year the princess still could never land a hit on this lazy boy. Even using sneak and underhanded attack also failed her. 

There is one time, when the princess, infuriated by Angus's nonchalant behaviour and decides to ambush him at a small location. But, like always, he could avoid and dodge all her traps and attack flawlessly like the god of fortune protecting him.

What the princess didn't know is Angus already anticipated all the traps and attacks before planning his movement to dodge it which makes it look like an accident or luck.

As for Ian, despite not being matched with princess Jayna's strength and talent, he never gives up and challenges her occasionally for the first rank.

A glance at the two kids that are ready to battle each other, 'Hmm… Too careless.. so many openings, If I were their opponent, they would be done in the blink of an eye.' 

'Well, none of that matters to me. Besides, they are still kids. It will be bullying if I fight them.' Thought Angus before going back to sleep.

Although Angus is very strong, he didn't like to abuse his power. He also thought that fighting his peers was a waste of time and bullying them. So, all these years he kept his peaceful life while avoiding any conflict or battle.

On the other hand, the two kids are ready to battle. At this moment, Princess Jayna notices that Angus is around the area through a side glance. Noticing that Angus keeps sleeping ignoring her, makes her kind of infuriated.

After the accident in the tea party two years ago, she knows from her head butler Darius that Angus is strong, probably stronger than herself. Then, she tried to challenge him many times which he always dodges by forfeiting. 

She feels like that battling her is a waste of time. Because of that she even tried to ambush him many times but all of them always failed. 

Left with no choice she hoped that by flaunting her power she could somewhat get recognition from Angus. She wants to show Angus that she is a girl that could not be ignored. This is also the reason she is always infuriated by his attitude.

'Huff… Calm down, Jayna. You just need to beat this commoner like usual.' as Jayna calms her mind while silently using [Heart of Perseverance].

Meanwhile, Ian also notices Jayna's behaviour. Looking like he is being ignored before the fight makes him more infuriated.

"This time I will beat you! And take the first rank title!" said Ian.

"In your dream, commoner. You there start the fight immediately I don't have time all day." said Princess Jayna proudly.

At this time, Axel, who is one of the residents inside the Spring Dorm didn't have any choice and dragged into being the referee.

After looking both of them ready, "Begin!!" [Axel]

Both of them immediately clash with each other in close combat. Punching, dodging, parrying as they keep exchanging blow one with each other.

Still, the princess constitution and physical power are stronger than Ian. [Possession] also somehow enhances the capabilities of her body and makes her stronger.

Ian notices that he is losing in close combat as more bruises appear on his body while the princess could dodge and parry his attack easily. He flipped back away to make a distance between both of them.

Not letting her 'sandbag' getaway, she pursues Ian. At this moment, Ian managed to quick cast a spell [1st Circle - Spark].