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‘This looks like a museum sculpture piece of a treasure chest carved from a large and expensive emerald jewel. The unknown markings make it so mysterious and intriguing.’ Vincent and Kazumi held similar thoughts rushing through their minds.

[It is truly surprising. This storage chest-like emerald sculpture representing the Soul Dimensional Storage can change its form similar to your mutated blood gauntlets.]

“You might be right. If this happened once, it might happen again, but...” Vincent said as both were at a similar wavelength.

Vincent then asked with a puzzled frown, “Are you now calling my hardened mutated thick skin as blood gauntlets now?”

[Yup. A sweet short name if I say so myself.]

“It has a nice ring to it. ” Vincent replied while he headed to the new appearance of the Soul Dimensional Storage representation.

.....

Vincent knocked on the storage, but a mysterious echo of the tumping his knocking made resounded multiple times, waning with every echo.

It felt similar to shouting in a vast empty area and hearing the sounds made echoing back. As if the storage was vast, empty, and endless. A mysterious emerald sculpture that is quite hard to figure if it’s beneficial, safe, or dangerous to keep.

Vincent and Kazumi chatted for quite a while until the time to leave arrived.

Vincent felt a familiar sign being sent by the wisp hovering beside him. He raised a smile and patted her head.

Kazumi blushed, displaying a pair of white glowing cheeks. She became a bit embarrassed by this display of emotions and quickly sent Vincent out of his Soul Domain.

‘He cares for me, and his warm hand felt good... but his smirk at the end ruined it.’ Kazumi thought while Vincent’s consciousness representing his soul faded.

Vincent opened his eyes. The campfire’s burning flame in front of his eyes quickly returned to normal speed. He giggled after remembering Kazumi’s blushing cheeks.

‘I can start saving my Soul Power now that the storage is twelve cubic meters. Not only that, but the items liquidate themselves into mana particles saving storage space. Quite a handy compression feature.’ Vincent thought about the amount of stuff he can fit inside his portable storage.

There was more than a week to arrive, and Koss might take a wrong turn, causing the journey to delay by a few additional days. So Vincent planned to start hoarding Soul Power for emergency use.

‘We must overstock on water if possible. But when will the river appear?’ He thought.

No matter the new size of the Soul Dimensional Storage, it had to remain empty as they found nothing edible or noteworthy to store inside.

Only Ani Banana provided by Vincent was their source of food as the rations the soldier group had, such as crackers and dried bread was eaten in the past few days of traveling together.

Vincent noticed something different about Koss this day. It felt like he had an indescribable aura surrounding him. Not even Kazumi could figure what it was. She could see faint traces of mana surrounding his body, yet he did nothing but walk.

Only one thing seemed different and noticeable. His footsteps left a trail behind. It was as if he carried a heavy object on his body. His feet dug the ground from the weight with every step.

-Is it me, or does Koss seem heavier than usual?-

[We should ask what he’s doing.]

Vincent was about to ask but promptly stopped when Koss glanced at him. He decided to ask later after feeling intimidated by Koss. As if a giant presence walked a few meters in front of him.

While the darkness of the night crept, the group decided to call it a day. However, Vincent and Kazumi forgot to ask. The Soul Dimensional Storage was a subject they had a lot to talk about that night.

*Day 30*

In the morning, one by one, everyone slowly woke up. As the need to guard duty stopped, Vincent started doing push-ups. Only Tula, Tulip, and Culo continued sleeping when Koss approached Vincent.

Koss wanted to ask Vincent, ‘Why are you training in this manner?’ as he thought it was a bit inefficient. There were other ways to improve and increase the training difficulty.

Koss knew how to control the intent and use it for physical training. So he tried to pry what Vincent knew about this subject. To his surprise, Vincent appeared a total beginner.

The urge to test Vincent’s intent got Koss all fired up. That’s why he enveloped his body with a unique aura the previous day. It was to make Vincent ask why Koss was doing this. But Vincent never asked, which forced Koss to ask first.

“You didn’t ask when I spent a day walking in front of you. Could it be you actually don’t know and always train like this?” Koss asked.

“I felt... something was... off. ” Vincent said while rising and falling from his pushup reps.

Vincent stopped training and wiped his forehead. He remembered how Koss felt strange yesterday and wanted to ask but strangely felt a bit intimidated.

Vincent shortly recalled how Koss is an army instructor, which is why Koss stared at him like an instructor watching someone training in bad form.

‘Does Koss want to teach me this world’s training routines?’ Vincent thought.

“Do you know what CQC is?” Koss asked.

[In our world, it should mean close combat quarters. But what does it have to do with physical training?]

-I think it has meaning if Koss is asking this question. Let’s see Koss means.-

“Hmm... what is CQC?” Vincent asked with a poker face.

Koss suddenly raised a smile, and his brown eyes displayed a burning flame of enthusiasm. The army instructor was ready to teach a willing student.

“Boy, do you want to learn CQC?” Koss took an interest in Vincent while starting to call him boy. Koss wanted to know how strong Vincent could become with his teachings. An exciting thought pumping adrenaline through his veins.

Koss wasn’t able to teach many new recruits because they didn’t wish for hard training and donned a frown every day. Most young soldiers felt forced as they joined for the money instead of growing stronger. They just wanted to advance and increase their pay.

The wages of ordinary classless jobs weren’t sustainable enough, forcing most people to join the army. Risking their lives to become an adventurer wasn’t an easy way to live since it depended on the commission available and their rank to take well paid dangerous commissions.

It made the saying, once a commoner, always a commoner.

Watching Vincent train in this manner lit a flame of inspiration to teach. An almost forgotten flame was reignited when meeting a total beginner that tried his best not for money but for strength.

Koss raised a smile when remembering a pair of twins similar to Vincent.

[I think you should accept. It will do nicely with your blood gauntlets. Ten minutes of power will take you so far.]

-I agree with you. I wonder what kind of CQC he will teach. I’m feeling a bit excited.-

“I accept teacher Koss.” Vincent accepted. A thought suddenly flashed in his mind. He lowered his head in respect, similar to the many stories he read of students showing respect to their martial arts teacher.

Vincent didn’t know if people had to do something like this to their teachers in this world, but he decided to show respect regardless.

Vincent didn’t want to anger Koss and get his face smashed as the new recruits suffered. The fists of discipline seemed scary.

“How about a spar to see what you are capable of. I want you to rest for now since you were training.” Koss challenged Vincent to test his strength.

“Let’s spar in fifteen minutes then.” Vincent accepted.

Fifteen minutes later, Vincent stood in front of Koss with a simple fighting stance with his fists raised. Everyone was now awake, and they stood in a circle surrounding the two fighters like the edges of an arena.

Vincent charged and threw a few punches, but he resembled a drunken man punching the air. He was slow and powerless without the boost from Overheat.

Ester “Don’t get hurt.”

Lupa “What happened?”

Tula “Father is playing with big brother. I want to play too.”

Vincent was losing focus and morale by each pity comment his ears unfortunately heard. He also heard Kazumi chuckle making him feel worse at every miss.

“I’ll get serious then. You are too strong for me without a boost. ” Vincent had to use the last resort. Without wishing to show he had weaker stats than Ester, he uttered, “Overheat!”

.

[Overheat activated.]

[Mutation starting to alter the host...]

[Mutation process finished.]

[Race altered to mutated human for its duration.]

.

Vincent soon donned a pair of mutated blood gauntlets and four trails of mutated steam displaying the boiling mutated blood coursing through his veins.

Koss held a sword in each hand, and the fight soon resumed. However, the result wasn’t as Vincent hoped it would be.

Vincent’s strength, speed, and perception increased, but Koss was always one step ahead. The swords in his hands were like an extension to his arms. Vincent powered up but Koss as well.

Vincent felt his body gradually become heavy. He felt as if something was weighing on his entire body. As if his every move found resistance from an invisible force. It was a weird feeling he never felt before.

Vincent grunted and threw a quicky one-two punch. Koss raised his brows in surprise at the combo and smirked as well. He wanted to train Vincent even more while parrying the two strikes using his swords with ease.

The first round of the spar was one-sided, favoring Koss. Unfortunately for Vincent, the second round continued in the same manner. Vincent couldn’t gain the advantage to land a single hit.

The experience of the army instructor Koss made it look easy. As if Vincent was powerless. It felt like a father playing with his child to the audience watching them.

Vincent swung his arms around while punching, jabbing, and even trying a few uppercuts, but it was all for naught. Every attack Vincent made was parried by the two swords or evaded with a side or backstep.

Ester and Lupa couldn’t believe their eyes. They saw Vincent fight against the Great Gray Wolf, the adult mudcrab, and Demonic Beast, but now he was reduced to a child throwing a tantrum.

Hara chuckled as he knew what was happening, but he quickly stopped after feeling potent bloodlust directed at him from Lupa. She was quite annoyed watching Vincent lose; the new recruit’s chuckle brought the urge to rip him a new one.

.....