The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 337

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 337. The Gray Zone (1)
Training Ground within Count Whitewolf’s Castle.
Seraphia sat in the center of the training ground with composed posture.
Adrian approached and stood beside her.
After a moment, Adrian slowly opened his mouth.
“Draw upon your power once.”
“Now…?”
“Yes.”
Seraphia tensed considerably.
Steadying her trembling hands, she drew forth her strength.
Shhhhhhh—!
Frost bloomed from her fingertips.
It carried the familiar chill as always.
The power of annihilation dwelt within it, but that was all.
Adrian observed for a moment before speaking.
“There—expand your conceptual understanding.”
“Expand my… conceptual understanding?”
“Yes. Right now, you’ve merely drawn forth cold. But depending on what meaning you imbue that chill with, you can erase emotion, memory, even existence itself.”
“I see.”
“Remember this: annihilation is not merely a physical phenomenon—it is the power to erase concepts themselves.”
Seraphia closed her eyes.
She quietly reflected on Adrian’s teachings within her heart.
‘Imbue meaning, I must imbue meaning….’
Seraphia raised her hand once more.
In that instant.
The temperature around her shifted.
A biting, crystalline force enveloped everything, freezing it all solid.
Crack-crack-crack—!!
Moisture in the air transformed into ice crystals.
Hail fell within the roofed training ground.
Pillars forged from mithril steel froze and fractured, and the entire training ground groaned and trembled.
“Kyyyyyeeeeeek!!!”
Zemu shrieked.
He bolted to a corner and hugged himself tightly.
His tail wrapped around his shoulder in place of his missing arm, shaking violently.
“Evolution stops…! Zemu dies…!!”
Zemu’s trembling voice escaped in white puffs.
Utter panic.
But Adrian was different.
Standing beside Seraphia, he didn’t blink once.
Adrian brushed the frost from his clothes without concern and spoke.
“What you’re doing now is simply enhancing the properties of cold energy.”
“….”
“Freezing something harder doesn’t expand your conceptual understanding. What you’re doing right now is merely maximizing the physical attribute of cold energy.”
“….”
“The visible effects may have grown stronger, but the essence remains unchanged.”
Adrian’s gaze swept across one side of the Training Ground.
Frozen pillars everywhere.
The pillars, etched with cracks in various places, looked as though they might collapse at any moment—
“If you had truly expanded your conceptual understanding, those pillars wouldn’t have frozen. They should have vanished entirely.”
Adrian spoke with unwavering conviction.
Seraphia pressed her lips together.
Then, lowering her gaze, she pondered.
‘I don’t understand any of this!!’
Concept? Notion? Expansion? Meaning?
The words were far too grandiose.
So it seemed like I was doing something incredibly impressive, but when it came to actually doing it?
‘I don’t understand a single thing!!’
…Not a single thing, truly.
Fortunately(?), Adrian noticed and spoke.
“Are you having trouble understanding?”
“Aha, well….”
Seraphia scratched her cheek awkwardly.
“Then let me give you an example.”
Adrian fell silent in thought for a moment, then spoke slowly.
“Erase the air in this Training Ground.”
“…Pardon? Erase the air?”
“Yes.”
“How would I do that?”
“First, imagine eliminating the concept of air itself. Remove the premise that air exists from your consciousness.”
Seraphia blinked.
Even the example was too difficult.
After hesitating for quite some time, I carefully pressed my hands together and prayed.
“Air, please pretend you never existed….”
Adrian momentarily lost his words.
He wavered between opening his mouth and staying silent, then simply remained still as if deciding to observe for now.
Seraphia continued praying earnestly.
Then, suddenly.
A thought crossed Seraphia’s mind.
“But, older brother.”
Seraphia asked with a serious expression.
“Then how do I breathe?”
“….”
Eventually, Adrian closed his eyes and pressed both temples.
* * *
It seemed I had given a poor example.
No, I had given a poor example, but—.
‘Is conceptual expansion still beyond her reach?’
I was teaching flight to someone who couldn’t even walk.
The Frost Lord and Seraphia.
There was far too vast a chasm between them.
‘But there are aspects I can’t teach either.’
The explanations were too obscure.
Concepts and such.
Existence and whatnot.
Frankly, it was tedious and pedantic.
‘Perhaps teaching through practical experience would be better.’
Let the body understand first, then the mind follows.
For that, I would need to push Seraphia to the brink of death.
Cornered at that precipice, her senses would awaken without her even realizing it.
I glanced at Seraphia.
She still had her hands clasped together, earnestly praying to the air.
“Air, please disappear… let there be no air… but please let me still breathe…”
…Was fighting her really the right approach?
Going easy on her during combat wouldn’t help at all.
She had to risk her life.
Only then would the same repetitions accumulate into different experience.
In other words, I had to push Seraphia to the edge of death.
But this delicate girl.
This woman I could hardly believe was about to turn twenty-one—could I really drive her to death’s precipice?
‘No. She’s not the type to teach that way.’
Perhaps if she were The Frost Lord of the past.
But now, it didn’t suit Seraphia.
I had to be clear about this.
‘Seraphia is not The Frost Lord.’
I couldn’t be consumed by memories of my past life.
The past was merely the past.
Though the power remained the same, she was not the same being.
Her nature was completely different from the start.
The Frost Lord was the embodiment of cruelty and merciless cold-bloodedness.
Seraphia, on the other hand, was a delicate and tender-hearted girl.
Pushing her too hard wouldn’t be wise.
Some people grow through suffering.
But others break under it.
In other words, practical combat training wasn’t a suitable method for Seraphia.
And frankly, I could end up in danger myself.
That was the real reason, if I’m honest.
I might be the one who gets erased.
Seraphia’s power was the ability to erase the very concepts that composed existence itself.
That’s why Ian’s left arm couldn’t be healed even by Isolde’s divine power.
I wouldn’t be any different.
If I pushed Seraphia too hard and my perfect organism form got erased—
That would be a catastrophe.
The more I thought about it, the more unsettled I became.
I quickly changed my approach.
Teaching Seraphia through words rather than practical combat was the best option.
But there were limits to that method.
More precisely, there were limits to what I could teach her.
I didn’t have detailed knowledge of the Frost Lord’s power myself.
I could only recall and share the abilities the Frost Lord had used.
So the fundamental principles of the Frost Lord’s power—
Infinitesimals and whatnot.
Enthalpy and entropy and such.
I didn’t really understand those either.
In other words, I only knew the advanced techniques.
I didn’t know the basics.
That left only one option.
I’d need to hire a private tutor.
Someone who could teach the Frost Lord’s power from the ground up.
* * *
In the Hilly Region lay Whitewolf Territory’s third district.
Or rather, Feractrum.
I found the Blacksmith’s Forge at the heart of Feractrum.
There I found Broombar and Srandel.
The two Dwarves were engaged in an animated discussion.
“Clan Chief, what if we incorporated shape-memory alloy?”
“The recovery speed would be too slow. It won’t keep up with the wolf’s combat pace.”
They continued their debate without noticing my arrival.
I approached carefully.
Only then did Broombar and Srandel notice me.
“…Hm?”
“Gwesuau, when did you arrive?”
“Just now, sir.”
I glanced around the workshop.
Design blueprints scattered everywhere.
Each one different from the last.
Yet the images drawn within them were all identical.
An elongated blade of steel.
“Were you designing Kai’s sword?”
It was unmistakably Kai’s blade.
But Srandel shook his head.
“Not so much making it as conceptualizing it.”
“Conceptualizing?”
“If it were merely a sword forged from dragon fangs, I could craft it immediately. But the swordsmanship that the wolf uses is… rather peculiar, you see.”
“Ah, I see.”
The Immortal Lord’s swordsmanship.
A technique that exploited an undying body—tearing muscles, twisting joints to achieve movements and trajectories that defied all convention.
I had never employed it in my past life.
More accurately, I could not have.
Kai as a lich.
The body was immortal, yet not alive.
Joints did not rust, but neither could they extend.
Muscles did not decay, yet could not be torn.
A lich’s body was frozen beneath the name of immortality, and that frozen form permitted no change.
But now it was different.
I was no longer a lich—I was human.
Living joints could bend and break.
Muscles could tear.
Blood flowed, and I felt pain.
Yet I did not die.
The Immortal Lord’s swordsmanship could only be wielded by one who could not die, but simultaneously, only by one who remained alive.
Therefore, its power transcended death itself.
From what I witnessed firsthand in the Training Ground earlier—
‘It was certainly brutal.’
It far surpassed my past self, when I was the commander of the Frost Legion.
Not even a lord-tier ability.
Now it would be no exaggeration to call it lord-class.
Though, The Immortal Lord already exists—
◆The Eternal Lord?
…Well, perhaps not.
Kai was not eternal.
He remained obsessed with Seraphia, living only to die alongside her.
And since Seraphia’s lifespan was finite, so too was Kai’s—
◆A Lord of Martyrdom?
…How does he even conceive of such thoughts?
Mungu found the mechanism behind it endlessly perplexing.
Well, regardless.
A sword of ordinary form could not contain what Kai would wield.
“Above all, the wolf lord made a special request of me.”
“What request did Kai make?”
Srandel turned to me and answered.
“He asked if I could forge a blade capable of withstanding your claws, Gwesuau.”
“Ah.”
A monomolecular blade[S].
The skill had vanished, but its function remained intact.
It could be created and used freely through Extremity[M] and Perfect Organism[UL].
It had essentially become passive.
“Regardless of anything else, I simply cannot forge a weapon to stand against Gwesuau.”
Srandel exhaled heavily and continued.
“The clan chief and I have been deliberating day and night, but we’ve made no real progress yet.”
Now I understood.
Why Kai’s sword still hadn’t been completed.
I nodded slightly.
“Then the staff for Iliana has been finished?”
This time, Broombar nodded.
“Only the final work remains.”
He pointed with his finger to a particular location.
An Arcano Dragon Heart.
A colossal energy core that powered three territories and still had vast reserves remaining.
Yet now it burned crimson as if overloaded—
“The materials are so peculiar that it overflows periodically,” Broombar muttered matter-of-factly.
Broombar murmured nonchalantly.
I gazed upon the Arcano Dragon Heart once more.
Tremendous energy roiled within it, enough to make my very skin tremble.
“Surely you didn’t craft the staff using that?”
“As I just said, the materials are so extraordinary that—”
“…I see.”
A Dragon Heart.
A biological energy core capable of powering an entire continent.
And they had embedded it into a staff—what else could be expected?
“Shall I verify it?”
Broombar manipulated the device.
—*Click, whirrrrr!*
With a tremendous vibration, the metal structure’s cover slowly opened.
Inside lay a single staff.
Its body was crafted from wood.
The grain was transparent, and intricate circuits of blue mana flowed densely within it.
And at the staff’s tip, not a mana stone, but a heart was embedded.
*Thump! Thump!*
The heart was beating.
A staff that felt as though it possessed life itself.
Activating my predator’s instinct, information materialized before my eyes.
◆Draconir[T]
: A staff crafted by directly fusing the heart core of Dragon Fafnir with the primordial wood of Yggdrasil. It connects directly with the user, imposing no restrictions based on mana manipulation.
●[Dragon Heart Synchronization] : Achieves complete synchronization with the user’s mana circuits, eliminating mana output limitations.
●[Mana Amplification] : The user’s mana efficiency and density are amplified by [+216,876,000%].
●[Preemptive Deployment] : Locally completes spellcasting before the temporal flow reaches the casting stage.
●[Law Correction] : Within the circuit limits of Draconir, any formulas conflicting with laws and casting errors are immediately corrected and executed.
…Truly insane performance.
Its rank was Transcendent[T].
The same rank as Rielin’s Nirvahgnil.
But the performance seemed slightly superior—.
“Using this requires considerable intuition.”
There was a penalty proportional to its power.
“This staff responds so quickly that thinking with your mind is too slow.”
“Then….”
“Whatever you intend to do, you must judge faster than the staff.”
A moment of hesitation.
“The staff decides first.”
It was as if one would be controlled by the staff.
So it seemed to mean one had to be smarter than the staff itself—.
“But Starlight Sister should be able to use it without difficulty.”
It was essentially a staff exclusive to Iliana.
With just this Draconir alone, Iliana could not only reach [Sage of Truth] but even surpass it—.
‘I can contact her right now.’
Seraphia’s special private tutor.
It was an excellent pretext to contact Iliana.
* * *
I immediately attempted to contact Iliana.
The contact proved effortless.
After all, the Predator Merchant Company was officially sponsoring Iliana.
In other words, my communication channels with her should have always remained open.
“Yet there’s been no contact at all….”
For some reason, all my attempts to reach Iliana had gone unanswered.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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