[Mastery: 5.1] [0%]

[Slot: 1/5]

[Soul: 1]

Winston checked the numbers and felt a quiet satisfaction settle in.

The three counters had moved exactly as expected. But something else caught his attention before he could take another step.

A strange sensation, like a hollow space opened up somewhere deep inside his chest.

’Is that the Soul Garden?’

He turned his focus inward without closing his eyes. It was a split awareness, he could still see the forest, track the treeline and feel the Gladius in his grip. But part of him was somewhere else entirely.

A white expanse stretched in every direction. Stone floors beneath his feet, thin lines etched into the surface running all the way out to the horizon.

Winston stood at the center, and at the center of that center sat a pond. Five golden lotus flowers floated on the water, radiating a faint warmth that felt almost alive.

Then one of them brightened.

The glow intensified and spread outward from the pond in a slow pulse, traveling along the carved lines in the stone floor like water filling channels.

At the far edge of his vision, a red shrub pushed up from the ground. It grew fast, twisting and forming until it took a recognizable shape of the kobold before the golden light from the lotus connected with it.

Winston understood immediately, the knowledge flowing in without needing to be explained. This was the actual manifestation of his Realization Soul Garden, the red shrub was the kobold’s soul and the five lotus flowers were Winston’s current capacity.

’I will have to increase my mastery to increase my capacity as well.’

The math was simple and the implications weren’t lost on him. He pulled his full attention back to the outside world and the forest snapped back to sharp focus.

One thing left to test.

He needed to know how soul burn actually worked before the next fight. Understanding a skill description was one thing. Knowing how it felt in practice, how fast it triggered and how much control he had over it, that was what would actually keep him alive.

He focused on the skill and a panel appeared immediately.

[Create keyword to activate Active Skill: Soul Burn]

The keyword prompt wasn’t a surprise. Winston had been expecting it.

Every class holder needed a keyword to trigger their active skill. The theory behind it was that the word itself acted as a kind of anchor, a mental command that helped the holder draw out the full force of what their class was capable of.

Winston had already decided on his before the panel even appeared.

『IGNITE』

The effect was instant. A burning sensation flared in his chest, like something had caught fire behind his ribs. In the Soul Garden, the Kobold’s red shrub burst into golden flames and Winston felt the energy it released immediately, waiting to be directed as he pushed it toward his Realization.

His physical attributes surged and his panel updated without delay.

[Mastery: 6.375] [25%]

Winston stared at the percentage bar. He had noticed it earlier and filed it away as something to figure out later. Now he had his answer.

And as for his active skill one soul through Soul Burn pushed his mastery up by a full twenty-five percent of the next threshold.

His eyes moved across the numbers quickly, working through the math.

’Five souls would give me one hundred and twenty-five percent.’

That meant a single full Garden could push him past the next mastery threshold entirely, and the effect would compound as his base mastery grew higher.

But there was something else sitting underneath that realization, something that made the whole system even more interesting.

Realization skills upgraded at every twenty-point mastery increase. That was standard knowledge, taught at every holder academy. Winston knew it.

But now he was looking at it from a completely different angle.

’What if I don’t wait to reach twenty naturally?’

If Soul Burn could artificially push his mastery to twenty, the upgrade would still trigger.

And if the upgrade added a new soul slot, which it almost certainly would, then that extra slot could be burned in the same session, feeding even more energy back into the loop.

One gain enabling the next. A positive feedback cycle that the system probably hadn’t been designed with someone like Winston in mind.

He filed it away for now and would test the theory later.

As for now he decided to test the effects of soul burn on his spells. Without delay Winston redirected the energy into the Gladius.

The blade flickered as the dull-red glow sharpened and the panel above it changed.

[Lesser Drake Gladius — Level 6]

Winston’s eyes went wide.

’The level actually doubled?’

The number didn’t lie. Level 3 to Level 6, this was a full doubling from a single soul burn.

Winston ran the comparison in his head.

His current natural Mastery sat at 5.1. A full Soul Garden, with all five slots burning at once, would push his Realization up by one hundred and twenty-five percent, landing him at roughly 11.475.

That was a meaningful boost, putting him slightly above a Level 2 monster in raw output. It was solid but not dramatic enough to show the true power of a legendary class but the spell result was something else entirely.

The gladius had jumped three full levels in an instant. In terms of immediate combat impact, the Realization boost wasn’t even close to this and the spell amplification was clearly the stronger play in the early stages.

It provided the kind of edge that could turn a fight before the enemy even understood what had changed.

But here was what really caught Winston’s attention.

Every recorded Realization that could boost spells had done it through small incremental boosts.

The spell’s level itself had never changed in any documented case, with only the output improving slightly. Nowhere in any text, historical record or academy lesson had a Realization actually raised a spell’s level.

Soul Burn had done exactly that.

’If the spell was already at a higher level, would it still double? Or would the return shrink?’

He didn’t have an answer yet. That test would have to wait for a stronger spell and the right moment. For now, the priority was clear, fill the Soul Garden, push his Mastery higher, and keep moving toward the beacon.

Winston cut the Soul Burn and felt the burning sensation in his chest fade. In the Garden, the Kobold’s shrub stopped mid-flame and went still. He adjusted his grip on the gladius and stepped forward.

The beacon was still west. And the forest had more to offer.