Chapter 36: Preparing for the Next Trial [Part-2]

After leaving the shopping mall, Alen walked down the street, searching for a decent restaurant.

As he walked, he spotted a nice establishment on the opposite side of the road. He made his way over with unhurried steps.

As he approached the entrance, the glass doors automatically slid open.

The building operated on a Magical Detection spell. If a person entered its radar, the spell sent a signal that triggered the magical mechanism, opening the door automatically. Such technology wasn’t completely unfamiliar to Alen.

In his old world, automated systems like this were everywhere. The only difference was that back on Earth, the technology operated on electromagnetic waves and electricity. Here, almost everything ran purely on mana.

’So it’s not much different from Earth,’ Alen thought.

’The only difference I can detect is that the core energy making everything function is mana.’

He walked inside, noticing several groups of people sitting together and chatting. A few people were sitting alone, using devices that looked remarkably similar to smartphones.

’Huh... It seems smartphones exist in this world too. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

Not only did smartphones exist here, but they were quite a bit more advanced than the ones from his world. Instead of a flat glass screen, these devices projected high-definition holographic images into the air. The user could increase or decrease the size of the projection according to their needs.

It was like carrying a pocket-sized projector that could be used anywhere. The most impressive feature was that the projection was bound to the user’s aura; only the owner of the phone could actually see the screen, perfectly protecting the individual’s privacy. Furthermore, because the devices were powered by mana, Awakener users didn’t even have to worry about finding an outlet. They could simply supply a tiny fraction of their own mana to charge the phone fully in less than a minute.

Alen walked toward an empty seat in a quiet corner of the restaurant and sat down calmly.

A clerk walked over to his table.

"Do you need anything, sir?"

"Yeah, a menu please."

The clerk handed him a magical tablet. It was a highly advanced system, displaying vibrant images of various food options. Alen scrolled through the interface and simply chose whatever looked the most appetizing to him.

After placing his order, he handed the tablet back. The clerk bowed politely and walked away.

Left alone, Alen leaned back in his chair and looked out the window at the bustling city. Watching the crowds go by, he felt like the odd man out.

Everyone in this place was busy. They had their daily jobs, they had daily needs to fulfill, and they had families to care for.

For Alen, there wasn’t a single thing tying him to this world. There was no one he knew here. And even if he did meet people, he lacked the emotional capacity to become friends with them. After being brutally betrayed by the ones he loved most in his past life, he lacked the confidence to ever trust anyone again.

Trusting someone wasn’t just about giving them your faith; it was an exchange of vulnerabilities and feelings. True trust required mutual participation. If one person trusted completely, but the other didn’t have an ounce of faith in return, that wasn’t trust. That was just foolishness.

And Alen had already played the fool once. He was absolutely unwilling to take a risk like that ever again. He had firmly decided that from now on, he would only think about himself. He would put his own survival at the very top of his priorities, far above the needs of others.

He knew the ’Path’ he was walking wasn’t an easy one. It was the complete opposite of the gentle, self-sacrificing personality he had lived with in his past life. It would take him quite a lot of time to fully adapt to this new mindset. He wasn’t a "Chosen One" here; he was just like any other being in the world, starting his ’Path’ from the absolute bottom.

He needed time to grow. The only thing that mattered now was shifting his priority away from others and focusing solely on himself and what he genuinely cared for.

’Sigh... I have to start planning for the next trial...’

’I’m just wasting my time staying here in this city. There isn’t anything left for me to do here.’

’I don’t know who sent me to this place. Whether it was the will of the World or some other higher being, it doesn’t matter. They forced a ’Path’ onto me... and I have to walk it. Not because the World wants me to, but because I have my own goals to achieve.’

’And my goal isn’t just to ascend to the absolute limit of the Ascension Realm. My goal is to become the absolute ’best’ version of myself in this life. I will become so strong that nobody will ever look down on me or pity me ever again.’

Having solidified his resolve, he clenched his fist under the table with absolute certainty.

A moment later, the clerk returned, bringing his freshly prepared food.

As the warm dishes were set down in front of him and the clerk walked away, Alen finally shifted his intense focus back to his empty stomach.

He picked up his utensils and started to dig in.

"Sigh... The food here is so... well, I can’t say it’s terrible. It’s at least better than the dry rations I’ve been eating up to now. But it’s still not good," Alen mumbled to himself, chewing slowly.

"At this rate, I’m going to have to learn how to cook for myself."

"I should have listened to my mom back when I was a kid. She was always trying to teach me how to cook... I was such an ignorant child back then."

He shook his head as memories of the past flooded his mind. He remembered the days when his mother kept trying to teach him basic life skills: how to clean the house, how to plant trees in the garden, how to raise a pet, how to act politely in front of guests, and even how to cook.

His mother used to always mutter the same teasing sentence to him:

’If you want a good ’wife’ like mama, then you have to learn how to do housework, or you’ll end up completely helpless just like your dad...’

He had eagerly tried several of the things his mother taught him, and he was quite a fast learner. But cooking was the one chore he never even touched. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to try, but simply because he thought he would never need to learn it. His mother was always there to feed him, and the only food he ever truly liked was the food made by her hands.

He didn’t know at the time that life never worked out the way fate initially promised.

Fate changed, time moved on, and all that was left for him now were the fading memories of a past life.

After finishing his dinner, Alen paid the bill and walked out of the restaurant.

Standing on the cool evening street, he pulled a dark, navy-blue cloak from his storage ring and slipped it over his shoulders. It was one of the garments he had purchased earlier at the shopping mall, matching perfectly with his new clothes he was wearing underneath.

He reached up and pulled the dark hood over his silver hair, casting his cold azure eyes into shadow.

"Now that everything is done...let’s prepare for the next trial."