"Strong, I need to get stronger. I am too slow. I need to get strong faster!"
Shiba had always been working hard, but he never felt such a huge urge to quickly increase his strength.
At the moment that he saw Bea, he felt a huge threat at an instinct level.
He felt that he needed to kill her as fast as possible.
"Do I want to avenge the rest of the slaves? No, I am not so selfless to risk my life for their sake since they are already dead, and we never were too close to each other."
Shiba was pondering about the reason for his instinct to kill Bea.
Although he wanted to avenge the other slaves someday, they had never been his main motivation to turn strong.
"Do I want to fulfill my revenge as soon as possible? That isn't wrong, but I feel that I can wait if it is just for this reason. There is something else."
As much as Shiba hated Bea and her family, he knew very well that his personal revenge wasn't something that could be done quickly. He had long ago decided that he wouldn't be obsessed with it.
However, the presence of Bea on the academy added a new variable.
"Right, the reason I feel such an urge to get strong and kill her is simple."
As he remembered once again what he had suffered, Shiba discovered the reason for his urge.
"It is enough that I suffered at her hand, at their hands. I can't allow this to happen to someone else."
Different faces appeared on Shiba's mind.
They went from people extremely close to him like Eini or Beike to others that he only met once on his travels.
As someone who experienced that suffering, he didn't want it to anyone else.
"I am not strong enough to put an end to all the slavery of this world, nor will I be in a short time, but I need to get strong enough to at least prevent those close to me to experience what I experienced."
Despite his shock after seeing Bea, he had heard the conversation. The way she spoke to the others was as if she already considered them her slaves. Shiba couldn't help but have the ominous premonition that Bea wanted new slaves since her family had killed them all.
Moreover, the fact that she always returned alone from the missions didn't seem an act of cowardice for Shiba, who experienced real tortures from that woman. He was sure that she killed them personally or plotted to get them killed.
"I don't know her exact plans, but nothing good can come from her. To be free, I need strength not only to defend myself but to defend others. Fleeing while letting the rest suffer such a miserable fate isn't true freedom."
Most people wouldn't be conscious about how important freedom for them was, but someone like Shiba knew.
He didn't want to lose his freedom again nor let others lose it for his sake.
Thus, he needed to be strong enough to prevent that from happening. Strong enough to kill those enslavers.
While Shiba was on his internal monologue, the aura on his body started to surge and reached the peak of level 9 in one go.
"Shiba, stop!"
Reia tried to use a seal to stop Shiba's strength from increasing, but before she could succeed, she was sent flying backward together with Beike.
"A formation? How did it appear without someone powering it?"
Beike was surprised by the formation that appeared surrounding Shiba. It wasn't too big, but Beike knew that even if he used all of his strength, he wouldn't be able to break it, and the same applied to Reia.
"No idea, but Shiba is starting his breakthrough to Rank 1. It seems that there is some relationship between him and Bea. That killing intent that emanated from him before his strength increased can't be faked."
After she finished speaking, the whole academy started to tremble, and the ceiling of their room broke into small pieces as surges of natural energy of the world went directly to Shiba's body.
"This is crazy. There is no way he would be able to endure such violent energy. Beike, help me. Maybe we can stop it between both of us."
Reia could tell that Shiba couldn't create that formation by himself, so it needed to be a powerful expert hiding somewhere who did it, but as she saw it, the energy was too strong even for her to endure it, nothing to say about Shiba who was far weaker.
"Stop if you don't want to die. Trying to stop this formation will only get you two killed. Follow my instructions. We should be able to calm the energy to some degree if we work together."
The one who spoke was Eini, who had just reached the destroyed room. She had been on her way to meet Shiba when the formation activated, so she ran as fast as she could.
"Understood."
Reia replied quickly and didn't dare to ask why Eini had information about the formation. However, given how close Shiba and Eini were, she knew that both of them should have some secrets only shared between them.
Following Eini's instructions, they manage to make the natural energy a bit less violent, but it was still far more of what Shiba would be able to endure.
They were far from enough to calm the natural energy, but that was all they could do by themselves.
At the sky, Lina was seeing everything happen, but she was calm.
"A Heaven Swallowing Formation? Shiba's master is quite bold, but it seems that he gave Shiba enough safety measures, or his body and soul would have been destroyed in seconds."
Usually, even a Law God would need to endure some pain to endure the energy drawn from a Heaven Swallowing Formation, so there was no way for a kid like Shiba to endure it on its own.
However, the system in Shiba's soul was dealing with it, which made that Shiba wasn't in any danger. He was just feeling a lot of pain.
Using that kind of formation to support the advance to Rank 1 was far too crazy, but if endured, it was equally effective.
Liye originally set two different formations to assist Shiba's breakthrough to Rank 1. The other one was far more standard and would need the help of others to display the full effectiveness, but even without others, it would still be far better than what the teachers of the academy could do on their own.
The Heaven Swallowing Formation would only activate if Shiba was determined enough to gain strength at any price like he was.
Although they just met for a short time, Liye could guess that Shiba might end up in a situation of wishing far more strength given his past.
Advancing to Rank 1 with the Heaven Swallowing Formation could even increase the innate talent of the one advancing, which was something that Shiba lacked a lot.
The same formation for someone like Eini would be far less effective since she was so talented that increasing her talent more would be far too difficult, and the benefits small, so it wasn't worthy of the pain.
Still, even with safety measures, if one was too weak-minded, one might never advance again due to the pain having broken their determination.
However, that didn't apply to Shiba. He was used to pain and didn't mind it as long as he could get stronger. He was feeling his strength increase, so he continued to endure the pain.
He even obtained a Passive Skill called Pain Resistance, and the proficiency was increasing at a tremendous speed.
Soon, several teachers and the principal reached the destroyed room, and they followed Eini's instructions for helping to calm the energy.
No one questioned Eini because the principal obeyed her instructions feeling that it was all something made by the expert behind them.
In fact, if they didn't calm the energy, the academy would be destroyed by it. It wouldn't stop with that single room.
As Shiba proceeded with the breakthrough, he fell into an enlightened state, which surprised Lina a lot.
"Really? Did someone like him get enlightened in so many Laws? He always had an affinity for earth and wind and even got enlightened about the elements before, so fine if he got enlightened regarding the Earth Law and the Wind Law. I can even understand that his previous resonance helped him to also get enlightened on the Life Law and the Death Law. However, he knew a single skill of the water element and light element, and he is still a newbie in them. Why did he also get enlightenment in the Light Law and the Water Law?"
Six Laws. Shiba had gotten enlightened on six Laws simultaneously.
Eini barely got enlightened on two, but Shiba did it on six. It was the triple.
Of course, Lina knew that the Heaven Swallowing Formation was part of the reason, but to have the formation help, Shiba would need to endure an enormous pain before the effects were so huge. Usually, it would be impossible for a kid who hadn't even reached Rank 1 to endure so much.
As time passed, the effects of the formation became quite visible.
Although he wasn't that far from his fifteenth birthday, Shiba was still fourteen, but his body already looked as if he was eighteen after he absorbed energy from the formation for a while.
Eini was quite jealous, but she had heard of that formation before, and she knew how much pain one needed to endure. She didn't think that she could last more than a couple of seconds if she were in Shiba's place.
The breakthrough lasted a whole day before it stopped.
At that moment, he had already broken Eini's record on the academy of reaching level 17 directly.
Shiba had reached the peak of level 18, close to advance to level 19, and both his body and mind had reached the limits of that level.