"Where am I?" Alex wondered as he opened his eyes, only to find himself in a void of absolute darkness. It was so pitch-black that he couldn't even see his own hands, leaving him disoriented and uneasy.
"Am I under some kind of illusion?" Alex thought, a creeping sense of dread washing over him.
Closing his eyes again, Alex concentrated, trying to convince himself that this was all a trick of the mind, some illusion cast by an enemy to confuse him. But when he opened his eyes, the darkness remained unchanged, surrounding him like a thick, inescapable fog.
Before panic could fully set in, a voice echoed in his mind, one that was both familiar and unsettlingly foreign.
"You're too slow," the voice declared, dripping with a strange mixture of impatience and disappointment. "Painfully slow," it added the following instant.
"Who are you?" Alex asked cautiously, his voice betraying his wariness. However, the only response was the voice repeating its earlier statement, louder this time, the words echoing through the void with an almost deafening intensity.
As the minutes dragged on, Alex tried repeatedly to engage with the mysterious voice, to understand who or what was speaking to him. But each time, the voice only grew louder, repeating over and over, "You're too slow!"
The volume increased with each repetition until it felt like a relentless hammer pounding in his skull. The sound grew so intense that it drowned out his thoughts, a searing headache gripping his temples and spreading through his entire being, leaving him teetering on the edge of agony.
"YOU ARE TOO SLOW!"
"Ah!" Alex yelped as he suddenly sat up, his wary eyes sweeping his surroundings. Smoke began to seep from his skin, surrounding him with its usual mesmerizing purple color, though it now glowed ominously.
After a moment, Alex recognized the familiar design of Amelia's plant chamber and visibly relaxed. He had requested this chamber for the night, worried that he might not be able to maintain the structure of the smoke carriage from collapsing while he slept. This chamber, which Amelia had originally designed for their intimate moments, provided a stable environment for him to rest in.
Once he confirmed that he was not under attack, Alex slumped onto the bed of leaves, his face covered with sweat.
'What was that?' he wondered, trying to recall the dream he had just experienced. The only detail that lingered in his mind was a repeated notion of being "slow."
He struggled for a few minutes to grasp the specifics of the dream but eventually gave up.
As he focused on how he felt, Alex realized that he was in perfect condition. In fact, his mind felt unusually refreshed, and he noticed an enhancement in his mental faculties.
It wasn't that Alex mind had been enhanced by sleep, no. Rather, it was because his body, mind, and soul had been enhanced by the black heart. This was the first time he had truly slept without worry, allowing his mind to experience a profound state of rest and clarity.
Usually, at night, Alex was either occupied having sex with Amelia, training his smoke manipulation, or reading the numerous books Lilia had provided him. Since his mental enhancement, the only rest he had gotten besides last night was after his fight against the dungeon boss, and even then, he hadn't slept nearly as much as his body needed at that time.
Thankfully, the hot water of the lake in the dungeon's treasure room had alleviated some of his tiredness.
After they left the dungeon, Alex began increasing his stats and as he stamina stat grew, his tiredness gradually faded away, though after last night sleep, Alex realized that it wasn't the case.
With his current stamina, he could potentially go for days without needing rest if he avoided taxing efforts. However, as he had learned just now, not needing rest didn't mean he shouldn't rest. Skipping rest could degrade both his physical and mental performance.
After confirming that he had fully recovered and his mana reserves were replenished, Alex lay on the bed of leaves for a few minutes before standing up.
Wrapping his purple smoke around himself, Alex stepped outside of the plant chamber.
The first thing he noticed as he stepped outside was that the snow had resumed, and a fresh layer had accumulated on the ground.
The second thing he observed was that they were in a dense forest where tall trees with broad, thick leaves blocked most of the weak morning sunlight from penetrating through.
Last night, he had been so out of it, struggling with the pain in his body, that he hadn't bothered to take in the surroundings where he had stopped the carriages.
"Awake?" Amelia's voice called out, drawing his attention.
Turning his gaze to the right, Alex saw Amelia looking back at him. She was holding a book and wore a wooden mask over her face.
Approaching her, Alex placed a hand on her head to pat her gently while asking how she was doing.
"I'm fine, though I'm a bit tired after healing so many people," Amelia replied, glancing toward a certain direction.
Following her gaze, Alex's eyes fell on a group of people lying on the snow-covered ground, sheltered only by makeshift coverings of leaves that offered little protection from the cold, their occasional shivers evident even through the layers.
"I wonder what they went through to end up accepting sleeping on the ground like this," Alex mused to himself.
Most nobles were accustomed to total comfort—spacious, well-decorated rooms, a host of servants at their beck and call, and wardrobes full of lavish clothing. In short, they were a pampered group. Alex was surprised to see this group of nobles enduring the harsh conditions of sleeping on the ground as if it were completely natural to them.
He himself being one of those pampered individuals, Alex knew how difficult it would be for him to sleep on the ground.
"It's not like they have much choice," Amelia remarked. "It's either that or going without rest, and given their exhausted state, the choice was clear. In retrospect, that girl is the one who stands out," Amelia added, pointing to another direction.
Looking in that direction, Alex saw a woman with cyan-colored hair sitting cross-legged in a meditative posture.
"Daisy?" Alex asked, fixing his gaze on her.
"Oh, she's the one you were talking to last night?" Amelia raised an eyebrow. She had only heard Alex speaking to a woman but hadn't seen her face. That had changed now.
"Mm," Alex nodded as he continued to observe the young woman. "What is she doing, and how long has she been at it?"
"I have no idea what she's doing, but she hasn't slept all night," Amelia revealed.
"Mm, I see," Alex nodded. "I guess I'll just ask her."
Before Amelia could suggest leaving Daisy to her meditation, Alex had already started walking toward her, making her chuckle.
As Alex approached Daisy, his expression grew more perplexed. There was a noticeable distortion in the air around her, making her appear blurry.
'Heat?' Alex hypothesized.
He drew closer until he was directly behind her and asked in a deep, curious tone, "What are you doing?"
"Ah!"
Daisy's sudden startle made her yelp in surprise. At the same time, an intense wave of heat surged from her body, enveloping her surroundings.
"What the..." Alex exclaimed as the heat slammed into his smoke armor.
In that instant, something that left Alex utterly shocked happened.
His armor rapidly heated up, and as the temperature soared, Alex noticed that the armor was becoming denser and more resilient. But that wasn't all. As the heat continued to intensify, the smoke armor began to glow with a brilliant orange hue, resembling steel forged in a blazing furnace.
As Alex's curiosity grew in response to the unfolding spectacle, he sensed something was amiss. A second later, he cursed loudly and sprinted off in a random direction.
A split second after Alex had disappeared, a deafening explosion erupted, shaking the very earth and rousing all of the forest's sleeping inhabitants.
BOOOMMM!!!
Amelia, who had been observing the entire scene from a distance, immediately dropped to her knees and raced toward the source of the explosion, her face etched with worry.
It didn't take her long to locate the epicenter of the blast and to her astonishment, the explosion had created a crater so vast that its diameter extended over twenty meters.
Without pausing, Amelia plunged into the thick cloud of smoke that had been expelled by the blast, desperately searching for her brother.
Fortunately, she found Alex unscathed just moments later, much to her relief.
Alex, standing in the center of the explosion's crater, wore an expression of surprise, shock, and confusion when Amelia found him.
Just as she was about to ask if he was alright, Alex drew a sharp breath and erupted into uproarious laughter.
Standing there butt naked, with laughter so loud it could be heard for kilometers around, Alex resembled nothing more than a madman.