The Author's POV

"Kh...Huuu...huuu..."

My chest burned with every breath I took. The pain was unbearable. It almost felt as though I was breathing fire, but...

"Keep breathing."

The familiar voice and hand pressing against my back prompted me to keep breathing in the same manner as before.

It was hard.

Very hard.

In the process of dropping the boulders into the hole, I almost passed out from overexertion.

It would have been catastrophic if Han Yufei hadn't dragged me away and hidden me in a corner to help me. Fortunately, as this seemed to be a common scene, none of the demons took particular notice of me.

"...You're almost there."

Han Yufei's voice echoed out once more. Clenching my teeth, sweat dripped down from the side of my face as it sizzled on the steaming hot ground.

"Ugh."

Despite the pain, I persisted through the pain as I felt myself progressing. A slow but steady increase in strength and recovery was occurring in my muscles.

In spite of the fact that I had no mana inside my body, my body was slowly recovering.

It was nothing short of miraculous.

"Don't lose focus."

Han Yufei's voice once again echoed inside of my head as he helped me master the first stage of his family martial manual.

[Body Hardening.]

Compared to the other two sections, it sounded like the most lack-luster stage of his martial manual, but I begged to differ.

At the moment, I find it to be the most effective method.

There was a simple reason for this.

'With it, I might be able to increase the power and time of my last skill.'

Limit Breaker.

The most ominous skill that I had, but also my biggest reassurance.

With every use, I knew that I would have to follow my other self's arrangements, but I also knew that I would be able to live longer through this skill.

Especially since I was still quite weak compared to my enemies, and I ended up facing enemies that tended to be way above my rank nowadays.

"There are four phases to the [Body Hardening] method. Bronze body, Silver body, Gold body, and Diamond body. You've currently achieved the Bronze body, and you're close to achieving the Silver body. If you keep practicing as I told you, then you won't have any problems breaking through to the next level any time soon."

I slowly turned around as I felt Han Yufei's hand leave my body.

The sensation of cooling that was coursing through my body vanished at that moment.

'A pity...'

I thought as I slowly stood up and stretched my body.

"How's his condition?"

Crouching down next to Jin and Emma who were sitting not so far from where we were, I carefully examined Smallsnake's condition.

"He seems to be fine."

Emma replied as she examined his body carefully. Placing her finger over his wrist, she closed her eyes for several seconds.

"His heartbeat is a bit weak, and his complexion is a bit pale, but for now, he isn't in any danger. He is just exhausted."

"That's good."

relief once I

it was my responsibility to keep Smallsnake

if anything happened

"Let's get going."

he stood up and looked toward

are coming. They won't like it if they

"...You're right."

distance, I saw several demons approaching in our general direction and picked up Smallsnake's body.

least they're

commented as

as I turned to face

"Yeah."

labor camp, the demons were rather lax. Or rather, they weren't stupid to the point of overworking

to recover our stamina. This was so that they could

weren't long, about ten minutes long, but it was still

from the other races were also taking short breaks and quietly eating some of the

the deaths over here

thought as I stepped over the corpses beneath

but I simply endured

been a lot easier

as I

apparently, the ores inside of the boulders reacted negatively to any form of energy and hence why our mana

of bullshit, but it wasn't as though I could

"Haaa..."

walked toward the rocks in the distance with

really want to get out

***

placed their hands

their hands on

"Yes."

"Yup."

"Ready."

everyone had placed their

"Alright, do your thing."

mouth twitched as he felt

a soft

I,

"Yes."

clearly

she turned to look

We

"Fine, fine."

roll of his eyes, Kevin turned to face the pyramid and pressed the air. His actions caused the others to look at each other with a weird look on their faces. However, it didn't last for long as their vision soon blacked out and

disintegrated into particles, and they vanished from

***

Clank

after the all too familiar rock grating sound was complete darkness as I found

"Haaa...Haaa.."

was completely exhausted and I barely felt any energy inside of

"Shit."

curse while covering my face with

not the time

cross-legged on the floor.

and now was not the time for me to

to improve, and I will soon be able to progress to the next phase of the [Body Hardening]

stronger I would be after learning the skill excited me to no

"Just you w—"

flashed across the room, forcing me to add more strength to my eyelids

"Are we here?"

it so

the lights

"Where is my cigarette?"

after the bright light as darkness returned to

"Huh?!"

body jumped up in shock as I recognized

in the world