At night, two horses passed through the city gates.

Catching sight of the familiar streets, Roxy felt something stir in her chest.

"We're finally back in Alterna."

There had been no mortal danger from start to finish, but exhausted was exhausted. A full day of nonstop steam magic was no small thing.

"Good work out there," Banxia said, a rare moment of consideration from him.

Grumble,

Roxy patted her hollow stomach.

The stamina she'd burned today wasn't going to be replenished by the handful of dried rations she'd packed on the way out.

"I'm hungry..."

"Let's go. My treat." Banxia had been quietly wondering how to pay the girl for her work today. Now he had his answer.

"Eh? Really!" The habitually thrifty blue-haired girl perked up instantly.

Yesterday's meal had been her idea, but the bill had stung, she'd already resigned herself to scraping by for the foreseeable future.

"Of course. Call it payment for today. What do you say?"

"We're partners! I wouldn't have minded even without a meal!"

"Fair enough. I'm tired. Going to bed."

The expression on Roxy's face froze solid.

"Joking." Banxia lightly nudged his horse's flank and rode past her as she stood there blinking. "I'm basically starving myself." He headed straight toward the inner district.

"Let's try a different tavern tonight."

"..."

They returned the horses, both carrying monster bloodlines, to the merchant guild, settled an extra fee for the overtime rental, and found a lively tavern near home to sit down.

"Order whatever you want. Don't hold back on my account," Banxia told the girl across from him as she eagerly flipped through the menu. Then, almost in the same breath, he added:

"That said — anything over eight gold coins, you're covering the difference yourself."

"I'm not a Brei pig! There's no way I'd eat that much!" Roxy looked up, blue eyes going wide beneath her hat brim.

The Brei pig was a well-known breed of meat swine from around Alterna, famous for its staggering appetite, something of a local specialty.

"Good. Let's keep it that way."

"...Honestly, Mister Banxia." Roxy was gearing up to push back when the tavern owner finished with another table and walked over, wiping his hands on a cloth.

"What can I get for you folks?"

"One of everything on your house specials." The second half was directed at Roxy; she nodded, and Banxia turned back to the owner. "Just that."

"That'll run you a fair bit, sir," the owner offered helpfully.

"Don't worry about it." Banxia fished a gold coin from his pocket and gave it a small wave.

The owner's face broke into a broad smile.

"Right away, sir, madam — I'll get that sorted immediately!"

"One more thing." Banxia called him back before he could turn away. "No green bell peppers in any of the side dishes."

"Understood." The owner headed briskly toward the kitchen.

Banxia lowered his hand and looked back across the table at the blue-haired girl.

"What were you going to say just now?"

"..."

Roxy studied the young man's face. That expression — usually so flat and indifferent, looked almost soft in the tavern's dim light.

She opened her mouth. Every word of her retort had slipped away somewhere she couldn't find.

"...Nothing."

She mumbled it quietly and tugged her hat brim down, hiding her faintly reddening ears.

...

Back in his room, Banxia flopped onto his back across the bed. The numbers floating on the panel above him sent a wave of satisfaction rolling through his whole body.

[Held Monster Time: Nine hundred and thirty years.]

Today had been a genuine windfall. He'd essentially wiped out every monster in the Old District and the New District combined.

The only reason today's haul hadn't cracked four digits was the hibernating goblins, that pack had scattered too fast, and he'd never tracked them down.

Otherwise it would've cleared a thousand easily.

With that kind of fortune in hand, Banxia felt a sudden impulse to take a proper look at his skill panel.

[Heaven Rewards Diligence; every effort bears its end.]

[Current Skills: Basic Sword Technique lv.3, Basic Dodge lv.3, Execution Hand Blade lv.3, Sword Qi Slash lv.3, Hypnosis Resistance lv.2, Advanced Meditation Method lv.1, Wrath of Finality (Not Initiated)]

[Current Remaining Time: Six years.]

[Held Monster Time: Nine hundred and thirty years.]

He'd long had the skill level thresholds memorized cold.

lv.0: What an ordinary person could reach through effort and consistent training.

lv.1: The realm that required genuine talent in a technique plus years of sustained work to enter, the outer limit of what an ordinary person could achieve in a finite lifespan.

lv.2: Already rare in the mortal world. Enough to leave a name in history. You might not find even a handful of people at this level across an entire kingdom.

lv.3: A tier that only an infinitesimal few in an entire era could ever set foot in. Countable on one hand.

As for lv.4 and beyond, the system offered no explanation.

Banxia glanced at his skill column. The lv.3 entries all showed room for further cultivation.

Which meant he could, in theory, simply brute-force his way higher by pouring time into them, until he found the ceiling.

But...

He caught sight of the dense string of zeros trailing each entry and decided to play it safe for now.

Level 3 was already more than enough for a long time to come. The next threshold might bring a massive jump, but it wasn't something his current reserves could cover.

"The only thing that can really push my strength forward right now is probably magic..."

He looked at the lv.1 Advanced Meditation Method and the uninitiated Wrath of Finality.

Just as Roxy had said: total mana capacity never lied.

However many years you spent accumulating it, that was your foundation. On that point, genius and ordinary mortal were no different from each other. It might be the single fairest thing in this world.

And yet that was exactly where the problem lived. If someone suddenly gained decades, or centuries, worth of mana capacity in a short burst...

Unless they were a priest carrying the Goddess's blessing, the Church in this era would have every reason to label them a heretic and put them on trial.

Banxia had no interest in being hauled off by Church powerhouses and tied to a stake.

Before he'd built up enough strength to protect himself, he had to find a way to keep his mana hidden.

"A method to conceal mana..."

He stared at the wisp drifting from his fingertip, flickering faintly, like a candle flame about to go out in a breeze.

He'd seen the same kind of flicker on Roxy.

In fact, it was precisely by reading how much that "flame" swayed that he'd estimated the mana inside her small frame ran to more than forty times his own.

For any spellcaster without clairvoyant abilities, gauging the depth of someone else's mana came down to exactly this.

So what if he could suppress that flicker? Slow it down, or stop it entirely?

Banxia held his breath and focused, reaching inward toward the wisp at his fingertip.

The whole process felt like holding in a bowel movement. Under full concentration and steady pressure, the mana fluctuations began, very slowly, to weaken.

But it only lasted a short while. Push too long and the control slipped.

He let go, already half-ready to write off this improvised approach, and then he stopped. Stared.

And grinned.

[Mana Concealment lv.1 (1/1000)]

➤ Next: Cow Girl Review Guide

Chapter 38 - Cow Girl Review Guide

"With this skill, I can finally raise my magic without worry."

Banxia felt the tension leave him and gave the system its instruction.

"Pour in a hundred years first. Let's see what we're working with."

The numbers on the panel began ticking away at speed. The skill column changed quietly alongside them.

[Year 1: You still cannot endure that oppressive "holding it in" sensation. Mana leaks out at unguarded moments.]

[Year 3: Through daily grueling practice, you can now steadily conceal your mana for two hours at a stretch.]

[Year 50: Concealing mana has become physical instinct, like breathing or blinking. It runs on its own without conscious effort.]

[Year 100: You sense faintly that Mana Concealment could go further, yet you always feel your days running short and can never push deep enough to find out.]

Banxia gritted his teeth. "System, keep going."

[Year 130: You finally catch that flash of insight. Mana fluctuations are inherently difficult to control, but through a specific breathing rhythm combined with mana circulation technique, you begin to truly tame them.]

[Mana Concealment lv.1 → Mana Concealment lv.2.]

[Held Monster Time: 800 years.]

"lv.2 Mana Concealment should handle the vast majority of situations." Banxia nodded, turning his gaze to the Advanced Meditation Method on the panel.

"Put two hundred years into mana now."

[Year 1: You cultivate the Advanced Meditation Method. Accumulating total mana capacity.]

[Year 10: Accumulating total mana capacity.]

[Year 100: Accumulating total mana capacity.]

[Advanced Meditation Method lv.1 → lv.2.]

[Year 200: Mana accumulation complete.]

"..."

Banxia closed his eyes and felt the mana that had built up inside him over two hundred and one full years. The corners of his mouth curved up on their own.

A shame that leveling the meditation method hadn't sped up the accumulation rate itself, it had only bumped his casting efficiency and mana recovery speed up several notches.

Still. Not a bad return.

The night was still long.

He thought it over briefly, then carved off another three hundred years of monster time and sank every last bit of it into the military magic Wrath of Finality, driving it up until it settled firmly at lv.2.

The time that spell consumed dwarfed every other skill he had trained before it.

Though, well, that probably, possibly, maybe had just a tiny little bit to do with his magical aptitude.

But looking at the time cost alone told the whole story. This was the strongest card Banxia currently held.

As for how powerful it actually was — that went without saying.

[Held Monster Time: 300 years.]

He glanced at the remaining balance and decided against pushing further.

...

...

---

Early the next morning, Banxia handed the freshly written Interspecies Review Guide to the tavern owner he knew well, then walked out alone.

Writing it had nothing to do with money anymore. Pure personal interest.

Every now and then he thought about that First Hero, leaving some trace of his own passing on this continent didn't seem like a bad idea.

He didn't bother calling Roxy. He just picked up the cloth sack stuffed with goblin ears and headed toward the guild in the outer city on his own.

It was a beginner's quest. For Roxy, already a Silver-rank adventurer, it was beneath notice. If he put her name on the roster too, she'd look like the one getting carried.

"Hi. Quest turn-in."

Banxia set the sack of goblin ears on the counter in front of the receptionist.

His novice nameplate was taken back. A new one came across the counter in exchange, freshly engraved with the Bronze-rank insignia.

He was about to ask whether any suitable promotion quests were available when a familiar voice reached him from the next window.

"Uh, I'd like to disband a party."

Banxia glanced over. The monk from yesterday, the one who'd been standing in the hall shouting for a warrior and a mage.

The receptionist took the nameplate, checked the records, and kept her voice strictly professional.

"A three-person Bronze-rank party that accepted the dock water ghost investigation quest yesterday. That's correct?"

"Yeah."

"And the other two members?"

"...Dead."

"I — I see." The receptionist didn't press further. She lowered her head and checked the paperwork. "Since the quest was not completed, regulations require a fee of ten silver coins to process the disbandment."

"Understood." Lucius handed over most of the party's shared funds, hollow-eyed.

"Alright — disbandment of the Black Wind party is complete." The receptionist collected the coins and slid the nameplate back. "Wishing you a pleasant adventuring career going forward."

Only once that hollow figure disappeared through the doorway did she let out a small sigh.

"Really unlucky. An investigation quest, and they nearly lost the whole party."

"..."

Banxia heard her and thought, without meaning to, of his own four-person party a long time ago, almost wiped out by goblins.

"Hope the kid finds his footing." He shook his head, then looked back at the receptionist. "I'm Bronze-rank now, right? What does it take to promote to Silver?"

"That quickly? You don't want to train at Bronze for a while first?" She looked mildly surprised.

"No." He shook his head.

His tone left no room for debate. The receptionist let it go and ran through the rules. "For promotion, you can either complete one Bronze-rank quest solo, or complete three Bronze-rank quests with a party."

"Solo. What Bronze-rank quests do you have right now? Preferably monster-related. Something that can be wrapped up fast."

The receptionist looked at him again at that.

Adventurers going for solo promotion usually played it safe, investigations, assistance work, the low-risk kind. Someone asking straight for a subjugation quest was either reckless or knew exactly what they were capable of.

She took a proper look at him this time.

She'd been too busy noticing the face, an unreasonably good one, to register the rest: a build that had clearly been forged through years of hard use, and the two-handed greatsword hanging loosely from one hand, the kind of weight that had no business being held that casually.

A real fighter.

"Subjugation quests... there aren't any at Bronze rank right now." She flipped through the records and glanced up with a small apologetic tilt of her head.

"Then give me the nearest available one."

"Nearest would be..." Her gaze dropped to the request slip that had just been handed back.

"The dock water ghost investigation is probably the closest. Though a full Bronze-rank party just came to grief on it, so the difficulty might..."

"Doesn't matter. I'll take care of it."

➤ Next: My Soul Denies All of This!