Chapter 162: The Eyes of Death, or the Flesh of Fate?

Magna hadn’t turned into some kind of masochist who got off on pain or anything like that.

It was just that apart from the pain and discomfort, he genuinely felt good all over his body.

He felt like he was getting a full-body massage from 5 people, with 10 hands moving all over his body and rubbing his muscles in a relaxing way after a long, exhausting day.

His entire body felt incredibly relieved, every muscle loosening rapidly. Even spots he never knew ached suddenly felt free of that pain, giving him incredible pleasure.

"Are you okay?" Matrim asked, unable to help himself as he looked at his strange face, which looked like it was frowning and grinning at the same time.

Magna immediately opened his eyes, realizing he’d been noticed, and forced his face back to normal. "What? Yeah... Why?"

The sensations, pain, discomfort, and relief were all still happening in his body at once, but he just wasn’t showing any of it on his face anymore.

Matrim raised one eyebrow, seeing him look completely normal now, then turned his head away and slowly closed his eyes again.

’Man, that was close.’ Magna also closed his eyes again, focusing on the changes happening in his body.

He had been mentally prepared for any kind of pain, but the sudden wave of relief was something he hadn’t prepared for at all.

It was the first time one of Gaia’s mutations had made him feel something good at all.

[Utilization completed.]

When the mutation came to an end and all the changes stopped, he could even feel the dizziness from the mana pressing down on him fade away by the end.

Now, with a healing speed 5 times higher, he was ready to take the next step.

"I’ll go another step," he said, slowly getting up from where he sat.

"Already?" Matrim looked at him, quite surprised.

Magna was already on the 11th step and was now about to take his next one, while Matrim was still only on the 7th.

For someone who had trained his whole life for endurance, seeing someone else more resilient than him was both frustrating and at the same time awe-inspiring.

He even started to wonder if growing up in a cave could really make a person this resilient.

Unaware of his thoughts, Magna slowly stepped forward, passing through something like a veil where the golden light grew far denser and brighter.

He suddenly felt his whole body grow heavy again, an incredible exhaustion crashing down on him.

His mind clouded once more, his thoughts blurring, his head spinning like he was drunk.

He sat down on the ground right away before he lost his balance and started repeating the adjustment process.

He could clearly feel the effect of his last mutation now. His dizziness passed faster this time, and even the urge to throw up from his earlier lightheadedness faded quickly.

Now he was sure that while it had taken him 3 hours to reach this step the first time, he could probably reach the next one within 2 hours.

—

On the surface, in the settlement area, the Master was still in his room.

The room was dark, without so much as a crack anywhere that could let sunlight in.

There was also no furniture, not even a rug on the floor, just the old man sitting alone in the middle of the room with his eyes closed.

If Magna had been there, with a chance to look around using his golden eyes, he would have been stunned by how dense and bright the golden light filling the entire room was. It was as if all the sunlight in the world had been crammed into a single space and sealed inside it.

Sitting at the center of all that condensed mana, the old man already looked like a dead man, with how wrinkled his skin was and how thin his body had become. Sitting there motionless, with his breathing so faint it couldn’t even be noticed, made him look completely dead.

Until his eyes slowly began to open, proving he was in fact alive, just meditating.

His eyes stared straight ahead with such focus that they seemed to pierce through the darkness of the room and the closed door beyond it, reaching all the way to the campfire burning outside.

It was currently flickering strangely, its flames weakening and almost going out despite the lack of any strong wind.

Seeing how weak the fire looked, his face changed slightly, his eyes narrowing into a faintly serious expression.

"Why has the entrance suddenly become unstable?" His aged voice came out like a heavy whisper.

It was the first time in centuries of guarding it that the entrance leading to the Underworld had behaved strangely.

He didn’t stand up, but slowly began turning his head, his eyes starting to scan every inch of the volcanic mountain, trying to find the reason for it. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

No wooden structure, no tree, no piece of rock could block his sight.

One by one, he located every boy’s position on the mountain. Some were outside hunting for food, some were meditating in their huts, and some were just training their muscles.

At last, his eyes stopped, his gaze dipping slightly downward and piercing through meters of rock and soil until landing on 2 figures sitting inside a cave.

"Well, now." He murmured, finding it quite unexpected that the two boys had managed to find the cave leading toward the mountain’s core.

But he wasn’t that shocked, since he had already guessed it was only a matter of time before the boy carrying the eyes of the Matriarch of Death would find it anyway.

What really caught his interest, though, was that while he kept watching, Magna rose to his feet and took a step deeper in, where the mana concentration doubled with just that single step.

The way he could endure it without losing consciousness was surprising enough, but watching him sit there and deliberately try to adjust his body to the mana pressure was even more surprising.

Seeing the boy use the advantage of his eyes for his own training caused the old man’s wrinkled face to soften with satisfaction.

"Good. This batch has at least 2 promising ones." His gaze shifted toward another part of the mountain.

It traveled through layers of rock and soil, passing even the magma flowing deep inside the mountain before reaching a hidden pool far below.

Through the steam surrounding the bubbling, boiling water, he spotted a figure swimming in the scalding pool.

Not caring about the boiling water, the figure would dive as deep as they could before returning to the surface. Then they would dive again, going deeper each time as the temperature grew hotter the deeper they went.

Watching the figure carry out their own training in water hot enough to boil any ordinary person alive within seconds, the old man mumbled in a rather excited tone.

"I wonder which one will be first. The Eyes of Death, or the Flesh of Fate?"

His words made it sound like there was some kind of competition, with him being very interested and eager to see the winner.