Transported to a new location, Leon quickly calmed his racing heart and surveyed his surroundings.

Although it was dark, it wasn't so pitch-black that he couldn't make out shapes.

The space was incredibly cramped.

Leon was standing on a circular stone platform, and with just three steps, he could step off of it.

Moreover, after stepping off the platform and taking another three steps, he would be blocked by walls on all sides.

One wall was occupied by a bookshelf, and another by shelves with a ceramic jar that reached about Leon's waist.

"What is this...?"

Only one wall remained, and that wall had a door. Next to the door was a familiar lever.

Leon rubbed his throbbing head.

"It seems I've been caught in a magic circle..."

Leon glanced at the magic circle engraved on the stone platform.

Since the wooden sword had the ability to disrupt mana flows, it seemed that the teleportation magic circle had failed to affect him properly.

"Blink magic worked just fine... does this place have some kind of recognition function?"

Leon used detection magic to extend his mana beyond the walls.

"This isn't good."

He sensed movement and the flow of mana beyond the walls.

There were some familiar presences and some unfamiliar ones.

The familiar mana flow belonged to armor golems.

Several of them were standing in front of the door, while the unfamiliar presences seemed to be gargoyle golems.

Even at a rough count, there were over ten of them.

"Ah... the wooden sword. Damn it."

Of all times, the wooden sword hadn't been teleported with him, leaving him with no way to escape.

Leon pulled out the emergency designated teleportation scroll from his pocket.

"Should I use it?"

The thought of the advanced volume of The Secrets of Creation flashed through his mind.

Using the scroll now would mean giving up on the wooden sword as well.

He couldn’t teleport back to where he had been because he didn’t know the exact location—whether it was on the second basement floor or deeper.

Leon had two locations memorized for emergency teleportation.

One was the training room he had used when he was a general disciple.

The other was the entrance to Section 1 of the herb mountain, where he had his most satisfying task.

Leon sighed and surveyed his surroundings.

The first thing that caught his eye was the bookshelf.

A red cover immediately stood out.

[The Secrets of Creation by Megrippa (Advanced)]

"Hah..."

Leon let out a laugh and examined the other books.

[Golem Designs]

He opened the book, but unfortunately, it was all blank pages.

"Hmm... this doesn’t seem like ordinary blank paper."

Leon rubbed the blank pages with his hand and tilted his head in confusion.

It seemed likely that there was another way to reveal the contents.

The bookshelf was filled with basic books and papers related to golems.

Leon then shifted his gaze downward.

There, almost abandoned, was another book.

"Hmm?"

[Gale of the Ernita School]

Flipping through it quickly, he realized it was a high-level wind-attribute magic spell.

To be precise, it was about the same level as martial arts.

There were several other basic magic books as well.

It didn’t seem like the owner of this lair had directly studied them, but rather, they were probably referenced when creating golems capable of using magic.

Leon took his eyes off the bookshelf and examined the shelves on the other wall.

Most of the shelves held empty medicine bottles, but among them, Leon found three bottles containing small beads.

Essences?

Recognizing the familiar form immediately, Leon cast an appraisal spell.

"Gasp."

The first white bead he appraised was an A-grade essence.

One A-grade essence.

An A-grade essence was a potent elixir, effective even for Insight-level magicians. Moreover, because Leon's body had a high efficiency for absorbing elixirs, it might even have an effect if he took it at the Transcendence level.

This was an elixir so rare that even the method of creating it was elusive, and even when it could be made, the process was so difficult that the number of these essences was extremely limited...

"Was this something the ancient magician had reserved to consume upon reaching Insight? Or had they already reached Transcendence and no longer needed it?"

Leon felt a sudden impulse well up inside him.

"Should I train here for a bit?"

Leon managed to calm himself down and examined the other bottles.

Five B-grade essences.

Seventeen C-grade essences.

"...What is this?"

Could anyone, no matter how wealthy, afford to buy this many essences?

Had they earned a fortune by making golems?

In the present day, golems were not highly regarded.

They were certainly useful to have, but they were too expensive to be considered anything other than a luxury.

Could things have been different in ancient times?

Next, Leon turned his attention to the soft-looking silver fruit inside the ceramic jar.

According to the appraisal spell, it was a fruit that provided all necessary nutrients and did not spoil, even over long periods.

"It still hasn’t rotted?"

Leon found the reason for this within the jar itself.

The jar was an artifact enchanted with preservation magic.

In terms of grade, it seemed to be about C-grade.

"Is this really a training room?"

Leon realized something.

This was the place where the ancient magician trained.

"Even if I use the teleport scroll now, the loss of the magic sword could be compensated... no, that's not it."

Still, the thought of giving it up entirely made him feel sick.

As Leon mentally weighed his options, another thought crossed his mind.

"What if I train here and reach the martial arts level? Then I could deal with the golems outside."

Of course, it was highly likely that the golems outside weren’t the only ones there.

If the ancient magician was truly at the Transcendence level, as Leon suspected, there would likely be more golems than just those.

However, it wouldn’t hurt to try and then escape if necessary.

"I can’t resist this."

Leon had already been craving training.

Seeing the high-grade essences made his heart race.

How long would it take to reach that level as quickly as possible?

Leon tried to estimate the time.

Even if he trained for 20 hours a day, only sleeping for 4 hours, it would still take a long time.

Including the 10 hours available in the orb, he would train for a total of 30 hours a day, sleep for 4 hours, and then repeat the cycle, but it would still take time.

If he took too long to come out, the chances of the wooden sword still being there would decrease.

Not to mention, he couldn’t stay here for long if he considered those who would be troubled by assuming he was dead.

Leon quickly considered ways to raise his level rapidly.

In terms of elixirs, it would take over 50 E-grade essences to reach the 5th rank.

So far, Leon had not been able to gather a sufficient amount of high-grade essences due to the probabilistic system.

Whenever he looked forward to the next rank, he would typically have about 20 to 30 essences ready.

So far, he had accumulated 20 E-grade and 5 D-grade essences.

From his experience with essences, he knew that consuming 7 to 8 F-grade essences had the same effect as 1 E-grade essence.

Assuming 7 E-grade essences equaled 1 D-grade essence...

If he consumed all the elixirs he had saved up, it would be equivalent to consuming 55 essences, which would be enough to reach the 5th rank.

However, this would mean using up all the elixirs Leon had received as rewards.

He wouldn’t be able to prepare for the next rank.

"That’s how it normally would be..."

Leon turned his gaze to the bottles on the shelf.

Seventeen C-grade essences.

Each one was equivalent to the effect of 49 lesser essences.

In one go, he could reach the 5th rank.

Of course, that’s assuming everything went perfectly, but advancing in rank also required a breakthrough in understanding.

That was the problem.

Raising one's rank too quickly could have side effects.

Simply boosting one's rank with essences was different from gradually increasing it through training with Arpina's 4-star magic; it would require a tremendous amount of time to gain the necessary insight.

There was also the issue of the core.

Why do people avoid consuming high-grade essences at lower ranks?

It’s because their cores can't withstand it.

Expecting to fully absorb high-grade essences at any rank was overly ambitious.

"Am I being too greedy?"

Even for Leon, who had an All-Attribute Constitution, he couldn’t be sure there wouldn’t be side effects.

"I’m not sure... but somehow I feel like I can do it."

Resolving himself, Leon quickly swallowed all 20 E-grade and 5 D-grade essences.

His entire body began to heat up rapidly.

The heat built up, more and more, until it felt as if it were molten lava.

As the core in his body blazed hotter than expected, Leon struggled to control it.

His core thumped and pounded inside him as if trying to break free, causing Leon intense pain.

The scorching heat and pain hammered at Leon repeatedly.

He had no idea how much time had passed.

The stone platform was stained with sweat that had dried and been re-soaked.

Usually, it would take about 10 hours of training to fully absorb one elixir, but Leon had consumed 25 at once and was trying to force them all to be absorbed.

Focusing all his efforts on stabilizing his core, Leon struggled until he suddenly realized that he had advanced to the later stages of the 4th rank.

"Haa..."

A clear and refreshing feeling, a sensation that only came after fully absorbing an elixir, washed over Leon’s body.

The heat was completely gone.

"Judging by how hungry I am... it must have been about three days."

Leon fell asleep right there, unable to even think about satisfying his hunger.

When Leon awoke, he ate some of the fruit and fell into deep thought.

To break through to the next rank, he would need insight.

The remaining orb time was 163 hours.

He had used up one more hour storing the golem remains.

"With this amount of time, it’ll be difficult to gain insight..."

It had taken Leon 640 hours of orb time just to reach the 4th rank.

It was far too little.

After a moment of hesitation, Leon shut his eyes tightly and swallowed three C-grade essences at once.