SS Awakening: My Monster Merging System!

At the bottom of the special communicator, there were Mom and Dad.

They had not sent many messages. Almost every few days, they simply asked whether his training was going well, seemingly worried that contacting him too frequently might disturb him.

Zich remained silent for a moment, and with a single thought, he wished to leave the Ascension Mountain.

When he opened his eyes, he was back in the real world.

The moment Lorraine, who was in the kitchen, heard some sounds upstairs, her eyes lit up.

"Zich, is that you?"

"Yes, Mom, I’m back," he replied, slowly descending the stairs.

Even before he could properly step down, he felt a pair of arms wrap around him in a warm embrace.

"I thought it was just supposed to be simple summoning training. Why did you take so long? And you didn’t pick up your communicator. I almost thought it was broken."

"I’m fine, Mom," Zich said as he patted his mother’s head. "My communicator was taken from me, and yes, there was nothing serious, only simple summoning training."

He smiled, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Lorraine looked him up and down and bit her lips.

"You have grown so lean. Are you sure the training was as simple as you claim?"

"Yes, it was," Zich replied more firmly this time.

Some time later, his father arrived as well. After a brief discussion, he told them about the Heaven Reaching Trial Tower.

Leon had clearly heard of the name before, because his expression immediately became somewhat serious.

The Heaven Reaching Trial Tower opened only once every year, and its participants were all young geniuses genuinely cultivated by the major forces of the First Layer. Ordinary people might not know the exact rules within the tower, but they knew that after every trial, some participants would emerge severely injured, while a small number would even suffer such serious mental trauma that they required a long period of recovery.

Zich did not mention the Soul Devourer on the thirtieth floor. Nor did he mention that the Locke family would be sending people inside.

He merely gave them a simple explanation of the rules and promised that if he encountered a danger he could not handle, he would voluntarily withdraw from the trial.

Lorraine remained worried, but in the end, she did not stop him.

From the day Zich completed his profession awakening, she had already understood that her son would eventually walk a path completely different from that of ordinary people.

All she could do was repeatedly remind him to be careful before every departure.

...

Half an hour later, Moon Lake Restaurant.

The moment Zich entered the private room, Mira stood from her seat.

However, after taking only a single glance at Zich, all her attention immediately shifted toward Slimy sitting on his shoulder.

"Slimy!"

Slimy clearly still remembered the person who frequently fed it and immediately jumped from Zich’s shoulder toward her.

Mira skillfully caught it in her arms before picking up a piece of jelly like spirit food she had prepared in advance and holding it in front of Slimy.

Two tiny tendrils quickly extended from Slimy’s body and pulled the spirit food inside.

"It feels like it’s gotten bigger after just one month."

"It just eats too much." Zich sat down at the table.

Jayden looked him up and down several times before finally saying, "Where exactly did you go to train this past month? Why do I feel like even while you’re sitting there, you’re still guarding against someone attacking you from behind?"

Zich’s hand paused slightly as he picked up his utensils. "Is it that obvious?"

"You weren’t like this before."

Helen pushed a bowl of hot soup toward him, her tone calm.

"And since entering the room, you’ve looked at the windows three times, checked the exits twice, and even confirmed whether there was anything underneath the table."

Zich fell silent. During his thirty days in the Winter Realm, he had indeed grown accustomed to constantly evaluating his surroundings. Even though he knew perfectly well that no ice puppet would suddenly appear here, those reactions engraved into his body had not disappeared immediately.

He lifted the bowl and took a sip of hot soup.

Warmth spread through his mouth, and the lingering chill buried deep within his body seemed to ease slightly along with it.

"Just some control training."

"Control training can turn someone into this?"

Jayden clearly did not believe him.

Zich did not explain and instead changed the subject.

"Did you reach Level 20?"

He remembered that during their last gathering, Jayden had mentioned reaching Level 20 within a month.

At the mention of this, a proud smile immediately appeared on Jayden’s face.

"Just yesterday. Although I was two days later than originally planned, at least I still managed it within a month."

To accomplish his goal of reaching Level 20, he had practically completed every Association mission he was capable of accepting, and during the past ten days, he had spent almost all his time in the monster zones outside the city.

Zich nodded. "Not bad."

"Just not bad?" Jayden leaned forward slightly. "I gained that many levels in one month, and that’s all you have to say?"

"What else?"

"You should at least look a little surprised."

"I was already surprised." Seeing Zich’s completely serious expression, Mira finally burst into laughter. Even the corners of Helen’s lips curved slightly upward.

For the rest of the meal, they no longer discussed anything particularly serious.

Mira talked about her experience in the Windrest Realm. Jayden, meanwhile, repeatedly emphasized exactly how many monsters he had killed over the past month.

Most of the time, Zich simply ate in silence, occasionally responding with a few words.

For the first time in a month, he did not need to calculate the direction monsters might appear from, maintain several mental commands simultaneously, or worry about an ice spike suddenly erupting beneath his feet and piercing straight through his body.

The feeling was so unfamiliar that he almost found it difficult to adjust.

’I wonder how they would react if they found out I’m closer to leaving the First Layer,’ Zich thought, looking at them.

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