SSS Awakening: I am the First Legendary Mage

He kept the spell active as he rolled onto one knee, ignoring the ringing in his head. Before the monster could recover from the slam, he stepped in and drove a reinforced punch into its neck.

Bones cracked under the impact, and the monster collapsed without another sound.

He immediately jumped back and scanned the area. His eyes swept across the road, the nearby alleys, and the surrounding buildings, making sure there weren’t more monsters waiting to ambush him.

Only after confirming that the street was clear did he cancel his spells.

The pain came all at once.

His right hand throbbed violently. Thankfully, the fingers were not broken, or cracked.

Nearly every muscle in his body ached as well. Although he had successfully lifted the last monster, he had reinforced some of his muscles improperly during the struggle, which wasn’t surprising considering most of his concentration had been focused on maintaining the two Fire Bullets.

Even so, Alex wasn’t disappointed. He was smiling faintly instead, proud of his achievement. Creating two Fire Bullets was already difficult enough. Keeping both of them stable while fighting three monsters with hands, all without letting them explode, was far more impressive than a normal person would expect.

Looking back, he realized he had managed to control every spell almost perfectly throughout the battle. He slipped a bit with the control of Advanced Body Reinforcement, but it was a minor slip, nothing on the level that made his muscles tear to the point that he couldn’t move them. Minor slips like these were expected during training.

’It’s good I didn’t choose Monk Mage Class. Fighting with wand and fists feels really weird,’ he thought.

A moment later, the familiar notifications appeared one after another.

[Level 10 Doom Bull killed.]

[Level 10 Doom Bull killed.]

[Level 10 Doom Bull killed.]

[Fire Bullet Spell has leveled up. Level 5 → Level 7.]

[Advanced Body Reinforcement Spell has leveled up. Level 2 → Level 4.]

[Battle Instinct Spell has leveled up. Level 8 → Level 9.]

A faint smile appeared on Alex’s face as he read through them. Both Fire Bullet and Advanced Body Reinforcement Spell had gained two levels from a single battle, while Battle Instinct Spell had reached Level 9.

It was now only one level away from evolving, and he was excited to see what kind of evolutions the spell would have.

This was exactly the kind of result he wanted.

His life had never truly been threatened during the fight. Instead of relying on a stronger enemy to force him into a desperate breakthrough, he had deliberately created pressure for himself and improved because of it.

Alex preferred growing this way. He didn’t like the method where the monsters were too strong for him to defeat, forcing him to his back foot, making him hope he magically improved at the last second. That was method taken by those who failed to make adequate preparations when they had time.

He wanted to improve early so that he could fight strong monsters on equal footing when he finally met them. He wanted to be prepared for everything that would come at him.

He walked over to the three corpses and picked up the Gene Potentials they dropped. After storing them inside his Inventory, he noticed something new.

Even though the Inventory only had five slots, identical items occupied a single slot regardless of quantity.

That made the Inventory far more useful than it first appeared.

Alex still didn’t know whether there was a limit to how many identical items one slot could hold.

It was possible that each slot had a maximum capacity, or perhaps the only real restriction was how much mental strain he could endure while maintaining the Inventory. That was something he would have to test later.

A soft meow made him lower his head.

Mia sat a short distance away on top of a car, completely unharmed, away from dust and dirt, raising her chin proudly, and looking down at him.

Alex expected the cat to be frightened, but she simply stared back at him with what looked strangely like mild disdain, as if asking how he could get injured fighting such weak monsters.

He would have sworn that her gaze said she could’ve done better than him. He stared at her for another second before shaking his head.

’I’m reading too much into a cat’s expression,’ he thought.

Alex raised his head and looked toward the surrounding buildings. Many people were watching him through cracked windows and half-open curtains, their expressions caught somewhere between fear and awe.

He also heard quiet whispers drifting across the street, with more than one person calling him a superhuman.

That reaction was exactly why he had struck the traffic light before the battle.

The noise hadn’t been meant to attract monsters. It had been meant to attract people. Alex wanted the survivors hiding inside these buildings to witness the fight with their own eyes because recruiting them later would be much easier if they had already seen what he was capable of.

He didn’t think less of them for hiding. Most ordinary people would react the same way after monsters suddenly appeared in their city. If Alex hadn’t been forced to fight from the moment he was summoned, he might have hidden too until he understood the situation.

Fear was a natural response, not a sign of weakness.

Among these frightened survivors, there might be someone with extraordinary talent. Someone like Yulia.

If he found people with enough potential and helped them while they were still weak, they could become valuable members of his future faction and eventually protect his first body whenever he entered the Land of Origin.

That was already part of his plan.

The new Tutorial Quest required him to establish a faction, and he intended to fill it with trustworthy Ascendants.

People whose lives he had saved from the beginning would have far fewer reasons to betray him later. Loyalty built through gratitude wasn’t perfect, but it was still stronger than loyalty bought through force.

There was still one question that lingered in his mind. Could these ordinary humans become Ascendants?

Alex believed the answer was yes. The reason was the wording of the Tutorial Quest itself.

It had instructed him to recruit Ascendants into his faction, yet Emma had told him that everyone summoned by the System was called a Pioneer.

If the System used two different terms, then there had to be a reason for it.

..

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