A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 254 Gray

Quinn stared at the roaring fire in the furnace.

The cheese on the pizza dough is releasing a wonderful aroma as it's being grilled.

His hands were also roasted by the fire.

Quinn stood there, motionless, with his hand in the blazing fire, as if in a daze.

To achieve the temperatures required for certain potions or rituals, this fireplace in Grindelwald's dormitory can ignite a flame of 2,500 degrees Celsius, almost comparable to liquid fuel in Earth's tech tree.

Baking a pizza doesn't require such a high temperature. The oven fire is controlled at the level of wood burning—800 to 900 degrees Celsius. It only takes one minute to bake a perfect pizza that is crispy but not burnt.

But that doesn't mean that people can put their hands inside.

Even the bodies of superhumans are no match—at least a Sequence 7 Assassin can't withstand that kind of burning.

Quinn used a spatula to pull out the baked pizza. The room the academy had prepared for wizards was decorated by him like a fast food restaurant kitchen, complete with everything from baking trays to fryers. The crucible was filled with ghee, and the astrolabe was flipped over to serve as a cutting board. All that was missing was replacing the Grindelwald school badge hanging at the door with a New Oriental one.

Lynn isn't in such a rush to eat pizza anymore. After a long period of fast food, she's developed a rather leisurely sense of ritual. She first uses her arcane magic to carefully cut the pizza into six perfect slices, then eats five slices herself and gives one to Quinn.

"Pizza, eat." Lin nibbled on the still-steaming pizza, her little mouth as tough as iron against the heat.

"immediately."

Quinn was even more heat-resistant; his hand remained in the fireplace, lying across the center of the flames.

After taking the pizza, he even slowly turned the dial on the fireplace, an arcane device for controlling the flames.

The fire grew stronger and stronger.

He only pulled his hand out when the gauge was almost turned to its limit and the temperature reached a terrifying 2,500 degrees Celsius, just like when a helicopter exploded.

It hurts a little, but not much.

Quinn looked at the skin on his arm, lost in thought.

There were no signs of burns on the skin, and not even much of the hair on the arms was burned off.

In the laws of the extraordinary, sequence names often correspond to the abilities they possess.

And when you mention "ashes", you naturally think of fire.

Quinn did not acquire any extraordinary knowledge related to fire; he simply felt a sense of closeness when he witnessed the rising flames while lighting the fire to bake pizza.

He tried it out—he could still feel the high temperature even when enveloped in flames, but the flames didn't cause him pain. Instead, they gave him a warm feeling of rest.

Even the annoyance caused by the inexplicable promotion ceremony after waking up was greatly relieved.

His current state is very strange.

Since becoming a superhuman, Quinn has been able to sense the outline of his "inner" self.

Any spiritual entity within the body that is invisible and intangible to the naked eye is part of the "self," a concept that becomes exceptionally clear after becoming a Sequence 7 Assassin. The spiritual body is above, humanity resides in the heart, a small amount of mana is stored in the right-hand circuit, and what envelops everything is the soul.

Extraordinary characteristics exist within the body like foreign objects, much like gallstones or cancer cells. These extraordinary characteristics cause the soul to mutate and are gradually assimilated over time. The final form is a bizarre soul body that is completely combined with the other two. With the help of potions and rituals, new and more mysterious characteristics can be born.

The advancement of extraordinary individuals can also be seen as a series of soul surgeries. The physical changes are merely the surface, while the loss of control is the soul's rejection reaction. If one cannot withstand it, the soul will become completely chaotic, which is no different from death.

After ascending to the Ashes, Quinn discovered that one of his extraordinary properties had disappeared.

The "Hero" trait has disappeared.

The Hero trait doesn't require fusion. Quinn wasn't sure if it was due to the system or if it was the case for everyone, but after becoming the [Useless Man] and [Sekiro], his soul was directly fused. This helped him resolve the [Thief] trait's influence on his mind, since his soul had already reached a mysterious standard capable of accommodating traits of the same sequence, making it less likely to lose control.

Even after being promoted to [Assassin], and with the Thief's Fate being a level above the Hero's Fate, Sekiro's traits still suppressed the Assassin's traits. At least Quinn has not yet realized that his mind has been affected by the Assassin.

But at this moment.

He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, silently chanting "I'll test you" to enter a meditative state and activate his spiritual vision.

Quinn only saw the sinister, twisted characteristics of an assassin.

After killing the fetus in 'Mi Yutong's' womb during the promotion ceremony, the degree of fusion of the assassin traits increased dramatically, making him look increasingly evil, like a hideous centipede-shaped scar coiled in his soul.

The soul should be transparent, obscure and blurry like mist. Only the spiritual body above the head, the Demon King's Eye, and the magic circuits in the arms emit their own light. But after ascending to 'Ash', his soul turned gray.

It was a thick yet thin gray, reminiscent of a sky shrouded in smog, exuding a lifeless stillness and emptiness, like the color of the earth after a world has come to an end.

Quinn could not sense any extraordinary power from it; there was nothing there, just the ash left after the flames had burned out.

He had seen this gray color before, both in the Demon King's Castle and in the Abyss; it was the color of gray mist.

Just like with the useless man and Sekiro, the system also provides a description of "ashes"—

The great tree gradually burned out, and darkness fell. It was ashes, devoid of embers, scattered by the wind, no longer able to bring any light. Do you so thirst for a soul?

Your soul can be repaired with soul fragments. The stronger your soul, the more soul fragments are needed to repair it.

[You can ignite your soul with the Primal Flame and enter the state of 'The One Who Embraces Fire'. Please note that once a soul is ignited, it cannot be extinguished.]

[Upon igniting your soul, you will directly advance to Hero's Path Sequence Six. Please note again that once a soul is ignited, it cannot be extinguished. If no soul fragments are available to repair the soul, death will result from the soul burning out.]

Quinn read the line about the system repeatedly, becoming more and more puzzled.

This Warrior's Fate Sequence 7 has no function other than being a little more heat-resistant.

His various attributes remained almost unchanged from those of Sequence 8.

The only entry with an extra three lines of dense text was 'faith'.

[Faith: You possess a somewhat devout faith in the Demon race, the Sun, the White Religion, and Lust. You can learn and use low-level Demon, Sun, White Religion, and Lust divine arts.]

Quinn was shocked.

Are I aware that I hold these four beliefs?
Where the hell did all these come from? Is there something wrong with the system?
Almost simultaneously, as soon as the thought of 'system malfunction' crossed my mind, a new system pop-up appeared—

[After retesting, your faith distribution is accurate. If you set your faith in your ancestral temple as the base number '1', then your faith in the Demon race is '3', the White Religion is '1', lust is '2', and the Sun is '10'.]

Quinn was astonished, wondering how this could have been determined.

Can faith be quantified?
Why do I have such a high level of faith in the creator god of Taymouran?

The system did not provide an answer.

Could it be because I memorized the Gospel of Genesis and various books on Vatican superstition in order to pretend to be a believer in the Vatican?
What benefits does the "Fire Recipient" state bring me after igniting my soul?

The system still did not provide an answer.

Quinn silently opened his eyes.

Quinn snapped out of his reverie and decided to go to the library to look up information later, since the system was purely riddle-solving.

He noticed that after Lin finished one slice of pizza, she stopped eating and sat there quietly, waiting for him to tell her a story.

So Quinn sat down next to her, picked up a slice of pizza, and started eating as he spoke: "I fell into the abyss with Cavendish, well, I should say the abyss layer. I opened my eyes and found myself in a hotel. Do you know what a hotel is?"

"A place for human reproduction and business." Lin possesses a wealth of knowledge.

Quinn didn't go into too much detail about what happened.

Instead, it focuses on the local customs and culture of the city, such as what the market next to the hotel sells, how to make snail rice noodle soup, and the sight of the sun rising from the horizon.
The little girl didn't say a word from beginning to end, nor did she give any emotional feedback; she seemed to be in a daze.

But judging from the fact that she only gets a new slice of pizza every now and then, and that she didn't complain even when Quinn ate an extra slice, she probably actually enjoys it.

Just as the story was about to end, there was a knock at the door.

Quinn wondered who might be coming.

Amamiya Nene has taken leave, Aqua is on a business trip to the Eastern Kingdom, and Kagome will use the stove to send messages instead of knocking.
"Hold on."

The door opened.

Quinn saw Celia standing prettily in the doorway, her hands behind her back, greeting him energetically:
"Good morning! Mr. Quinn, I've come to visit you. Wow, what's that smell? It smells so good!"

(End of this chapter)