RMGCFW — Chapter 118 - Retrospect (Chroma)

At night, beside the small wooden cabin where Frieren slept, a modest tent was slowly being pitched.

A large cut of meat roasted over the campfire, fat dripping onto the charcoal with a steady sizzle and filling the air with a rich, savory smell.

Beside it sat a table and chairs, and on the table, a cup of fizzy soda.

The whole setup looked nothing like an adventurer camping in the wild. It looked like some oblivious noble on a picnic, without a care in the world about monster ambushes in the dark.

Once the tent was up, Banxia brushed the dust from his hands and gave his campsite a satisfied once-over.

A breeze swept through the woods, carrying the smell of leaves and woodsmoke.

He picked up the soda and tilted his head back for a long pull. Moonlight rested quietly on his face.

Inside the cabin, Frieren shifted, seemingly catching the aroma of roasting meat, but she didn't get up. She mumbled something incoherent, pulled the blanket over her head, and went still again.

"Still a while before it's done. Might as well get some training in."

Settled into his lounger, Banxia glanced at the sizzling chunk of meat. The smell hit him straight in the nose.

Magic could turn raw meat into a perfectly roasted cut in an instant. But sometimes, waiting was the finest seasoning there was.

And besides, knowing he'd cooked this himself, managing the heat by hand from start to finish, would make it taste that much better.

[Heaven Rewards Diligence, every effort reaches its conclusion.]

[Current Skills: Hundred-Forged Body (Chroma) lv.3, Return to Fundamentals (Chroma) lv.2, Blade Body (Chroma) lv.3, Realm of Clarity (Chroma) lv.3, Spatial Secret Art (Chroma) lv.1, Sacred Spirit Affinity (Chroma) lv.1, Rejuvenation (Chroma) lv.1, Wrath of Finality lv.3, Mana Concealment lv.3, Magic to Show Fond Memories lv.3...]

[Current Remaining Time: Five hundred and twenty-six years.]

[Held Monster Time: Ten thousand six hundred years (Fusion Available) (Enhancement Available)]

"Ten thousand years left..."

Banxia hesitated.

Ten thousand years would probably be enough to push Return to Fundamentals to lv.3, which would be another solid bump to his combat power.

But direct confrontation wasn't the only thing on his mind anymore.

If an opponent existed that he genuinely couldn't handle head-on even now, a small boost like that wouldn't change much. The real question was, did anything like that even exist in this world?

"Better to enhance a skill."

Since Rejuvenation appeared, Banxia had come to understand just how shallow his thinking used to be.

The system's enhancement wasn't a simple upgrade. It was conceptual.

Fusion merged the strengths of two skills to amplify their combined power. Enhancement pushed a single skill's might and utility straight to the absolute limit. And if it still couldn't reach the evaluated Chroma tier, the system would simply brute-force it there, cramming it bodily into the Chroma slot.

Take the "Magic to Make the Body Younger." Originally, it only patched minor internal damage, restoring someone to a healthy state in one go. It extended effective lifespan in a roundabout way, but total lifespan didn't change.

Enhanced along that ordinary trajectory, it would at best make the body healthier. Nowhere near Chroma-tier intensity.

So the system had simply brute-forced it into ultimate sublimation.

In terms of what it actually did, no ordinary fused Chroma skill could compare.

Like Spatial Secret Art, it possessed a unique nature, the kind that fusion almost never produced.

In theory, all Chroma skills occupied the same tier. Equal standing across the board.

But some skills were just more "Chroma" than others. That was simply how it was.

"System — show me where your limit is."

Under Banxia's expectant gaze, the magic he had learned from Frieren just that afternoon began its ultimate sublimation.

[Ding-dong — Expending ten thousand years in exchange for one enhancement.]

[Magic to Restore Physical Health (Uninitiated), enhancing—]

[Year One: You suddenly develop an unprecedented fascination with "Magic to Restore Physical Health" and receive a divine revelation. This seemingly ordinary folk magic, if successfully mastered and taken further, may become something beyond imagination.]

[Year Ten Thousand: After tireless research and countless flashes of inspiration scattered across long years, you have finally sublimated this magic to a height that even you cannot quite believe.]

[Enhancement complete.]

[Retrospect (Chroma) lv.1: Regardless of the circumstances, using this restores the body to its peak condition.]

"..."

At first glance, the description seemed plain.

Banxia almost felt like he'd wasted ten thousand years.

But after studying it carefully, he reached a conclusion: the most important part of this skill was "regardless of the circumstances."

And Chroma skill descriptions weren't like ordinary ones. You had to read every word. A single word's difference could mean effects worlds apart.

The specifics would require testing.

He thought about what nearby could count as a "body." There was the elf's body in the cabin beside him. There was his own body. And then there was...

The chunk of meat on the grill, part of a creature's body.

He'd bought it in the Commercial Metropolis.

Supposedly it came from a beast called the "Shadow Fowl."

Technically just a beast, yet more formidable than most monsters. Its soul carried a unique trait that let it sense traps and magical threats in advance and avoid them entirely.

That ability made it uncatchable for ordinary adventurers, which drove the price sky-high. The meat was said to be extraordinarily rich and tender.

That had been a major reason Banxia bought it when he did.

"...You'll do." He was a little reluctant about it. But he'd made up his mind.

"Retrospect."

The moment he held the chunk of meat in his hand and cast the spell, the mana inside him began draining at a staggering rate.

It dropped so fast that even Banxia, with a pool of over two thousand years' worth of mana, felt it starting to get away from him.

Fortunately, after consuming around a thousand years of mana, the black-hole-like pull finally faded.

The whole process took about ten minutes.

"System... I didn't think you could actually go this far."

The cost was absurdly steep. But the result standing before him still left Banxia briefly at a loss for words.

"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!"

The tree-sized beast stared around in bewilderment, with no idea what had just happened.

But the aura radiating off the man in front of it triggered something primal. It wanted to run.

"Slash."

The giant black fowl turned into a pile of meat in an instant.

"If it can do something like that, then what about this..." An outrageous idea surfaced in Banxia's mind.

"Retrospect."

He cast the Chroma skill on himself. Back to peak condition.

He wanted to see exactly what that meant.

The mana drain hit hard, and even Banxia felt a creeping unease.

But it was just as he'd expected: the spell required around a thousand years of mana to activate.

He had over two thousand years' worth. Barely enough.

Ten minutes later, Banxia stood rosy-cheeked and clear-eyed, quietly taking stock of the changes inside his body.

His physical form was already indestructible, perpetually at its peak, no real change there.

But the shift in his mana was the most dramatic of all. The magical spring that had nearly run dry after two casts was now completely full again.

Retrospect. Retrospect.

The description had said it clearly: restore the body to peak condition.

When mana wasn't at its maximum, how could that possibly be called peak?

Casting this spell devoured a tremendous amount of mana. It could hollow a person out.

But once it had restored him to his peak, how could the mana pool remain anything less than full?

Right.

Banxia finally understood the true nature of this absurdly broken skill.

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