Chapter 307

If Marshall had his way, he would naturally raise every one of his skills to LV5.

Unfortunately, that was an ambition far easier to imagine than to accomplish.

In all the time he’d spent in this world, Marshall had encountered very few people who possessed abilities at that level.

Apart from the exceptionally gifted Juvia and Fairy Tail’s resident old monster, Gildarts, the only other example he could think of was Acnologia.

The Black Dragon almost certainly possessed LV5 Dragon Power.

As for the Black Mage Zeref, Marshall suspected he had reached LV5 in Life Magic, although he hadn’t personally examined the man to confirm it.

Even Hades, the strongest enemy Marshall had fought so far, didn’t appear to possess any spells that had genuinely reached LV5.

That said a great deal about how difficult such an achievement was.

For an ordinary Mage, developing an ability powerful enough to interfere with the fundamental rules of the world required extraordinary talent.

Even someone who devoted their entire life to studying and practicing Magic might never cross that threshold.

Marshall was confident that he could accomplish it within another decade or so, but that confidence came largely from the enormous advantages provided by his system.

Without that assistance, he wouldn’t have dared make such a prediction.

Even with the system, however, Marshall had no intention of relying entirely on Inspiration Points to force his skills to higher levels.

His experience with the Curse of Ankhseram had taught him an unpleasant lesson.

Possessing an LV5 ability and actually understanding how to control it were two very different things.

If he continued taking shortcuts without developing a proper foundation, he might eventually acquire another ability that was just as difficult to control.

Marshall had no desire to repeat that particular disaster.

Besides, practicing a skill accumulated experience naturally.

If he continued training while saving his Inspiration Points, he could combine the two sources of progress and reach the next level much sooner.

That was why he intended to concentrate most of his available time on mastering one specific ability.

With enough focused practice, he might even manage to develop another LV5 skill in less than ten years.

After considering the possibilities carefully, Marshall ultimately chose Spatial Magic as his primary focus, with LV3 Time Magic as a secondary specialization.

The decision was fairly straightforward.

His greatest natural talent had always been in Spatial Magic, and it was already one of his most advanced abilities.

More importantly, he still wanted to uncover the secrets of the Heart of Time.

Space and time were closely related, so improvements in one field might help him develop a deeper understanding of the other.

If Marshall could eventually achieve a sufficiently advanced mastery of both, perhaps he’d be able to reproduce the Heart of Time’s functions through his own Magic.

He might even be able to manufacture another Heart of Time himself.

And if he could accomplish that…

‘Wouldn’t I have practically unlimited time to work with?’

The thought alone was enough to make him excited.

As long as he could repeatedly extend the time available to him, even the most intimidating magical objectives would become considerably more manageable.

From that perspective, prioritizing Spatial Magic was clearly his best option.

As for why he hadn’t chosen Meditation or Physical-Conditioning Magic, the explanation was simple: neither skill improved indefinitely just because he spent more hours practicing it.

Meditation had an optimal daily duration, beyond which the benefits decreased significantly.

His physical-conditioning routine had already reached a plateau, and excessive training was becoming increasingly inefficient.

Marshall still devoted several hours every day to those two abilities, but he’d concluded that spending additional time on them offered poor returns.

Spatial Magic, on the other hand, provided plenty of opportunities for continuous practice.

There were also several techniques he wanted to develop or improve.

His personal domain, Myriad Phenomena in an Instant, still had considerable room for refinement.

He also intended to develop more powerful and convenient applications of Spatial Slash and Spatial Crush, along with other techniques capable of manipulating space directly.

Those projects would give him practical ways to accumulate skill experience while simultaneously expanding his combat abilities.

With his priorities finally settled, Marshall began working.

More than a year passed almost without his noticing.

On this particular day, Marshall was following his usual routine, sitting quietly in meditation beside the sea.

His life on Tenrou Island had become remarkably peaceful.

The Curse of Ankhseram was erupting less and less frequently.

Sometimes ten days would pass without an incident, and on other occasions he could go nearly two weeks without experiencing an outbreak.

At this point, the curse barely interfered with his daily activities.

Anyone unfamiliar with his condition might even have assumed that he’d already learned how to control it.

Marshall knew better.

He hadn’t gained any real authority over the curse’s activation mechanism.

The reason it remained dormant so often was much less encouraging.

He was gradually becoming indifferent to the world around him.

This historical era felt increasingly disconnected from the life he truly cared about.

He knew that the events unfolding here belonged to a past he wasn’t supposed to alter, so he deliberately avoided becoming too emotionally invested in them.

And as he’d discovered through his earlier research, the curse generally remained quiet when he maintained that detached state of mind, provided it wasn’t running low on stored vitality.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t much of a victory.

“Too slow! This is way too slow!”

Marshall suddenly opened his eyes, his brows drawing together in frustration.

He rose from the ground and began pacing along the shore, unable to contain his irritation.

His mood was terrible, and the reason was painfully simple.

He wasn’t satisfied with his progress.

Marshall had always possessed a rather unusual advantage when it came to improving himself: being happy literally helped him become stronger.

The more enjoyable and rewarding his experiences were, the more Inspiration Points he accumulated.

Those points allowed him to improve his abilities, and becoming stronger naturally made him even happier.

For years, he’d benefited from that wonderfully convenient cycle.

Progress made him happy, and happiness helped him progress.

Unfortunately, his circumstances had changed.

Over the past year, Marshall had accumulated fewer than 300,000 Inspiration Points.

His usual annual income had been around 600,000.

In other words, it had been cut almost in half.

The primary reason was obvious.

He no longer had the company of the adult women he’d grown so accustomed to spending time with.

Although Mavis and Zera occasionally brightened his days, the enjoyment he gained from their visits couldn’t come close to replacing the enormous variety of experiences and interactions he’d enjoyed in his original era.

His Inspiration Point income had plummeted.

His physical development had reached a plateau.

His experiments weren’t producing any major breakthroughs.

With several frustrations accumulating simultaneously, Marshall’s mood had naturally deteriorated.

And the worse he felt, the fewer Inspiration Points he earned.

That, in turn, made his progress even slower, leaving him increasingly frustrated.

He had fallen into a thoroughly unpleasant cycle where dissatisfaction was actively undermining his ability to improve.

Originally, Marshall had expected fourteen years of uninterrupted training to produce results comparable to twenty years of ordinary development.

Now, however, he was beginning to suspect that he’d be lucky to achieve the equivalent of ten productive years.

How was he supposed to be satisfied with that?

Unfortunately, worrying about the problem only made it worse.

The more anxious Marshall became about his dwindling Inspiration Points, the harder it was for him to accumulate any.

If things continued like this, his supposedly invaluable fourteen years of additional training might end up producing far less progress than he’d anticipated.

Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration.

It wasn’t as though his efforts had been completely wasted.

Unlike Inspiration Points, the skill experience he gained through repeated practice was tangible progress that couldn’t simply disappear because he was in a bad mood.

Over the past year, his Spatial Magic had advanced from LV4: 15.4% to LV4: 23.4%.

That represented an increase of eight percentage points, equivalent to approximately 800,000 Inspiration Points.

Marshall had earned every bit of that progress through dedicated training.

Apparently, hard work was still the one thing he could count on.

Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough to make him happy.

‘It’s still too slow.’

At his current rate of improvement, he might struggle to raise Spatial Magic to LV5 even with the remaining twelve-plus years available to him.

He couldn’t help feeling that he was wasting the extraordinary opportunity the Heart of Time had given him.

‘There has to be some way to increase my Inspiration Point income.’

Marshall sighed and stared out across the ocean.

‘But what?’

He couldn’t simply summon his friends from the future, and he had no intention of traveling around this historical era looking for entertainment.

Interfering with the past remained too dangerous, particularly when he still didn’t fully understand the consequences of changing established events.

But if he stayed on Tenrou Island and continued living like this, his progress would remain painfully slow.

He was still struggling with the problem when a familiar voice suddenly came from behind him.

“Marshaaaall! We’re here to see you!”

Marshall’s eyes immediately brightened.

A smile spread across his face almost before he realized it.

‘My little Inspiration Point suppliers are finally here!’

After spending so much time working alone, he’d become genuinely fond of the cheerful visits from Mavis and Zera.

Their presence brought some much-needed variety into his life, and Marshall was always pleased when they showed up.

Unfortunately, that sudden rush of affection was accompanied by something far less welcome.

His expression changed.

‘Oh, damn it!’

Marshall vanished from the shoreline.

An instant later, he reappeared deep beneath the ocean.

The Curse of Ankhseram erupted almost immediately, releasing a wave of death that swept through the surrounding water and drained the vitality from a vast number of marine creatures.

Marshall waited for the outbreak to subside before teleporting back to the exact location he’d just left.

And that was the real reason his curse continued activating every ten days or two weeks despite his efforts to remain emotionally detached from this era.

He was still human, after all.

More importantly, Marshall had always been someone who formed strong attachments to the people he cared about.

After nearly two years of knowing Mavis and Zera, the two girls had inevitably become important to him.

It wasn’t romantic affection. He simply enjoyed their company and had grown genuinely fond of them.

They were among the few people in this era capable of making him happy, and the Inspiration Points generated by their visits had become a valuable part of his daily routine.

Naturally, he wanted to keep those pleasant moments in his life.

And that desire was enough to stir the curse.

“Marshall?”

Mavis watched him reappear, and her cheerful expression immediately became concerned.

“Did… did your curse activate again?”

She’d seen him abruptly teleport away and return enough times to recognize what had happened.

“Hasn’t it been happening more frequently lately? Are you really going to be all right?”

“Don’t worry. I can handle it now.”

Marshall smiled reassuringly.

“I won’t let it hurt either of you.”

That much, at least, wasn’t an empty promise.

His Spatial Magic hadn’t been improving for nothing.

After more than a year of focused practice, his teleportation speed had increased considerably.

He could now react to the earliest signs of an approaching outbreak and transport himself deep beneath the ocean almost instantly.

The process had become so familiar that he could perform it without hesitation.

Although he still couldn’t prevent the curse from activating, he’d become remarkably effective at ensuring that nobody nearby was caught in its effects.

As far as protecting innocent bystanders was concerned, his improved teleportation had largely eliminated the immediate danger.

Marshall turned back toward the girls with a much more cheerful expression.

“So, what brings you two here today? If you want to play some games, I’m free whenever you are!”

At this point, he would have been delighted if Mavis and Zera decided to visit him more frequently.

Their companionship was practically his only reliable source of substantial Inspiration Points in this era, and he had no particular intention of turning down an opportunity to enjoy himself.

Mavis, however, shook her head.

“Hehe! We didn’t come to play games today.”

She reached out and took Zera’s hand, gently pulling her forward.

Zera followed, although the smile on her face looked noticeably strained.

Mavis’s eyes, by contrast, were shining with excitement.

“Marshall, we’ve been studying Magic for a long time now, and we’re finally strong enough to look after ourselves!”

She leaned forward eagerly.

“So… could you take us away from Tenrou Island?”

Her excitement was almost impossible to contain.

“We want to go out and see the rest of the world!”