Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong - Chapter 173

Chapter 173: Flames of Destruction… Part-3.
(Broken Memory 1)

Back on Earth, previous life.

“BAHAHAHA! Yes! To prove your allegiance to the company, you definitely need to complete the candleburn ritual!!”

The candleburn ritual is essentially a torture method that the company disguises as a welcoming ritual for newcomers.

They used literal torture to ensure that the newbie joining their group wasn’t a spy or something.

If the newbie is a spy, he will reveal all, and if not, he will obediently follow the procedure.

It was a crude method, but that’s how Jareth joined that shady company and became an obedient dog of the boss.

He did what he was asked of, and for the sake of impressing the father of the person he loved, Jareth went through great troubles.

Jareth wanted to get the approval of Shiina’s father, and a poor guy like him didn’t have many methods to do so.

He had no talent for business or anything, so there was no way for him to get close to the boss.

He joined the company for the sole reason of impressing the boss.

In the process of impressing others, he unknowingly lost his own humanity.

The previous Jareth still had massive burn marks on his back. They had engraved a huge symbol of the company on his back by directly burning his skin.

It was pure torture, but the original Jareth was a love-struck man; he did everything that he needed to.

That was the first time he came into such long-term contact with ‘fire’.

…

(Broken Memory 2)

Current Life.

The day when all of Jareth’s misfortune started was the day when his mother was assassinated.

The assassins laughed at his mother’s corpse, and the young Jareth cried tears of blood that day.

Those assassins had twisted personalities; they left Jareth alive on purpose so that they could toy with him for a longer time.

But the young Jareth was smart.

He set his own house on fire, destroying all evidence of his escape; he immediately jumped into the nearby sewers and fled, unconcerned that his entire body now bore horrific burn marks.

Living like a sewer rat, hiding his neck from the world for the fear of being killed, Jareth used dry wood to light fire and repel the darkness in the underground sewer tunnels.

At that time, for the first time, Jareth thought.

‘Fire is such a soothing element… So warm and pure… it brings comfort and protection…’

That small burning wooden stick that he created haphazardly brought him protection from sewer rats and various other small animals like stray dogs and food-stealing crows.

Perhaps by that time the assassins had already been bored by the young rat rolling in mud, so they left for other missions after it was declared that the boy would be adopted by a vassal family.

Their mission was over, and they had played enough.

But by that time, the young Jareth had learned the true value of the pure strands of flame, which had the power to preserve his life.

Perhaps his affection for that flame was the reason why he even got fire affinity in the first place.

…

(Broken Memory 3)

When Jareth got the news that the Vassal family that raised him was destroyed, he returned home to visit once.

All he saw was a burnt ruin and nothing else.

He was too late and too weak.

He cried at how pathetic and weak he was; even with all the efforts and all the intelligence, he couldn’t reach his goals.

He couldn’t take revenge and couldn’t even do justice for those who raised him.

Let alone the mother who gave him birth; the one who raised him was also burned to death, and only her ashes were left for him to collect.

Those broken and burned ruins taught Jareth that fire can protect and it can also destroy things.

The same fire can be gentle and fierce in the hands of different people.

Jareth used the fire to protect himself, and the assassin group used it to murder and destroy the evidence.

These were two completely opposite matters, yet they seemed to have taught Jareth a lot of things.

Walking a difficult path, Jareth lived a hard life.

The constant pressure and fear solidified his mentality, causing him to mature quickly; his talent in theories flourished, and he fortunately graduated without any issues.

By that point, Jareth had already become extremely familiar with the flame of protection and destruction.

…

Back to current time.

While suffering the immense pain of being burned alive, Jareth’s mind wandered off to random moments of his life and made him remember past memories that he had suppressed before.

For fear and for regret.

He wanted to hide and forget about these things, but the burning fire made him remember those times when he had faced the real, true nature of fire.

‘Ah, how could I forget… It was with me all along…’

From previous life to now, Jareth has witnessed the ‘True Nature’ of fire many times.

He’s been in it’s close proximity many times.

And every time he was in contact with the ‘True Fire’ he was going through an unforgettable memory and had intense emotions in his heart.

When tortured by the company in previous life, he had infinite love to support him through it; when running through the sewers and hiding, he had immense hatred in his heart.

And when visiting his burned home, he had guilt and regret in his heart to the extreme.

All three times, when he was in contact with the true flame, he had the power of extreme emotions.

‘I had already grasped the nature of the flame long ago… I just never acknowledged it…’

Jareth had already realized the true ‘essence’ of flames long ago, and he had already seen through the ‘Law’ of ‘Fires’, but he just refused to remember those past memories.

The burning fire made him remember everything.

‘I had been rejecting this warm, protective, and destructive fire… I need to accept it, as it is my true nature afterall…’

Jareth’s nature is the same as the nature of a fire—warm, protective, and yet destructive at the same time—or perhaps he picked up this nature from the fire that fascinated him so much.

‘Sigh… I admit it then; I acknowledge you… my eternal burning flame of destruction…’

[Ding! Congratulations! You have achieved a feat that no one ever has!]

[Ding! Congratulations! You have been acknowledged by the ‘Law’ of ‘Flames’!]

[Ding! Your fire affinity has been increased to the extreme!]

[Ding! You have become immune to Fire Damage of any type and form!]

[Ding! You have received a new title ‘Master of the True Flame’! All fire type attacks will be enhanced by 99%!]

[Ding! Your Flame-type attacks will be blessed by the ‘Law’ of true ‘Flame’ from now on!]

[Fire attacks will ignore 50% of the opponents defenses and resistances!]

Controlling and manipulating the ‘Laws’ of the world is a very difficult matter, and doing so needs immense mental power and magical capabilities.

But if the ‘Law’ itself has acknowledged you, then it is a completely different matter at that point.

Instead of you needing to control the power of that ‘law’ forcefully, the ‘law’ will help you willingly and grant you immense power in moments of need.

Although the presence of the sea of miasma is weakening the effect of all ‘laws’, Jareth can still conjure immense power once he’s blessed by the Law of Flames.

What normal fire mages use is a fire forcefully created from manipulating mana and turning it into fire elementals, but now that Jareth has the ‘Law’ of ‘Fire’ helping him out.

He can directly consume the mana to summon the power of the ‘Law’ of ‘Fire’ itself.

From now on, all his fire magic will be made up of the power of true flames, which means his fire magic has been enhanced to the extreme now.

[Ding! All conditions met…]

[Ding! Congratulations! You have ascended to Grade-2!]

Due to the forceful entry of an immense amount of mana in his body in the form of flame elementals.

Jareth’s maximum mana capacity increased, his originally small mana circuit was forcefully enlarged, and he directly became a peak grade-2 mage on the spot.

This is how terrifying the power of the blessing of a ‘Law’ is. Jareth ascended from the level of an intermediate grade-3 mage to the peak of grade-2 in just a matter of minutes.

The terrifying aura created by the appearance of the true flame in his body caused even the space-time fabric to tremble and warp unstably.

Seeing that his immense aura might really cause some spatial phenomena, Jareth hurriedly suppressed the aura and used mana singularity to hide everything about him again.

Shin and the others who were standing in the distance were simply too stunned to say anything, even after Jareth finished his ascension.

Jareth created shockwaves directly in the space-time fabric and even made the space-time fabric tremble horribly.

Not even Grade 1 mages create such massive scenes when ascending their small realms.

At most, they create small mana whirlpools that cause disturbance in the air and create tornadoes in the worst-case scenario.

But not even they are so destructive that hundreds of meters of area get turned into molten lava and even the space-time fabric becomes unstable.

Jareth has directly changed the landscape of this area now.

People will stand in awe when visiting this place in the future and will think.

‘How is it possible that there is a massive lava lake just one kilometers away from an oasis!?’