Understanding that his agitation and lack of focus were probably causing the string to keep breaking apart, Felix took deep breaths, calming himself down.

After regaining his composure, he narrowed his eyes at the red mist and tried to manipulate it into converging together and actually stay affixed this time.

However, just like before, his orders were ignored. Nevertheless, Felix didn't lose focus but continued to look at his palm.

After a couple of seconds, he couldn't help but grin widely at the sight of the red mist heeding his orders and merge to shape up into one long red string that kept hovering on top of his palm!

The string was tiny and couldn't be noticed even from five meters away. Yet, in the eyes of Felix, this string appeared as humongous as the world.

He knew that he had just created an achievement that would last and be told for eons to come.

He would be written in the books as the first human to harness and manipulate the elements by his own will!

A giant step for the human race had been taken in this small dirty room, unbeknownst to anyone.

RUMBLE!

An abrupt clap of thunder resounded above the clear sky of the residence, scaring the shit out of everyone.

The soldiers on top of the towers lifted their heads and noticed that there wasn't a single cloud in sight, so how the hell did it happen? 

Hearing the random thunderclap as well, Felix looked at the window and smiled faintly, "It seems like the historians didn't lie. The universe did clap for Sir. Bardot, the creator of the Origin Realm."

He looked at the string one last time before tightening his hand into a fist breaking the string into red particles.

"Don't clap too soon." Felix smirked confidently while gazing at the infinite cosmos, "This is just the beginning."

Alas, his moment didn't last for even a second before getting ruined by two voices in his mind.

"Imagine feeling cocky after creating a single string of poison." Asna mocked.

"To actually take 10 hours to enter the first stage of manipulation." The Jörmungandr disappointed sigh was heard in Felix's mind, "I started to doubt my decision of handing you my poison manipulation."

Felix's confident smirk abruptly stiffened at the voice of the Jörmungandr. He believed that figuring out by himself how to manipulate the poison in less than half a day was already a praiseworthy achievement.

But, it seemed like the standards to impress the Jörmungandr were quite too steep.

He coughed to hide his embarrassment and changed the subject by asking, "Elder, what do you mean by the first stage? Are there more advanced stages?"

"There is no harm in telling you about it, I guess."

The Jörmungandr paused for a second before starting to inform Felix that concurrently there were three stages for the elemental manipulation.

The first stage was called The Inner Manipulation; As the name suggests, the poison energy manipulated was the one inside the body!

This was supposed to be the easiest stage of the three as Felix could already sense the energy inside his body, which facilitate getting control of it.

Hearing so, Felix guessed that the second stage had something to do with controlling energy that wasn't absorbed by him.

As he expected, the Jörmungandr proceeded by explaining that the 2nd stage was coined as External Manipulation.

And to reach it, Felix was needed to learn how to manipulate the poisonous energy and poison itself that were outside of his reach.

Such as manipulating the energy inside the poison stones without absorbing it or even touching it.

Currently, Felix had absolutely no clue how to do so, and he wasn't planning on thinking about it now.

Since his inner manipulation, which was supposed to be the easiest, was still beyond garbage.

The fact that the poison energy needed a couple of seconds to respond to his orders was enough of proof.

"You should focus only on those two stages and forget about the 3rd stage." The Jörmungandr said, "When I see that you are fit to move up, I will inform you about it then."

Felix would be lying if he said that he wasn't interested and curious in knowing about it.

However, he knew that it was simply going to mess up with his pace, as he would always be thinking about rushing to reach the 3rd stage instead of focusing on what's available.

"Who created this system elder?" Felix asked, "And is it applicable to only the primogenitors or all races with elemental manipulation?"

"Indeed it was created by us and was used for billions of years by our descendants and newly born races. However, they could only climb up to the 2nd stage." Jörmungandr smiled, "Only the primogenitors possess the requirement to reach the 3rd stage."

It seemed like this was the general system that was being operated in the past by the races, who uses the elements, like the Space Worm race.

As for now? Felix didn't know if it had evolved into something else for each race, or it was still the same.

Yet, what confused him the most was the fact that the 3rd stage was only reachable by the primogenitors.

What kind of requirement do they have while the rest don't?

As he was thinking about it, his eyes landed on the purplish inscriptions, which were covering his entire body.

He suddenly realized that the answer was in front of him the whole time!

But he had to ask in order to check if he was right in his assumption, "Elder, does the 3rd stage have anything to do with those inscriptions?"

Alas, the Jörmungandr didn't bother to answer him as he changed the subject, "I see that you are struggling to remove them."

Seeing that he had no plans to answer, Felix swiftly dropped the matter as well and requested with a hopeful tone, "Elder, please teach me how to hide them. I can't be walking in public like this."

"Try to order them again just like you did with the poison energy." The Jörmungandr replied.

"That's it?" 

Although he was a bit skeptical, as he already attempted that method but ended up unsuccessfully, Felix still did as he was told.

He closed his eyes and tried to feel the inscriptions just like he did with the energy. Unexpectedly, He actually succeeded!

"The hell? Why can I feel them now but not before?" He wondered in shock and confusion.

Without waiting for the Jörmungandr to tell him to figure it by himself, Felix worked the issue on his brain for a couple of seconds before realizing that there was only one answer!

Him stepping successfully into the Inner Manipulation Stage!

Before, he might have received the poison manipulation from the Jörmungandr, but nothing really changed besides having those inscriptions get engraved on his body.

But after ten hours of grilling practice, he finally managed to create a string of poison on his own, making him truly use poison manipulation!

He didn't know if the inscriptions approved of him or something like that after reaching the inner manipulation, but Felix was grateful that he actually could feel them now.

He hastily ordered them to withdraw back inside his body, and sure enough, the inscriptions began to slither on his skin, heading in one direction.

Felix went to the mirror and noticed that the inscriptions were entering the single letter that was on his forehead, which appeared as 'ⵒ'.

A few moments later, not a single inscription could be seen on Felix's skin, except for the one on his forehead.

Felix didn't want it to stay as it appeared like a tattoo on his forehead. He wasn't into that lifestyle in the slightest.

Too bad, he kept ordering it over and over to fade away but nothing much changed.

"Don't bother to remove it as it is impossible." The Jörmungandr chuckled at seeing Felix's face turn unsightly instantly.

"But you can reduce its size until it is barely noticeable." He mentioned.

Without a single second delayed, Felix ordered for it to happen.

Seeing that it was truly getting smaller and smaller until it appeared like a tiny dot on his forehead, Felix exhaled in relief.

He truly didn't desire to have his face tattooed.

"Elder, may I know what are th..."

"No."

"Cough, Fair enough." Undisturbed at having his attempt to ask about the inscriptions getting shut down like that, Felix let out a forced laugh while walking towards his closet.

He took out a towel and rolled it around his nude body.

He was naked the entire time as the clothes he had on before were burnt to a crisp by the transfer ritual, and he didn't want to wear new ones when he was literally smelling like shit.

Honestly, Felix wasn't even bothered when Asna was looking at his naked body. Don't even mention the Jörmungandr, who had no interest in such things.

Cluck!

Just as Felix opened the door, planning to head for a quick shower, he remembered that there was a curfew past midnight.

But then...He also remembered that he was Felix, the captain of the national team.

...

30 minutes later...

Felix was back in his room, feeling more refreshed than ever.

As he assumed, the two soldiers, who were standing at the end of the hallway next to the shower, didn't let a single peep after seeing him.

They were probably given orders from the director to let Felix do as he pleased. If it wasn't for so, Felix knew that he would have needed to convince them 'gently'.

After wearing his pajamas he went straight to bed, planning to sleep early.

If tomorrow they weren't going to leave the camp at first light, he would have spent another hour or two on his poison manipulation.

Alas, all of the countries' teams were expected to be in Berlin tomorrow as the competition was set to start in four days.

They were told by George that there would be ceremonies, parties, and parades. all of the nuisance that Felix abhor being in.

"Good night guys." Felix wished softly while closing his eyes shut.

"Nighty!"

"Good night, child."

Hearing the Jörmungandr's deep voice, Felix smiled in contentment at the notion of having him staying in his consciousness for an entire year.

However, he was still hoping for the Jörmungandr to remain a few more years or even change his stubborn decision on seeking death.

Felix had enough time now to brew many plans for it to happen.