The Divine Wolf... or?

With that out of the way, Ark only needed to try out his poison magic, summoning magic, as well as the suppressive effect of his [Chaos Domain] on enemies. Since he was beginning to run low on mana after his experiments with time magic, Ark decided to test them another day.

Although he could still try it out and have mana left afterwards, Ark didn't feel comfortable walking around with his mana pool depleted, no matter how quickly it recovered. He had experienced too much agony because of his insufficient strength. Now that he was finally starting to become truly strong, he wouldn't make such stupid mistakes.

After talking a little with the rest, Ark learned that both Atar and Ephine seemed to want to try out their strength as well. Although he was a little perplexed at first, after hearing Ephine's explanation, he felt like he could understand where they were coming from.

After Ark had undergone a metamorphosis and become a lot stronger, it seemed like they had both received something from the whole ordeal as well.

Although they hadn't gained any of his skills, they had both felt their mana and bodies growing stronger than before, as well as a newfound affinity with the elements. It seemed that they had also benefitted from Ark's absolute elemental affinities.

Ark felt a little ecstatic after hearing this since one of his biggest goals of gaining greater strength had always been to be able to protect Atar and Ephine. If they could get stronger themselves, then it would be easier to protect them, since they would be able to protect themselves to a certain extent as well.

Their tests were a little more straightforward than Arks since they only needed to try out their new strength, but it still took them a while to grow accustomed to it all, especially for Ephine. Atar was a little simpleminded when it came to fighting, as he mainly focused on strengthening his body to the limits with all his mana and fought in close quarters.

Although he basically had elemental affinities to every single element at this point, it didn't matter much to him.

In comparison, Ephine was a lot more excited about the change. She relied a lot on her elemental affinities, so to have them all strengthened, as well as gaining new ones was a huge buff on her strength. There was also a lot to learn about fighting with the elements she was unfamiliar with, it was basically a lot to take in at once.

Ark felt his heart waver at the sight of her cute expression as she tried to figure out how to use her new strength to its fullest capabilities.

After thinking about it for a while, Ark decided that it was probably for the best if they trained for a few weeks before they went back into any dungeons. Although he was eager to grow stronger, and gain more mana, he felt like it was very important to have full control over his own strength before trying to gain more.

If he gained too much strength too fast, he would eventually be unable to control his own strength, which could spell disaster.

Atar and Ephine also needed to grow familiar with their new strength and abilities, so he felt like it was probably for the better. Although he felt a little bad for Thufrat, it wasn't as if Thufrat had no need for training either. If anything, he could train his control over his own bloodline, so that he could use it longer in battle, and suffer less of a blowback after stimulating it too much.

This was something that Thufrat usually did on his own every day, but if he trained it exclusively for a while, Ark felt like he would see some great improvements.

After discussing it with the others, Ephine and Thufrat agreed wholeheartedly. They both felt like they could use some training, and although Thufrat himself didn't need it that urgently, he could tell that Ephine and Ark could really use it, so he agreed in a heartbeat. Atar pouted a little, as he didn't need to train his control at all, it was as perfect as ever.

Seeing the little kid who was obsessed with fighting pout, Ark couldn't help but laugh and ruffle his hair a little.

While they had come to an agreement, they still returned to the city for today. Training was good and all, but if they were going to have a training camp in the woods for a few weeks, then they needed to make some preparations first. Ark had grown to love cooking good food, so to eat anything without the right condiments and spices was not something he wanted to do.

Ephine, Atar and Thufrat had also grown used to Ark's cooking, so if they started to eat food without any spices all of a sudden, they wouldn't have much of an appetite.

Although spices and condiments were rather expensive in this world, and not something that a lot of commoners bought, Ark could afford them. Whether or not it was worth it didn't even cross his mind. Maybe it was because they didn't have many hobbies, but they all didn't mind spending a large portion of their income on housing, food and comfortable clothes.

Ark knew the importance of hobbies in some people's lives, and although he wanted to find some hobbies for himself, Atar and Ephine, he just didn't have the time or leisure to do so.

No matter what, ever since he had seen some visions of the future, he felt immense pressure to keep growing stronger every single day. If the world was embroiled in chaos one day and he wasn't strong enough to protect those he cared about, Ark knew that he wouldn't have the strength to keep living on his own without losing his sanity.

Since the preparation itself basically consisted of stuffing their spatial storage items full of different types of meat, spices, vegetables and condiments, it didn't take too long. They could use the rest of the day to do whatever they wanted. Since they had finally been reunited after so long, they decided to just enjoy the day together, not doing anything special.

Eventually, the sun set and the moon rose, illuminating the night with soft silvery light.

Under this soft moonlight, numerous forces with the intention of destroying each other made their moves on one another, leaving nothing but destruction and blood in their wake. In comparison, Ark, Ephine and Atar were sleeping soundly. Thufrat hadn't gone to sleep yet and was training by himself in his room, but the house was still quiet and peaceful.

In the future, this ordinary night would go down in history as a rather impactful event, but Ark would have no way of knowing that until further down the road. For now, his only priority was to grow stronger and get better control over his own strength. Preferably he would also like to level up his skills a little if he could. But the only way to do so was to use them continuously.

Soon the sun rose, starting not only a new day, but also a new era!