"Alright, alright. What's the rush?"
Vincent grumbled, then entered the Nation of Disorder and stood before the ancient Scale.
Looking at the crystal on the left pan — shimmering with thirty-three layers of azure light — he took a deep breath and reached out, channelling his spirituality.
As before, the crystal shattered into two streams of light. One struck him square in the forehead; the other shot into his chest, sinking into his heart.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
In an instant, Vincent felt his eardrums thrumming. The sound seemed to carry a rhythm — each beat louder, each beat more powerful, each beat sending his blood running hotter.
No — that wasn't his eardrums.
It was his heartbeat.
As the body's pump, the heart drives blood through the entire circulatory system with every contraction and expansion, delivering blood and oxygen to every organ.
When the heartbeat intensifies, the blood flows faster.
And right now, Vincent's heartbeat had gone far beyond "intense." It felt as though a water pump, an engine, had been installed in his chest — his heart pounding faster and faster, each beat booming like a war drum inside his ribcage.
Blood boiled and surged to his brain, filling Vincent with a sense of reckless abandon — a delusion that he controlled everything.
Angels, gods, the apocalypse — none of it mattered. As a transmigrator spanning two worlds, it would only be a matter of time before he trampled it all underfoot.
This was the confidence his transmigrator identity gave him.
Riding that towering confidence, Vincent opened his eyes in the real world. Unlike his previous advancements, this time he felt no physical pain, no mental fatigue.
Every cell in his body was screaming with exhilaration, brimming with inexhaustible strength and energy. His mind was electrified, his heart restless — he wanted to march straight to the Churches of the Seven Gods, point at the holy radiance, and shout: "Get down here, the lot of you — let me have a turn on the throne!"
"Vincent. Something's wrong with you."
Vincent grinned wide. "No! I've never felt this good in my life!"
Bernadette's voice cut through: "Your spirituality, stamina, mental energy, even your life force — they're all burning away at an alarming rate!" Thankfully it was her demigod body, with its relatively deep reserves of vitality. An ordinary person would never have survived this.
"But I really do feel… incredible! Just incredible."
"Vincent!"
"Shut up!"
"???"
Has he lost his damn mind?!
Bernadette gave a cold snort. She immediately strained to mobilise the sliver of spirituality she could still control, forged it into a sharp, piercing spike, and drove it straight into Vincent's consciousness.
"Agh!"
Vincent felt as though someone had pried his skull open. Searing pain crashed over him like a bucket of ice water, then cascaded outward through his body before converging on his heart. In an instant, that blazing organ cooled under the shock, its hammering gradually slowing.
Only then did Vincent fully emerge from the inexplicable euphoria.
The next second, physical pain, mental exhaustion, and spirituality depletion crashed over him all at once — nearly knocking him unconscious where he sat. He curled up on the sofa, teeth bared, whimpering.
"Heh heh."
Bernadette's well-timed sneer. "Weren't you quite the big man a moment ago? Go on then."
"That was just… a side effect of the advancement."
He managed the words with effort before being plunged into a fresh round of misery.
Minutes later, Vincent was drenched head to toe in sweat, clothes plastered to skin, inadvertently revealing every curve of Bernadette's figure.
"Haah."
He sighed wearily. "Did your advancements hit you like this too?"
"No."
Bernadette said coolly: "Though when I advanced to Sequence 3 Clairvoyant, I saw some things I shouldn't have and nearly lost control. By rights, if your advancement reactions are this severe every time, there's only one explanation."
"What?"
"This pathway doesn't actually suit you."
Vincent thought about it and nodded. "You might be right. I think I'd be a better fit for the Marauder Pathway."
Given how much I love exploiting loopholes.
Bernadette offered no comment. "Tell me about Sequence 6."
"Right."
Vincent closed his eyes, organising the information that had flooded in during the advancement. "Sequence 6 of the Broker Pathway is called 'Ambitioner.'"
"Ambitioner? From your performance just now, 'delusional megalomaniac' seems more accurate."
"Mm, maybe you need to become insanely arrogant before you can develop superhuman ambition."
Vincent continued: "The Ambitioner is driven by an inexhaustible ambition that grants a powerful physique, heightened perception, and exceptional spirituality — constantly pushing the Ambitioner to pursue greater combat capability."
"At the same time, that blazing ambition means the Ambitioner never wants to stop. Unless they choose to sleep of their own accord, no one can force them into slumber or unconsciousness — effectively countering forced dreaming, induced comas, and similar abilities."
Bernadette remarked with surprise: "So the 'Ambitioner' combines the Sleepless Pathway's insomnia trait and resistance to their dream-invasion abilities."
"Exactly."
"What else?"
"The Ambitioner grants a special ability: entering an 'Ambition' state. By burning spirituality, stamina, mental energy, and even life force, one can achieve a short-term explosion of immense power." He paused. "Roughly equivalent to the state I was in just now."
Bernadette raised a concern: "The 'Ambition' state induces the near-total loss of reason you just displayed?"
"Not that extreme. It makes you more aggressive and reckless, but not mindless — otherwise it'd be a pure downgrade. What happened just now was the advancement side effect compounding it."
"How long does it last?"
"Depends on yourself. The harder you push, the greater the burst of power, but the shorter the duration."
"Being able to control the degree freely — that's not bad."
"Beyond that, previous abilities have been enhanced. The 'Shadow' ability is no longer limited to merging with shadows, lurking in them, and Shadow Jumping. I can now manipulate other people's shadows and attack through them."
"The Prosecutor's changes are more modest — just a straightforward increase in the power of its judgments."
Vincent let out a long breath. "That's the full picture for the Ambitioner. It feels like a transitional Sequence — no real qualitative leap the way Prosecutor was."
"But the good news is…"
Vincent smiled. "You can feel it too, right?"
"Mm."
The Ambitioner potion had been fully digested practically the instant the advancement completed. Both Vincent and Bernadette possessed fierce, enormous ambition — and had been actively pursuing it all along.
In other words, they'd been performing the "Ambitioner" role in advance, long before the advancement itself.
"So — once we bring the Scale back into balance, we can advance straight to Sequence 5!"
"Hold on."
Something occurred to Bernadette. "Normally, Sequence 5 advancements require a supplementary ritual. What ritual do we need?"
To be continued…
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