“Ahhh~!!”

  Fire, fire, fire everywhere.

  It didn’t even take the fire a single second to cover the whole damn dome!

  I couldn’t do anything.

  Unfortunately, the fire didn’t grow stronger over time, and directly started from being strong enough to melt my exoskeleton.

  Deter activated on its own, and saved me from the initial explosion that happened from the sudden change in pressure.

  And its special skill Perfect barrier activated after its presence diminished and Deter broke away.

  {Deter has risen to lv 11}

  Three seconds. There was only three seconds between me being alive and turning into a beginner chef’s first mistake.

  Cereboost worked my brain at the top speed it could get it to work, and gave me an advice or rather a response for my initial distress all.

  I, who had no other choice than to hang on to the last strands of hope quickly acted on my brains advice and activated fast-processing.

  Following it I activated concentration for its special skill data gathering, and to tip the balance of slipping time in my favor, I had to let fury take over my body for a minute and activate haste.

  According to cereboosts conjecture haste had many other hidden effects other than just increasing my speed.

  And, if applied properly and with enough control, it could also help me gain that rush of chemicals that I had experienced at the time of my… team leaders death.

  So the plan was to learn to control [Haste] with the help of concentration, fast processing and data gathering to get that sudden adrenaline rush which would slow down the world or rather make my process of thinking so fast that the world would seem to have stopped.

  But this was not an escape plan. No matter how goods my skills were, there was no way I would have been able to drill, dig or blast through that thick rock wall within the three seconds of immunity that I had.

  So the plan to get more time by slowing down my perspective of time, and then trying to find a solution was made and acted upon.

  The sequence of skill activation did increase my thinking speed, but that feeling of the world coming to a standstill didn’t come.

  So, the first second passed while I was activating the skills.

  I tried a lot of different things in the 2nd second, like using haste on my brain, which had no effect other than to give me a headache. Using it on all the fluids inside my body made steam rise from my body and increased my heart rate. I understood that this was another path that was likely to lead to the next tier of haste, but this was not what I needed.

  Stopping my reckless behavior, the third and final second approached calmly, but brought a hurricane of tumbling emotions with it. I became anxious and started feeling the despair that came with being burned a moment later, but then it happened.

  Something inside me pulsed and the fire raging in front of my eyes stopped completely; just for a very brief moment though.

  If it wasn’t for concentration then I wouldn’t even have noticed it at all, but that was a hint and my brain firmly grasped onto it like a pervert and refused to let go of his newly found hope. It worked at the speed of a comet and gave me another suggestion.

  The little voice inside me spoke and told me to inspect my own body, find out how and what had caused that pulse.

  Time was moving and slipping through the cracks like sand. Although my mind was working at lightning speed to give me enough room to find out a way to save myself, but the time, hadn’t stopped moving.

  I inspected my brain and found nothing. I thought of dissecting my own brain to find the answer, and the third second reached its legs.

  My perfect barrier started shaking and cracks appeared upon it. If my mind was working in normal speed then I would have only felt the barrier getting undone after its time had passed, but I wasn’t feeling or was normal and my current situation perfectly made me fear.

  My body turned cold and my throat became dry. I clenched my jaw and moved past all the distraction, concentrated to the fullest of my ability on inspecting my brain, but the third second passed away too.

  Without giving me any results at that.

  “Nooo!” I screamed as the barrier standing like an unbreakable wall between me and the force of destruction finally crumbled.

  The fire like a curious child hurriedly moved to explore and conquer the void that had been created between it and me.

  A tongue made of fire came and licked my face. My exoskeleton at that point simply melted away like butter, and pain like never before occupied my mind; making a ear churning scream to escape from my throat.

  That single wisp increased my fire resistance from 11 to 13 and I shuddered thinking what kind of resistance I would need to handle such strong fire.

  I despaired and was just about to give up, when a section in my brain I was inspecting lit up.

  It didn’t actually lit up, but it slightly trembled, just as the bout of pain erupted in my body.

  The world once again came to a standstill, ablest only for a second. But it was enough. I knew what I needed to do.

  At first, I had thought that it was the pain which made my brain release compounds to help me think better, but actually it was the despair which resulted in that moment of miracle.

  Though I had finally found the way to walk upon to survive, but the path itself was too out of my reach. Although I had inspected my brain, but to do so I had used a skill that I had already possessed. Unfortunately, I possessed no skill which could have helped me temper and program my own brain. And then come out unscathed.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  But just then I remembered something and cereboost proved the theory to be accurate; Accurate, but not true. But I didn’t have long enough to think whether it was a good idea or not, so I acted.

  I moved the meager amount of mana that I had and then hoped. I got quite a lot of skill up notification while doing so, but I ignored them all. I had no time to indulge in such a thing.

  Mana moved on an unknown path like a snake and rushed toward that place in my brain. It reached, didn’t stop, made me panic and struck at the point it had found with inspection like a hammer.

  My intentions weren’t to harm myself and become a retard; rather I wanted to achieve which my small life experience was yelling to be the only way to save myself.

  And just as my mana struck the point, my whole body went numb.

  Another notification came and I couldn’t swipe it away.

  It didn’t take me long to understand that the situation wasn’t a normal notification at all and to top that up an unwanted guest made his… her appearance.

  ‘Like not doing anything and letting the fire burn me would not kill me.’

  And as if the other side of the link or whatever it was had heard me it answered me in real time.

  I wanted to punch the guy… girl after reading that, but the explanations soon reach the important parts and I understood why the hijacker of my dearest appraisal had said so.

  I felt ashamed. The cereboost which was jumping around ordering me to do this and that became as silent as a stalker. Its presence diminished until it deactivated.

  I wanted to slap myself for forgetting about my resistances and heal, but sighed instead.

  “But that is not possible now.” I asked the voice and it replied in affirmation.

  “So there is no way, huh.” I sighed and was about to turn my life in hands of the fire god to enter nirvana, but the voice screamed inside my head.

  “Huh?” she got my attention with that scream, and seeing that I was interested it came back.

  And our link got cut off.

  I stared at the endless blooming hot red flowers and thought to myself.

  ‘It’s good and all that she helped me out, but… who was she?’

  I didn’t want to waste my time contemplating whether I was still sane or not, so I checked the various notifications I had gained instead of doing that.

  Most of them were just skill up notifications. Fast processing, concentration, and thought influence all three of them had leveled up by 2.

  But there was something, a particular and most recent set of notification which had perfectly gotten all of my attention.

  Although I wanted to cry at loosing precious skill levels, stats and even more precious cereboost, but I let it be, thinking, ‘It couldn’t be helped.’

  After all, although darkness rules the world for 10 whole hours, it still has to run away and hide at the return of light.

  This current state of mine wasn’t a fluke, but the flag that I had planted after hundreds of ye… three seconds of hard work. Though three seconds don’t sound much, but it was the most stressful time of my one week long life. Cereboost had helped me a lot this time, and its death hurt me very deeply, but it wasn’t the time to nitpick.

  I had succeeded in tempering with my brain and had changed my perception of time. In simple words, the world finally came to a standstill.

  I stared at the frozen flames in various dancing positions, but didn’t despair. The first stage had already been cleared.

  And the smooth, clear and refreshing voice inside my head had helped me a lot by telling me what the second stage was.

  Although what she called censoring took away half of the pleasure, but the hints she gave were enough to put my mind into overdrive, and work through this damn dome of whatever.

  All in needed to do was to find out that one skill she talked about and level it up.

  Cereboost helped me see the path, that lady of miracles helped me reached the path, all that was left was to walk upon it, reach the exit, and then go out.

  ‘How difficult can that be?’ I shrugged my inner shoulder and checked my status, but then my smile froze. I tried to bite my lip, failed and sighed.

  I did a small count and frowned. A small headache arrived at my door and gently started knocking without asking me to let it in.

  The reason was simple. I had 174 skills and only one was needed.

  Spoiler: Spoiler