Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

The Principal had been watching Alex closely for the whole hour he had been doused in those flames, so he noticed a change in Alex immediately.

And what he noticed wasn't good at all.

He magnified his vision by many magnitudes, something any S tier could easily do.

His vision was brought to the cellular level, and he could see each and every one of Alex's cells clearly like he was viewing them through the world's most advanced microscope.

And what he saw left him feeling pity for Alex.

His cells were slowly losing energy, and their regeneration speed was slowing down.

For reference, if it took Alex 1 second to regenerate at the beginning of this whole ordeal, then it now took him 2 seconds.

It didn't seem like much, but it was a big deal.

"What is it, Principal!?"

Mira looked at the Principal with the small amount of hope she had remaining, some light still flickering in her eyes.

But her hope was like a small fire doused with a bucket of water as she saw the pitying look on the Principal's face.

He shook his head at her, and let out a small explanation.

"I'm afraid he won't be able to take much more of this. It has taken a toll on his body and it can't take much strain anymore."

This explanation left Mira heartbroken.

She didn't have any more tears left to cry. She just looked off at Alex with an empty look on her face, like she had lost all hope.

'I should have stepped in earlier… I should have stopped him before all of this could happen… I should….'

She started to blame herself for what was happening to Alex.

She was the one who was supposed to watch over his break through process and step in if something were to go wrong.

And now, because of 'her' incompetence, Alex was going to die…

She couldn't handle the pain and heartbreak.

She had only felt this feeling once before, with Officer Jones's tragic demise at the hands of her father…

'Please, I don't know what I'll do without Alex…'

Mira prayed and prayed, but in the end, no miracle surfaced from her prayers.

After another 10 minutes of watching in silence, the flames finally died down, and disappeared entirely soon after.

The Principal approached the spot where Alex had been standing the entire time, but Alex wasn't there any longer.

All that was left of him was a pile of ash.

'Such a pity, he was one of the most Promising kids I've seen from this generation.'

He took one last look at what had once been Alex, and turned around with a sigh as he turned to leave the now silent dorm.

He felt it best to leave Mira to grieve alone.

To Mira, the silence without Alex was deafening.

'He's gone…'

She was older, and more experienced now. Compared to when she had lost Officer Jones, she felt this loss even heavier.

She closed her eyes, and picked up a pile of Alex's ash.

'This is all that's left of him…'

She gripped it tightly in her hands, holding it close to her chest.

She was about to stand up and take it to a storage container, to keep a part of Alex's remains safe and close.

But when she stood up, she found that the ash had mysteriously disappeared from her hands.

In her depressed state, she couldn't think clearly, and she just thought that she must have dropped it in her clumsiness, which only made her feel guilty.

But as she opened her eyes, she couldn't help but step back in shock.

"What's going on…"

She exclaimed loudly, thinking out loud.

The Principal heard her cries from outside the house, and he immediately appeared right back next to Mira.

There was only one thing that could get Mira to react like that after what had just happened, and it was Alex.

Only something to do with Alex could make Mira react so emotionally while she was in such a grieving state, so he decided to make the decision to return and see what was going on.

And when he arrived, he was just as shocked as Mira.

In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he was this shocked…

It must have been at least 100 or so years, when he witnessed the arrival of the Primordial Expanse and the awakened…

'It can't be… I thought those tales were all but legends…'

As he watched the scene occurring before his very eyes, he could only berate himself for not realising this sooner.

'Heart of the Phoenix… Fire… Ash… It all makes sense now!'

He had pieced together the puzzle surrounding Alex's mysterious phenomenon, but he almost couldn't believe it.

'The legend of the Phoenix… It's true!'

He remembered an old folks tale he had heard during one of his many travels in the Primordial Expanse, back when he was just a lowly D tier awakened like Alex and Mira.

There were only a few publicly known Divine beasts to the natives of the Primordial Expanse.

The Phoenix was one of such beasts.

But the Phoenix was also different from the other publicly known divine beasts.

It was revered almost like a god among some tribes of natives, and its stories were almost like Myth.

There were even rumours among the higher ranked awakened that the Phoenix might hold the clues to a classification above even Divine rank, but those were all baseless, unfounded rumours.

But there were also a few fact checked sources that said the Phoenix was killed during a battle with other Divine beasts tens of thousands of years prior, which clearly went against the theory of it being of a mysterious class above Divine class.

However there was one story he had heard about Phoenixes that had stuck with him all this time.

It said that they were essentially immortal, that they would rise from the ashes to be reborn again.

It could happen mere seconds after their death, or it could happen millions of years later, but they would be reborn.

And right before him, Alex was going through such a process.

The Ash on the floor had started moving on its own, forming a human shaped figure, until only a few moments later, Alex had reappeared in his naked form.