However, before he set about handling all that, there was something even more important—advancing to the Golden Core realm.
His wizard rank had long since stabilized at Level 2, yet his corresponding cultivation had remained stuck at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm for far too long.
Once, Benjamin had believed that this bottleneck stemmed from the psychological trauma caused by his friends Amy and Victor falling on the Plane Battlefield.
But on closer reflection, his emotions at the time had not been so extreme. His sorrow had not been so agonizing, nor his anger so fervent. There had merely been a layer of fog in his heart, a faint and placid fog.
The fog was not thick, yet it was enough to blot out the sun.
Now, Benjamin understood that this fog had a name: loneliness. As a transmigrator, there had always been a faint yet persistent barrier between the depths of his soul and this world.
Amy and Victor's appearance had been like opening two windows in that barrier, allowing him to glimpse and feel a trace of this world's warmth.
And their sudden departure had slammed those two windows shut, leaving behind only that cold fog called loneliness.
Until... he had faced Jack's jealousy-twisted face. That ugliness, that blazing emotion laid bare—born of his own incompetence and hatred for another's talent—had instead been like a beam of fierce light piercing the fog in Benjamin's heart.
He suddenly realized that, whether rational or irrational, indifferent or otherwise, the wizards of this world—and indeed all living beings—were living, breathing "people" beneath their masks, possessed of the seven emotions and six desires.
They cried, laughed, envied, raged, acted upon desire, and recoiled from fear.
That realization, that powerful brush with the world's "reality," instead allowed his wandering heart, belonging