He should be significantly stronger than he was in his past life and he is effectively at least 40 years old in terms of experience, in addition to his experience fighting demons on the front lines. Yet, he is far from beating the knight captain and that black mage? It seems quite a bit off. Everything about him is better than it was in his past life. How the white flame method works into this is a bit vague and he was shown to have cores in his past life, which seems like a mistake since it was stated that the cores are specific to lionhearts. You could say that he's weaker because he's training the white flame instead of what he was using before, but in the first place it's superior and he combined it with his own technique. The cores he has now in addition to everything else should mean that he's at least as strong as his past self.
This isn't really a massive deal, but it takes away from the significance of his past life which has been a huge point in the narrative. I just wish there was some vague explanation given, but I don't think there was any.
I‘ve seen many comments trying to assume that Hamel‘s current form is supposed to be far superior from his past life, and claiming that the power scaling is broken in this story.
Cmon guys, It’s mentioned that Hamel in his past life was the closest thing to Vermouth who reached 10 white flame cores, yet he is still at 4 cores currently!!.
Yes he still has his 40 years of experience in combat, which is why he is still proficient in every weapon known to man, and why he seem experienced with every fight situation he finds himself in.
Yes his genes and body potential is far better in his new form, but his current strength and limitations is still lower than his past form, since his past body had more years in training and his new body has still not peaked yet.
Yes he now has the ringed white flame, but he is still far from reaching it’s full potential, even the red tower master mentioned to him that it would become better and better as his internal number of cores increases. Not to mention that he had his own method of mana that he created in his past life.
Don’t forget people that Hamel was a genius in disguise, even though his past methods were crappy, yet he made it work and he had mastered it recklessly to reach as close as to Vermouth level.
I think the author hinted couple of times of the MC’s past skill that would make him compete against Vermouth in his past life, the one called Ignition. Which is as stated from the author would put the MC current body in critical situation, and why he still till now didn’t use it. Confirming to us readers that the MC is yet to reach his body growth level in his past life.
Don’t rush the story people, eventually the MC would surpass himself in the past, both in body (strength & limitations) and mana (capacity & capabilities), as he becomes older and reach higher cores of the white flame method.