He didn’t fly back. Instead, he decided to take his time and enjoy the walk. Drasil and Seraphyne were both sitting on his shoulders. Ever since they’d been separated due to the little incident, they had been a lot more clingy than usual. Seraphyne in particular.
Originally, she was only supposed to come along with him as a way to get out of that rift. But she hadn’t voiced any concerns or desire to leave him. She didn’t always say it, but she was enjoying her time in his soul. It also helped that she had a fellow spirit in Drasil to keep her company.
He’d taken a slight detour from the paved path and ventured into the woods. After being stuck inside a smelly shack for god knows how long, he wanted some fresh air and to see some trees. The underbrush was a little thick, but he navigated through it with a smile.
After around an hour of wandering, he came across a really beautiful creek running straight through the woods. It was set up right against a small rocky ridge, and he could see water pouring down the stones into the creek below.
He didn’t sense anyone nearby, and it seemed to be around midday, so he thought it was the perfect place to relax and have a nice lunch. Unsurprisingly, neither Drasil nor Seraphyne offered a dissenting opinion.
He got everything out. He even removed his portable kitchen and set it up right next to the creek. After about ten minutes, he had a full-blown camp set up. He nodded, satisfied with how it came out. He’d been stuck inside the vault for at least months; there was no harm in taking an extra day or two.
He heated up the stove and oven. This was the first time he’d gotten to use it, and it was much nicer than the one he had before. It was entirely fueled by mana and could also be powered by a single core. He placed one of his spare Tier 5 cores inside, since he had a number of them sitting in his dimensional space.
Then, while Drasil and Seraphyne splashed around in the creek, he went further upstream and pulled on his mana. He hadn’t really gotten time to experiment with his mana control now that he’d undergone his third soul evolution, but the effects were vast.
His mana had never felt more responsive. It wasn’t even a matter of being responsive, either. There was a physical tangibility and connection to the mana that hadn’t been there previously. Even to his senses, the mana felt more real, and each movement he made with it elicited a flash of light.
It wasn’t just his mana that acted like this. All of the mana around him felt similar. It gave the world an otherworldly feel, making it even more beautiful than ever. He hadn’t known that Tier 5s saw the world like this. It was no wonder Tier 5s had better control over this mana than others. It was also no wonder you needed to reach Tier 5 to get an actual domain.
Now that he felt this connection to the mana, he doubted anyone would be able to create a domain with it.
He paused and looked at the mana flowing over his palm with an interested grin. Did this mean he could create a domain of his own now? Or did he still need to cultivate his Seed of Authority more to do that?
He shrugged; that was for future Julius to worry about. For now, he needed to get some fish for lunch.
He focused back onto his task and folded the mana lying on his palm into a long but thin spear. The blue motes of mana glistened with each shift, and he chuckled out loud when he realized several issues he’d never noticed before.
There were minuscule mistakes within the mana construct. He wouldn't have noticed it before, but with his newly improved senses, he was able to tell that when he folded and wove his mana, he hadn’t properly aligned it. This meant that the more he folded and wove it together, the more mistakes would be present in the final product.
It was like laminating dough for croissants. Each fold exponentially increased whatever mistake was in the previous layers.
They were minor imperfections and ones that probably didn’t have too much of an impact on the construct, but now that he noticed them, he couldn’t stand it and immediately decided to fix them. He let the construct fall apart and gathered the mana again. This time, he really concentrated on these slight imperfections.
His [Calm Before Ruin] skill helped him place his full focus on this process. Everything except him and the glowing blue mana faded into the distant background. He created the first layer of mana, carefully inspecting the layer for a mistake.
He saw several of them and carefully plucked any stray pieces of mana that weren’t necessary. He also fixed several areas where the mana didn’t quite connect correctly. It was a painstaking process, one that only a crazy person with OCD and too much time on their hands would do.
But after almost a full minute, he finally got what he wanted and began to fold the mana over itself, fortifying its structure. He carefully added his aura to the construct.
With his new soul, his aura was much stronger than before, and he cursed when he saw some of the aura eating away at his mana. He sighed and let the construct fall away again, beginning the process all over again.
However, this time the first step took a little less time, and when it came to adding his mana, he used [Spirit Fortification] to help the mana withstand the aura a little better. He also created dedicated pockets where the aura could be placed without too much disruption to the overall construct.
This didn’t work perfectly, but it was much better than before, and when he felt like everything was in place, he started to weave in some additional mana as well as his Authority. This process actually helped the aura cling to the mana without causing any damage to the structure.
He didn’t blink for the next several minutes while he continued to work on this construct. Drasil and Seraphyne must have noticed the massive flood of mana from him and came over to examine his project. Drasil was sitting on Seraphyne’s shell like it was a raft, and the two of them floated quietly as he finished up the final touches.
When he was done, he lifted up the spear of mana. It was made up almost entirely of fire mana, but he had added some life mana infused with his Balance Concept as well. The added balance was needed, considering how much mana he ended up using in the spear. There was so much mana that his senses were slightly blinded whenever he looked directly at the construct.
But man, was it pretty. It was a shimmering blue sapphire, sparkling like a beautiful gem with each movement. The center had a thin core of white flame and emanated such a fierce sense of danger that he was nervous just to hold it.
He heard some clapping and saw that Drasil was standing on Seraphyne’s shell, smacking his hands in appreciation at Julius’s new construct.
He gave a polite bow to his adorable audience, and while doing so, he accidentally dipped the butt of the spear into the water.
He hadn’t realized it, but the spear must have been extraordinarily hot because the second it touched the water, a loud steam explosion blasted outward.
Drasil let out a panicked whistle when he was hit by a wave of water and almost dislodged from his ship. He managed to create several tendrils of life mana and grabbed the undershell of Seraphyne, holding on to dear life.
Seraphyne seemed to find this hilarious and was smirking lightly. Julius knew she could have stopped the water from ever hitting her, given that she was a water/life spirit and all. But perhaps she let it happen and let herself get pulled downstream a little bit.
When Drasil got back to his feet, he lifted his fist and whistled angrily at Julius. He was blaming him for being careless, and only after he got his few cents in, he patted Seraphyne. She seemed to understand what he was asking for, and before Julius had the chance to apologize, she drifted away, heading back to the original area they were playing in.
He snorted with laughter and inspected the notification he received.
[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 29 -> lvl 30]
[Armaments of the Arcane] has reached the threshold. Would you like to evolve the skill?
Surprisingly, it wasn’t his body-enhancement skill that he got this from. Rather, it was for his construct skill. He wasn’t about to complain, though, and read the notifications flooding in.
Appraising requirements…
Relevant skill level... satisfied.
Comprehension of skill… satisfied
Related Concept… satisfied.
Relevant Seed of Authority… satisfied.
Latent potential of Seed of Authority… satisfied.
Congratulations. Requirements for skill evolution have been met.
Skill evolution test generating…
Skill Evolution Test…
Requirements:
Maintain a construct continuously for a week.
Successfully imprint a piece of the user’s will onto a construct.
Create 100 different items/weapons within a day. (0/100)
Successfully control 100 constructs at one time.
Notice: A requirement for Skill Evolution has already been satisfied. Skill Evolution Test will be generated to reflect such accomplishments.
Skill Evolution Test…
Requirements:
Maintain a construct continuously for a week.
Create 100 different constructs within a day. (0/100)
Successfully control 100 constructs at one time. (0/100)
He stared at the list of requirements with a complicated expression. He hadn’t exactly evolved too many of his skills to legendary yet, but this one seemed a lot harder than his other ones.
Why couldn’t it be something simple and easy, like losing his head or having half of his body destroyed as the evolution test for his healing skill had been?
Maintaining a construct over a week seemed a bit tedious, but definitely doable. He’d already had some practice with keeping his skills up throughout the night. And if that didn’t work, he could just stay up for the next week.
The other two were a lot more challenging. A hundred different constructs weren’t going to be too hard in terms of mana, but he was more concerned about whether or not he could think of a hundred different kinds of constructs. There was no doubt they had been somewhat different. He couldn’t imagine the test would consider a sword of various sizes to be acceptable.
Nor did he imagine that he could create a hundred very small orbs, let them follow him around, and that it would satisfy the requirements as well. He’d created dozens of constructs at the same time before, but never at that scale. He just hoped that it wasn’t about to force him to create a hundred versions of the spear he was currently holding in his hand. Speaking of which, the heat from the spear was boiling the water beneath his feet.
His hands were fine, but he still made some adjustments. He created a second layer around the spear that would not only siphon the heat from its surface but also recirculate it through the spear itself. He held it up to the light.
It was really one of his finest creations yet. It was no wonder he got a notification and a subsequent evolution test for it.
He clearly had some work to do. That being said, he had a more pressing mission. He glared at the water below his feet and back at the spear.
What was the best way to go about catching fish with this thing?