Chapter 822 Four Pillars: Balance
"The path of the Azure Serpent…" muttered Sellifer to herself as she thought about the things she would have to do to make it a reality.
"That… doesn't sound half bad."
She let out a faint chuckle at the thought, satisfied with the name she had come up with for her own path.
Of course, the same couldn't be said for the one beside Valyr.
"The Gates of Awakening really went that far?" said Sellifer, letting out a groan as she felt embarrassed watching her past self be satisfied with the naming she made.
"This is why I ended up getting all of those weird titles." Sellifer shook her head, eventually noticing that Valyr was looking at her with a hint of curiosity.
Faintly scratching the back of her head as she looked at the young man for a bit, the woman eventually put two and two together in her head as she asked him. "You're wondering where I got the term Azure Serpent from, huh?"
In response, Valyr nodded, asking soon after if it was a rare type of Shadow Serpent living in the Shadow Plane.
At those words, Sellifer faintly shrugged. "I guess you could say it does exist. After all, by how the system identified me at the time, I used to be known as a True Azure Serpent."
Seeing that the young man wanted to hear more information from her, she continued. "However, I suppose you could say that I'm the only Azure Serpent to ever exist, given the weird mutation I've obtained."
"In any case, the name popped up in my head when I thought about the ancestor that my family was connected to in terms of bloodline: the Corrupted Void Serpent."
"Then, thinking about how mana usually took on a blue color, I thought about the path I would need to take, which involved fusing both mana and Shadow Energy into a different form of energy."
"Pretty boring explanation if you'd ask me," said Sellifer at the end of her explanation.
Nevertheless, Valyr felt like he had gained quite a considerable amount of information from her seemingly boring explanation, most of it revolving around the ancestral species Sellifer mentioned.
'Corrupted Void Serpent,' thought Valyr to himself, being reminded of Noel's words back when he talked about the different tiers of the Shadow Serpentine Lancer subclass.
'I guess even if you don't think about it, everything is connected one way or another in the end,' inwardly muttered the young man to himself soon after, finding the whole thing somewhat amusing.
Returning his attention to the sight before them, Valyr watched the Sellifer below plan out the things that she would need to achieve if she wanted to realize the path she had just created to the fullest.
Being reminded that Shadow Energy and mana seemed to act as two sides of the same coin, Sellifer decided that the first step she needed to achieve was to balance the quantity and the quality of both her mana and Shadow Energy.
In terms of quantity, Sellifer felt like her reserves of both energies were somewhat equal.
However, she could not say the same for their qualities.
Watching the Sellifer below talk to the apparition about the thoughts in her mind regarding her path, the woman decided to give Valyr more insight into the matter.
"At the moment the problem of quality came to mind, I thought to myself… would I be able to make use of the purification process I learned to purify my Shadow Energy as well?" "Surprisingly, the apparition responded back that the purification process was actually universal, telling me that it would actually work with whatever kind of energy I threw at it."
"Naturally, I wondered how that was possible," said Sellifer with a faint smile, finding delight in the slight confusion adorning Valyr's face. "In response, the apparition told me that the maker of the inheritance originally found the purification process in an old alchemical book."
"Seeing how effective it was in purifying energies that were meant to be used for alchemical concoctions, the maker of the inheritance eventually thought about trying out the process on his own energy."
"Lo and behold, he found out that it was incredibly effective, expanding upon the original purification process through multiple iterations to where it could be used on any type of energy."
"It also mentioned that the process was only able to become applicable to every type of energy due to how popular the trend of purifying one's own energy was at the time the maker was still alive."
"With many people trying it out, the maker was able to polish and improve the purification process at an accelerated rate, eventually turning into the process that had fallen into my hands."
Saying those words, Sellifer shrugged her shoulders. "Of course, I don't know how true that was. If you were to ask me, I think it only became mildly popular at most since it takes a long time for someone to gain results in that regard."
"But I do have to give credit one way or another. After all, it would take a long time for me to create a purification process for Shadow Energy from scratch."
Feeling like she had talked more than enough about what was going on below, Sellifer returned her attention to the sight in front, prompting Valyr to do the same thing not long after.
With that, he watched the Sellifer below make use of the purification process on her Shadow Energy, easily transforming it into its pure version with the aid of her superb talent.
Then, not even a week later, she had pushed her Shadow Energy to the stage of 1st Cleansing, allowing its quality to be somewhat on par with her mana at that moment.
Though there was still a gap of one stage between the two energies, Sellifer still felt a great sense of balance inside her that she did not really notice before.
For a while, it made her think about the times she had pushed the quality of her mana to greater heights, wondering if that was the reason why she felt that sense of incongruence the first time she appeared in Veldanyr.
In any case, at the very moment she had her Shadow Energy take on a purer form, the faint sense of imbalance she felt deep within decreased by a great margin, becoming less than discernible the moment she pushed it to the stage of 1st Cleansing.
With that in mind, she put in all of her efforts to push her Shadow Energy to the stage of 2nd Cleansing, taking only two months to do so.
In fact, at the moment both energies were at the same stage, she felt all of her discordant thoughts in her mind disappear.
Then, replacing those discordant thoughts were thoughts related to the path she was trying to achieve, forming connections between one another that allowed her to deepen her understanding regarding her path.
Though it was only for a brief moment, Sellifer felt like she had glimpsed into one of the nomological truths of the vast universe.
Because of that, she was able to figure out the other things she needed to complete if she wanted to consolidate her path, as well as finally achieve atavism.
For one, she was correct in balancing the quality of both her Shadow Energy and mana.
However, according to what she had gained from her epiphany, she would have to push both to at least the stage of 1st Metamorphosis if she wanted to achieve her goals.
Aside from that, she would have to create skills that would incorporate both Shadow Energy and mana, allowing the ideology she'd come up with to become a natural extension of herself.
And lastly, she needed to comprehend something in the world of mana the same way she had formed a Force related to the concept of Shadow Energy.
Thinking about all of the things she needed to do in order to what was basically a slightly higher chance at something greater, Sellifer adorned a wry smile on her face for quite some time.
Wondering whether all of the things she had achieved so far would have allowed her to transcend mortality and become a Myth, the woman felt like she had a high chance of being able to do so.
After all, she was currently a Legend, which more or less meant it would not take long for her to take that final step.
Add on the fact that she had spent 150 years in the military world expanding her horizons in every area she could imagine, she felt that she had a great shot in upgrading her current Force into a bona fide Concept.
However, at that moment, she was reminded of the doubt and disapproval her parents had towards her attempting to achieve atavism.
The idea that her parents thought of her being stubborn and hard-headed in attempting to do something that was considered more than impossible.
Though she and her parents had already reconciled over that time, Sellifer still felt like the two wanted her to give up and choose the safer method of utilizing alchemical concoctions to take on a human form.
With her train of thoughts ending up with this conclusion, the woman gritted her teeth as she began to focus her attention on purifying both energies to 1st Metamorphosis.
At that moment, she thought that it was fine for others to doubt her capabilities. After all, it was she who chose to take on this path, not them.
But if there came a moment where she even began to doubt the path she'd taken, then she knew that all of her efforts so far would eventually amount to nothing.
And so, she continued to push forward.
Not for the sake of proving others wrong.
But for the sake of proving to herself that she made the right choice.
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