Chapter 823 Four Pillars: Birthing the Azure
Taking in a few deep breaths to compose herself, Sellifer eventually returned her focus to the task at hand.
With a clear vision of what she needed to do, it went without saying that she had spent almost all of her waking hours on achieving her goals.
With both Shadow Energy and mana now at 2nd Cleansing, Sellifer spent quite a lot of time bringing the quality of both energies to the stage of 3rd Cleansing.
To be more exact, she had spent around two years of constant effort on her end to push her mana to that stage.
On the other hand, it took her to bring up her Shadow Energy to the same level of quality in a third of time, reminding her of how potential and talent in a certain aspect influenced how much progress she'd make.
Then again, with how she'd spent over 150 of her waking years in the military at this point…
A couple years was already more than trivial to her.
After reaching 3rd Cleansing on both her mana and Shadow Energy, Sellifer stopped for a bit as the apparition mentioned in the past that it would provide her with more information if she brought her mana to that level of quality.
Surprisingly, the apparition then explained to her the difference between the various stages of quality for mana, talking about how the stages of 1st to 3rd Cleansing were just considered preparatory stages for what was to come.
Asking it for more information, Sellifer soon found out from the apparition that achieving 1st Metamorphosis was considered the first stage to truly elevate the quality of mana to another tier.
With that, it went over the multiple steps needed to achieve the stage of 1st Metamorphosis, prompting Valyr to commit all of the information he was obtaining to memory.
Even though his Shadow Energy was still on the stage of 1st Cleansing, while his mana had yet to be undergo purification, the young man still felt like it was better to keep the information in case he ever got to that point.
Plus, it's not like he could always pester Noel for instructions on how he would proceed in purifying Shadow Energy.
'Speaking of which…' As the thought came to mind, Valyr looked at the woman beside him for a bit.
With the gears turning in his mind, he eventually decided to ask Sellifer the question that he came up with, talking about how he had gotten his hands on Shadow Energy.
Of course, he also talked about his subclass as a Shadow Serpentine Manalancer to her, mentioning how his current path in terms of combat was similar to hers in that regard.
Then, he ended it off by mentioning Noel, as well as the fact that he had learned to purify his Shadow Energy from him.
"With all of that said… who taught him how to purify Shadow Energy?" asked Valyr, looking at Sellifer as if she could answer all of the questions plaguing his mind.
"Noel…" Sellifer rubbed her chin for a bit, feeling a hint of familiarity from the name.
Fortunately, after a bit more ponderation, a thought popped up in her mind. "Wait a minute… are you talking about that guy that has control over Abyssal Energy?"
In response, Valyr nodded, inwardly surprised as he had not mentioned anything to Sellifer about the man's class.
"The one that prompted more people from Veldanyr to recognize Shadow Energy? The same one who brought more people into the Shadow Plane because of it?"
Recalling that Noel had transformed quite a number of people into his disciples in the world of Shadow Energy before him, Valyr nodded once more.
"That guy…" With the young man beside her more or less confirming her suspicions, Sellifer soon wryly smiled as she shook her head. "He actually begged me to give him the purification methods after finding out who I was."
At the moment those words came out of her mouth, Valyr went slack-jawed, his mouth wide open as he could not believe what he was wearing.
'He actually did something like that in the past?'
As this thought lingered in his mind, Sellifer then explained how she decided to visit the Shadow Plane a few decades ago in order to take a vacation.
While in the Shadow Plane, she came across the young Noel, who had just comprehended the concept of a far more destructive version of Shadow Energy at the time.
Taking interest in the young man, she then proceeded to do a few spars with the man, which eventually led to the young Noel begging her for instructions on how to purify his energy.
"Well, I'm glad to hear that my actions in the past have in someway caused you to meet up with me," said Sellifer with a slight chuckle at the end. "Who knew fate would work in such mysterious ways?"
After that, the two of them returned their attention to the sight before them, witnessing the Sellifer below undergo her attempts at achieving 1st Metamorphosis through her mana.
However, even after spending a couple of years on the endeavor, it seemed as if the last step was still out of her grasp.
With that, she shifted her focus towards pushing her Shadow Energy to 1st Metamorphosis, wondering if her greater talent in the area would allow her to succeed.
Yet, even with all of the odds in her favor, a year of continuous attempts still did not allow her to succeed.
Recalling the steps that the apparition had given to her to achieve 1st Metamorphosis, Sellifer decided to shift her focus towards the other goals for a while.
Of course, between the requirement of having to create skills that worked with both energies and having a Force that focused on the concept of mana, it went without saying that Sellifer chose to focus on the latter for the meantime.
Though, with how both her Shadow Energy and mana had reached the peak of the Cleansing stages, it did not take long for her to start forming skills that incorporated both energies at once.
At first, she modified the skills she had where it would incorporate both energies.
Having a hunch that her current knowhow was still far away from letting her achieve true fusion of both energies, she decided to have the energies intertwine into a braid of sorts for the skills.
Surprisingly, the braiding of energies was more than enough to cause a substantial change to the skills she modified, causing them to become more powerful in various aspects.
With that, she began to experiment more and more with her skills, changing the ratios of how much Shadow Energy and mana she infused in each skill every once in a while to see its effects.
By the time a year or so had passed, almost all of the skills under Sellifer's arsenal could work with a braiding of both mana and Shadow Energy.
In fact, she had even begun to gain a faint understanding on how she would be able to fuse the two energies as one thanks to the experiments, getting an idea on what approach she should take to achieve it.
"To me, this period of experimentation I did had removed a large obstacle that stopped me from fully realizing the path of the Azure Serpent," said Sellifer as the two of them arrived at this point.
Wondering what she meant by her words, rather than obtain the answer outright, Valyr instead watched as Sellifer merely smiled at him before saying, "Watch and you'll see."
So, he did what he was told.
Continuing to watch the Sellifer below tinker around with her skills, Valyr noticed that her skills continued to grow in power, with him beginning to vaguely sense something profound lurking beneath each activation.
Eventually, all of that culminated into one fateful day, where Sellifer began her day once more by experimenting with her skills.
Thinking about the information she had obtained from all of the experimentation she had done so far, the woman adjusted the ratio of Shadow Energy to mana for a bit before infusing it into her skill, expecting that it would only obtain a marginal improvement at that.
However, what instead happened was that for a brief moment, a flash of azure light accompanied the skill, only to then burst with far greater power than before.
Boom!
Having used the combination of energies in a skill that conjured fireballs, Sellifer watched as the azure light amplified not only the power behind the fireball, but also the speed and size of the fireball itself.
Still in disbelief, she went over the azure light in her mind over and over again, imprinting its sensation into memory.
"The destruction inherent in Shadow Energy, the vitality inherent in mana, and the power that ultimately slumbers within both…" muttering these words to herself, she felt as if she had delved into the nomological truths of the vast universe once more.
Within minutes, a myriad number of information on both Shadow Energy and mana became clear in her mind, bringing her understanding of both energies to a higher peak that she had yet to imagine.
Without surprise, a series of notification sounds began to resound in her mind, confirming that her thoughts and understandings were more than true.
Yet, she ignored all of that, instead focusing her attention on her extended palm.
Taking in a deep breath, she began to summon the slumbering mana and Shadow Energy within her body, bringing them towards her hand.
Then, imposing her will into it, she began to mix the two energies into a certain ratio, causing the strands of black and blue she had released to start mingling with one another.
At first, only a few of the strands had taken on the same color as the azure light.
Though, as more and more time passed, the azure became more pronounced, filling up Sellifer's vision as she watched her palm release a continuous stream of azure light.
Sensing the boundless potential and power hidden beneath the energy she had just unleashed, a wide grin soon adorned her face.
"I guess it's time to finish what I've started."
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦