Theron could hardly complete the thought when he felt his Core compress… again.
His lip twitched. There was no way that this was happening.
He had only just finally gotten to a place where he might be able to see a breakthrough into Silver Mancy on the horizon. It couldn’t be that he had just been pulled back so far again, right?
In truth, Theron wasn’t so focused on cultivation. What he needed the most was power. If he could kill his enemy with the cultivation of the First Bronze Resonance, he would take it. Why would he need more?
But the problem was that that wasn’t realistic. And, after fighting so many Silver Mancers, he realized that it wasn’t just a matter of raw power.
After his Core upgrades, Theron had found that his Mana was even more pure than most Silver Mancers he came across, and though his raw power was lacking, that was only because he was a Water Mancer and not a Flux Mancer.
When he had time, and could concentrate his strength, his lethality could rise to the point of matching high-tier Silver Mancers.
However, without Third Eye and the qualitative changes to the abilities that Silver Mancers underwent, he was still at too much of a disadvantage.
Even the techniques that Silver Mancers could cast were simply on another level. [Touch of Mirage] was useless against Third Eye, but there were illusion techniques that Silver Water Mancers could cast that could pull the wool over the eyes of other Silver Mancers with Third Eye. Stay updated with freewebnovel
All of these things were cut off from Theron unless he could take that step. Raw power simply wasn’t enough; he needed other methods.
Now, his Core kept regressing again and again.
While it was good that it was growing so powerful, he didn’t have the luxury of sitting back and forging some perfect foundation. He was caught in the middle of four warring factions, and his life was hanging by a thread already.
He relied on his talent and potential alone to keep them happy. The moment he showed any slippage or weakness in this aspect, they would be happy to punt him off a cliff to his death.
Before he returned to the Sect, he had already felt a slight shift in the old man’s demeanor, and now this.
There were only two paths ahead if this continued to happen. Either he would have to just wait for his death, or he would have to reveal his secrets.
But how could he accept either?
Being a genius was fine. Being a monster would lead him right back to the first result.
Theron took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
’There’s only one way to see what sort of damage we’re dealing with here…’
Entering a focused state, Theron slowly performed the first form of the dance. With the rain pelting down from above, the accumulating of Water Mana came fast and easy. From just the first alone, Theron felt his Core return to its previous size after only about 5% of it was through, the rest of it pooling together to forge his cultivation ahead.
Theron would have sighed out a breath of relief in any other situation, but he just couldn’t settle his heart down. Not when there was this looming cloud over his head.
The only solution to this seemed to be the necklace around his neck, and yet it was precisely because of all those questions that he kept slipping further and further away from being able to use it to answer those very same questions.
Was he just supposed to avoid the Black Limbo Tortoise shell now? Forget about all the effort he had put into learning about it?
What Theron didn’t know was that what had just happened to him was more than just a small deal. Runes being etched onto the Core… such a thing could happen only when you had bonded with a Runebound Echo.
Yet, Theron hadn’t bonded with any such Echo, but suddenly gained a small piece of their abilities.
Theron pushed and pulled on his own thoughts, weighing his options until he realized something that should have been obvious.
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’Wait… wasn’t this the reason why I tested this to begin with? The bottleneck and the suppression of my Core seem to be two different things. If anything, my bottleneck actually seems… a bit looser now than it was before?’
By his calculations, he should have only reached this level after going through all nine poses. But somehow, he had gotten through it after only a single time.
Theron stood in silence for a long while before he made a decision.
On the back of the Black Limbo Tortoise, there were a total of 1108 runes exactly. The first 999 were foundational, just as simple as the one that Theron had just drawn. The next 99 were more complex, and Theron was still having a hard time deciphering them. The following nine might as well have been a blur, while the final one… well, Theron could only speculate that it was there with no real assurance.
’Let’s take a gamble, then… the first 999.’
Theron was confident after the first success that he could replicate it. Focusing, he began to draw one rune after another with his soul. Rather than slowing, he only increased the pace.
After practicing [Soul Escape] for so long, his ability to sense, pull on, and direct the matters of his soul was on another level. This had had a substantial effect on his Mana control as well, though it hadn’t manifested quite so clearly just yet…
Until now.
Rather than fatiguing like he should have, Theron only sped up. In not even 30 minutes, he had finished, and just as expected, every single one of the runes had taken form on his Core, shrinking it to the point it wasn’t even a quarter the size of a fingernail.
’Once more.’
Theron’s eyes flashed, and he moved into the second pose.
Water Mana thrummed, and rain pelted down even harder.