MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith

'…Finally.'

Feeling like his understanding of Shadow Energy had finally reached a saturation point, Valyr slowly opened his eyes.

Then, with satisfaction written all over his face, he gazed at the large structure before him, sweeping his senses over its smallest segment.

Fwoosh!

As if it had gone through it thousands of times already, the segment immediately responded to his probing, sending out an amount of information that would normally incapacitate anyone that received it.

However, when that same influx of information made contact with the young man, it quickly turned into a docile stream of knowledge, with most of its parts removed for the sake of efficiency.

'Six months…' muttered the young man to himself as he continued to filter out the influx of information. 'It's been six months since I first arrived at this place.'

'And now… I've finally comprehended everything related to Shadow Energy within the first segment.'

Thinking about how he thought he'd get to this point in half the time about five months ago, the young man could not help but think of his past self as a fool for coming to that conclusion.

Yet, at the same time, he could not blame his past self for coming up with the thought.

After all, the parts that he had come across during the first third were mostly superficial in nature.

Though combining them together yielded a complex structure that gave him confidence to wield Shadow Energy to greater heights, it still hadn't reached a level where it would really stump him for too long.

However, that all changed once he proceeded with the second chunk of information contained within the segment.

After coming across the bits of information contained within the second chunk, he began to realize that the first chunk he had comprehended was a test of sorts from the structure to see if he was truly eligible.

Truly eligible to comprehend the entirety of the structure, that is.

Of course, with his monstrously high comprehension rate, he was more than eligible to comprehend the entirety of the structure, spending only two months to complete the second chunk.

Then, once he reached the third and final chunk of the segment, he spent only three months to comprehend the segment's contents about Shadow Energy in its entirety.

'With my current understanding of Shadow Energy, I wouldn't face any problems comprehending the information on Void Energy from the first segment,' thought Valyr to himself.

'Though, at the same time, I could also opt to proceed onto the second segment and deepen my understanding even further.' At these words, the young man stared at the segment below the one at the top.

Compared to the topmost segment, it was at least three times as long, containing a number of steps on its surface that seemed to head off into random directions.

However, even though the young man now understood that his ultimate goal here was to comprehend the structure in its entirety, Valyr instead shifted his attention towards the discovery he had made sometime ago.

'Surely I'd figure out something new this time, right?'

As these words came to mind, the young man slowly closed his eyes as he brought up information on both his understanding of Shadow Energy and the 81 Phases Mana Reformation Scripture in his mind.

Then, just like before, he went through both of them to see if there were any similarities.

'…Huh. There really is more to the two.'

Now that his understanding of Shadow Energy had reached a definite level, Valyr was able to find more similarities between the two compared to his previous attempt.

Yet, even though he had already amassed so much knowledge on Shadow Energy thus far, he still hadn't found what he felt like was the part that connected the two together.

'What am I missing?' he asked himself, continuing to comb through his knowledge on Shadow Energy, as well as the first nine levels of the scripture.

At some point, he thought of looking through the 10th level of the scripture as a slight change of pace.

Though, it was at that moment that he had finally discovered the missing link he was looking for.

'To think it was here the entire time,' said Valyr to himself, a bitter smile adorning his face.

'If not for the fact that I thought of looking here, then I probably wouldn't have figured it out even if I were to comprehend everything about Shadow Energy from the structure.'

Although he wanted to do nothing more than admonish himself at that moment, the young man reined in those thoughts for the meantime, reminding himself that his time at the Void Core was ultimately limited.

Spending a bit of time to sort out both his thoughts and emotions after that, Valyr let out a soft exhale as he closed his eyes once more.

Then, without hesitation, he began to combine both his knowledge of Shadow Energy and the 81 Phases Mana Reformation Scripture…

…To create a scripture that would allow him to do the same for Shadow Energy.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Attuning himself to the Shadow Energy within his surroundings, the young man began to revolve the Arcana within his body in accordance with the 81 Phases Mana Reformation Scripture he was practicing.

However, every once in a while, he would subtly shift the path his energy was taking, which looked like he was trying to optimize the path his energy took… at first, that is.

But, as more and more time passed, the more the path his energy took deviated from the original scripture, causing the Arcana coursing throughout the body to become more and more volatile.

By the time the path he devised had mostly deviated from the path on the original scripture, his Arcana gave off the feeling that it was only a single step away from imploding.

Though, even before he could give this energy of his the opportunity to do so, he went ahead and broke down some of his Prime Azure Energy into Shadow Energy…

…And had it travel along the path he had just devised.

Fwoosh!

As if he had strapped a jet engine onto the back of a car, the Shadow Energy immediately zoomed through the path he had created, causing Valyr to feel like his idea was on the right track.

However, not even a second later, he felt this same Shadow Energy come to an abrupt halt as if began to form a resonance with something that did not exist within the Void Core.

For a moment, confusion appeared on his face since he could clearly feel that his Shadow Energy was trying to connect with something that went beyond the Shadow Plane.

Though, once he figured out what it was connecting to, his confusion… slowly turned into fear.