Chapter 49: Reborn in the Crater
The collision of the two attacks created an explosion of elemental mana: fire burned the air, lightning destroyed rocks, and ice froze the ground while trees were uprooted, burned, and destroyed.
The already treeless clearing that existed around the elemental spirit expanded; what was once a patch of around 100 meters became a clearing of 5 km with a massive crater.
Valerian watched the clash from high in the air. Trees that were thrown away hurled in his direction, but he didn’t even turn to look at them and let his space affinity move all the trees away from him. The trees passed him like it was the only spot they avoided.
His eyes were focused on Arthur and the elemental; he was ready to intervene if he really believed that Arthur was going to die. Space mana throughout the entire fight was around his fingers, waiting for his command.
But deep down, he didn’t want to save Arthur. He was supposed to go beyond his limitations in this fight, and if Valerian were to save him at the last moment, it would have only been an insult to his conviction.
Still, that last clash made him nervous.
He watched everything with absolute focus: every muscle twitch was mapped by his spatial perception, and every mana movement from the spirit and Arthur was under his senses.
He knew that normally Arthur would have lost that last clash, and it was pretty obvious why; after all, he was meeting an elemental spirit that was an entire rank above him in a magical face-off.
But right in the last moment before the clash, it happened: Arthur used his will again to lessen the control of the spirit. While he wasn’t able to completely take it away, he managed to lessen it enough to a point where he wouldn’t lose.
But even if he didn’t lose, the explosion of such a big clash that destroyed everything in a 5 km diameter should have also killed him, and it almost did.
After the elemental explosion engulfed him, he was at death’s door, barely clinging to life. But even then, Valerian didn’t intervene, because he felt that something changed the second the spirit died.
And he already had an idea what: it was this mysterious bloodline that forcefully assimilated with him, barely keeping him from dying.
With a casual sweep of his hand, the dust and smoke cleared instantly, and Valerian teleported down to Arthur.
Lying in the center of the crater, his friend was in a weird state.
It looked like his whole body was falling apart, just for new bones, muscles, and tendons to replace the old ones.
’Whole body reformation.’
Valerian knew what was happening. While he himself didn’t experience this since his race was already in tune with his bloodline, during his body reformation to gain his physique, something similar happened. But while similar, it wasn’t the same thing that was happening right now with Arthur.
The new bones looked harder, the muscles more compact, and the most obvious part was that his blood, instead of the normal red, was golden.
’Just what is this bloodline?’
Curiosity burning inside Valerian, he wanted to know what this [???-Rank Bloodline] is, but he couldn’t accelerate the reformation, so the best thing he could do was bring Arthur to a safe place.
So, like before, he opened the portal into his pocket dimension and carried Arthur inside. But he wasn’t sure if he should touch him since it could disrupt the process, so he used the gravity part of his [Event Horizon] to create a pool of darkness under him and then reduce the gravity above the darkness.
Like that, he carefully sent Arthur through the portal, but Valerian didn’t enter yet.
The portal closed, and now he stood in the crater alone. The reason was the orb that was lying a few meters away from him.
It was around 30 cm in size, had a smooth surface, and shone in all the different colors of the elements that the spirit used. It was the core of the spirit.
Walking over to it, Valerian could still feel how the mana in the air gathered around it even after the elemental died.
The second he reached out with his hands, it began to glow in a bright light, and with a speed so fast that Valerian couldn’t even react, it flew into his palm.
’What the fuck?!’
Instantly, Valerian teleported a few meters away in panic, but nothing happened. There was no attack, not even discomfort.
’What just happened?’
Valerian didn’t even activate his unique skill or cast any magic, the orb just flew into his hand on its own. But now he could clearly feel the elemental mana flowing through his arms and trying to spread into his whole body.
’No, you won’t!’
Seizing control of the mana, Valerian guided it to his hands and separated it from the rest of his body. Valerian opened the portal to his pocket space and entered. Inside, he saw Arthur lying on the white ground, with his body reformation still in process.
Moving over to him quickly with the elemental mana of the core still in his fingers, he held them over Arthur’s body.
After concentrating, the glowing elemental mana from his fingertips separated and gently flew into the still-forming body of Arthur. His body took in the mana like a glutton and used it to further enhance the already powerful body.
While the reformation ate all the mana it could get, Valerian, with full focus, gently weaved the mana into every part of Arthur’s body.
It was a long, exhausting process, and it left Valerian in a completely tired state, but after the hours of mana weaving, the result was completely worth it.
Still lying on the ground unconscious, Arthur’s body was filled with the elemental mana of the spirit.
’Phew.’
Wiping non-existent sweat from his forehead, Valerian let himself fall onto his back.
’That was close. Almost took his reward.’
Indeed, if Valerian didn’t react so quickly and realize what the core was trying to do, he would have absorbed the core that was Arthur’s reward for putting his life on the line.
’It’s better if he gets stronger. New affinities are nice, but I’m not in a rush.’
The Voidwoods were filled with beasts that have different affinities, so it’s better if Arthur gets stronger than Valerian, who was already ahead. But now that Arthur had the strange bloodline and the elemental mana of the spirit, maybe the gap wasn’t so big anymore.
Still, the behavior of the core was strange: it flew instantly into Valerian and tried to assimilate with him. The only reason he could think of that this happened was his title as [Child of Mana], and the core, which was from a being created by elemental mana, wanted to go to the purest source of mana in the vicinity, which was Valerian at the time.
Sitting up, Valerian looked at Arthur, who was now completely healed without even a single scratch. While he still wasn’t awake, Valerian could feel the difference in strength between the Arthur from before and the one now clearly.
On top of the bloodline and elemental core, Arthur also broke through to S-; maybe it happened at the end of the fight or when he got the bloodline.
Now that Valerian again has free time since Arthur has to recover, he turned his attention to something that came to his mind when they first entered the pocket dimension.
Maybe if he got good enough at space magic, he could call upon a separate dimension to block attacks or imprison enemies, or maybe even travel to other dimensions entirely.
While it wasn’t possible right now, since his rank was still pretty low, it was for sure possible in the future when he left the mortal ranks and ascended. But he could still try to work on it now, and maybe he could gain these abilities before his ascension.
He began to channel his space mana to his palm and tried to open a portal to the outside world, not one that was big enough to fit an entire person, but just a small one.
While doing so, he paid close attention to how it felt to breach beyond the dimensions, the feeling of leaving their plane and entering another one.
But of course, even keeping such a small portal open was extremely mana-heavy, and he had to close it after only 30 minutes of testing.
Now lying on the floor again and waiting for his mana to recharge, a question came to Valerian’s mind.
’Why does it cost almost nothing to take something out or put something inside, but a portal is so expensive?’
It was strange: when he took something out of the pocket space or stored it, the mana cost was really small, but opening a portal between the dimensions was insanely mana-heavy.
As Valerian continued to rack his brain over the weird issue, he heard a groan from the side. Turning his head slightly, he saw that Arthur was beginning to wake up.