Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

He strode toward Zara and stopped.

All of a sudden, the ambient cosmic essence in the air began to roil. It started first as a slight, localized disturbance as Uhtred released a steady pulse of cosmic essence from his core, then another, and another, until it formed a continuous stream.

From there, he began to consciously and deliberately cycle it around his body. In no time at all, his internal energy began to affect the ambient essence in the surrounding air, forcing it to follow a tight spiral.

Before he knew it, he had created a vortex that Zara could clearly feel.

Without needing a single word of explanation, Zara immediately understood the mechanics behind the technique. Her eyes flicked over to the massive, swaying plant a hundred meters away. The twisting, unnatural dance it had been performing was the exact movement Uhtred was replicating.

Now that she understood the core concept, she could see the exact same process occurring around the plant-beast. As it swayed in that erratic rhythm, the cosmic essence around its massive stalk spiraled inward, congregating precisely where its core lay.

Uhtred was doing the exact same thing. By anchoring the focal point of the spiral directly at his essence core, he made that spot the densest point of the entire energy draw. He was using his own internal cosmic essence as a guide, shaping the thick ambient energy in the air into a tight funnel to make assimilation significantly easier.

Zara opened her mouth, wanting to point out a major flaw Uhtred had not yet addressed. But before she could speak, Uhtred initiated the second step.

Gathering the essence into a dense cluster was only the first part of the equation. There was still the separation process to consider. After all, every ascender was attuned to a specific aspect of cosmic essence. Even if the ambient energy was brought to a high density right over their core, they still had to filter out the elements they couldn’t use.

As Zara watched Uhtred begin to rapidly draw the gathered essence into his body, a light frown creased her forehead.

From what she could sense from the flow, the separation phase he was using was no different from the basic, low-level cultivation technique the System had provided to every human ascender at the start of the integration.

Yet, the sheer rate of assimilation he was achieving was vastly superior to what that basic technique should have been capable of. Was it purely due to the extreme density at the focal point of the spiral, or had he subtly modified the filtering process?

She remained silent, waiting for him to conclude the demonstration.

"It’s a good technique," Zara said first, then gestured toward the giant Poison Titan Kelp. "At least we don’t have to do that ridiculous dance to make it work... But the separation part feels off. It looks like the same basic technique the System handed out to everyone, but the amount of essence you’re pulling in is unnaturally high. Did you tweak the filtering method?"

Uhtred shrugged, keeping his face flat. "It’s exactly the same technique. I didn’t tweak anything at all."

Outwardly, his response was succinct and completely unbothered, but internally, Uhtred was sweating bullets.

In his excitement to demonstrate the spiral gathering method, he had completely overlooked the fact that his formless core was inherently greedy.

The congregation part of the technique was easy. He had figured that out since the previous day already. However, it was the separation part that had stumped him, making his deciphering process carry across to the second day.

He knew that, to understand how the plant beast separated the essence it needed from the general essence in the air, its internal pathways would need to be studied.

So in the end, Uhtred had had no choice but to leave that part out and use the separation technique everyone already had from the System. The congregated density was high enough that even using that basic technique, the efficiency would be much higher because there was more essence to work with.

However, Uhtred had forgotten a vital fact in his demonstration just now: unlike others, whose cores would only latch on to the aspects of cosmic essence they were attuned to, his formless core had greedily devoured everything he pulled into his chest.

Right now, the only attunements he could consciously process were the ones making up his Multi-Elemental class, but the raw essence flowed into his core with zero friction. That was the real reason his assimilation speed looked so absurd, and Zara had picked up on it instantly.

"It’s just because of the raw density at the focal point," Uhtred offered smoothly, coming up with a plausible excuse. "When you compress the ambient essence that tightly over your core, even a basic technique operates at a higher efficiency."

It was a logical explanation, but it was also something Zara could easily verify by testing the technique herself.

She closed her eyes and immediately began to cycle her own cosmic essence, attempting to force the ambient air into a spiral. But on her first try, the energy cluster collapsed into a disorganized gust of wind.

Uhtred chuckled, a light smile touching his lips as Zara frowned and tried again.

She had clearly assumed she could replicate the technique on her very first attempt. Just because Uhtred made the process look effortless didn’t mean it was simple to master in a matter of seconds.

​The fact that one was using their own cosmic essence to funnel the general cosmic essence in the air toward their core simply meant they were releasing essence at the same time they were cultivating.

The person trying to use this method had to have delicate control of their cosmic essence. They needed to use the least possible amount of essence to guide the flow, ensuring that their essence input was far greater than their output.

If an ascender’s control was sloppy, they would end up expending far more essence to maintain the spiral than they actually managed to assimilate, rendering the entire technique useless.

While Zara continued her attempts to refine the spiral, Uhtred turned his attention back to the massive plant-beast a hundred meters away.

"Now, what should we do with this thing?"