"I heard from your father that you had come back, and it's really amazing how much you've grown..." Seeing Elijah up close, Harley was surprised that the pressure issued by Elijah was weaker than yesterday."But why do you seem to be weaker?"
"Ah... this is because my energy has been compressed so it appears as i'm weaker now."
"Okay then, from what i heard from your father, you had brought someone with you, right? I will put you two on the same squad so few people would discover that you two are divine cultivators. In three days come to my tent so i can give your first mission." After saying what he needed he walked away from the tent leaving Elijah by himself.
...
Calming himself, Elijah could feel the elemental energy being absorbed by the grey vortex which was laying above the energy lake. According to what he learned from on the academy, he understood that the Vortex inside him has changed now and was absorbing the energy condensed from the atmosphere.
This method of cultivating elemental Energy with the Grey Vortex was rather simple, on contrary of the others cultivation techniques where you had to cycle the elemental energy around the your body in a cyclic rotation while refining it, and then guide all this energy to your hearth or where your energy core was, which was usually a very complicated thing. This one consisted of just absorbing energy and when the energy in your lake is full, it means you would need break through the next Realm and following the same way with the other Realms.
However, after making several tests, Elijah had already started to understand the profound mysteries of this Vortex. No doubt, training this technique was could have dangers he didn't knew about as this form of cultivation was against the natural order, but once successful, the cultivation process would be easier than with other cultivation techniques he could use.
"I think I will need to name this technique as I will use it to cultivate ... I know! I will call it World Devouring Technique, because it is a technique where I absorb the energy of the World to cultivate, so this name is the most compatible."
As such, Elijah was now focusing on the Vortex, hastening its absorption of elemental energy. At the same time, he was also checking the increase on his cultivation.
As he did so, he noticed that no matter how much energy he absorbed his cultivation couldn't increase by more than the peak of the first realm and even with all this energy it was barely fill even a tenth of his Energy Lake, and he had the sad realization that he would need much more energy to break through to the second realm again.
And as the elemental energy passed through his body and entered the great hall, the giant gate released a invisible force which refined and guided all the energy to the vortex and the lake.
But this process was extremely slow, so he could only let go of it. And changed his attention to the energy lake as he was very curious about it, and since he was satisfied with his World Devouring Technique, he decided to investigate what the energy lake has brought to him. Especially the rune which appeared on his left wrist.
Before, when he was trying to use the power from the runes, Elijah had to cast it the same way as a spell, but after seeing that this run was on his body now, it could have a different use. In the moment that Elijah focused his will on the rune, Elijah's whole body shuddered, as he felt a pure and incomparable strength seemed to growing from rune and devoured his whole body as his muscles, bones, and even his senses, all seemed to be filled with that same power feeling.
He felt that the effects it brought him was much stronger now after the rune merge with his body and it seemed that every rune on the gate would merge with him sooner or latter and give him a new agility.
At the same time, Elijah also found that while this burst of strength was active, it would have a time limit anymore, but the elemental energy within his body will be slowly consumed and before long his entire energy was consumed.
On the next day, when his energy was full again and Elijah had the thought that as long as he broken through to higher realms, the absorption rate of elemental energy would be even faster.
After success with the Rune of Strength, he was now preparing to focus on the energy lake.
This time, When he looked carefully at his energy lake, he could see numerous energy beams of different colors floating on the surface of the lake, there was blue, grey, purple and another one which was difficult to distinguish because it keeps changing colors.
And like they had sensed he was looking at them they had all approached him and seeing he was being circled by the energy he could see thin beings inside each energy beam.
The thin being within the grey energy look at Elijah with curious eyes.
"So... You are my master?"