Each person had varying degrees of Erkca, some made a small spark in the crystal and failed, while some even got bright white light, and received a divine coin, which immediately made all the other beings shudder in envy, they all knew how important getting a divine coin was, but they soon gave up, as the Erkca required to receive one was far beyond their reach.
All of them had acquired a Crystalline fairly early in the world, but one cannot truly materialize one until they were old enough for the tests, but they knew how incapable their Souls were, so they couldn't really purify it in time for extreme Erkca generation.
After 100 people had officially completed the test, everyone became silent, as they all watched a woman with fiery maroon hair flow down to her shoulders, she walked with strides to the black crystal, her long legs halted in front of the crystal with a sway, and she prettily moved her slim hand to the rune. She was part of a powerful noble family.
Everyone was completely silent, they all stood completely still.
She was completely petrifying, not only was she pretty, but she was powerful and trained.
Her fingers planted themselves of the void crystal and she sent her Erkca to her fingertips before expertly inserting it into the crystal, amplifying the Erkca absorption rate of the crystal, and effectively giving the crystal an idea of her Erkca cultivation. Her mist realm was outstandingly 1st Lacum. Which was considered as an extremely high mist realm for starting.
The realm of Erkca gathering is called the Realm Of Gathering, it is the first realm of many, and in the realm is 3 Sub-realms.
: Concletus {First mist, 12 Stages}
: Stagnum {Second mist, 9 Stages}
: Lacum {Last mist of Realm of Gathering, 7 Stages}
Each realm signifies the amount of Erkca you gathered after materializing your Crystalline.
The crystal instantly brightened to a fiery red, and yellow flames formed as her aura type, and a powerful gale lifted her hair and swept for a few seconds before settling down. Her house rank was Infra.
In fact, auras usually don't form in the crystal, they need to be powerful enough to appear in the first place.
She was extraordinary and beautiful.
A few people couldn't help themselves and start literally shaking in their place, they knew that power meant everything, and this woman was very powerful.
Instead of walking off the stage, she vanished from thin air, just as the previous man did.
Eventually, Silas became bored of watching powerful people complete the test with flying colors, so he sat down for a bit, looking up at the beautiful blue sky above him, there were no clouds, and no life other than grass as far as the eye can see.
A girl saw him like this and was confused as to why someone could be so calm, she then thought he must be confident and influential so she started stepping towards his relaxed, eyes closed body.
"Hi." said the unknown girl.
He knew she was coming but didn't really care, only when she started talking did he open one eye.
"You must be pretty confident to be so relaxed huh..." she noticed before but now it was even more so, he was pretty handsome.
Silas finally stood up and asked.
"Why have you disturbed my relaxation?", He gazed at her with annoyed and indifferent eyes as he rubbed them and arched his back.
The girl didn't mind his arrogance as she once again assumed he must be powerful, but she couldn't help but feel a tinge of anger in her heart.
She had dark-brown hair, brown eyes, a slim but mature figure, a rounded jaw, panther eyes with unnatural slits. Her hair came down to her breasts and she was proportionate in many ways.
Vifien couldn't' help but notice that there were a proportionately large amount of girls compared to boys, and most were much more powerful.
"It seems you don't fully understand the dangers of this test and considering you are a boy, you should be even more fearful." smirked the woman as she spied him up and down.
It was true, there was a high erkca disparity between females and males, females usually had more to put into their abilities, making them more powerful, but males had a higher diversity of abilities and better techniques and experience in their doings.
Silas finally felt awake again and was able to finally analyze the situation.
He easily and accurately guessed what she was thinking and played along.
"You underestimate me because I'm a boy?" smirked Silas, he could guess what she was gonna say next, but he liked acting The Fool.
The girls' lips pried apart even further and said, "It is much more likely for a girl to be much more Erkca efficient than a boy, and even that we are slightly more cognitive too, how do you not know this?" the cognitive part was false, but she thought she would throw him into despair with this, so that his annoying stature of loftiness wouldn't go unnoticed and that he would quickly be put in his place.
Silas inwardly smiled at his correct assumption and continued, "I have a mental deficiency." he quickly and boorishly ended the conversation.
The girl whose name was Fliene was shocked, and immediately lost all regard for him, she knew that any cripples would be quickly shamed and disregarded in this world, with this information, she quickly left the scene, but inwardly, she felt mourning of the loss of the boy, because even if he were crippled and weak, he was handsome, he would quickly fetch a high price for any queen who wanted a loyal dog, especially one with a mental deficiency...
Silas happily started sitting back down after he chased away the annoying woman, then lifted himself minutes later after seeing that it was his turn.
Silas stood with a straight face looking at the stage indifferently
Meanwhile, everyone before him peered with different opinions.
"Ha! he looks like a loser, and he's a guy, I feel kinda bad, bet he's a {Humilis} too..." smirked a girl behind him.
"Oh no... He looks confident but he will soon be..." a gloomy complexioned boy said inwardly, shaking in fear.
Few others didn't fit into these thoughts, some even couldn't contain themselves from grief.
Most actually weren't paying attention, but knew it was good to make connections if anyone was important.
...
As Silas finished contemplating his situation, it was his turn.
The people who had gotten approved by the crystal were already gone, they were teleported to the stage for the third test.
Silas didn't think much of it, he wasn't scared, especially since even if he got a really good score, he wouldn't be targeted because no one knew his name, and even if they had told others, he doubted they would literally come for him unless he was unusually good.
He was inwardly pretty scared of the consequences this would have if he had a bad appraisal.
Silas placed his hand on the crystal and did the exact same thing the woman before did and smirked at his success.
The crystal didn't spark, it didn't bloom, it didn't slowly light up... It was set ablaze.
The light immediately blinded everyone, they were all unable to see what had been happening.
Silas was really f**king surprised as a huge gale of wind almost ripped his hair off.
It was similar to what the girl earlier had achieved.
The ablaze crystal slowly settled down to reveal something weird, it didn't reveal a house, or aura type, all the seams in the {Void Crystal} reformed, and the blank crystal from before revealed a lustrous amethyst formation.
Truth was, the test wasn't just for how much Erkca you collected, or for your essence type, it was a test for the mind, a test for willpower, intelligence, perception, judgment, emotion, and instinct, and If one were appraised to have an exception in all these aspects or an 'Astral Mind', they would awaken the Void Crystals' latent regeneration ability, the reason for the Void Crystal not having this ability on all the time was to notify the higher-ups because of the sudden burst of Ancient Erkca to let them know that a [Mark of Indoles] was placed on the being with an 'Astral Mind', it was a decree of authority, and you would gain many privileges, as most people with the 'Astral Mind' had extremely great potential, and one of such cannot go to waste by some cretin, even if it was unlikely. But to find an Astral Mind bearer was to find a pin in a constellation, it was simply too rare, hence why the Void Crystal had been deforming for so long, and why the ancient power had put this system in place.
The [Mark of Indoles] was also a guardian of sorts, but it wasn't to flaunt, it was a title that was only shown in secret or special occasions, and it was known that those who were deeply revered and worshipped in history had Astral Minds, they were seen as gods, able to see through everything and everyone. Though no bearer with an Astral Mind in history was lucky, they all had either very underwhelming or sub-par [Soul]s.
Every family that had gotten somewhat far into this world knew the true nature of the test, and they would tell their children, as it was tradition.
Silas had been informed of this as soon as the gale pushed his hair aside in a burst of information.
...
The whole stage was blasted by a gale of wind, only Silas could be seen in the middle, still with his hand on the crystal, and his hair fluttering in the wind, it was truly spectacular.
Everyone didn't even move or speak from shock, everyone knew what had happened, and soon after, their shock became joy, as they would be renowned as one of the few that witnessed a mark of Indoles being placed.
The top of the Void Crystal had flashed a bright golden light, and soon after, comprehension of insurmountable amounts flooded Silass' brain, as if he could comprehend the secrets of the cosmos, and true power revealed itself before him, a profound feeling arose within his mind, and a godly calm eased his thoughts.
...
The [Mark of Indoles] was passed from generation to generation, as an inheritance of an extremely powerful being before he had died from failure of true attainment of godhood. The inheritance was not just a pass of authority or privilege, but a test, and a guide to the true mind, the reason for the beings holding the Astral Mind dying was not because of power, but failure in the tests that the 'Mark' put forth.
The marks' true power relies upon the art of the mind, the path to its true identity, and its secrets.
...
...
Everyone in the crowd was expecting a lot this year, in fact, this generation is definitely the most powerful, as even the amount of high-nobles exceed the commoners, they were smiling the entire time.
The inexperienced children who were teleported to the stadium of sorts were completely in awe, it was absolutely gigantic, the top of the stadium reached the heavens and the width of the stadium was as big as an entire lake, it was built with golden marble, and intricate ancient designs all over, making sure of the sturdiness and safety of the stadium and the bottom of the stadium was an extremely large plane, and in the middle was everyone who had passed the first two tests, and had gotten a divine coin. All the people there knew it was going to be spectacular, but this year particularly was the best they had ever seen, the skies were the galaxy, and multiple extremely powerful spells were cast at once, lighting the stadium, regenerating everything at breakneck speed, divine barriers, illusions and uncountable amount more.
The screams that were hurled nonstop were like being at hell's gate, and the number of people would make someone faint.
There were countless powerful sages at the ready to make this event perfect, even some mind spells were deployed.
The families of the children were all-powerful and expectant.
Different races of humans, of different bloodlines and physiques, filled the stadium, some [Deva] had even attended.
Screams went on for a few minutes before all the previous test participants entered the third test.
As screams filled the stadium, it was soon all blocked out by a mysterious force, and the stadium was completely silent.
...
WE HOLD THE THIRD TEST FOR OUR SOON PROGENITORS... THE THIRD TEST... BEGINS !!!
...
Silas had been transported to the middle of a stadium in front of countless others, he wasn't fazed but in love with the complete enormity of the stadium, he stared at the countless beings with a blank face but returned his head once he heard the godly voice speaking from out of nowhere.
Suddenly, the entire middle stadium split to reveal the point of the third test... To survive.
A huge force crashed upon the stage, and millions of beings in the middle of it fell to the ground and were immediately teleported to the waiting area for their families, this was commonplace, as the test was too hard to bother completing.
The force gradually became more and more pressuring, and Silas wasn't really startled, he was confused why everyone was crashing to the ground around him, multiple thuds rang out through the stadium, and the pressure slowly increased.
Silas felt himself being pulled by an unknown force closer to the middle of the stadium, this wasn't the force that made the pressure, it was to slowly increase the difficulty, as the pressuring force was at the middle, shining brightly with a purple light.
He saw so many others falling with grunts and strained expressions, some were literally screaming from pain, knowing how important the test was, and Silas was unwavering, he saw many others like him, who weren't confused why they weren't affected, but extremely excited.
...
Silas was being teleported closer and closer to the middle of the stadium, where he quickly saw more people like him, but dropping to the ground soon after, his smile only broadened the more he understood the situation, and his blood was only more pumping.
Soon, the scenery was quickly changing from a marble white at the edges of the stadium, to a darker and darker color, and at this point, you could see the purple mist in the air, acting as an unknown force.
The crowd only got more excited after hearing their blood-curdling screams again. This test was only for those who had extremely powerful souls, but the thing that's mainly tested was your [Dark Potential], basically your authority in the world.
Silas started seeing people literally foaming from the mouth, with their eyes turning white and skin pale, it was a terrifying scene to those with the faint-hearted, but they soon vanished, to probably be healed elsewhere, and as the test went on, he saw more and more women, at one point it was so bad that he could only see women with no male in sight, likely being due to the disparity in {Lust Potential} in women than in men.
However, the more confused people were the women and crowd in the first place, how was this mysterious boy able to endure so much, this hasn't happened in a long time.
Silas shook it off and focused on the matter at hand, soon, the mist was mostly ignoring the girls, and any mist that had gone to waste sharply floated toward Silas, only to dissipate immediately, as the test went on, the girls slowly widened their eyes, he was standing completely still, not moving or even showing pain.
The crowd didn't show much interest anymore as although it was rare, it was still acceptable.
The room that was filled with different beings only thinned out until it reached about 10,000, as soon as it had reached ten-thousand, the mist completely changed.
The crowd was impressed and wondered if there would be a rare chance for the boy to reach to top 100, receiving a divine coin and the title of [Desire Cub], those who have the title of [Desire Cub] are respected and receive many privileges.
...
There are three main attributes of all beings, [Essense], [Power], and [Mind]. They each act in correlation with each other and are in deep harmony. The imbalance of these three attributes in a being is chaotic, directly decreasing lifespan and mental stability, even completely stopping the growth in all aspects. Each of the three directly correlates with the existence of aura types and affinity, and those with good harmony in the three are significantly more powerful and likely to have a higher affinity.
[Dark Potential] Is your potential with the {Essense} attribute, and with a higher {Essense} attribute meaning you are in deeper affinity with all aura and erkca.
The first test tested [Power], second [Mind], and third [Essense]. The soul is the seed of all three, and an [Elated Soul] is a balance of the three, preventing the likelihood of insanity and mental condition, thus perfecting the future of the bearer. The higher of each three attributes with an Elated Soul, the further the likelihood of mental condition. Those who have none in one instantly go into depravement, and die within minutes depending on how powerful they are.
[Mind], is the most important of the three, having direct correlations to both [Essense] and [Power], but is the hardest to obtain, taking millions of years to reach higher states in [Mind].
...
The whole environment around Silas changed, he could no longer see the stadium or crowd, he was in an extremely dark space, the only thing he could see being a golden moon that peered into the scene, supposedly being a camera of sorts for the crowd.
The scenery was then filled with moonlight from an unknown source, and everyone could see each other, the ground wasn't hard, it was filled with a sucrose liquid, it was static but abnormally horrifying, and soon Silas could slowly feel the liquid testing the waters apprehensively, then slowly flowing up his skin-tight white jeans.
It didn't stop flowing, he saw others having the same experience, but the liquid was much slower.
It reached his waistline, then it seeped into his belly button and tightly cramped his crotch as it slowly wowed itself at the marvel that was this human's body, increasing in power and speed.
Soon, he almost felt his entire lower body covered in a giant goop of black liquid, much larger in size than the others were experiencing.
"AH!" Some girls screamed when feeling the liquid entering their pores and exiting, then feeling up the rest of their waist. Some could take the disgusting feeling created from the semi-liquid and stand with a determined and straight face.
Silas couldn't move, and it was starting to feel weird, almost good. Like the liquid was starting to accept his lower body, it slowly crept above his waist, excitedly exploring the unexplored.
Some girls were stuck to the ground, and some girls were being held up in the air by the sheer amount of the goop wanting to explore the rest of their bodies, it is almost sentient-like and nodding its head when giving a pass to a certain part of their bodies.
Silas was ten meters in the air, rapidly being lifted while tendrils started attaching more and more to give a stable structure.
Meanwhile, everyone in the crowd couldn't see what was happening, the view was too low to give the beautiful scene of hundreds of tendrils flowing up to attach to a mountain of goop, wriggling happily in the air, soon, tens of meters away, one could see four pools of black liquid forming and slowly rising with a gigantic spike and moving towards the expected path of growth of the mountain of goop that was forming like all matter was sucked toward the mass, forming intricate designs and structures to hold the masses of goop, some tendrils in the air even started to form elsewhere like a branch.
The speed at which this was happening wasn't even the most shocking thing, it was the fact that Silas was the only male, and such mass was attracted to him.
The golden moon from before had been split to reveal two golden spheres in the sky, one aiming at the hundreds of females being consumed by the mass and one looking up to a gigantic mass of which a boy with bright white hair had stood, the crowd almost all knew what was happening, he was taking control of the [Void Remnant], and they all knew this generation was going to be very interesting.
"This has to be a cheat! Th- There's no way!" soon a man called out, completely oblivious to his stupidity, among others.
They all could only watch as the goop consumed the entire upper body of the boy, some even knew what was happening and prayed to the heavens that it was true.
Some women in the dark place couldn't even stop themselves from exclaiming in shock with their eyes widened and mouth forming an '0' shape.
"That's... impossible!" shouted one of them.
...
Meanwhile, a booth of sorts sat upon the topmost part of the stadium.
"I wonder who the mark was passed to... what d'ya reckon'... Sierra." A man with long black hair and a twisted face turned to ask a woman in a white fur coat, white stockings, and an indifferent face. She stayed silent and stared onto the stadium with bright golden eyes and a suffocating aura of authority.
...
Silas didn't care about what was happening but was pleasantly surprised at the fact that the goop was starting to act to his will. But still crept up to his neck.
The mysterious liquid slowly seeped close to his eyes, then covered his eyes with itself, and started to soak into them.
Silas's eyes were soon filled, and tears of the goop ran down his face, and down his chin, connecting with the rest of it.
The mountain of Void Remnants had stopped growing, with Silas at its peak, and a formation resembling a cliffside, he practically was towering above everyone else.
Silas felt absolute serenity, he couldn't think, speak, or move, he almost wanted to stay like this forever, he felt weird, as if something about him had changed.
Eventually, the weird liquid had seeped back down from his eyes, and instead of hazel from before, they were a dark grey, almost hypnotic looking, around the rim of the eyes were a deep violet, and his eyes were more aloof looking, more... princely.
But the liquid didn't stop there, it moved towards his scalp and covered itself over every strand of hair, then removed itself seconds later.
~ Boy... ~ something spoke...
Silas wasn't easily startled so he immediately paid attention.
~ You have acquired my bloodline. These will help you greatly on your journey. ~
"Why have you chosen me for your abilities?" asked Silas, he was curious but didn't want to anger the being.
~ Precisely because you have an incredible mind. ~
"Why are you giving me your abilities?" Silas spoke again.
~ So I could be released from this cage of mine. When I give you the last part of my Soul, I disappear alongside it. ~ The fiendish voice started fading out.
"What-"
~ Time is up, I will leave a detached piece of my soul so that this place will still be intact goodbye... ~
The voice slowly faded away in his mind and he opened his eyes to see a singularity flowing in the air, slowly releasing black strains of energy to saturate the mysterious liquid on the floor.
...
Everyone could see what was going on, they only saw something appear in the middle of the air and Silas sitting seemingly unconscious in the air. Soon, they all came to an untrue conclusion about the situation with delusion at the impossibility of the situation. It was that since he was a boy, the goop had worked so hard at pressuring him that it made him unconscious and that he actually failed the test, and that it wasn't an extraordinary ability that made that monstrosity, but the fact that he was a boy. This had greatly calmed them down, but some were still very suspicious, the Void Soul was known to be compulsive, but not to such an extent.
They watched as Silas was struck conscious again and everyone stopped paying attention. In fact, the number of people in the crowd was much littler, as entire families had come to see their children's abilities and left as soon as they had been transported to the participant resting area to check on them, everyone was tired after the exam after exhausting this much mental capacity to endure the pain.
There were less than 0.000001% of people left, they all didn't care who was powerful this year, it would only make them have anxiety, in fact, it was tradition to leave at that point in time.
Soon the announcer and sponsors of the event decided to stop the test.
The black singularity in the air turned into a ring and aimlessly wondered above the black gooey substance around all the ladies that hadn't passed out during the test, as those who couldn't handle the substance was either teleported out of the stadium or directly transported to their families, they were saddened about their capabilities on the third test, but some were even proud that they had managed to get this far in the test, even more so for the people who had 'passed the test.
The rapidity of the event calmed to a still state, everyone knew that safety was the first priority and eventually went home.
Meanwhile, in Silas' consciousness, he was currently in a pitch-black space, with nothing to see, hear, feel, or smell, he originally was unknowing of the fact that he was conscious until he recognized his blurry thoughts, and regained his memories, he was deeply curious as to what place this was, but knew he wasn't getting any answers any time soon, he was a little on edge from the previous scenery and the supposed abilities that he would gain, but without knowing this due to the uncomfortable feeling that would be present in his body, it quickly calmed down a little.
Soon after he was quite comfortable with his inability to sense, an unusual voice radiated within his head.
[| Stellar has determined the recent set of circumstances to be sufficient for merging...
- Bonder, [Silas Nausius], Stellar has determined that the need of the system is naught due to the capabilities of bonders mind, and recommends a merging of sorts, that which all capabilities provided by the system will merge with your mind, hence no further need for my separate assistance. -
- The merging will be painless, effective, and extremely beneficial for bonders' utility, having no need to ask for assistance. The reason we have determined your mind as being able to merge is its status [Astral Mind], those with this status have the ability to comprehend and achieve all tasks that Stellar can with both their conscious and unconscious mind, aspects of these include IQ alacrity, memory, consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgment, and language, as well as noncognitive aspects such as emotion and instinct. - |]
- Hence, would the 'Astral Mind' bearer and bonder [Silas Nauseus] like to merge consciousness with system [Stellar]? -
[Yes/No]
]
Silas was deeply both shocked and excited that this was a possibility, so he quickly accepted the proposition.
...
[| Bonder [Silas Nausius] has accepted the proposal, beginning multi-stage assimilation... |]
Silas Nausius suddenly felt consciousness fade for a moment after the massive amounts of complex information flooded his mind and were engraved into his innate being, thus forcing him to remember this information for the rest of his existence.
Endorphines flooded his emotions as he excitedly explored the boggling amount of useful information on the godly abilities of the system.
Soon, the flooding stopped and soon he stopped feeling that emotion... he couldn't breathe, what happened was so supernal that his brain shut down and he couldn't think.
Meanwhile, he didn't even ponder the new announcement that rang throughout his head for the last time, this was the last time he was going to hear that annoying system voice.
...
[| All capabilities have officially assimilated into the mind of the bonder, congratulations... |]