Mei knew that Blake hadn't asked about routes for no reason, she was pretty sure Shino hadn't talked to him about it yet since the perfect time to try to form a route was once the Primary runic realm was entered, but despite that, there were still those special cases where someone did it while still in the Runic awakening, but those situations were as rare as people with an affinity towards the space element.
Blake was hesitating to answer, but he realized that, sooner or later, either Marjorie or Shino would find out about it, so he decided to satisfy Mei's curiosity.
"I... Yes, I have my own route." Blake said it directly causing Mei to confirm her suspicions.
"Show me." Mei no longer felt that this was strange, just like Shino and Marjorie, she had reached the point where she could no longer be surprised by Blake's eccentricities.
He heard her clearly but didn't know how to do what she told him. Mei noticed his confusion, so she began to explain how to do it.
"Surely you have a mental image of what it is like, all you have to do is concentrate and visualize it in your mind, in the end, you will feel as if something is trying to escape inside you, this means that it will begin to materialize right behind you as if it were a translucent image." Blake understood as best he could and quickly saw the same image of his route after closing his eyes and concentrating.
The deep and distant emptiness still graced the landscape while the rubble of what had once been an almost endless path now found itself floating in that same emptiness as if resting after a long time.
The image became clearer to Blake as he continued to focus to the point that he actually experienced the sensation that Mei told him about. He didn't try to hold it back in any way, so he kept concentrating until that very feeling slowly faded away so that at last there was nothing left of it.
Blake became aware of his surroundings again after opening his eyes, he realized that Mei's gaze no longer had his attention on him, but now his eyes seemed to reflect what was just behind him.
Blake also turned to see what was there, and sure enough, the same landscape had appeared in front of him, although it was noticeable that it was somewhat translucent as Mei had told him before. It was interesting knowing that he could do that, but Blake didn't know why Mei wanted to see it.
She was now occupied with her thoughts... It wasn't the first time she had seen someone else's route, but, like everything she had experienced from Blake, she again felt quite bewildered. She was now sure that Blake wasn't lying about having formed her own route, the simple fact of materializing it was already enough to convince her of it, but that itself made her frown.
What could be called normal when someone forms their route for the first time was that the image they showed was always very simple, it could be a small stone path, a forest path, or a mountain path, but they were always short paths where you couldn't see more than a few steps.
But now, the image of Blake's route was something she had never seen before, but if she had to describe it in any way, it was that she felt that this route had already been built to an incredible level only to be destroyed and end up in its current state. That idea he had was not only based on the fact that he could see debris that surely formed a path in the past now floating in complete nothingness, but also because there was a rather mysterious feeling that he had rarely experienced, but most of all, that emptiness that seemed endless made her feel the need to run toward it, but as if it were an abyss, when she saw it, Mei felt that the void was also looking at her...
Ignoring Mei's situation, Blake was appreciating the view, but what caught his eye was that the small path at the beginning had gotten a bit longer, not much, but you could tell that the ancient debris floating near it had positioned themselves so that the route was longer.
Blake didn't know if it was because he had lost his concentration, but the image of his route slowly began to fade until it disappeared once more, he also noticed that Mei continued with her same pensive attitude, but then again, it didn't take a long time before he heard her voice forcing him to do something.
"Start to cultivate." Blake had to ask what she meant by that.
"Cultivate?" Mei closed her eyes a bit before speaking again since she forgot that Blake's knowledge of the world was almost non-existent.
"Yes, cultivate is basically how wizards, witches, and runics call the process of absorbing runes and harnessing their runic energy to increase our strength, so I want you to do exactly that." Blake had no trouble understanding that, besides that he had done it in the past.
He sat down on the ground again and began to blank his mind as he felt the time element runes approaching him, he could also take advantage of the other types of other element runes, but he felt that the runes that represented the time element were more beneficial to him, plus it seemed like they would never run out of the huge amount that was.
He again had entered a small trance in which he only dedicated himself to that, he felt how the runes entered his body and then dissolved into runic energy that would quickly be refined and become elemental essence and runic.
The process was quite pleasant, Blake felt that both his elemental core and the drop of runic essence absorbed the corresponding energy causing Blake to experience the same sensation, but he also realized that the runic energy was transformed mostly into elemental essence, so he thought that it was possibly because his route made this happen.
Maybe Blake didn't feel the passage of time too much in that state, but outside, Mei was quite aware of everything since she was looking at him carefully. She could sense Blake's level perfectly even though he hid it, so she was aware that right when he started to cultivate, he was still at the beginning stage of the sixth level of Runic awakening... But now, after only an hour since he started absorbing runes and once she saw his level again, Mei couldn't help but speak to herself.
"So... He's already reached the middle stage...This is just ridiculous."
[Progress... Saved.]