Standing at the ash nest, the two of them observed the mana flow carefully. Well Ray was, Yogan was keeled over catching his breath. For Ray it was a casual walk, but for him he was practically running for his life. It didn't help that any time he slowed down he would receive a very painful pat on the back.
But it was not pointless, for him it was rigorous training. Running like that would usually only increase his speed, agility and vitality (1), but under the effects of Ray's talent(2) it was an all around increase.
When he had been there earlier he didn't have the time to properly observe as he had to go back and check up on Yogan before he got eaten, but now that he had the time he realized just how bizarre this place was. He could have put him into this soul sea, but he didn't know what would happen if he put him in while unconscious so he didn't risk it.
Not just out of the massive hole, but all around the area the mana was heavily aligned with fire and light.
'That must be why so many precious herbs grow here, not only are they absorbing the light mana, they are also absorbing the fire mana.'
The nature and fire elements usually don't mix very well, but given enough time they could coexist. The fire element would even nurture the nature element under the right circumstances. When it comes to adaptability, the nature element has no equal.
A good example of that is the hundred flowers cultivation method. At its core, it was a nature element cultivation method, but with a little tweaking it could accommodate any number of every other elements.
It could make fire flowers without burning up and water flowers without absorbing it. It was no wonder that Itroth chose it to be the base of his most powerful cultivation method.
Along with the 2 elements, he was also picking up something else. Others might have issues with determining what it was, but he was familiar enough with it to tell that it was the space element.
This shocked him, out of all of the elements the most powerful are space, time, spirit and gravity. Any one of them would be immensely powerful and very effective. The inventory skill was very simple in theory, but because it was space related it was extremely complex in practice, especially with him since it mutated so much.
Now that he could feel the space element just leaking out of the ground he was surprised. But the feeling that washed over him next was greed. He had witnessed just how powerful the space element was with Itz'tal. No matter how hard he tried to run away, he couldn't. And while he was stronger now that wouldn't change anything.
With the advantage of the space element on his side, unless he was comprehensively stronger than him it wouldn't matter how much he struggled. He estimated that Itz'tal was at the peak of the extremity tier, so unless he managed to reach the extremity tier himself he couldn't even rival him, which was easier said than done.
Now that he had the chance to grasp this power for himself he was going to get it at all costs. While the mutation of the inventory spell gave him some space related abilities, they were completely restrictive and couldn't compare to the real deal.
The most he could do was travel to his space and teleport to places that he had been. That might sound useful, mostly because it is, but the space element wasn't this shallow. He couldn't even teleport an inch in front of him if he hadn't stepped there previously.
After making sure that it was okay with Yogan, he used his mana to slice out a bit of the ground and stored it away. He naturally wasn't going to waste this, especially since this soil had been soaking in the energy for god knows how long.
There was now a 1 km² hole in the ground and in the very center he could see a translucent orange-yellow crystal in the ground. After a bit more excavation he discovered a giant underground tunnel network made entirely out of these strange crystals.
After a bit of observation he discovered that these were relatively high quality mana crystals, sitting at about 60%, but all of them had a wide array of elements stored, much more than he initially anticipated.
All in all there was fire, light, lightning, earth, metal, space, time, gravity and while very very faint, the spirit element was also there. Seeing so many elements, which included all of the big four, together in a single stone, he was speechless.
There wasn't much of these elements in the stone and it was mostly attribute less mana, but the very existence of them meant that they were priceless. And all around him there were countless pieces of various sizes just making up the walls.
"I'M RICH!!!!" With just a little bit of these stones he would be the richest human in the old world by a large margin. While mana stones were not uncommon, a single piece the size of a thumb of relatively high quality with trace amounts of a single one of the big four could buy him a continent or two depending on how inhabited they were.
Naturally he wouldn't sell these for so cheap, but it goes to show just how valuable these were. Not only did these have 5 common elements, they even had all 4 special ones too, but the sizes of them ranged from a finger nail to the complete walls of a massive cave system. The bigger a crystal, the more valuable.
But he quickly humbled himself. He struck it big here but what prevented others from doing the same? And compared to the clans, sects and academies that have been around for who knew how many trillions of years what was this little bit worth?
They might not have as much of such a valuable commodity, but what about the other things that they accumulated? He was rich by human standards, but compared to them he just picked up some change from the side of the street.
That may be true but that didn't mean that he wasn't excited, with just a little bit of these he would be set for a long time to come. How he was going to sell them was another matter, but he would cross that bridge when he got to it.
The walls were extremely thick, so when he retracted every piece no matter how big or small in only the 1km² space he already had a few thousand tons of the mana crystals.
But from here they started to go down, almost vertical. It looked like there was an even deeper cave system below and it only just came up here a little bit.
Naturally he wanted to explore even more of this, collecting as he went, but he had baggage he had to deal with first.
"Elephant boy"
"Yes, young master."
"I am going to bring you into a place, don't resist. While you are there I want you to use these crystals to increase your strength as quickly as possible. But don't absorb the mana, just use it to temper your body, I have other plans for that."
He threw him a head sized piece. "After you are done with this just ask Laura for more, by the time I get back you should be at the ascended tier. Good luck."
"Wait, wha…" Before he could even finish his sentence he was teleported into the space.
"Now that he is done with." Rubbing his hands, he jumped into one of the holes, disappearing into the darkness.