After replenishing his mana, healing his finger, eating a meal, and then taking a nap in the beach Sun, Kayn was finally prepared to dive into the lava pit inside of the volcano.
He was dreading being constantly burned alive, but he was determined to see this through. The simultaneous destruction and healing of his body would hopefully result in his body becoming more tempered than before.
Who knows, maybe the original intent of having the inheritance core inside of the volcano was meant to temper the individual lucky or unlucky enough to find it. But how could the one who created this place know someone would have the abilities Kayn does?
Maybe they had the intent to create it for one who was already one with fire, he could only guess at this point. There was also the fact that Kayn still didn't know who this place belonged to. If he knew which Earthly god it was, maybe he would have a clue about what their purpose in creating this place was.
The thought of looking around the entire island to see if there was anything that could lead him to know who it was crossed his mind, but he decided against it as it wouldn't change the outcome. He already had a way to get what he needed, he just needed to do it. It really didn't matter who this place belonged to and he would figure out what they specialized in after he took everything for himself anyway.
Standing at the top of the volcano crater and looking down, he took a deep breath as he prepared for the pain and jumped into the pool of lava. He flooded his body with the light element as soon as he touched the boiling earth, his body burning as soon as he touched the lava.
The one thing he forgot about was his hair. He was already stark naked and all of his items were inside of the villa currently, including his rings, but he had no way to protect his hair. As soon as his head was submerged, he no longer had any hair on his body. Regardless of where the hair was, it was now gone and Kayn was a bald as a cue ball.
There were other things to worry about right now though, so he could mourn his loss of hair later. The burning became worse the closer he swam to the formation core, and as a result he had to push more mana into healing his body in order to keep up with the destruction of his tissues.
He had his eyes closed in order to protect them and it wasn't like he could use them inside of the lava anyway. He was using his Mana Sense to determine the direction he needed to go in, and this eventually led him straight to the formation center where he floated and began rotating the Void Star technique.
The pain intensified as soon as he began to use his cultivation technique, but he could only steel himself and put more effort into subconsciously healing his burning flesh. Soon enough, he became lost in the rhythm of burning and healing while contemplating and absorbing what the individual had left behind.
As he couldn't breathe to replenish his mana, he had to hope that he could keep up with just his natural mana regeneration rate and absorbance from the formation.
One day, two days, a week, two weeks, a month, two months. Finally, in the middle of the third month, Kayn came out of his meditative state as he had finished absorbing the inheritance and knew he would be soon kicked out back into the core of the Earth.
Kayn smirked as now both surviving and traversing within and out of the core layers would be much easier. There was a lot to learn from this place, and in the process he learned how to control a completely new deviant elemental form. Combining fire and earth, Kayn was now able to use the lava element!
He attributed his lack of trying it out before to the fact that he had very little time for studies as it was. There were just too many things that he needed to learn and test out for him to have covered everything in his short life.
One thing was for sure though, when he finally had free time, trying to combine elements in ways that he had seen them fused before was on the top of his list. Most had to be born with the natural aptitude and affinity to use a deviant element, but this didn't apply to Kayn and he was going to abuse it.
Lava wasn't exactly the most practical element to use in most situations, but it would sure be cool launching a cannon wave of lava at someone or flinging around Mana Threads imbued with lava like a fiery whip of death.
Kayn came to understand that the lava element he learned from the inheritance wasn't exactly meant for destruction, but creation. He wasn't positive, but he guessed that the inheritance was set up by a goddess worshiped and recognized by the Hawaiian people, Pele, who was said to have created the islands.
However, now that Kayn understood how to use the element, he would be able to manipulate it to a certain extent as he quite excelled with the fire element and wasn't half bad with the earth element now days.
Before Kayn was sent out and the area vanished, he placed several barriers over himself and prepared to use his understanding of gravity and earth to stop himself from being crushed.
Just as he expected, as soon as he was back in the empty spherical area, the ball of fire which he used to transport to the island disappeared and the solid metal surrounding him came crashing in faster than even a 5th stage mage would be able to react.
With all of the improvements Kayn had made, including to the Analyze skill, he was able to calmly resist being turned into meat paste as he used both physical and magical force to push back. The pressure up against him was astronomical, but he was holding on. Barely.
Taking quick action, he started excavating a way out for himself. It didn't matter where he surfaced on Earth, so as long as he went in one direction, he was bound to reach the surface eventually.
As it turned out, having the ability and knowledge of lava significantly helped him in this matter. He was able to more easily traverse through the outer core layer and back into the mantle quite easily, and soon he reached water where all he needed to do was jet himself up using the water element.
Fortunately, he couldn't suffer from decompression sickness as the pressure didn't really bother his body that much, if at all, even when he was in the core layers. The pressure was dangerous due to it trying to crush his body with earth and metal.
Once he reached the surface, he unfurled his wings and flew into the air. His mana wasn't depleted, but it was low. He used a significant amount getting back out of the Earth's crust, so flying with his wings was the best option to take.
First, he needed to find some land in order to bring the Wanderer's Villa out and put on some clothing again. Then he would see if there was anything he could do about his bald head, but he had never used mana to grow hair before, so he would need to experiment to see if it was possible. By all means it should be, but you never knew until you tried or learned from someone else.
He hadn't cut his hair since he was 16 and had been quite long. He felt very off without it flowing in the wind as he flew and even more unhappy about the way the wind brushed along his bald head. Even the short beard which he kept neatly trimmed was now gone.
Kayn eventually stumbled upon a landmass, though he didn't know which one, and immediately set up the Villa in order to shower, eat, and put clothes on before he solved his hair problem. The next issue would then be to find out where the last inheritance was.
So far, he hadn't found the temple that one of the first individual's he came across said that he should visit. He recalled that Nyx had told him to visit her father as well as Odin and the other being saying there was a place that should help solve his issue.
He was certain that Nyx's father was definitely Chaos, the supposed first Greek god who resided in the realm between the heavens and earth. He was said to be both a being and a state and one of the words used to describe him was the void.
Kayn didn't think it would be easy to find Chaos's inheritance site or to obtain his legacy, but he knew that once he did, he might finally be able to get back home.