Krios woke up to the sunlight hitting his face. His body felt heavy, but he no longer felt the pain he was feeling before passing out.
"What the hell happened to me? And what time is it?" He groggily sat up and looked out the window. The sun was high up and it looked like it was late in the morning. He walked out of bed and started stretching his arms and legs.
The door to his room suddenly opened and it was his mom who walked through.
"Krios honey, are you okay now? You have been asleep since we saw you yesterday afternoon." His mom then went to sit at the corner of his bed.
'Damn, I have been asleep that long?' If he remembered it correctly, he passed out about two hours before midday. Thinking about it, he has been asleep for almost a day now.
"Yes mom. I was just feeling really bad yesterday. How was the tournament by the way? Did Keian qualify?" He remebered his older brother's tournament yesterday.
"Oh yes he did, he place second. He was beaten by your cousin Anziel at the finals although it was a close fight." His mom smiled proudly. He was also proud of his brother's achievement. And although he lost to Antares, placing second is no easy feat knowing how talented the other kids from our clan were.
Anziel was his uncle Ikarus' first born son. He is extremely talented and as per tradition, would be the one proclaimed as heir when his father ascends the throne.
They talked some more and his mom filled him in with how the tournament turned out. Anziel came first, then his brother Keian, and the twins Arkane and Arkana came in eleventh and thirteenth respectively.
The the top twenty five from the tournament already have left earlier this morning to head to the Quadra-Star Union sacred grounds. Each memeber of the union would send their top twenty five young geniuses to enter a special realm where they will train, explore, and have opportunities to find weapons and treasures that can increase their strength. They will stay there for three months and would comeback to their respective clans and sects afterwards.
"I'm leaving now to do something, if you want to eat, go ahead and ask an attendant to bring you food in here okay?" His mom stood up and walked toward the door.
"Yes mom. Thank you." He said to her and she gave him one last smile before going out of the room.
'Now, let's check my body to see what the hell happened to it.' He then flared his soul sense and scanned his body.
He was shocked to notice that there was these hazy purple particles that was floating around his mana core. He realized that it was the purple flame that he absorbed the day before. It looked like mana and it felt like mana so he tried moving it like how he does mana and it somehow obliged.
"Hmm, I can control it then." He murmured. He then tried to absorb it to his mana core but it looked like the purple thing was repulsed by his core. It would only go near covering it but it refused to touch his core.
'Peculiar' he Thought.
"This is obviously not mana as it does not want to enter my core. So what is this?"
He then suddenly had an absurd idea. He started to separate a tiny portion of the purple thing aside and tried to push it to cover his entire mana core. It again reacted and tried to push back refusing to touch the core but Krios fought back and added more pressure into it.
The purple mana, as he decided to call it for now, started to solidify and condence as Krios continued to add pressure into it. It was hard applying constant and equal pressure on all sides but he persisted.
Beads of sweat started to form on his forehead as the ordeal went on. The process went on longer as Krios and the purple mana pushed against each other.
'A little bit more. Come on Krios' He urged himself.
After what felt like hours, the condensed purple mana finally looked solid enough so Krios stopped pushing back. He fell back to his bed exhausted from the work he had to do but a smile persisted on his face.
He then checked hi mana core to see his work and his smile grew bigger.
"Yes!" He shouted with glee as he saw the state of his core.
The purple mana has fully coated his fractured mana core like a second layer hugging it tightly. It looked to him like his mana core had a purple glass cover that protected it.
He tried using his mana to see if the new layer affected it and was happy to know that it didn't. His mana output remained the same as before which made him really happy.
He was so elated by the fact that his fractured core has been seemingly repaired that he started tearing up.
"I can finally do it. I can continue cultivating." He said through his sobs.
Only his silent sobs can be heard inside his room for minutes. Then he started to collect himself up and he continued scanning his body.
He saw that his bones have also been mysteriously strengthened. Which was probably the reason for the excruciating pain he felt the day before.
He then went back to his core and saw the remaining ourple mana lingering on the side. He thought about what to do with them when he suddenly had another wild idea.
He collected more purple mana and he placed them around his core. It resisted being near it but not as much as it did before due to the new purple mana layer it had. He then gathered the rest of it and tried to replicate what he did with his core but this time, the new layer was a bit bigger than his core itself.
He was trying to create another layer of his core but this time, not for his mana but for the purple mana left in his body. It was harder to condense it this time due to it pushing a little less than it did the first time.
"Argh!" He grunted as his concentration broke and the purple mana layer started to crumble as it did not condense enough.
'I'm so hungry I need to eat first.' He thought.
He called in an attendant and asked to be brought food to his room. After eating and resting for a while, he sat on the floor and started to do the process again.
"Okay let's go! I can do this!" He hyped himself up and started concentrating once again.
He worked for hours, trying to find a solution to his predicament. Trying out ways to move forward with his plan. He failed multiple times and he has thought of giving up a couple of times as well. But he decided to push through.
"This is so hard!" He exclaimed, sweat pouring down the side of his face.
After hours of trying, and redoing his work, he was finally able to achieve his goal. The new layer of his core that housed the remaining purple mana was completed.
He was to tired to even celebrate his victory so he just laid on the floor smiling.
"I did it again!"
He looked at the window and noticed that it was already starting to get dark outside. He really did push himself today and he was tired yet proud of what he has accomplished.
He sat down and inspected his core. His mana core, which was the size of a grape, was now inside another core the size of a tangerine. His purple mana core contained the remaining half of the purple flame he consumed.
"Now let's test if all tof these work or not." He murmured.
He first tried to push out mana from his mana core to see if the purple mana core affected it. But since his mana core was directly connected to his primary mana vein, the mana flowed out from his core freely which made him happy.
Then he tried to push out mana from his purple core to see if it can do what a core can do. It started out slow, but it he was eventually able to push a but of it out.
"It's harder than the normal mana release but its doable. But I can't try and practice it so much because I have a limited supply of purple mana." This was a problem he doesn't have a solution with which irked him. But he can't do anything about it.
"Oh I forgot about the box. Let me try and open it now." He then went and fetched the box from the drawer.
He plopped back down on the floor and started examining again— looking at every corner of the box to see if there's anything that he can try and do something with.
Aside from the engravings he could not understand, all he saw was a small crystal about an inch in diameter sitting at the center of the box.
He tried pressing it, prying it away, and knocking it on surfaces but nothing happened. Out of ideas, Krios tried imbuing the crystal with mana and half of it started glowing dimly.
"Why only half?" Then an idea popped into his head. Knowing where this box came from. The purple mana might be the answer.
Krios started imbuing the crystal with mana once again, then he followed it up with mana from his purple core. The two manas tarted mixing in his mana vein which surprised him because they seemed to have hated each other before.
When the purple mana reached the crystal, the other half started glowinv and something inside the box clicked and then it opened.
"Woah, that was nice." He remarked at the senation of his two manas mixing together.
There inside the box, sat a book. It had a black thick cover with purple accents. He picked it up and put the box aside. It was quite heavy and looked nothing like books from this era.
He read the title of the book aloud.
"The Book of Chaos."