The area he appeared in seemed to be outside the cave, as Sylas could still see the entrance behind him.
He was mostly surrounded by huge trees that reached up to 50 meters in height, making it impossible for him to see in any direction. From time to time, he could also hear some animals growling from deep in the forest.
‚I better get stronger before I go out. Since I don't even know where the next town is, I could walk for days before I get anywhere.'
In order to get stronger, Sylas first had to start cultivating, or whatever the people of this world called it. Probably meditation, considering that the old woman had given him a meditation technique.
However, before he tried the technique, he wanted to find out what affinity he had received. Although the old woman said it was Space, she could have been lying to him. Even if it was true, he still didn't know its level. But he assumed it was relatively high, considering that the mummy wanted him to join her organization.
"Status"
[Name: Sylas Aetherstein]
[Realm: -]
[Affinity: Void (Peak Chaos)]
[Techniques: -]
[Bloodline: -]
[Abilities: -]
[Special Abilities: Transmigrator's Luck (13:23:30) (Ungraded)]
[Chat]
[Teleport (6:23:30)]
‚Hmm, I knew that old hag would lie to me. What is she talking about space affinity when this clearly says void. Obviously the system wouldn't be wrong.'
Although Sylas still didn't know how high the level was, it was the same as the meditation manual the old woman had introduced him to.
‚The name is even the same as the Void Scripture. This must be my luck. But if even the old woman said that this element was made up. That must mean it's quite rare. But rare usually means strong, so that's a win for me!'
Something else Sylas noticed were the two countdowns behind his special ability and the teleportation function. Both were also grayed out, meaning that he couldn't use them until the timer reached zero.
‚What would happen if I used my special ability just as the timer was about to expire? Would that make up for the misfortune, or would I just suffer a smaller loss? I guess I will have to try to find out.'
For now, Sylas simply went back to meditating for the first time. For that, he needed to somehow access the information inside the crystal ball.
‚How does this work? Do I just have to focus on it? Channel some energy into it?' Sylas tried everything, obviously he couldn't channel energy into it because he didn't have any, but everything else didn't work either.
Suddenly, he remembered something. In his old life, the protagonists in the novels he read as a child often used their blood to access a treasure. Perhaps he needed to do the same.
His first instinct was to bite his finger, but he knew he could never get blood that way. Such a method wouldn't work in real life. Instead, he took a sharp stone and made a slight incision on his index finger.
"Ouch." Finally, he drew some blood and let it fall onto the crystal ball. The moment they made contact, a multitude of gold and silver runes began to cover its exterior and even its interior. They were so complex that Sylas had to look away as he began to get a headache.
The blood was slowly absorbed into the crystal, seemingly merging with it. The moment it completely disappeared, the sphere suddenly shot into Sylas' head without warning. As soon as it entered completely, he felt a splitting headache. A huge amount of information was being fed into his brain. The amount was so great that he almost fainted, only his strong will kept him conscious. He had no time to waste.
It took about five minutes for the entire process to be completed, but it was finally over. Sylas had to lie on the ground for a full minute, just breathing heavily, before he could get up. That was the maximum amount of time he was willing to give himself.
As soon as he was on his feet again, he went through his new memories. They were the way for him to get stronger. As far as he could tell, they were mostly about his affinity, how to get stronger, and even contained a few simple spells.
The first thing he thought about was his affinity. According to the scriptures, the Void was like a higher form of space. He didn't quite understand it, but supposedly, Space, Destruction, and Darkness were all derived from Void by something called Chaos.
But he didn't need to know the whole story to understand that Void was actually stronger than Space.
‚This is great. I bet with the Void affinity alone, I could become the strongest human on Earth.' Seeing the Destruction part of his affinity, another plan began to form in his mind.
Next was the actual meditation technique. For now, the scripture only gave him access to the first realm of power. It was called Initiate, or Void Initiate, as the book called it.
In this realm, a normal magus would have to absorb mana into his mana core. To do this, they would have to form several complex runes in their minds that would allow them to not only attract the mana, but also absorb it without harming themselves. Progressing through this realm was fairly easy, and it was divided into early, mid, late, and peak, depending on how much of your core you had filled.
However, the realm in his scripture was slightly different. Instead of just forming a normal mana core, he would form a 'Void Vortex'. He had to modify his mana core by creating a vortex of void-attributed mana inside his core.
The vortex had a few notable advantages. The first was that it would continuously absorb mana from the air to replenish his mana reserves. Even though it couldn't cultivate by itself, it meant that he would have a lot more energy when he fought.
The second advantage was that the vortex would break down the mana it absorbed and condense it as much as possible, making the mana he possessed much more effective than the mana used by normal magi.
The final benefit was that the newly condensed mana would automatically be Void-attributed. This would boost his attacks that used the Void element and save him a lot of time. If a normal magus wanted to do the same thing, he would have to go through a complicated process that would take a lot of time. And even then, they would lose that mana when they used it and have to repeat the process.
‚Woah, I don't know how high the Chaos level is, but from the way it sounds, it should be quite powerful, at least beyond the limits of any Mid-World. The existence of a mid-world implies that both a high and a low world exist. Earth is probably a Low World, but I don't know if there is a Peak World as well.' Sylas started to think about the True Level of his technique, but that was beyond his current scope, so he simply stopped after a few minutes.
‚Time to start meditating.' Sylas began by sitting cross-legged on the smooth stone floor and closing his eyes.
The scripture contained images of the runes he had to picture in his mind to attract the mana. Fortunately, the knowledge was injected directly into his mind, otherwise it would have taken him at least two weeks to learn them. They were three-dimensional and very complicated.
In the beginning, he only had to visualize a single rune, which he did within 5 minutes. The moment he did, the mana began to rush towards his body, entering his pores.
The information contained in the technique also told him which paths the mana would have to take in his body, so he could direct it in that direction. This process went quite smoothly as the knowledge was already deeply ingrained in his mind.
The mana from the environment continuously rushed towards Sylas. The main reason for this was his high affinity for Void. A high affinity with any element usually gave you a high control over mana, which was a great advantage in the early realms.
But the technique was also a big reason for his cultivation speed, as the runes he visualized in his mind were really optimal for meditation.
Because of this, he officially broke through to the early stage of Initiate after only 5 minutes of mana absorption. A normal human would normally take almost two or three hours.
But he wasn't done yet. He continued for another six hours because he wanted to have enough mana to cast at least a few spells. Otherwise, it would be useless for him to do this whole process right now.
When the six hours were up, the sun was about to disappear behind the horizon. Sylas had entered the early stage of the Initiate Realm.
At that moment, he could hear his stomach growling, so he searched for some berries that grew near the cave, because he didn't dare to go further into the forest. Especially at night. Luckily, he found some non-toxic ones and ate them before starting on learning his first spell.
There was no time to relax.