Luan fell to his knees, expecting to be squashed into meat paste the moment he saw the pillar that looked too solid to be light.
Surprisingly, the pillar turned out to be nothing but silver light that descended...
'From the moon?'
He stood up, taking a look at himself and the pillar of silver light that cascaded down upon him.
The light didn't do anything to him at first. It just caressed his body, making it feel like he was in the warm embrace of his mother.
Luan frowned a bit, not liking the sensation, but he found himself to be essentially helpless. He couldn't cut light, no matter how sharp his blade was.
In his consciousness, the Lord of the Abyss chuckled softly.
"Can't cut light?
"I imparted the swordsmanship of a demigod who cut nothingness apart, don't be a fool."
Of course, Luan couldn't hear the remark of the tenant in his mind, so he tried to do something that he felt would take advantage of the gentle light.
The Lord of the Abyss' metaphorical eyes widened as he lamented the reason why Luan's consciousness was so weak that he couldn't breathe him for his nonsensical actions.
Luan actually wanted to absorb the moonlight into his actual core.
'I don't know how possible this is, but it won't hurt to try...'
"It will you dumb brat! You don't just joke with your mana core like that!"
Of course, Luan didn't hear a word.
He sat down cross-legged and closed his eyes, then he breathed in to absorb the light around him.
At least he tried to.
He had expected the light to flow into his core like the normal process, but what he didn't expect was for his miniature cores to suddenly start moving.
All nine of them suddenly became autonomous and rushed towards the location of his actual mana core with unforseen aggressiveness.
Luckily, Luan hadn't formed the main core, else, the results would have been catastrophic, even for someone with two hearts.
The nine cores completely left their positions and entered the position of his mana core.
Then, the pathways fused, turning into a spiral.
This spiral grew, becoming twice the size of a normal mana core before growing branches that multiplied rapidly into venous pathways.
As these pathways grew even wider, eleven miniature cores twice the size of those before them appeared with their own venous pathways branching out.
This caused each venous pathways to have connections that centered around Luan's mana core, two kidneys, two lungs, spine, heart, brain stem and his limbs.
The pure mana inside each miniature cores was expunged, then Luan breathed in.
Naturally, he was seeing every change in his body and was following it with his mind.
No matter how young he was or how ignorant he was of the world of mana, he was pretty sure that the changes happening in his body was totally abnormal.
But he had no choice but to follow what his body did.
'No regrets now...'
He already knew how to filter the mana into its pure form when he wanted to absorb it into his miniature cores, but he was still somewhat hesitant when it came to his main core.
'Gotta do it anyway...'
He steeled himself, then directed the mana he absorbed into the spiral.
Unfortunately... the mana this time was coloured with the same diverse colours that Luan didn't want.
He tried to stop the flow, but a sense of death like never before suddenly assaulted his senses, making him go extremely pale and covered in cold sweat.
Still, the mana didn't stop surging.
When the mana reached Luan's spiral mana core though, something that shocked even the Lord of the Abyss, who had been wondering if Luan was even human.
The coloured mana... was filtered, literally.
The moment the mana reached the outer edges of the spiral, it turned to the colour of pure mana, a translucent bluish silver colour.
Afterwards, the pure mana was distributed throughout Luan's body through the venous pathways that connected in 12 places in Luan's body.
Once the mana reached the 11 miniature cores, they also became points of suction that absorbed mana from the atmosphere.
***
In the night, where coldness, fog and bizarre entities reigned, the battle between the golden Giant and a bizarre entity that looked like the amalgamation of the most unholy entities was interrupted by a suction of atmospheric mana.
The bizarre entity was about to start moving towards the place, but a golden light that carved out the space in front of it made it pause and re-focus on the giant in front of it.
SKREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
***
At the same time, old man Zindi, who was about to lose his temper and lash out at the brat who dated to slap him suddenly turned his head in a particular direction as he felt the mana moving towards the place in large waves.
'That's the direction of the temple I saw earlier...'
***
Luan felt the mana rush towards him like an avalanche that threatened to drown him, but the suction of his 12 cores only increased, making the mana course through his body in droves that began to pulse with every heartbeat.
With every pulse, the speed of his mana flow became faster and faster, until the mana started circulating in his body in a process not dissimilar to blood circulation.
Luan opened his eyes, about to end his tedious and weird session of mana practice, but the silver pillar that suddenly surged into his body clearly disagreed.
The light surged into his pores and his orifices, suddenly expunging black substances that gave out horrid smells.
As his pores expunged this black substance, Luan's eyes exploded and his remaining senses apart from his skin ruptured before rapidly reforming themselves under the influence of the silver light.
As this happened, the tunic Luan was putting on tore apart in several places, making him grumble despite the situation.
After five minutes, everything stopped.
The suction of mana stopped.
The rapid movement of mana settled down and circulated in tandem with his blood.
The black substances that were expunged dried and were blown away by the wind.
Luan opened his eyes and inspected himself.
Then, he sucked in a cold breath.
"Wow."