When Gray opened his eyes, his dark eyes seemed even darker, they sucked you into them making you lose yourself in them in the process. He's whole existence seemed like a black hole that sucked everthing into it. Meditating along the path of the void was really dangerous, far more than the system had mentioned.
Just the fact it entailed space and time was a fact that stopped almost all of the population from ever even glimpsing into it's mysteries. Such heavenly talents were so rare that even empires had shortages of space mages as of time mages they were even rarer. The few dozen people that could get passed this hurdle faced an even bigger hurdle of understanding what the void was.
Understanding it with your own cognition and without external definitions was the real problem cause even in Gray's example though he had seen the system definition he could not use it to understand the void. The void was made-up of the holy trinity that were the basic elements of the universe and it was ever changing always in a state of destruction and creation so another person's help would be of no use at all and would be harmful to some extent.
The use of brute force was not an option too as the first step for meditating the void affinity was constructing your own space that could be understood as your own small pocket dimension surrounding your body that would absorb nature and all it's elements and return it back to it's primal state of chaos that would be what you would term as void energy or void mana.
Destruction leads to creation and this was indeed true, as what he was absorbing into his body could be called a lot of things but in it's most textbook definition would be pure mana that has not taken a characteristic. Mana so pure that it could not be contained thus he needed an external space to contain it acting like an external mana core
This was also one of the used of the space. Uncharacteristised mana was akin to nuclear energy, any slight exposure or disturbance would cause an explosion, it was that delicate and even his body could only take it in small microdoses until it was strong enough. The space he created acted like a nuclear reactor containing it and isolating it from the world.
The complicated details aside he was now considered a rank one professional though he did not have any spells of his own as that would have to wait. He just needed time to accumulate and some things would fall into place. He was not completely defenceless though as he had touched on the essence of time, space and nothingness though so rudimentary that it was like a grain of sand in an endless beach but this very essence could used to manipulate time, space and nothingness to defend himself. That was only in extreme events as he could feel his body would likely crumble if he did use such means.
Antony Morrison was a decisive man. This single trait had enabled him build his merchantry from the ground up. Though his prowess as a rank four wind mage moved most obstacles but in the competition against other merchants and their merchantries it was his decisiveness that grew the Morrison merchant union to where it was today but even he had moments of doubt and indecisiveness.
A beast tide was coming and the Infernal dutchy would be the first to be hit. The issue that troubled him laid with his youngest son. He's most fragile flower. He's eldest was already a rank three knight and with enough resources he could breakthrough to mid tier and with his prowess he could get out of most situation and handle his own.
He's daughter had better talent and was studying in the royal academy in the capital and if she were to graduate, the least combat power she would have would be rank five. That was not her biggest advantage, as the connections and bonds she had developed would be her greatest asset and this was why he sent her to the capital even though it was expensive but with his savings and his merchantry he could handle it.
These flowers of his, something his wife always called their children when she was still alive, would be okay and they could protect themselves amidst this chaos but he's youngest was so fragile that he didn't know what to do. He had the features of his mother and also inherited her stubborn nature. He did what he wanted to do dispite the risks involved. Now after the accident he was even more pitiful.
The doctor said he would live for at most five years with his current body and may even collapse before then. He kept this to himself and let him live his life free of that worry as of him running out of time and just enjoy life. He became more soft-spoken after the accident and fell in love with the garden.
Almost every day he would ask to be taken to the garden and this sense of deja Vu made him shed tears in the dark almost like he knew he was dying and was taking in nature one last time so he could not forget it. He did not want to force his son out of this peace and so he forbid anyone from speaking on the subject of the beast tide near him and in the estate for good measure before he could decide what to do.
Sending him to the capital was within his considerations but how to convince him was an issue and could his body really take that aurdous journey or would he be sentencing his son to death by his own hands. As the beast tide inched closer all he could do was ask for his son's opinion and leave upto him to decide. He would try and respect his last wishes.