Alden's eyes widened as he stared at the blue screen in front of him.
<Hidden Quest: Claim the Sword of Chaos initiated.>
His body trembled with excitement, but he quickly calmed himself. "Sword of Chaos? What's that supposed to be?" he muttered curiously.
"Well, it doesn't matter. I'll know soon enough. But first..." He shrugged his shoulders. "I need to prepare." He spoke as he started walking towards an isolated part near the lake.
He couldn't be hasty; he had to prepare before entering the door, as he didn't know about dangers behind it.
He soon recalled details about Eclipse Codex.
The Eclipse Codex is a mysterious cultivation tome and one of the three Primordial rank Mana Tomes in this world.
The tome could grant it's user control over Shadow, Light and Eclipse elements. There were some people with two elements but three? that's unheard of.
But currently I could not control any of those element because I don't have the elemental core yet.
Although his core had been formed by the system when he entered the trial, that core was just a normal mana core created using neutral mana without any elemental affinity.
To use the Eclipse Codex, he had to form an elemental core compatible with Eclipse Codex.
Eclipse Codex deals with the Eclipse element. But Eclipse is a mixture of shadow and light element, so according to the cultivation technique of Eclipse Codex, he had to form two cores, one of shadow element and the other of light element.
He has to choose one of them currently and form the other one when he reaches the apprentice rank. And he could only use spells of the element he formed the core with.
"Shadow Core or Light Core," Alden mused, recalling the choice laid out in the codex. "Both have their advantages, but..." He frowned. "A Light Core would draw too much attention, especially from my family. I'll start with the Shadow Core now and form the other one after reaching Apprentice Rank."
With his decision made, Alden sat on the ground near the lake's edge, where the spirits were floating lazily above the shining water.
Alden ignored their curious glances cast towards him as he closed his eyes.
"First, I have to sense the mana pathways," he whispered to himself.
He focused inside his body, tracing the network of mana vessels within his body.
Unlike blood vessels, mana pathways were invisible to the naked eye but vital to use magic.
He traced them to his dantian as he could feel a core brimming with cool energy there, his mana core.
"It's time for the next step," he murmured as he increased his focus.
Alden now Started focusing on the ambient mana near him, and soon he could sense the vast amount of ambient mana in his surroundings.
He focused trying to pull that mana into his body, but the mana was resisting as if having a mind of its own.
"So you're going to be difficult, huh?" Alden muttered, a slight grin forming on his face
"Fine. I can handle that" He increased his focus as he kept trying to coax the mana bit by bit until he could move a small amount toward him.
As the ambient mana entered his body, he started using the specific circulation technique given in the Eclipse Codex to change ambient mana into shadow mana as he transferred the changed mana in his core.
Slowly, the neutral mana in his core was being replaced by dark energy.
"Almost there..." Sweat trickled down his temple as he saw the core was nearly filled with shadow energy. He felt his core thumping with dark energy.
Finally, all ambient mana in his core had been replaced by shadow mana.
"Now for the hard part." Alden gritted his teeth, knowing what came next.
He willed the shadow mana in his core to explode.
Alden gritted his teeth as a sharp pain coursed through his body as soon as he exploded his mana, and a groan left unconsciously.
But he kept exploding it again and again despite the pain as finally cracks started forming on the surface of his core.
"I can't stop now," he groaned, the pain nearly overwhelming as if his insides were burning.
With one final explosion, his core shattered completely.
The shadow mana inside began to dissipate quickly, but Alden quickly controlled it, gathering it again as he forced the energy to solidify.
He shaped it carefully until a new mana core, dark black in colour, started to form inside his dantian.
"Almost... done," he whispered, his voice strained.
After what felt like an eternity, Alden finally opened his eyes.
His body felt lighter, stronger than before.
<Ding!>
Alden blinked at the notifications as some information was being poured into his mind.
It was the information of basic spells of the shadow element in the Eclipse Codex he had unlocked after forming his shadow core.
"Status." He muttered as a familiar blue screen appeared, and his lips curled into a smile as he read the details.
==========[STATUS]=============
Name - Alden Draven
Mana Core - NOVICE (Beginner)
Potential - ???
=====[Mana Tome]=====
The Eclipse Codex [Primordial Rank]
[Description: One of the three Primordial Rank tomes in the world. Its cultivation method unlocks the user's latent potential by balancing light and shadow, gradually granting them mastery over the rare Eclipse Element.
[Current Phase - Moon Phase]
[Spells Unlocked: Shadow Steps,Shadow Manipulation.]
======[STATS]=========
STR - G
AGI - G-
INT - G- --> G
VIT - G
END - G-
MANA- 200/200 ---> 500/500
=======[ABILITIES]=======
1. Spirit Eyes (Unique)
[Description: Spirit Eyes are the eyes that can see the true essence of the world. Most of the effects are locked due to low user rank.
[Effects]
[1. Weakness Detection (Active)
[2. Aura Detection (Active)
[3. Enhanced Perception (Passive)
===============================
It seems his intelligence stat and his mana pool had increased from before.
He soon focused on his newly awakened spells as a new window popped up showing him details of the spells.
============
===Spells===
[Shadow Steps (New): Teleport a few meters between shadows. Requires shadows to exist in the target area.
Mastery: Novice (0%)
Mana Cost: 50 Mana ]
[Shadow Manipulation (New): Your control over shadows increase as you can manipulate shadows to your will.]
Mastery - Novice (0%)
================
"Not bad," he said with a grin.
His body felt refreshed, as all his exhaustion vanished.
"Let's test this out." He wanted to test his new spells as soon as possible.
He circulated the shadow mana within his legs according to information in his mind as he muttered "Shadow Steps," looking at a shadow of a large stone a few meters ahead.
He felt his body dissolve within his own shadow as he quickly appeared from the shadow of the stone. The movement took less than a second.
But as soon as he appeared he kneeled to the ground feeling disoriented as his mind started spinning due to the aftereffects as his body wasn't used to the quick movement yet.
His current mastery of spell was too low to use it in battle immediately as the distance he could travel was too short.
He will have to increase his mastery to increase the range of his teleportation...
After Alden was done testing Shadow Steps his gaze scanned the next spell Shadow Manipulation.
''Let's see just how far I can push this power,'' he murmured as he felt faint connection to the shadows near him.