Return of the Fallen Volume 7 Chapter 7
Kazuki drained three large crystals within thirty seconds. Afterward, they would collapse in on themselves and be reduced to a fine powdery substance. Kazuki would then store the dust inside his ring and at the same time bring out three more boulder-sized dark elemental crystals. Once he did that he would again absorb all of the energy in the crystals into his Mage core. Repeating this process again and again and again, Kazuki very quickly began to fill up his Mage core.
After a mere two hours, Kazuki had come to the next step. His Mage core had absorbed as much as it could and now came condensing all that energy down, solidifying it, and purifying it. To do so was easy. Controlling his magic with focus, Kazuki contained all of the energy within his core and began to squeeze it. Almost like ringing out a rag. You could get most of the liquid out of the rag but not all of it. Squeezing condensed it and solidified it and forced out a great deal of energy. What Kazuki forced out of his core was any and all waste. What the waste was, Kazuki himself wasn’t quite sure. It was an energy of some kind but its properties were so insignificant, Kazuki couldn’t properly identify it. Still, he forced this waste type of energy out of his Mage core.
After it was out of his Mage core, he thought about removing it completely from his body when an interesting idea popped into his head. This idea tempted Kazuki and his greed once more got the better of him.
(To remove all of this wasted energy would be…well a waste. Why not have a small snack instead.)
Kazuki activated the Ourodyess technique. As soon as he did that, the small hole at the base of his soul tree began to churn before like a miniature black hole, it began to suck in all the wasted energy, Kazuki was about to throw away.
Kai seeing this was about to throw a fit but before he did, Danny stopped him.
“Look, he’s keeping himself under control.”
Kazuki’s mind had drifted away from the outside world and he was now inside his soul world standing beside the ourodyess devouring technique. Aura flowing over top his hands like a pair of gloves, Kazuki applied layers of aura around the devouring technique, preventing it from going out of control and taking over his body. Now that he had trained his aura with Oren, his control and mastery of it had greatly improved. In this way, he could not only stop himself from going out of control but he could also shut the technique off almost immediately now.
As the ourodyess technique churned the wasted energy from Kazuki’s Mage core began to fly from the core, directly into the black hole. At the same time, Kazuki felt a strange sensation from his actual body as muscles began to expand and his bones grew denser and flesh tougher.
(I knew it. This waste energy isn’t seen as pure by my Mage core but the ourodyess technique doesn’t differentiate. This is power plain and simple and because of it my body is growing stronger and stronger the more this technique devours.)
Kazuki had learned that his strength could grow if the ourodyess technique devoured things. Not just anything though, it had to be something quite strong. He had eaten many creatures, plants, and other things down in the trench with the ourodyess technique but his body only became enhanced when he ate part of Satorus. Satorus was incredibly strong. Even after Kazuki had improved drastically over months, his strength still didn’t match Satorus.
Because of these factors, Kazuki theorized that the ourodyess technique could allow the user to grow strong as long as they devoured something as strong or possibly stronger than themselves. The power Kazuki was devouring right now, one couldn’t exactly say how strong it was but it was an amount of pure energy Kazuki had never absorbed before. After condensing it down, even though it was considered waste, it was chock-full of power.
Had Kazuki simply absorbed energy from a regular mana crystal, a crystal that had already been processed and was full of impurities, he wouldn’t receive such an effect. Because the dark elemental crystal he was absorbing was already incredibly pure, any waste that came out of it would also be pretty pure in and of itself. This brought Kazuki an added benefit and he could now reuse the wasted energy and that he did.
Outside of his soul world, in the real world, Kazuki absorbed the energy from the dark crystals directly into his Mage core. He then condensed the energy inside his Mage core and pushed out the wasted energy while purifying what was leftover inside his Mage core, making his energy tenacious and flowing rapidly. His control was increasing drastically over his magic making him more efficient with it and making it easier and faster to will it forward. While his energy was purifying inside his Mage core, the wasted energy that had been pushed out was instantly eaten up by the devouring black hole at the base of his soul tree.
This caused Kazuki’s body to strengthen even more. If any were to witness what was happening inside this cave, they would lose their shit and call Kazuki a cheat but truth be told this was merely the beginning.
As the devouring technique ate more and more of this wasted energy, it as well started to grow, as it did, something incredible started to take place. It wasn’t only Kazuki’s body that was strengthening but his soul as well was going through a change. Kai and Danny could not come near due to the black hole but from where they stood they could tell Kazuki’s soul was strengthening as they stared at his soul tree. Before there very eye, new branches upon his soul tree began to sprout and the tree itself started to stretch and climb towards the sky as it grew.
Kazuki started to get worried. His thinking was on the ourodyess technique in itself. If it got stronger, wouldn’t it be harder to control? A natural fear but to Kazuki’s surprise, as his soul grew, so to did his aura. It increased in size and potency and for every bit that the black hole expanded, so to did his aura and he kept complete control.
All of this together would be considered insane but it wasn’t the end of it. With his sol strengthening that led to something else. He could now take on even more soul pain. When he tried to absorb a little over a dozen dark elemental crystals at once, the pain to his soul was so excruciating that he was on the verge of passing out. If he did, his body would have kept absorbing power until his Mage core went out of control or exploded, killing him in the process. Thankfully Danny helped him at the last moment. Kazuki had just learned that harsh lesson today and had settled on only absorbing three dark elemental crystals at once but now a new opportunity presented itself. With his soul growing, he could now endure more hardships.
Kazuki looked back at Danny and Kai and asked.
“What do you guys think? With my soul growing stronger like this I should be able to take on more. I won’t do it though if you guys have any objections.”
Kai was ready to throw a fit but Danny on the other hand was seriously considering it. As he stood there rubbing his chin in thought Kai stared at him blankly.
“Oi, Danny you can’t really be thinking about agreeing. I mean he literally almost died just a few hours ago. what if he messes up again”
Danny shook his head.
“It shouldn’t be the case this time. Look at his soul tree, it’s clear his soul in this little bit of time has already strengthened by a large amount. Can’t you feel it, it’s got to be twice as strong at least by now. As long as he doesn’t try and absorb the energy from six crystals at once, theoretically, he should be able to endure it. I’ve said neither too fast nor too slow. If he sticks with this pace of absorbing three at once, by my own definition that is now too slow.”
Kai didn’t know what to say. He felt like the stronger Kazuki grew, the more and more risk he was taking and he didn’t like it. The only other voice of reason was supposed to be Danny but now Danny was telling Kazuki to go for it as well.
“I give up. Little dummy you better not come crying to me or Danny if things take a wrong turn. Wipe your own ass, you got it!”
Kazuki smiled and gave a nod before activating his ring from within his soul world. The crystals were replaced and now 6 sat in front of Kazuki’s body. The process of absorbing them started and Kazuki felt a rushing wave of pain, this one was more intense than the first few but because his soul was strengthened, Kazuki felt it was bearable. With this, his speed got even faster and faster from this point on.
Absorb, condense, solidify, purify, eat wasted energy. The changes happening on the outside to his physical body were just as much as the changes if not more taking place inside his soul.
Several hours passed and his pace increased a few more times during that time. Finally, he came to expanding it. Entering the center of his Mage core with a thought, Kazuki used the pure energy inside to push the limits of his Mage core. Bit by bit, cracks began to run along the surface of his Mage core, bit by bit the cracks grew wider and bigger, but no magic leaked out from it. Kazuki contained it all inside but this was difficult. The energy was so pure and dense it felt like a real physical object with weight and right now that weight felt as if it were equal to a mountain.
This still wasn’t quite enough though.
(Just a bit more energy, just a bit more to push it over the edge.)
Kazuki entered his storage ring to pull out some more of the dark elemental crystal but found that there was no more. The 6-mile tall tower of dark crystal, Kazuki had already used it in its entirety.
As he was searching his storage ring, he could sense the cracks all over his Mage core starting to repair themselves.
(No, this is a critical moment.)
Kazuki desperately searched his storage ring but there didn’t seem to be anything suitable or so he thought. He came across the large whale beast bodies he had slain in the river. Each one had a body well over a hundred feet and each one had a magical beast core within them.
Realizing this, Kazuki took out all of them and found he had 12 tier 2 beast cores in total.
(This, please be enough.)
Magical beast cores were pack full of pure energy as well as held fragments of raging beast souls within them. Without control or proper sealing, they could explode and cause devastating damage.
Kazuki had no time to think about this. All at once he surrounded the beast cores with his magic and pulled the energy out of them and into his Mage core. His Mage core was just starting to repair itself, once this new catalyst was introduced though, there was only one path.
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