Affinity: Chaos

'Could it be related to my elemental grades?' Grey thought when he looked at the distribution of essence.

His light element was the lowest of all his elements, while his fire was the highest. It had been a while since he checked his elemental grades since he had been going from one place to another. He hadn't even had the time to cultivate properly, other than the short time in the Pyrmond Faction before they came here, he wouldn't have cultivated for a long time.

Thinking of this, he didn't try to balance the essence, instead, he entered the chaos space.

When he appeared on the mountain, he could not help but look at the place, lost in thoughts. His cultivation journey started from this place. It had been around seven to eight years since he started cultivating, and it had been a thrilling journey so far. There had been good and bad times, and he had nearly lost his life on multiple occasions, but he always managed to survive each difficult situation and come out stronger than he previously was.

He sighed and then walked to the temple, looking at the device used in checking his elemental grade, he was quite curious about how it appeared here. Thinking about it was not going to give him anything, so he gave up and placed his hand on the device.

After the usual routine, he looked as the light lit up.

As usual, his fire element was the highest, being the only one of his elements that were in the emerald grade, after the fire element, he surprisingly had three elements in the yellow grade, namely; his earth, water, and lightning elements were all a grade below the fire element. These four were the highest, followed by the wind, darkness, and space element which were all in the cyan grade, only the light element was still in the blue grade.

Seeing the light element still in the blue grade, he could not help but feel a bit disappointed. His other elements were all miles away from it. Nevertheless, his fire element was the one he felt more helpless towards because it had been the emerald grade for a while now, but it hadn't shown any signs of upgrading.

One has to know that he was just one grade behind the legendary black and white elemental grade. Once this element advances, he feels he would gain something from it. Unlike Void, who was born with such a high elemental grade, he had to work hard to increase his own. Luck has been on his side, and he had obtained some treasures that helped him advance faster than usual in his fire elemental grade, but his hard work could not be undermined.

Grey didn't stay in the Chaos Space any longer. Now that he got a general idea of his elemental grades, he would work with that while distributing the essence in the flower. It would also be helpful to him a well. This could help strengthen his chaos orb but it couldn't unleash its full potential since the energy distribution was not balanced.

….

In the outside world, Grey opened his eyes and stared at the flowers, he muttered while looking at them, "Maybe this stage wants to see the control an Elementalist had over their elements."

Grey didn't rush, he created an essence orb in his palm and started to distribute the energy, it was a painstaking task given the large difference between the elemental grades of his elements, but he knew if he could get it, it would be beneficial to him.

The bunny leader looked at Grey, stunned by what he was doing. It was mainly staring at the essence orb in Grey's hand. It could tell that it was not ordinary.

Grey didn't trust the bunny leader, so he made the essences obscure. This way, no matter how the bunny leader probed, it would not be able to see through it.

He seemed to sense the bunny leader's gaze and smiled at it. The bunny leader turned away, not bothering him any longer.

The place turned quiet as everyone was busy with something. Alice and Grey focused on cultivating while Void and the bunny leader slept.

…..

Three hours later.

Grey opened his eyes with a sigh, he was mentally exhausted!

This was the first time he was actively trying to balance his power, and contrary to his expectation, it was difficult. Initially, he thought after getting the idea of his elemental grades, he would know in what ratios he would distribute his energy. However, this was easier said than done.

In the past three hours, he had tried it over a thousand times, and the essence always seemed to lose stability and explode in his face. If not for the fact that he was using a small prototype, he would've been injured if he had tried using a larger orb.

Grey was not the only one who was having difficulties, Alice was also having some issues, but her situation was not as bad as Grey's.

The duo exchanged views, they could see the tiredness in each others' eyes.

"If we can master this, our strength will increase. But is it that easy?" Alice wore a helpless expression.

After some silence, Grey said, "I feel I should be able to pass the trial with what I've gained so far."

"Want to try it out?" Alice asked.

Grey shook his head, "I wonder if we'll only have to deal with one or more at the same time?"

The old man told them to care for the flowers, it was unknown if they had to care for just one or all the flowers in the area.

Without even checking, Grey knew for a fact that each flower had a different distribution. If they had to take care of them, they had to think of a way to learn how to balance their strength in different scenarios. It was both a good and a bad thing. They would gain strong control over their power if they could learn how to distribute their strength in different volumes. Achieving this was the difficult and time-consuming part.