Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Deep within Skullius’ soul, the will of a certain individual was held captive in what most would likely call a bubble.

A cute word, though.

Prison was more astute.

There was nothing to be felt and nothing to be seen from within the bubble.

Whoever would be sentenced to such a fate of being stored as a mere consciousness was bound to grow insane or writhe in negativity until they snapped.

Anyone but this man, however…

Sila silently coiled within the silence.

If he hadn’t been imprisoned for thousands of years prior within the Labyrinth of the Yoke, a darkness that seemed to carry boundless evils being his company for the longest stretch of time, he could have gone insane.

No. Perhaps not.

That was an unfair assessment.

To live that long without needing sustenance, his body having been relieved the need to excrete waste, was naturally credit that belonged to the master of the Labyrinth, Fulgardt.

Sila in his inaudible rage and pain was forced to think back to the good, the average and the really bad times during the course of his actual life.

Growth.

Belief.

Love.

Defeat.

Misery.

The age he had lived in had plenty of these.

Because of the horrors of war, people loved like there was no tomorrow.

Because beliefs were warped by behemoths with the power to topple continents, cults flourished.

Because no one pitied the weak, or even considered them in the grand scheme of collective life, growth was more prominent.

And yet, to those who were not in Fulgardt’s camp, misery and defeat seldom missed its mark.

Sila was unfortunate to still be alive even after that humiliation from the day the Grim Tower fell.

Worse yet, what preceded it was a torn heart as a bold and unwavering sense of grief which was constantly portrayed in the form of blood mixed with pale red juices of fresh tomatoes…

For him, the worst loss of his life.

‘I am bottled up once again. Hmph! Pathetic! Will I slowly grow mad once more?’ Sila thought.

THRUM!

‘Hmm?’

THRRUUUUUM!

Sila’s thoughts were disturbed by a loud boom that seemed to bang against the dome of the bubble he inhabited!

THRUUUUM!

Waves of energy blasted against it, but to Sila, only a muffled shudder reached his consciousness.

Such a thing. What was Skullius doing?

Sila’s thoughts went over to how he had temporarily attained freedom earlier.

That complex treasure within Skullius’ body…

If he had had more time with it, perhaps he could have worked something out.

He had sacrificed Skullius’ mana core because there was little to gain from it if he were to fight Bek whom he had estimated to be at the Master Stage. Basic mana attacks wouldn’t work against him but immense physical prowess would.

‘His core… is he trying to restore it?’ Sila thought.

A reverberation that reached even to the soul.

Indeed.

It had to be Skullius reforging his core and his soul spectating to etch the action deep within it.

‘How fortunate you are, tomato flinger, that we are separate existences. Otherwise, you’d have been unable to forge it alone,’ Sila thought before resigning himself to listening to the dull tunes of the banging against this bubble for the rest of imprisoned time.

A Creed with oneself forbade the reversal of what one sacrificed with another Creed.

For that, an external Creed or something of an equivalent level of influence was needed.

However, Skullius was not Sila. And with the aged piece of soul now buried in Skullius’ own soul, it was as if he never existed.

A special circumstance occured where Sila’s actions were seemingly ignored in addition to him not being counted as the same being as Skullius.

Therefore, Skullius could reforge his core as if it was the first time for his body to contain one.

Sila settled in the silence as he waited once more, the record to his life accompanied by the thrum against the barrier to his bubble.

*

The large forest within the world atop the staff was mesmerising to behold.

From its fringes where the vegetation was sparse to the tangled mess that existed at the centre, one couldn’t simply look away from this marvel, especially when visible ‘rivers’ of condensed mana could be seen cruising between and above the trees, nourishing all things.

Spots of reddish green could be seen, rare gems mounted within strange plants or growing over the barks of trees.

Enriching gems of a higher calibre.

The blot to this scene however, was the large indentation near the edge of the forest where this world ended, a big chunk of this place having been gouged out without tact.

Yes.

This was indeed the portion of the land that had been taken off by the Galemonger back when it attacked Inhone, though it had barely amounted to anything consequentially important.

Back to the mesmerising centre of the forest however, Skullius who stood with his torso bare took in a breath consciously, this action being something he was doing while absorbing mana in order to see how it interacted with his body outside his pathways.

He was no longer choking on it like before, his body having grown a bit tolerant to it.

The result was not exactly anything ground breaking though, or so he thought.

Because the mana was pure and condensed, his muscles screamed and tightened which he imagined would have been painful if he were anyone else.

After that reaction, nothing else would ensue.

This wasn’t his main objective so Skullius didn’t mind as what he cared for the most was what was happening where his pathways met.

It had been five hours since he had begun absorbing the pure mana within the forest, the process being dreadfully annoying and cumbersome.

The pure mana he absorbed was… heavy and wild.

To Skullius, this explained the mess of vines, tall grasses and behemoths of trees that clustered around this place.

The fuel for such was evidently abundant.

The first hour of his exercise had been the worst as Skullius had spontaneously been planted on the ground with his knees sunken in the mud the whole time!

He had been unable to lift himself up because of the sheer weight of the mass of mana he was carrying.

How it turbulently resisted his control with [Elevated Mana Manipulation] had also been tremendously difficult to deal with, leading the skill to level up six times following his struggle from then on!

Skullius’ torso had ruptured multiple times, but obviously, it wasn’t anything worth crying over as he regenerated promptly.

Even though after prior heavy usage, the Elimparidis Stone Staff had a little more than 2000 mana points left before it had to recharge back to 10,000, it was more than enough to heal Skullius for the next bursts of damage he would receive later on.

Said next few hours of this exercise of drawing mana had led to the Discount Human gradually improving in his control and by the third hour, he had been able to stand again.

The mana stormed towards one point in his body, creating a bright light the size of a pin head.

When this had finally appeared instead of an unsteady vortex that constantly tried to escape his grasp, Skullius had been elated, however, any lapse in his focus promised to disassemble the hard work he had suffered through.

Now, after two additional hours, Skullius breathed out a sigh.

‘Finally. Its stable. It seems there’s parts to the Centre of the core too. This little thing needs to be established otherwise you can’t gather mana properly. The centre to the Centre, I guess,’ Skullius thought with relief washing over him.

He halted his absorption of mana to this small structure and surely, nothing went wrong.

It remained ever bright without showing any signs of dispersing.

Finely condensed mana that formed a sturdy point where the rest of mana would cloud around perfectly!

‘Good. Now I just need to create the rest of the Centre. Gah, this is going to take quite some time, but there should be a limit.’

Mana was drawn in droves once again, the masses of white hurrying to devour the small point that calmly sat in the void where all of Skullius’ pathways met.

As Skullius began this, it became a more natural thing to do as he could even focus on other things while pulling on the mana which is was very much abundant. Focus wasn’t needed when there was literally highly condensed mana everywhere.

‘Now, I guess while I gather the mana necessary for my Centre, I can try to understand the limits of this body of mine,’ Skullius thought as he stretched his fingers.

There were a lot of intricacies attached to his body now and it was best for him to understand them as aside from him not being able to see, he was extraordinary gifted with his physical stats now being extremely high on top of other properties that were now a part of him.

‘Hmm… let’s see my status.’