Shadow felt his body’s current capabilities and sighed. The first thought in his head was to share his current achievements with Elle and then see how he could help her.
If he could, he would even dive into the Source of Eternity and find the Truth of Chaos for her to increase her power, but Chaos was probably not something he could touch at the moment, and his soul was already still healing from his first foray there.
Not to mention, Elle stated that she had gained access to the Chaos Realm when she was classing up, something which had shocked Tiamat silent to this day.
Maybe she didn’t actually need his help in such a thing. Shadow also wasn’t the type to impose or assume, so he decided to have a short talk with her later.
“So, what kind of abilities do you have now?” Ouroboros asked curiously.
Shadowheart was confused. “Aren’t we connected mentally? Why are you asking?”
Ouroboros rolled his eyes. “We are mentally connected when you’re outside. When your mind and soul are down here, how am I supposed to know what you’re thinking?”
Shadow was left speechless by that and decided to drop the matter.
“I can now sense all types of energy and manipulate them directly to form the outcome I want. Sort of.” Shadowheart explained his power.
“I want a demonstration!” Ouroboros demanded.
Shadowheart chuckled and stood up. “Fine, but I need to return to my body.”
After that saying that, he left the soul realm with Ouroboros and returned to his bloodied body that had been reformed due to his earlier antics both in-game and outside of it.
Shadowheart smiled and flexed his real muscles before standing up. He waved a hand and controlled the water element energy in the atmosphere to coalesce and wash over the remnants.
After all, Shadow loved cleanliness and didn’t like the idea of leaving a mess for others to clean. He then used a teleport scroll to return to Vita Kingdom, specifically his manor.
He noticed that Elle wasn’t around as usual. Surprisingly for such a beautiful woman, she was a true NEET and absolutely hated the outside unless it fulfilled her not-so-clear goals.
She spent most of her time trying different cuisines and trying to enter the Chaos Realm. Apart from that, she had started a blossoming channel for streaming that was gaining traction due to her ability and the content.
Elle was probably the only one in Umbra who actually taught non-Umbra members how to game the game and be meta. She would usually go to distant places and do various quests or missions and show the public the step-by-step process through her stream.
She even sometimes streamed some of the various core member antics with everyone’s permission, of course. The other core members didn’t really care as they had long viewed themselves differently from the common human.
Even Elle herself, as a God Serpent and with her current power, found it hard to relate to them, so this was partly an attempt to maintain her humanity in a way.
Shadow was certain that if she wasn’t home, she was either fulfilling an unavoidable task or streaming something new, which made him smile softly.
He then left his manor and headed towards the Portal Center, choosing to teleport to a nearby Field Zone. There were many mercenaries and adventurers here from Vita Kingdom who were clearing out this Field Zone systematically for rewards from Vita.
Seeing a true blue core member and top Duke of Vita Kingdom, the mercenaries and adventurers were shocked, and so too were some players who were working on this.
They instinctively gave him way due to his prestige, position, and power. It was only when he left that they felt like they were human beings again. They couldn’t help but comment excitedly.
“Wow, wasn’t that a core member of Umbra? He looks so handsome, just like a movie star!”
“*Pushes up glasses* Actually, he does look like former movie star and ex-president Keanu Reeves. Just for your information.”
“For your information, you should get some bitches, loser nerd.”
“Yes, more is good, but I am currently satisfied in dealing with the women of your family for now.”
Meanwhile, the NPCs were also discussing among themselves the power and presence of such a noble fellow.
“Sigh, when will I ever reach such a height? I feel like I’m working for nothing.”
“This is why we have to abolish capitalism and try to share resources and wealth equally!”
“You know what, that makes sense! Give me your enchanted sword and your sexy, young wife since were sharing things fairly and you can take my rusty old blade and my fat, irritating wife.”
“…Long live capitalism!”
Shadowheart soon entered an area with monsters, namely goblins at Rank 1.
?Name: Goblin Grunt – Private Rank monster
Level: 5
HP: 50/150?
?Name: Goblin Fighter – Specialist Rank monster<.com>
Level: 7
HP: 350/600?
They might be a pittance to the current Shadowheart at Rank 4 whether he used his class, his bloodline, or his Control, but they were a challenge for him when using his mastery of magic which was still at the budding stages.
As such, they were the perfect foes.
“Now let me explain my power properly.” Shadowheart began as he pointed to one Goblin Grunt that was walking around aimlessly.
Shadow began by focusing his mind, actively sensing the various turbulent energies in the air.
“The process for magic at its source is simple. It is to sense an energy type and then use various means to warp that type of energy into the form you want.” Shadow explained.
“You can use words, actions, written language, mental power, or more to achieve this, and depending on the medium you use, the outcome will be stronger.”
“Unfortunately for me, I cannot use anything but a smidgen of willpower to move the energy I sense since I have just stepped into this field. The other forms like words and written language are not present in the core of magic yet, they have yet to be discovered and propounded. This is why the ball for magic was so small, it’s actually very new and very limited.”
“However, this is good for me because it validates my need to research and develop magic, and anything I achieve will be added to the source of magic, allowing magicians universe-wide to know that it was me who granted them this enlightenment.”
Shadow them chuckled. “But I digress. Let’s practice on this goblin. With my current power, I can sense energies and push and pull them to an extent, shaping them with my will to form outcomes.”
Suddenly, at Shadow’s outstretched fingertip, red lights from around 3 square meters of his body rushed over and condensed, forming a tennis ball size ball of searing red flame.
“Like right now, I can drag all the little bits of heat energy within a certain range and condense them to form this fireball. I can also try other outcomes like a fire spout, a fire whip, or even change the element, but there are limitations.” Shadow explained as he fired the fireball at the Goblin grunt who had long noticed him and was running over.
When the fireball hit, it exploded like an incendiary grenade and caused the grunt to scream as it burned, running up and down to put it off.
Ouroboros, who was watching this from within Shadow’s mind, sighed when he saw this. “I have a preliminary understanding. You said there are limitations, what are they?”
Shadowheart glanced at his handiwork and nodded in satisfaction. He waved a finger upwards at a nearby goblin grunt who was rushing over aggressively.
Once again, red particles in the air gathered up beneath the goblin grunt from a total of 3 square meters and then condensed into a pillar of flame that barely covered its short body.
“Firstly, raw willpower is inefficient for this kind of casting. It is like trying to build a house using your hands and some clay compared to using industrial tools and cement or bricks or whatever. The most efficient way is through thought by understanding, but I have a long way to go to achieve that.”
“Secondly, I am limited to a certain range when gathering energy or sensing it. Right now, it’s a mere 3 square meters and that is only because of my strong mental fortitude and the fact that I have the Void of Perfection from Control.”
“Thirdly, I am also limited by exactly what energies existed around me in my range at any given time. Like now, 80% of energy particles are wood/nature type, 12% is water type, 7% is light type and 1% is heat/fire type. Most of this heat comes from my body and then the sun.”
Shadowheart pointed to another Goblin Grunt that was scared shitless and trying to run. A bunch of white energy condensed at his fingertip, much more in quantity than the red particles, and formed a rather large white arrow that glowed.
“Fourthly, I am limited by range due to willpower.”
The arrow shot out and hurtled towards the goblin, but its particles began to dissipate slowly the further it got until it was slightly thinner, but still pierced through the Goblin Grunt’s back, killing it immediately.
“It loses integrity with every meter away from me and out of the range of my control. Of course, the Void of Perfection negates this problem completely, so I just showed you what would happen to a typical caster using this style without the benefit of Control.” Shadowheart concluded.
Ouroboros was silent before sighing. “This new power of yours has infinite room for growth, and by the end, your power will be frightening.”
Shadowheart nodded. “Yes, but it will probably not match up to the raw power of the bloodline beyond 100%.”
Ouroboros rolled his eyes. “That should be obvious Connor. Well, what are you going to do now? And also, isn’t this power similar to Draco’s Subjective Magic?”
“Me? I’m probably going to head over to Draco and explain my new powerset so he allocates my duties efficiently.” Shadow replied after thinking for a bit.
“As for subjective magic, no. As far as Draco explained it to me, Subjective Magic involved creating a virtual/metal shape, then using your willpower to gather a general type of elementless energy like Worldly or Aetheric that can power anything into the shape and then using rune language to command the energy to perform a task.”
“It’s far more convoluted than what I do, but I have to agree, it is a very close system to the truth of magic. Goes to show how powerful this AI is if its virtual world’s characters can design such things so close to the center.” Shadow sighed deeply.
Ouroboros finally seemed to understand and went silent, leaving Shadowheart to his thoughts. He spent the next few hours continuing to practice with his new style of magic which was based on the source.
While it gave shit experience for his class, it did give a lot of experience to his practice. He became more and more familiar with commanding energy about and he had enough mental stamen to do so thanks to Control.
“Hey, what would happen if I generated infinite energy of one type for you?” Ouroboros suddenly asked as Shadow was about to return to Vita Kingdom.
Shadow paused with an amused smile. “Well, given how magic works, it would mean I could channel any form of attack endlessly, but it would drain bloodline energy… which recharges over time… which would allow me to gather so much energy into an attack over time that I could likely destroy a planet.”
Shadowheart’s casual smile disappeared. “Now that’s a scary thought. Let’s not resort to that just yet, and it will also not do me any good in discovering the way forward on this path.”
