Chapter 38 - Back Home

Ever since Blythe left. The entire place lost a bit of its colour and joy that it used to radiate.

Liam himself didn't comment much on her departure and with the other two not being the most vocal people.

Her leaving never got brought up. Instead, they talked about the future of the town, discussed possible ways to improve mana, grains and more.

Liam also began to implement the idea of spells and started giving more attention to them.

He saw the potential. His current goal became clear. To make permanent spells that drained a certain amount of mana.

And he even had a lead this time instead of going blind. The phenomena he used to play around with back in the time.

Which drained mana and did basically nothing. Counted as a semipermanent spell in a way.

Although very unstable and weak. Now, he had a lot more to work with. His other time became varied as well.

The progress on mana grains slowed down a lot, and he considered other paths for now.

It would be quite useless to expand, anyway. Except for some mental strength, which still grows.

He would have to wait for others to reach his level. Not to mention prodigies, even the more talentless people should be able to learn one hundred fifty ratio at least.

The fifty percent increase held the key for the half step awakened realm. Half step elders don't have any kind of characteristic of an awakened elder.

Experienced, unawakened elders managed to shake the tall tree from below. That alone deserved the title of half step.

Back to the permanent spells. He got an idea to use some kind of spell formations to increase the mana density.

In theory, if the mana became concentrated enough. Mana liquid would be born straight away without the hassle.

A step further and mana grains might be born and turned into something like mana crystals that anyone could mine.

He couldn't know, though. The entire world seemed to have a balanced level of mana all across.

No matter where. The mana density remained the same, and Liam attributed it to the presence of the barrier.

Without the equal mana. The barrier would be stronger and weaker in some places, increasing the level of danger.

However, he didn't fear the scenario where his theoretical formation that attracted mana would weaken the surrounding density.

It would be like drawing a lot of water from the world's oceans. Compared to the used daily fresh water by the world.

The ocean wouldn't budge one bit. Not for a year or a century, moreover, he noticed that the mana moved like wind.

Never constant and ever changing. Although the mana density remained the same. The attributes became very different.

Just around him, he noticed large differences. And with his sphere of vision increasing, he could see it much better.

No doubt that in the frontlines. The greatest strength boost would have water and wind users.

It could also be one of the reasons why one of the saints created so many islands across the frontlines.

To give chance to fire and earth attribute users. While they could convert foreign mana.

Less compatibility meant more effort for fewer results, which might hinder their ability to battle.

With all of these understandings about the world. Liam admired Terran a bit. An Earth user with water being one of the least compatible elements.

Wind interacted with earth quite well, but they never got along. Water became the opposite of earth.

Water moved and never stood in one place, ever so flexible and flowing while earth's known for few things.

Rigid and unmoving. To be tall and sturdy as a mountain would make one indomitable.

Liam didn't doubt that a lot of new stars would rise from all over the world if the enemy breaks the frontlines and enters the main land.

Not just the power from earth users, but also from the rare elemental users. There existed quite a lot of them.

Nevertheless, the access they had to their most compatible mana became one of their greatest downfalls.

It didn't matter how much more power they had when they couldn't even use it well.

Ice still fared quite well. Other rare elements, not so much with some exceptions, like a light element.

One Liam grew interested in. This world's light users didn't have the power to heal or deal some kind of crazy damage.

Their power came from constant damage. Even at night they would always have full mana thanks to the light.

The well-known light users became war machines. Capable of fighting for days without stopping for a single second.

Of course, they didn't do it often. But when a person had an experienced light user.

Then, they wouldn't need to worry about resting. Most of them also had a predisposition for being honest and blunt.

Not righteous, but they always said whatever they had in mind. The connection of emotions and born personalities with elements interested him to no end.

With Akand as an example. Then perhaps such a change might be thanks to the parents, but that might have been a coincidence.

He never heard about a person getting a new element.

Days flew by and Liam found his new routine to be quite good. Instead of spending most of his time refining mana grains.

He played around and studied mana and how it affected people. When he got sick of that.

Liam turned his attention to finding a permanent, or at least semipermanent, type of spell to use.

Mana grains became a topic for him whenever he ran out of them when experimenting.

Not concentrating on them gave him a lot more ideas than when he put all of his soul and mind into studying it.

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Liam stored most of his inspirations, but never pursued them.

It wouldn't matter much if he pushed the ratio to a hundred percent or higher, anyway.

The mental strength also brought him endless benefits when trying to restructure a permanent kind of spell.

Inside his space. He managed to recreate things with mana grains, however; they did nothing except eat mana.

Next step became fiddling around to give it something. Perhaps a chilling attribute or the power to emit heat.

He began with simple steps and used the spells he knew as inspirations. While he didn't understand, the ice bolt to a perfected level.

Liam had a thought or two about it already. Since he began working on the permanent spells.

His progress with normal spells increased maybe more than with his permanent spells thanks to confirming many of his thoughts first hand.

The creation of spells came at a high cost, though. A lot of mental strength needed to set up the entire thing and if he took too long, then he'd get too drained to continue.

He could already imagine how much the problem would amplify with normal people.

They didn't have his time or mental strength. As much as the growth of mental strength didn't belong to him alone.

It took a lot of time or a huge amount of resources. He kind of felt like a prodigious young master wasting resources on body tempering.

Speaking of. He never stopped improving his five senses, but no change came so far.

His interest in them waned over the time and became an afterthought. The things he had on his plate excited him enough.

A few months later, he puffed up as he watched his newest creation. He'd consider it as one of the greatest inventions of mankind.

The fridge. Oh, the almighty fridge that had no use for him. He didn't need to eat food...

Liam shrugged when he realised the ever so small detail. He might not be able to eat, but that didn't mean others wouldn't.

Moreover, the spell needed mana liquid instead of mana grains, making it much easier.

If he progressed a bit more with it. Then the passive absorption alone would be enough to carry a basic level of chilling.

Now, with a fridge done. He turned his eyes to the next natural challenge.

The freezer. The challenge amplified by many times.

He couldn't just increase the output of his current runes and spell formations, otherwise it would need mana grains.

The expense would then became too large for any use.

Liam spent another two months playing around with the fridge spells to make a freezer, but with little to no success, he turned his attention to a heater.

He also noticed. That with the use of mana grains, the need for affinity became much less.

To create mana grains, some affinity had to exist. But it came down to a skill and not pure talent.

Thanks to it, he could experiment with fire as much as he wanted and in a month, with some inspiration from the fridge.

A small heater made its appearance in the cold-blooded world...

Its power to heat up things to a comfortable level still had to be discussed though.