48 Chapter 48 - Reborn
The gate dissipated into a thousand particles. Liam walked through the now open corridor and sat down.
He looked at those two flowers before he contacted Akand and finished everything that needed to be done outside.
With a clear mind. A whirlwind soon began to absorb everything around him.
The liquid, mana grains and unrefined mana mist danced.
Liam shut himself from the outside world. The ever present connection to the outside began to dim.
At one point, he couldn't feel time at all. He felt himself alone.
Every small movement from his body. The mana from all sources flew into him as it got refined further and further.
Liam absorbed mana grains in no time and refined mana liquid one by one, as mana mist began to turn into mana liquid.
The process began slowly. Step by step he repeated the process and kept absorbing mana grains.
From occasional mana grain. They began to fall faster and faster.
His mind grew strained, so he slowed down. When he found the sweet spot.
He further refined the mana. The absorbed mana kept flowing deep inside as they merged themselves into his five senses and major organs.
Time flew by and his body began to glow. The most refined parts of his body turned into translucent lanterns.
Gradually, his entire body began to glow.
Liam felt the rate of the improvement stagnate. It began to slow down fast.
The moment he reached saturation, he didn't stop and continued with refining more and more mana.
Instead, the mana grains grew a bit larger. The process of creating them slowed down and his improvement continued.
Another round of refining led to the greatest level he could attain at his level of mastery.
He felt something different. His cells they squirmed around as if his body became a living being.
Inside the space...
Heartbeat, blood full of mana elements and other sensory responses he didn't know he lacked came flushing in.
Liam touched his body. If before, he could sense it in a sort of 4D kind of way.
Now it felt like something he remembered. Just touching.
No profoundness behind it. The one of the most basic sensory organs humans had.
While he still had the 4D. He felt the difference between the two.
As if a higher dimensional being merged or rather created a lower dimensional being.
His body didn't stop glowing.
Liam felt an invisible itch. To split the 4D and 3D whilst keeping himself as one entity.
Like creating an invisible clone. The mana swirled around him and created a sort of diamond shaped cocoon.
Mana began to flow inside it at a rapid pace. At a speed, where the flowers and surrounding fauna began to sway.
Time flew by.
Inside the cocoon. Liam entered a whole another experience.
A sort of second screen began to form itself. No...
He couldn't quite grasp it well.
Like if someone took their 3D glasses off and let just their one eye wander whilst the other looked with their normal vision.
At first, the difference remained small. Then, bit by bit, the two visions got further away from each other.
Hundreds of small improvements later.
Liam found himself in the control of two bodies. One pumped blood and the other pure mana.
It floated without a problem, as he felt a sort of small suppression coming from the spiritual body.
His mortal body, on the other hand, lost everything he worked on.
Liam could control them both well at a time. But when he tried to control both of them at once.
He felt like a novice pianist trying to play with both hands fast.
When he tried to move his one body, the other would mimic it perfectly or the first one would make a mistake when he tried to suppress the movement from the first one.
It felt weird. Like a total newbie.
Once Liam took full control of his spirit double. The entire place shook.
Mana flooded the place as he realised the connections got restored at one point.
Another one began to form.
Seconds later, a massive path of white and black appeared.
Curious, he approached it with his spirit body and felt the world sucking him in.
He felt it.
Wind slamming into his body as it got analysed by his superior senses.
His entire being trembled.
Liam looked around and at himself.
With the weird vision sense, that felt more like a sixth sense.
He looked at his half a meter tall body. Right now, it looked pathetic.
Almost transparent, his body quietly absorbed mana.
It felt like he didn't have a colour. Normal people wouldn't be able to see him at all.
Liam tried to play around as if an instinct guided him. Pure wind mana poured itself inside his body as he began to appear to the naked eye.
A green humanoid looking blob. Features, nothing seemed to align itself to an actual human.
Mere imitation that tried to resemble one.
He felt a slight feeling of disgust looking at himself. Mana poured itself inside his body.
Due to the varied amount of mana, he began to grow invisible again.
Annoyed.
Liam began to absorb a type of mana before he tried to restructure his body.
To his surprise, it didn't prove to be difficult.
Except for growing larger. Small adjustments didn't make a problem.
It seemed like his body could morph into anything. However, it could not exceed a certain total mass.
At least not yet.
Liam stopped playing around with his form and began to explore.
The feeling of freedom didn't hit as sweet as he thought it would.
The struggle and tears of despair he shed a while ago made his mind numb.
He wished to forget it all.
Self discovering journey proved to be very effective, but the fact that he had a simple answer before his eyes the entire time hurt his pride somewhat.
Liam moved around. He noticed that the closer he got to the peak, the better, faster and stronger his body became.
When he went further away. At one point, he felt like the wind would erase his spiritual body.
Not too weak to continue. He'd literally die and lose his spirit body.
That's what he felt.
His senses screamed quite harshly at him and he didn't have the courage to damage his spirit.
Who knew what kind of price he'd have to pay...
Liam returned to his space. The spirit left without anyone the wiser.
He contacted Akand and listened to his report.
To his surprise, his retreat took the entire three years. Much to his relief, the people outside didn't question him too much.
They took it as a research seclusion. No one expected something great from Liam.
While he felt glad, he also felt a kind of bitter feeling inside him. Three years he never appeared, but no one cared.
Liam did whatever administrative things he left unchecked from the time he left.
It included data on the growth of mana refiners and the city it controlled.
The data suggested a clear cut growth, but it showed signs of slowing down the year prior.
Nothing lasted forever.
The fervor of a new and mighty occupation began to die down and fewer people arrived.
Liam skipped the small details and confirmed that nothing wrong happened.
He took his eyes off the report and summoned a mirror. The spirit body put himself before it as he began his experiments.
Mana kept swirling inside his second body. Very slowly, features began to appear on the spirit's body.
At first, he thought of a human, but gave up the idea.
If he wanted to use a full advantage of it. Then, he'd better construct something beyond the laws of natural or mortal nature.
Beyond energy, size ratio so it could stay alive. He needed a war machine.
Liam began to think about various myths and legends.
A few stories about Hinduism caught his eye. The massive war machines with six or so arms.
His eyes shone for a second as he tried to implement it.
He started with four arms. When he grew them out. And tried to control the spiritual body.
Liam almost fell over.
To control four limbs and to control six out of nowhere felt weird and too foreign.
Like a baby. He tried to learn how to control his body.
The new two additional arms had a bit more reach than the others, but he couldn't grow them too long.
Limitations irritated him, but the millimetres' longer arms gave him assurance.
Mana had the power to grow his spiritual body.
Liam spent the entire evening getting used to his six new limbs just to stagger once he returned to his human form.
It would require a lot of effort to learn how to control both.
With those additional arms, he couldn't imagine controlling them at once, at least not now.
The four arms looked quite cool. Or rather, they would if he had solid muscles and a huge frame.
Liam fell into deep thought.
Should he cut the legs off? After all, his spirit body would be only flying and they had no effect whatsoever...
