74 Meeting The Old Man Again

'This mana core is such a cheat, no wonder Brovnan Royalty choose their heir from who can establish a connection with one.' Zel thought to himself as he watched over the mana capacity shown in his basic status. That kind of capacity is way too much for a level 1, but he didn't even know if he could be considered level 1 in his current condition.

His physical body is even ranked F, the lowest rating his new rating system could give. That just means his current vessel's not up to par with his standards, so low that it couldn't reach E-, the new Level 1. But based on what he could see, he could use foresight when the mind palace is rebuilt.

What astonished Zel was that his soul grade was just at rank B, and a minus at that. The system isn't built by Zel from the ground up, that would be too hard for anyone to do. The system is created by manufacturing a formation that stores an artificial intelligence, then establishing goals and giving it limitations. Goals are taken from his own personal purposes and motivations, while limitations are established from pre-existing data.

That formation would then be activated, allowing a host to access the system depending on their host privileges. Zel set the host to be the mana core in his heart and limited the use of the system towards those who are synchronized with the mana core, granting full privilege. This allows him to make changes in the system, but as all things in the universe is, there are consequences and costs to doing so. It's not as simple as wishing for something to happen and having it be as you asked without compensation.

For Estophelia and her system, she set the Tower as the host and gave those with an affinity with mana regular privilege. Those with regular privilege basically have no rights and can have their access revoked by someone with a higher privilege, who in this case is Estophelia. As she couldn't specify Zel at the time, she made it reach as much as possible without causing total chaos.

Estophelia might have had access to the Tower, but it could only be Zel who had full functionality of the pocket dimension. This means that he had access to more data such as formations, spells, weaponry, alchemy, architecture and even information on other worlds and dimensions that the Tower has had established a connection to. Information like that are all compiled and 'systemized', hence the name 'system'.

For the system to actually consider his Violet-rank soul to be at rank B, that meant that there were higher ranks for him to catch up to. He was about to try and think about those since he had no recollection of that kind of information when he thought about it more and came to a conclusion.

'My abilities are still evolving.'

Foresight is an ability that allows one to see through the rivers of the time stream. But Zel's foresight was unique in that it doesn't just allow him to 'see' a part of the future, it allows him to even see to that possibility to its conclusion.

Time manipulation is a step higher than that, allowing him to move time in a certain area as he pleases. But while the ability itself could prove to be quite powerful, the actual usability is somewhat disappointing. The reason for that is that there was an energy that was too unstable to use alone, time energy. Time manipulation needs both time energy and mana, one drives the ability while the other keeps it from crashing.

Even the use of foresight uses time energy, but only in small quantities. The problem was, Zel used foresight without any regulations. His mind was slowly becoming filled with memories from so many lives that he would eventually turn crazy from overuse. But as he had quite the willpower, he persevered for so long and even made a conviction to gradually make foresight something of a safe space for himself.

This, however, places a strain on his mind and body that leads to many complications. His past vessel would have been impaired if the system wasn't present to fix it back together. The vessel might survive the constant use of mana, but the mind wasn't getting any rest. It couldn't be helped, though, as Zel had no idea how to stop using foresight back then. It would activate as soon as his mana reserves were full, whose recovery was speeding up with more use of foresight.

The whole thing was snowballing at a very dangerous rate, even creating a possibility of Zel dying in one of his foresights and never waking up again. Thankfully, an intervention was made by the system to keep that from happening. He was now able to decide when to use his ability, allowing his mind to finally get some rest. His learned skills were even kept into memory capsules that he could activate using his mana, a feat that could only be done by something that knows about memory capsules. That's how great the system was back then, and it was even better now.

But now that Zel was more aware of how the soul works, he knows that having your own mind palace is better than letting the system handle it alone. The previous system used the Tower as the mind palace, and while it was spacious enough to enable multiple users to create memory capsules for their skills, it would lead to overusing the Primal Force the Tower has. Wasting a single unit of Primal Force was even causing some small amount of frustration to Zel, as that was the energy keeping this dimension from total destruction.

Zel also had more plans for the future that requires the presence of a mind palace. The mind palace is a part of a creature that lies between the soul and the vessel. A person with a broken mind palace might as well not have one. Now that his previous vessel was destroyed, his mind palace had to be rebuilt. 

The Zel of the future and the Zel of the past didn't combine like a simple addition. In this instance, the Zel of the future became the only Zel because it was his soul in control. The benefits are easy to see, of course, but there's a whole other list of demerits.

One of the demerits is that the mind palace he had built up was stuffed inside a poor boy's body. It was as if he was drowning himself in his own memories. Taking hundreds of years of memory and passing it to a young boy's child was just impossible, so Zel had to create one for this body, this new vessel. The memories aren't lost, they just because harder to sift through.

A function of the system was to help rebuild his mind palace, a process that would be much easier than if he did it alone. But there are a few penalties that were done to handle such a process, and that was the consumption rate of the mana core.

Even just building a small space for a mind palace will certainly take a toll on Zel's current vessel. He would feel the same pain as he did yesterday, like he was being punished for just being alive. But now that he was 'in control', things should get much easier from now on. He also had the advantage of the mana core in his chest that could let him handle much more punishment than if he didn't.

With penalties came advantages as well. Ones that he intends to use without restraint. If he wanted to do right by his decision, he needed to be more assertive. First thing being, he needed to get stronger.

There are a lot of ways that he could get stronger. Even just growing older would make him stronger, as his vessel would be able to better adapt to his power. He wasn't going to do just that, however, as he wants to get things done much faster than before. Taking things slowly would be counterproductive.

Zel's soul had already been able to witness the possibilities of his class, King. But while it is possible for him to go that route again, he had to satisfy one condition. That condition being that a king needs a kingdom, and thankfully, he made sure that the new system will enable him to build one.

Having a kingdom would greatly increase his strength, as it allows him to vastly increase his mana storage. There is also the fact that he had a few new toys that he could use, including the Alchemy Hall, The Library, Armory, Eternal Garden and most importantly, his Time Chamber. But the problem still stands.

How could a ten-year-old kid make a kingdom?

Zel had unknowingly arrived at the local park, near the city's sports center. It seems that there was a basketball competition going on today, but Zel didn't care about that. He just wanted to go to the pagoda near the lake, it was somewhere in this park if Zel remembered correctly. But when he was checking out the guide map sign on the side of the road, he heard a commotion a few meters away.

"That does look delicious, mam! But I don't want anymore, alright?" A handsome man was holding on to a hotdog sandwich with both hands. One was under the hotdog to carry it while the other was over it, as if covering the sandwich.

"I told you, it's free!" The distressed woman vendor was holding a ladle on her hand while trying to get the sandwich back with her other hand.

She had a wry smile on her face as she didn't expect the man to be so against her free offer of chili. She was planning on getting his number in exchange, but it seems that the man doesn't want to even talk to her. Since she didn't want to look desperate, she insisted anyway. People can be irrational sometimes.

The man was about to pay up, since Zel saw that he was taking his wallet out from his backpack when the man suddenly froze. It was just for a quick second, but Zel had clearly seen him pause his movements. In fact, it wasn't just the man that froze, as Zel was also surprised at what he just detected.