Chapter 85

A good night's sleep was a luxury Kyon couldn't afford. He yawned tiredly, intending to finish what he had begun. Despite the incident with Anna, Kyon was in a good mood. He had finally acquired the four elements and was a rightful master of pure energy, ether, darkness, and light! Even if only the basic grade... In Rosarrio, people like him were called great geniuses. Now it wouldn't be a problem to gain respect in the Stone family. Yet, he still had to find out how the elements worked.

His main goal didn't change. Kyon intended to be officially acknowledged in the Stone family, gain a high rank and power over others. But above all, he wanted to earn important people's trust... The right connections would open any door for him, making it easier to get to the top of the world, which was Kyon's priority.

He was going to prove himself to the strongest young Stones during the traditional fights at the party. Unfortunately for him, the other families were going to be present as well. So, he had to get as strong and powerful as could be in next to no time.

It was essential to work on his foundation, i.e., the unique body. In addition to special features, it could significantly increase his cultivation ceiling. The better the body ("E" "D" "C" "B" "A" "S"), the further and faster he would cultivate and enhance his soul.

It struck Kyon as strange that he hadn't found any instructions for creating a unique body or any upgrading medicine in the treasury. There were no techniques, secret knowledge, secret family formations, no money or keys... Nothing but items with formations inside. What a lame treasury!

Kyon took out the sound transmitter, but then he changed his mind and decided not to wake Juno, who was peacefully sleeping. He'd better experiment with darkness and light as he hadn't had the opportunity to use them yet. Would the elements help him get stronger? What were their special features? How did the spatial attribute work? Kyon had learned all about it from the books, but it was so tempting to see everything with his own eyes and experience it with his own keys.

Kyon decided to start with the element of darkness and released it in his hand. Black fog appeared in the center of his palm, spreading gloominess and depression. Kyon suddenly felt sullen, everything started irritating him. The element somehow influenced his mind. Kyon supposed that darkness emanated invisible waves that affected the soul that, in its turn, affected his mind and body.

The swirling black fog didn't harm his skin and flesh. Kyon knew that any released energy had the same frequency as its owner, that's why it had almost no effect on his body. His insides wouldn't turn to ashes when he released heat. His organs wouldn't rot if he used darkness. When he released ether, the electricity flowed through the body with no harm to the organism.

Black fog wrapped his hand. He waved it, delivering blows in front of him. His movements left a beautiful, dangerous dark veil that beckoned to inhale it and fall asleep forever... May time devour your flesh, taking it into oblivion.

{How depressing...} - An evil smile appeared on Kyon's face. He wondered what his enemies might experience if he used the darkness on them.

He caught an unsuspecting bug crawling up the wall. Its hard-shelled body trembled as soon as it entered the fog. Its shell and legs became liquid in a flash, falling apart, decomposing and turning into homogenous yellowish liquid. Just a fraction of the moment and the bug died a terrible death.

Kyon was delighted. The element of darkness was really terrifying! However, the result would be different in the case of a powerful, highly cultivated opponent. With each next stage of cultivation, it would get harder and harder to get through. And still...

Kyon dismissed unnecessary thoughts and continued experiments. He infused darkness into a stone and tapped on it. The stone crumbled into crumbs. His knowledge from the books was confirmed: darkness was good against living as well as other physical objects. It reduced their endurance.

Kyon wondered what would happen if he infused a weapon with darkness. Would it become just as fragile?

{No, it won't ...} - The answer was obvious. The handle of any weapon contained a formation that automatically tuned the metal to the frequency of its bearer's soul. Not a single element could deform or ruin it. The sword was a part of the body and the soul, existing in harmony with its owner.

Kyon grinned and drew a long sword enchanted for strength. He grabbed the handle... And frowned. - {Oh shit! I completely forgot...}

Unfortunately, the sword, or rather the formation inside it, did not accept the new owner. The frequency of the weapon remained neutral, different from Kyon's. The formation belonged to the Stone family that placed restrictions on the sword. No stranger could ever use it properly. Only the Stones of 2nd rank and above could own this sword.

An idea flashed across his mind: why not destroy the old formation and amply a new one. But Kyon ruthlessly rejected it. It would damage the sword from the inside, making it useless. The heritage was protected forever. It made no sense to steal personal weapons without the "code" of the formation.

Kyon groaned in frustration and put the sword back into the ring. This problem had a solution, but he would deal with it later.

Kyon went on experimenting with the darkness. He found out that he couldn't possibly infuse the sword with darkness for a whole minute to make a powerful blow that would cut or disintegrate a strong enemy (by analogy with pulling a crossbow).

The black fog wouldn't stay in the weapon longer than a second. It dissipated in the wind, unable to stay inside any longer. Anyway, it would be nice to kill a powerful enemy with a single blow even if it took some time to get ready for the attack.

Kyon wondered. {I know two ways to solve this problem: a higher grade of the element or a skillful technique...} - In both cases, the charge of the attack would last longer, respectively, the blow would be much more powerful. There was only one problem: what idiot would ever give him the time to cast a spell?

A few hours had flown by. Kyon was still doing the experiments that revealed lots of helpful information: flesh rots in contact with darkness; a solid physical object becomes fragile, and the liquid completely loses its properties. Everything useful becomes an ugly, useless mass. For example, tea turns into rat poison, milk turns dark and sour, a cookie crumbles into gray sand fit for nothing with the smell of ammonia.

When he combined darkness with another element, for example, pure energy or ether, nothing special happened, but there were no negative effects. However, it didn't mean anything, as his energy was of the same frequency, therefore, it couldn't negatively affect him.

Kyon understood that darkness could be mixed with other elements. However, he needed to learn the appropriate techniques, combinations of darkness and energy; darkness and ether; darkness, power and ether... It all came down to using the right technique.

According to the books he had read, Kyon knew that darkness absorbed the ether barrier, but he needed a sparring partner to check its efficiency.

He imagined the sweet little angel in agony after being tortured with the attribute of darkness.

Kyon concluded that the element of darkness harmed almost everything it came in contact with. Everything but its owner and his energy... It was kind of the element of death, the negative side of life. But if darkness worked even on stones, then everything in this world had life force. Even a zero constant could go into negative… The laws of physics were absolutely illogical here!

Kyon was done experimenting. He did not come up with anything special apart from using the attribute during an attack. All of his grandiose plans to find an infinitely destructive element remained a big challenge. He needed a sparring partner to assess the real power of the attribute.

Next, he had to experiment with the element of light and mix the two elements to create space.

Kyon released the attribute of light in his palm. The fog that appeared on the surface was glowing with soft sunlight, sending waves of peace to his soul. It gave him a feeling that everything was wonderful. Deep inside, he could feel an unselfish desire to bring kindness, care, and joie de vivre to the world. It was the absolute opposite of darkness.

Kyon noticed a little spider nearby. He "squeezed" a bit of web out of it and checked its strength. Then he infused the arachnid with the attribute of light.

The spider was not hurt at all, only... A thin white cobweb shot from its bottom in an indecent stream.