Chapter 28 - Progress

Liam observed Akand. During the time, Talia and Blythe went to settle some things in the headquarters.

Akand stayed behind to make sure nothing goes wrong. Thanks to his stay.

Liam now saw the vast difference between an elder and a student or disciple in their organisation.

Akand didn't summon a foreign spirit guardian. He sent his own elemental. Liam watched as Akand's crystal lost colour through Terran's vision.

Once a fire elemental appeared, the red colour vanished as it got dominated by the ice.

His current state looked the same as any other person.

"Mhmm, must be quite handy to have two spirits." Said Liam as he probed for information.

"It indeed pays off to have such a gift, however, it also comes at a cost. I have to nurture two of them at once, hence they are weaker than my colleagues' spirits." Akand said and summoned his second spirit.

Then, his crystal became gray, lifeless.

"But it also gives me a second chance at life. Once someone's spirit falls, then the user does with it." He said and continued.

After a few moments, he absorbed the spirit back inside the crystal. When Liam observed Akand.

He noticed some kind of fatigue when both spirits left the crystal. With the one remaining in, he couldn't feel the difference as much.

Liam observed Akand. The man without the fire spirit seemed much more lifeless, not collected or calm.

Like someone grabbed all of his energy and vigour. His reason to live...

For Liam, the spirit systems had many glaring flaws. Nevertheless, to possess such incredible power always paid off.

They talked for a bit with Terran hanging around, not doing much as he couldn't hear most of their conversation.

The young man proved to be a diligent student. Each day, he practiced and read various materials.

Even Liam felt that his diligent nature outshined his own. Liam could describe it only as steadiness.

Soon after, they finished their talk about the twin spirits. The fire one returned.

Liam didn't see any difference, however, his intuition told him that it might be a bit more condensed or rather had a few more drops of fuel inside of it.

When it returned inside the crystal. Akand returned to his previous state.

He suppressed himself in order to not flare up. This time, Liam noticed something a bit different.

He seemed happy. Much more than when the spirit left for just a few moments.

A month flashed by. Not much happened except for a few attacks on the barrier.

Akand told Liam that no one knew where the barrier ended. Moreover, large swaths of oceans humans just couldn't defend.

So, the elemental church employed loyal people to scour the surface at all times.

With the help of their five elemental god spirits. They received a blessing which enhanced their powers and gave them the power to fly on their own.

When one had enough contribution. Such blessing became permanent or rather part of their power.

Akand never dove any deeper than that. Although Liam's interest in it grew day by day.

He gave up after the silent but firm rejection from Akand. Thanks to a bit of imagination, he created an overall picture.

There existed two types of elders. Unawakened and awakened.

To awaken means to make the blessing your own and thus going out to the battlefield.

All three elders he met counted as the unawakened kind. Most of the awakened elders fought every day, thus leaving not many people behind to manage the church.

In order to combat such weakness. The unawakened elders gained power.

Most of their decisions laid in their hands and gave them responsibility except for very important decisions.

Awakened elders didn't meddle too much. So, they could pass a lot of decisions on with enough support from other unawakened elders.

However, awakened elders always had so-called inspectors in place.

They nurtured them to keep the unawakened elders in check. While not the most effective method, and the odds of corruption are there.

Akand told him that in the headquarters. No one could backstab your backer and get away with it under the eyes of the great spirits.

During the month. Liam had also created quite a bit of elemental liquid and got better at it.

The effectiveness of boosting mental power went to an effective zero.

Akand helped Liam with some tests. Though a select few had to wait until he gained a bit more trust with Akand.

Overall, the month just with one test subject, Akand. Became more fruitful than a year of blind training.

Time also paved the way for Liam to establish a firmer connection with Akand.

With the connection, he felt everything like it became two layered. He couldn't process it for quite a while and stayed in Terran's vision.

To his understanding, it came from the crystal. Liam lacked the power to influence Akand's crystal, but he had the shared feeling.

When testing it. He followed Akand's swift movement with ease.

With this new discovery, Liam had a brilliant thought. Right now, he had no way of controlling or feeling mana the right way.

The double layered sensation felt like a dimension of its own. First, he tried to create something to feel in double layers.

Progress stalled during the first two weeks, but then he got his lead. He deduced that the space which he is inside might truly be his mental space.

Instead of trying to create a physical crystal. He decided to create a mental core.

His first tests of using his mental power to solidify things with the intention failed.

Then, he tried to look at it in a different way. He, the spirit, avatar, or whatever had some level of power inside the space.

He had a direct impact on the space and didn't need to materialize it through mental power.

At first, he wanted to carve something on his body or try the classic cultivator route, but that led nowhere.

But after hundreds of tries. He found a main lead.

Liam managed to strengthen himself inside the space. Although it knocked him out, he recovered quite swiftly.

The progress began with his tongue in an accident. Thanks to the happy accident, he tried other parts of his body.

He found out that he couldn't just pick a random part of his body for no reason.

It worked only on his sensory organs. Senses like hearing, smell, taste and sight had a straightforward way of strengthening.

The sense of touch worked only for the tip of his fingers on his feet and hands.

The progress stoked him. Sadly, Akand couldn't recreate what Liam did, even though he could almost create the liquid.

Right now, he walked the path alone again. Liam didn't mind and continued to strengthen it.

Rather than upgrading them all at once in a rotation. He focused on his sight the most and got knocked out many times.

At the end of the month, he got his current time down to a tea and no longer fell unconscious.

Roughly 0.8 seconds before he got knocked into the wonderland. Thankfully, his girlfriends in his past life didn't have the pleasure of seeing the fastest finisher in history...

Liam shook the useless thought of comparing the quick finishes of some unlucky specimen.

After all, he didn't even have his friend Ricky anymore.

'Once I am free. Ricky will see the world once again... Maybe see the other side while I am at it? No, no, no bad idea, bad idea.' He shook himself from his thoughts again.

Liam almost entered a dangerous territory.

Fantasies aside. He entered a weird period. His vision became something at a cusp of two layers, but failed and still became one layer.

Like failed omelets, it didn't look unbearable, but he felt that something's off.

Another surprise came from his journey. The range expanded a lot when he upgraded his vision.

Liam spent a day pestering Terran to walk around and watch the scenery. It healed his soul as he watched a wind squirrel swoop down on Terran's head.

Terran, never shaken. Let it do whatever it wanted on his head for a few minutes as he resumed reading his book.

The animal didn't fear him and used his head as an outpost. After, it heard some rustling inside a bush.

A light breeze ruffled Terran's hair as the squirrel disappeared.

"You seem to be loved by animals." He said with a bit of awe.

Natural affinity. In both lives, it must be a great thing to have.

Dogs or friendly animals just play around you with no fear...

Terran nodded and took off again. When it got a bit stale, Terran opened up a bit and talked about his days when he had just left his village.

To see the elemental church or at least its branch in one of the cities. On the way, he might have starved if it weren't for animals and them playing around sources of food.

Sometimes he doubted if they didn't lead him there on purpose when they saw his miserable appearance.

By the time they finished their stroll. The Sun bid the world farewell.

Not long after the sunset, Liam heard the cheerful voice again.

"Hiya~ did you miss me?" She asked as she appeared with Talia in tow.