Unsealing Emptiness

As they followed behind the group, Ozul did not worry about the Mana spheres inside Blaze and Raven since he had already confirmed that it was under control.

Raven and Blaze, on the other hand, had mixed expressions. They were exhausted since they had to absorb the foreign Mana inside their body under a time limit.

The chances of the Mana suddenly going crazy were increased the longer they took to absorb it.

But besides the apparent exhaustion, they also had a smile on their faces. Not only did they not die after absorbing the foreign Mana in such a rush, but they also gained so much from it.

Both of them felt an apparent increase in their control over Mana itself.

‘Is this the increase in talent?’ The duo questioned themselves as they were not sure if talent really referred to their control and affinity with Mana itself.

.....

Anyway, only absorbing that small fraction of Mana had caused such improvements, so they were excited and anticipated their gains after assimilating with all of it.

The group continued as usual. This time, they encountered a couple of Rank-6 Beasts. But they weren’t as tricky as the drakes, so they were quickly killed before they could cause any potential danger.

Although the others did not find it weird how the forest was getting thicker, the further they proceeded, Ozul had a feeling that it might not be so simple.

As of now, there was practically nothing that Ozul was supposed to do except for following the group. The other Rank-7 mages would quickly take care of the beasts.

And for the spheres containing the Mana from the drakes’ cores, Ozul did not need to do anything. He had already made the layer solid to prevent any Mana from leaking out. As long as he was near the duo, there wouldn’t be a problem.

That’s why all he could do was observe the surroundings. After a while, even that got boring, so he again made the small spheres from the Ball of Purity and started practicing with it, not caring if he was in a forest filled with dangers.

“I still can’t do four at a time without slowing the speed,” Ozul muttered in frustration. Since even when his proficiency improved at a visible rate doing this exercise, he had not yet reached a point where he could control more than three spheres without disturbing the rhythm.

Just like that, the day passed without anything notable happening except for Raven and Blaze, who were actually excited since they were improving rapidly.

At night, the space was so cramped that they couldn’t even find a place to set a single camp for Clara. Even she and Venessa had to climb up a tree to rest.

This night again, Ozul ordered the duo not to rest, and they sat cross-legged on the ground.

“Remember, don’t just start absorbing the Mana as it is. Try to sense the essence mixed with it and move it to be absorbed by your body instead.” Ozul reminded the duo.

Although he himself did not use Mana, he knew more than some grandmasters because of his sensing ability.

Others, while absorbing the Core of a drake, would not be able to do anything with the essence mixed in since more than 80% of that Mana was wasted on the Light Deprived Sea Stones.

However, Ozul already told the duo about it, so they had high chances to sense it and use it to their advantage because their method was not as taxing as the traditional one. All because they had help from Ozul.

It was also this essence in the Core that made it different from the Mana Cores of ordinary beasts and allowed mages to absorb it without harming themselves.

Only the other mages were not aware of it, so they could not take advantage of it. Not to mention that a drake was one of the rarest beasts, so people couldn’t so casually get their hands on their Mana Core.

As Ozul felt that both Raven and Blaze were ready, he again allowed just a tiny fraction of the Mana from inside the sphere.

The heated and violent Mana, though refined, caused Raven and Blaze to suffer the agony since they couldn’t control it in one go. However, it was still better than yesterday.

At least they had gotten the hang of it, so they didn’t suffer as much as the previous day.

*Ughh*

A small groan escaped from Blaze’s mouth as he tried his best to sense the essence that Ozul was talking about in the Mana while also trying not to let it rampage inside of him.

But regardless of his efforts, he could only give up after a few minutes since it was getting harder and harder to keep the Mana in check.

Just like him, Raven also had no luck in being able to sense the essence. So, they both decided to give up on it for now and started to absorb the Mana.

When Ozul noticed this, he again turned the spheres into solid and went back up on the tree.

Since he had nothing to do, he started practicing as well.

“Hm... It is too slow.” Ozul muttered as controlling just the three spheres in different directions wasn’t that difficult at all.

He created two more small spheres, and suddenly the direction in which they were moving was disturbed.

Instead of removing one sphere, Ozul kept at it. Only when he overcame such a mess would he be able to improve at a quicker pace.

Only Jinx slept at a distance from him as he focused on moving all of the five spheres in different directions simultaneously and at a steady pace.

The night passed, and the sun rose again.

The group started following the usual routine every day. Only their pace was lowered with each step further into the forest due to the increasing vegetation.

Just like that, days started passing and a week passed with only the difficulty of traveling increasing.

In the meantime, Ozul practiced with the spheres made by Ball of Purity, and his control was improving at an astonishing rate.

He could already move four spheres in different directions without slowing the pace. Although others may think that doing this was useless, this simple exercise would provide many advantages to him in the future.

The focus of this was not just four spheres, but four directions instead. The result of this exercise will be shown during battle when he would be able to move many thin needles all in four directions at the same time.

This setting would leave almost no opening for the enemy to take advantage of.

As for Raven and Blaze, they would absorb the small fraction of Mana

Just on the fourth day, Raven had broken through to the next stage of Fighters. She became a rank-6 Fighter even when she was not trying to.

However, she was still stuck at the peak of rank-5 as a Mage. Despite that, she was not downcast since absorbing the Mana of drake’s Core would show the results immediately.

Blaze had also broken through to rank-4 as a Fighter.

Despite their gains, the duo still could not sense the essence that Ozul had told them to absorb while they had already absorbed around 40% of the Mana.

These days, Clara did not try to go out of her way and talk with Ozul for some reason. She would only throw a few looks at him from a distance before moving on.

Ozul did not mind it since it was at least better than before.

Although the previous days were unamusing for Ozul, It was only on this day when things had started to change.

Clive and other Mages had already noticed the growing vegetation as they were moving further, but they weren’t worried. The group believed that it was only natural that the forest got thicker the further they moved in.

However, this new change worried every mercenary because the fog had suddenly started to form around them!

They did not know the reason for this phenomenon, but everyone was aware that fog in the forest was never a good thing.

The only reason they were not panicking was that the fog wasn’t so dense to obstruct their vision yet.