Inside a blue room, Edward sat in a meditative pose with his eyes closed. In his Soul Dimension, he was constructing a 3D magic circle that somewhat looked like a funnel.
'The first step is done,' thought Edward once he finished. Immediately afterward, he controlled that magic circle to travel from his mind to his magic core located near his heart.
There, Edward could see a bunch of vague blue fog, and in the middle floated the magic circle. He knew that this was a visual manifestation of his mana.
Under his control, a small part of his mana was used to activate the circle. Immediately afterward, the circle started absorbing the mana from one end of the funnel.
Once inside, the Energy Compression Spell located inside the 3D magic circle activated and started to apply pressure. Edward observed the process while waiting with bated breath.
A few minutes later, at the other end of the funnel, a drop of liquid appeared making him excited. This drop of mana looked exactly the liquid mana he would find inside the leyline nodes.
'I finally succeeded,' he thought to himself. Then, he actively controlled the magic circle to speed up the process. Three days later, all the mana inside his core had turned into liquid.
The exact moment that the process ended, something out of his expectation occurred. The liquid mana instinctively traveled to different parts of his body: his skin, muscles, bones, organs, and cells.
In the process, it seemed to nourish or strengthen these parts. Edward could feel that all his physical aspects like strength, speed, nerve reactive, stamina, and many more drastically strengthened.
Once that was done, his mana broke into his Soul Dimension inside his mind and started to nourish his soul. Edward moaned slightly as the process was surprisingly very pleasurable.
The process lasted another hour before ending. Then, Edward opened his eyes. He checked his body as he could feel the powerful energy flowing through his veins.
Additionally, he could feel that his lifespan has drastically increased. According to his calculation, he could live for a few thousand years without the use of the Immortal Elixir.
While he was scanning his body to ensure that nothing was wrong, he suddenly frown. In his mind, a message suddenly appeared:
"Tier 4 Wizard."
He just received a message that he became a Tier 4 Wizard. That message seemed to become deep from both his soul and mana.
"What is going on?" muttered Edward as he quickly thought of a way to explain what was going on. Then, he remembered a passing remark he heard from Albion.
"How could a low-tier wizard…"
Because Edward was walking away, that's all he remembered from that conversation. So, he entered his MindScape and began to review that specific memory over and over again to hear what the dragon said.
Finally, he remembered him muttering: "How could a measly low Tier 3 wizard manage to bypass my bloodline preventive measure."
Suddenly, something clicked in Edward's mind. He remembered the three Limiters he discovered.
"Could it be each of the Limiters correspond to a Tier? The first Limiter corresponds to Tier 1, the second to Tier 2, and so on. This should be how wizards and mages are ranked in my universe."
Now, he was wondering how this information appeared in his mind. Could it have been inscribed in the soul of all living beings in that universe, and as long as they reach a certain level, they will receive the message?
Or was Edward special.
Wanting to know the answer to this question, he quickly began to experiment. He took out a dark wizard that had broken the Third Limiter and installed the way to liquefy his mana to him.
Using the Perception Dilation of the Virtual Space, the dark wizard did not take long to learn. Then, under the promise of freedom, he tried to reach the level of a Tier 4 wizard.
As Edward watched the dark wizard sitting cross-legged, an accident occurred. The dark wizard's heart suddenly exploded. With a frown on his face, a holographic image appeared in front of him.
It displayed the Mana Liquifecation of the dark wizard. After reviewing it, Edward quickly discovered the problem. This wizard's soul was not strong enough to control his mana, so his magic core exploded.
So, Edward changed the experimental material. This time he used another dark wizard with a more powerful soul. And to be safe, he fed her a few potions to forcibly increase her soul strength.
As he watched her going through the same process as the previous guy, another accident occurred. The female dark wizard started bleeding from her mouth, nose, and ears.
"So, the wizard's body has to reach a certain standard before entering Tier 4, otherwise, the liquid mana will destroy the body instead of strengthening it. Luckily, I have already come up with Aura to strengthen wizards."
So, Edward tried with a third dark wizard. This time, he ensured that this person had both the body and soul strength necessary to survive the process, and this dark wizard did.
He immediately appeared in front of this red hair, pale-skin wizard, then asked: "What information did you receive?"
He tried to read this guy's mind, but he did not find any information about becoming a Tier 4 Wizard.
"Y-You-Your majesty, some information just entered my mind saying that I became a Tier 4 Wizard," stuttered the dark wizard. He felt an instinctive fear after seeing Edward, who just nodded after hearing this.
His theory was correct, however, there was still room for improvement. However, he had to wait until he returned home to do further research. He looked down at the wizard, and by reading his mind, he could tell that this guy had become a little bloated after becoming more powerful as he was planning on how to escape.
His low-level Occlumency was nothing to Edward. Under his command, the curse he placed inside the dark wizard's body was activated and his mana became unusable. Then, the dark wizard passed out and was transported to his cell; he still had values as research material.
As for Edward, he returned to his research room to continue to increase his strength. If everything goes right, he should be able to reach Tier 5 in one reach.
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Author's Note:
First, I would like to apologize. This chapter was supposed to be longer, but as I'm currently writing it at 1 AM and I still have another chapter to write for my other novel, I had to stop.
Second, I debated internally whether to add the concept of Tiers in this novel since it started to sound too Xianxia, but in the end, I still chose to do it since this novel is heavily influenced by Warlock of the Margus World. The tier system is a good way to show Edward's strength progress along his journey and the level of threat he will face in the future.
Third. This is kind of a disclaimer. Do not take this Tier system too seriously. In this story, it does not matter what level of tier a threat is, Edward can still use his intelligence, strategy, and technology to kill higher tiers opponents. Think of it as the way Rick Sanchez and Doctor Who–who are people that can be killed with a bullet–can still fight with Gods.
Of course, I will try my best to make it sound believable. The next storyline will display what I mean.
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