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Edward was shirtless, displaying his muscles that seemed to be sculpted as if it was the statue of a Greek god. He was doing push-ups while sweat dripped down all over his body.
Slight fluctuations could be seen in the surroundings as if the space was trembling slightly. If a normal person entered this room, they would be immediately pulverized because of how high the gravity was compared to Earth.
"Damn it. I'm a mage, a master of mysticism. Why do I need to train like those barbaric knights?" cursed Edward out loud. Despite his words, he never stopped doing the push-ups while gritting his teeth.
White steam emanated out of his body; this was a manifestation of his [aura] rapidly circulating inside his body to strengthen his physical stats. The more he exercised, the faster the aura strengthened his body.
Plus, once he is in a state of fatigue, it becomes easier to combine mana with life force to create more aura.
After a few hours, the Gravity Enchantments in the room stopped working, and Edward sat in a meditative pose as he began to create more [Aura] inside his body.
Unlike mana which is stored in one place, Aura is stored in all parts of the body: muscles, skins, bones, etc. According to studies done by the Empire, creating a core for aura and storing it in one place is actually detrimental to Aura Masters.
For example, when throwing a punch, the aura has to travel from the stored place to the muscles and bones in the arm to increase the power behind the attack; this process required some time no matter how long a person is trained.
However, if the aura is stored in the body, the Aura Master can just use the aura stored in the muscle and bones of their arms when punching.
The problem of circulating energy is also a problem for mana. When casting spells, mana has to travel to the Magic Veins before passing through the hand, which also required training on control.
Nevertheless, no matter how talented a person is, his mana cannot instantly travel to his arm. It might take 0.1 seconds or less, but time is still required. If a person is fast enough, they can take advantage of this time gap.
Fortunately, after Tier 5, this is no longer a problem. The mana in a Tier 5 Individual can instantly leave their bodies to power spells without using the magic veins.
So, the magic veins are most useful in the first 4 tiers.
Additionally, the mana of Tier 5 individuals has some self-awareness or instinct and can activate on its own when its owner is in danger.
Once Edward's meditation finished, he said: "So, how is it?"
"According to the scan of your body, your physical stat should reach the level to bear the Tier 6 crystal mana."
"Excellent," replied Edward. A lot of things happened in the past 7 years. It took him a year to recover to his normal self. During this time, he discovered that constantly overused of his mana and refilling it accelerated the adaptation process.
Then, he also discovered that by combining this universe's magic system with his Arcane Rune Magic, the problems it was having were solved; the solution to his problem was just replacing some of the runes and the languages used in this universe with the ones used in his world and Full Metal Alchemist World.
This change did not increase the power of the arcane magic system, only added versatility to it. However, Edward was not satisfied with this. So, after Hermione translated this universe's magic system to Gate Alchemy and allow arcanists to use all kinds of different energy to cast spells.
He tasked her to combine this discovery so that Arcane Rune Magic does not rely solely on mana but also on different energies. That way, the Gate Alchemists in the Empire can now really be considered casters instead of purely relying on Transfiguration to accomplish supernatural feats.
…
Edward took a potion that was golden in color and swirled it a little while smiling. Over the past years, Snap has made some discoveries regarding the Pool of Eternal Life.
The current theory is that this pool is essentially the essence of a God. And what exactly is this Divine Essence? It is a combination of a god's blood, soul, divine energy, life energy, and even their [Authority]. Essentially, the core of their existence.
This is the reason that after people bathe in this pool, they can acquire immortality. Well to be exact, it granted mortals a long lifespan. According to a study of Zi Yuan and Lin's genes, they can live for millions of years, so they are not technically immortal just have a long lifespan.
Another benefit of the Godly Essence is the ability to remove curses; this was shown when the Dragon Emperor used it to remove the curse Zi Yuan placed on him.
And it was not just the pool, but the Tears of the Moon were also created by the essence of some Lunar Deity, just like the story about the warrior who shot the moon indicated. As such, taking its pedals not only can prolong life, cure diseases, and remove curses.
However, the tree was not as powerful as the pool, which indicated that either not enough divine essence was used to create it, or the God the essence came from was not powerful as the one from the Pool of Eternal Life.
Anyway, for now, this did not matter. After analyzing the pool, Snape created a potion with it that can increase mana. Edward has been using it nonstop in the past 6 years to the point of almost advancing to Tier 6.
Edward did not immediately drink the potion but slept for a few hours to ensure that he was in peak shape. Finally, he drank the whole thing.
"Why do those potions always taste weird? Aren't Gods supposed to be the perfect life form? Wouldn't their flesh taste delicious?"
Edward paused for a moment as the idea of what god's flesh tasted like could not escape his mind.
'Would that be considered cannibalism? Not if I eat some animal Gods. So what if it can talk and change its shape to that of a human; it's still an animal.'
Immediately, he placed eating an animal god on his bucket list for things to do in the future. However, he had other things to do as his mana was drastically increasing.
Extension Curse was already engraved on his Magic Core to ensure that it could expand with the increase in mana. Edward had to be very focused to properly control the mana.
After an unknown amount of time, Edward heard a breaking sound from his body; it was like he had broken some kind of shackle. Then, the crystal mana in his core melted away returning to the liquid.
However, this liquid mana did not look like the blue river of Tier 4 but twinkled like stars. The mana then traveled through Edward's magic veins to different parts of his body. Immediately, Edward had to grit his teeth.
Wherever the man passed by, it will first destroy and then reconstruct: whether it was is skin, muscle, bones, organs, cells, and genes. They would be destroyed and replaced by new ones. During the process, Edward had to endure tremendous pain while controlling his mana to ensure that it did not go out of control and destroyed everything without rebuilding them.
This required great control and a powerful soul.
Once the reconstruction was finished, the star-like mana entered his Soul Dimension and began to nourish his soul. Unlike the strengthening of the body, the one for the soul was not as painful.
In fact, it was not remotely painful; it felt like when someone was bathing in a hot spring. The mind and spirit were completely relaxed, free of any stress or worry. Despite this, Edward was on guard as he felt that if he were to indulge too deeply in this feeling, something bad might happen to him.
He decided to believe in his intuition and test out if he was correct or not later on.
After the soul was strengthened to a certain measure, his mana returned to the core and once again crystallized. Immediately afterward, Edward received a message in his mind that he had reached Tier 6.
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Title: The Path of God
