The sudden change of environment was difficult, difficult enough that I didn’t pay anything more than the slightest attention to the Material Plane in front of me even as the protective energy around itself closed to push away the elementals.
That was all I was able to do as the chaotic energies of the Primordial Aether invaded my body. And, with the System still unreachable, I didn’t have HP to counteract the impact, giving me very little time to respond.
It didn’t even take a second for every single item I had been carrying to turn to dust, and for the Primordial Aether to invade my body.
I didn’t even have any mana to resist with the System still gone.
For a moment, I expected immediate death, before I could even try to come up with a solution. After all, both Mariel and Janelor explained the destructiveness of the Primordial Aether in great detail.
Yet, for some reason, that turned out not to be the case, I realized as a second passed, and I found myself still alive. The Material Plane was gone, of course, as the concept of distance meant very little in the great disaster I found myself in.
It went against every single instinct in my body to actually close my eyes, ignoring the great threat represented by the environment, but I forced myself to do so. The pain was intense enough to tell me that, unless I discovered the reason for my immediate survival in the next few seconds, I would end up dead.
However, closing my eyes was only the beginning of my focus. With the Primordial Aether filling my body, I first needed to ignore the downpour of the heavy burning energy that pressed against me like mercury.
The space around me distorted as I turned my attention inward, glad that, unlike my other skills, Tantric was a part of my body, allowing me to check my own body.
Only to see the Divine Spark fighting against the invasion of Primordial Aether. I bit my lips in shock.
I wasn’t shocked to see that it was the Divine Spark that allowed me to survive. My shock came from a different angle. Particularly, the way my Divine Spark was battling against Primordial Aether, breaking down with each touch.
Soon, some of it had been reduced into a similar state to the Aether I had dealt with while teleporting. And, more importantly, some of it turned into mana.
Giving me a chance to survive.
At least, some kind of mana, I corrected myself even as I did my best to use my fledging Arcana abilities to create a shield, glad for all the times I had tried to cast spells while blocking the System’s assistance.
My attempt was even harder than I expected. Some reasons were predictable. For example, I didn’t just lack the boost of the skill but my great stats as well, which reduced my mana control capabilities greatly. And, the environment that I was casting was hardly optimal, resisting the spell I was trying to cast.
Yet, the biggest difference was the mana itself. The mana provided by the System was pure and smooth, just like fresh spring water, glistening under the sun. The mana that my body managed to break down from my environment, however, had many impurities in it, like I had filled my glass from a muddy stream.
Still, it was not the worst, I thought as I was forced to maintain the energy around myself, glad that the impurities in it didn’t prevent me from channeling it — even at a greatly reduced effectiveness.
Such greatly reduced effectiveness that, creating a simple round shield around me to block the Primordial Aether even for a moment took all I could achieve. A pathetic shield that could easily be cast by a first-level mage.
In its pathetic state, it didn’t take a second for it to shatter, the mana was immediately lost in the chaotic waves of the Primordial Aether, but it gave me enough time to get some more to my body.
As the shield shattered, I turned my attention back to my surroundings as well, getting a glimpse of the show. The magical space in front of me danced and shattered, tempting me to cast a more substantial protection.
An elemental shield, supported by some mana might have worked better, but I didn’t dare to rely on elemental magic — not with the memories of real elementals possessing those spells. Even experimenting was out, as not only I was dealing with the constant erosion of the Primordial Aether — which was, thankfully, still blunted by the Divine Spark in me — but also impurities in mana, which was clearly dealing a significant amount of damage.
Maybe purer mana would help, I thought even as I tried to grab some of the mana inside my body, channeling against the only skill I could currently access.
Tantric.
Shockingly, it worked even better than I had expected, easily grinding down the impurities and giving me some pure mana for me to control.
It wasn’t much, barely a couple hundred points by the count of the System, but luckily it was enough to be channeled into a spell, creating a much better shield around my body.
Well, better as in it had hoped to resist the intense flow around me for a time that could justifiably be referred to as several seconds, giving me a chance to observe.
I was surrounded by nothing but Primordial Aether, dancing around me recklessly as if even the concept of the space was shattered, the turbulence threatening to shatter my shield and turn me into shreds even with the unforeseen advantage of the Divine Spark.
Still, there was no sense of distance or direction. I lost the ability to even feel the presence of my companions, making me feel extremely lonely. Though, considering I stopped all of their presence at the same time, I was confident that it was about my lost connection with the System rather than something happening to them.
At least, I hoped so, but even if it was worse than I expected, I could do nothing before solving the predicament I was facing first.
First, I needed more mana to prevent my shield from shattering.
I turned my attention to the pieces of Primordial Aether pushing against my mana, focusing on their shattered remains with the scraps I could still control with my Tantric. The process of transformation wasn’t particularly fast, but I still managed to gain enough mana to feed the shield and keep intact as I steadily worked to destroy the Primordial Aether that was inside my shield.
I was glad for the teleportation mishaps I had encountered, because, without them, I would have had no reason to develop such a shield in the first place. And while its performance was significantly worse against the Primordial Aether, it was not a problem.
After all, I had all the mana I could use.
Yet, that didn’t mean I didn’t understand why the others treated Primordial Aether with such fear. Without Tantric’s ability to break down the Primordial Aether into mana, there was no option but to die. With the exception of Janelor, the headmistress, and that mysterious enemy, every single person I met would have died in seconds.
And, even amongst those three, I suspected only Janelor could replicate my achievement — as evidenced by her ability to travel. But even she lacked my newly-discovered ability to breakdown Primordial Aether into mana if her words were accurate.
I might have been surprised by the performance of the Tantric, but after seeing it efficiently break down many types of divine sparks, it was much easier to register.
With my internal check-up complete, I turned my attention to my next challenge, to get some Primordial Aether without breaching my shield. I still had almost a thousand mana in storage, but repairing the shield constantly was devouring that storage rather steadily.
If there was an accident, I preferred it to happen when I had the means to fix it. I reached for the shield, identifying one of the more stable points in the matrix, waiting for a crack to appear — which didn’t take long under the constant bombardment of Primordial Aether.
When that happened, rather than repairing it, I widened the entrance, letting some Primordial Aether inside before plugging the gap with a second shield — allowing me to repeat the process much easier by creating a functional tap.
“Not bad,” I murmured as I processed the Primordial Aether as quickly as I could manage. As I did so, I could feel my Tantric abilities actively increasing, but there was no notification, which just confirmed the current unreachable status of the System while I drifted in Primordial Aether.
I thought about reinforcing the shield even more, but after some consideration, I decided against it. The stronger the shield, the more attention-grabbing it would be. I had no idea if any being actually treated Primordial Aether as their home.
But I was reluctant to find the answer to that question. I doubted I would be happy with my discovery.
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
