"Phew… and here I thought I was about to faint." Letting out an inward sigh of relief after obtaining a series of notifications from the system, Valyr watched as the dark particles in the space before him started to vibrate in unison, forming a resonance of sorts that caused a certain tone to reverberate throughout the space.
Finding the tone generated by the dark particles somewhat jarring, the young man put on a relieved expression once the tone gradually disappeared, with the dark particles following suit as they stopped moving. However, just as Valyr thought that the process would end there, a great portion of the dark particles soon began to congregate around some of the dark particles, forming larger versions of the dark particles that contain more energy than before.
Then, once all of the dark particles in the space before Valyr had clumped up together to form larger versions of these dark particles, these large particles then condensed themselves in size, purifying and compressing the energy within them even further to the point that the condensed dark particles now looked more like dark pearls than particles.
Seeing as all of the dark particles had finished transforming into dark pearls, Valyr looked at the sight before him for a bit to see if there were any other changes that would happen before the process would complete.
Eventually coming to the conclusion that the process was now finished since the dark pearls had taken the dark particles' place in roaming around the space, Valyr went ahead and removed his focus from the small black mass near his heart, activating all of his external senses once more as he gazed at the old man beside him.
"Oh?" Sensing the feeling of someone staring at him, Noel opened his eyes to look at Valyr with a faint smile. "It seems you've already removed all of the impurities in your Shadow Energy."
"Yes." Nodding in response to Noel's words, Valyr spared a bit of his attention towards commanding the system to bring up his notification screen, only to then command the system to bring up the description of [Shadow Energy Mark] soon after.
Ding!
[Shadow Energy Mark] (Lv. MAX)
Rarity: ???
Shadow Energy: 10/10
Grade: Pure (Uncommon)
Throughout the ages… description has been omitted.
This skill allows the user to tap into Shadow Energy at any time, not needing to form a connection with the Shadow Plane anymore whenever the user wishes to do so. This skill also allows the user to store a considerable amount of Shadow Energy within their bodies, which could be improved by absorbing the Shadow Energy of other creatures within the Shadow Plane.
This skill also allows the user to gain a boosting effect from the Shadow Energy within their bodies, with each point of Shadow Energy the user currently has inside their bodies boosting all of their physical and mental stats by 0.45% (Current boost: 4.5%).
Due to the quality of the user's Shadow Energy being improved by one grade, a portion of the Shadow Energy's boosting effect on the user's body has become permanent, permanently boosting all of the user's physical and mental stats by 2.5%.
'So, improving the quality of my Shadow Energy converts some of the improvement I'm getting from keeping Shadow Energy within my body at all times into something more permanent.' Swiftly reading through the additional information the skill had gained after Valyr had achieved Pure grade Shadow Energy, the young man briefly nodded in satisfaction as he closed the screen soon after, returning his attention to the old man before him.
"Wait till you improve your Shadow Energy to the 1st Cleansing grade." Seeing as the young man was already finished looking through the improvements his [Shadow Energy Mark] had undergone through, Noel decided to tease the young man on what he could expect to obtain after improving his Shadow Energy even further, slightly grinning in the process. "The improvement you'll get from it won't just stop at a permanent boost in stats."
"In any case, you've definitely purified your Shadow Energy far quicker than I thought." As Noel said these words, Valyr's curiosity was instantly piqued, prompting him to ask the former as to how much time he had taken to remove all of the impurities in his Shadow Energy.
"One and a half hours," said Noel in response, to which Valyr responded by slightly tilting his head to the side in confusion. After all, the latter had no clue whether the time he had taken was quicker than normal or—
"You've basically achieved what others would have taken a week in the real world in like… what? Around ten minutes in the real world or something?" Of course, the old man was quick to clear up the confusion Valyr was experiencing, leaving the latter in a brief state of shock as he processed how much of a difference there was between his time and the time Noel had mentioned.
"Hahahaha! You should definitely see the look on your face, brat!" Though, while Valyr was still wrapping his head around the great difference between his time and the others' times, Noel let out a peal of laughter all of a sudden, wiping off some of the tears that were brimming around his eyes as he decided to not fool the young man any longer.
"Though your time is still impressive, the average time people take to remove the impurities from their Shadow Energy ranges from one to two days in the real world." Letting out a sigh to calm himself down, Noel looked at the young man with a calm expression. "In fact, there's someone who was able to improve their Shadow Energy quality to Pure grade in less than 30 minutes in the Shadow Plane."
"Some people are really just born with insane comprehension talent." Shrugging off his shoulders as he briefly recalled the being that had achieved such a feat, Noel quickly threw the thought to the back of his head as he remembered how much time the two of them had left to stay in the Shadow Plane. "Anyways, with less than two and a half hours left before we have to leave the Shadow Plane, let me explain the process of achieving the 1st Cleansing grade as quickly as possible."
"In essence, it's pretty simple. You just have to compress all of the Shadow Energy again into one spot as much as possible until something happens."
"Of course, in reality, it's anything but simple," added Noel soon after, his expression now serious. "What you actually have to do is to force the Shadow Energy to collapse on itself by compressing it into one spot and let the resulting structure from that compression generate Shadow Energy on its own."
"The Shadow Energy that would be generated won't be infinite, but it would definitely be far purer and far more effective to use in conjunction with the [Shadow Serpent Combat Style]." As Noel said these words, a slight grin appeared on his face. "Speaking of the structure that you have to create with Shadow Energy, people actually have multiple names for it. But as all of these people have been taught by me, they've eventually all come to agree on a general name for the structure."
"The first name I gave the structure when I laid my eyes upon it."
"The Black Star."
