As light faded from the World Energy Barrier, a myriad of changes took place, but they all had one main purpose.
Everything was being erased except Damien.
All essences, whether they be simpler elemental essences or more esoteric ones like space and time, vanished from the air. This was a phenomenon that was quite literally impossible to mimic using human hands.
In Damien's mind, even gods couldn't do such a thing.
It was one thing to establish a domain where other essences were suppressed, it was even possible to banish the ambient mana into separate planes to mimic this effect, but Damien could clearly feel that neither of these were the case at the moment.
These essences were quite literally vanishing, ignoring concepts like the law of conservation of energy.
At the same time, even the mana in Damien's body was being chained down. It was a similar feeling to the first trial when his spatial affinity was taken away, but now that he'd been thoroughly tempered by the past few years, he didn't panic about it.
He calmly waited, and as if to respond to his calmness, a new system message appeared.
[First Trial completed.]
[Beginning Second Trial.]
But that was it. It was only an indication that Damien had moved on to the next stage, without actually telling him how to pass through.
In this situation, what was he supposed to do? There was no cage trapping him, there wasn't even any essence in the surroundings for him to comprehend. It was just him, alone in the expansive darkness.
'So I just have to endure…' Damien thought to himself. From the beginning of his Baptism until now, the general theme seemed to be "enduring."
He had to endure the years that passed without contact with the outside world, endure the endless dimensional cages that he had to escape, endure the infinitesimally slowed time flow, endure the physical destruction of his body through lightning and flames, and now, he was put in a situation where he no longer had anything to do.
In a black space where time didn't flow, a place where one could easily go insane or lose their sense of self if their mental strength wasn't adequate, he would simply have to endure…
Until the trial finally ended.
Once he realized this, Damien directly sat down in a meditative posture. Walking around was pointless, and without any Time Essence around to indicate its flow, Damien couldn't even use this walking to satiate the boredom that would eventually overcome him.
Therefore, it was better for him to adapt as fast as he could. With his eyes closed, he simply sat like a stone Buddha, clearing his mind of any thoughts.
Like this, a day passed, then two, then multiple weeks. An entire month passed while Damien did nothing but sit silently.
It was only at this time that a change occurred. A subtle pressure began to fill the air, bearing down on his body. However, at its current level, Damien quite literally didn't feel it.
4 weeks…5 weeks…6 weeks…
When 2 months passed, the pressure finally began to tickle a bit, but Damien still ignored it. He was submerged in his spiritual world, attempting to glean some sort of benefit from his current situation.
'I can't wantonly use my mana. It's already hard enough to move it due to the restriction, but more than that, my supply at the moment is finite. Now that all ambient mana and essences have been removed from the surroundings, even Devour can't help me recover.'
For the first time in a very long time, Damien's stamina became similar to an average person's. It wouldn't be easy for him to cope with this, having gotten used to easily replenishing his mana whenever he needed to.
'But this is good too. Accommodating this situation will help me tune my fine control and mana utilization abilities. I can also tweak the Ananta Matrix to work more efficiently too. If I can connect Eve to the Ananta Matrix and have her program solely focus on algorithmically managing my mana, the whole system will be heightened to another level.'
There were some calculations that the human mind simply couldn't accomplish. Even after evolving and being tempered as one's league raised, the mind would still hold a limited capacity, especially for complicated processes like operating a mana system.
This was why Mana Utilization Systems were always semi-automatic. One only needed to command their mana to follow the system, rather than personally guide the mana. This not only increased one's efficiency, but also allowed one's mana output to grow and gave one far more leeway when it came to processing ability.
If Damien could connect the AI chip in his head to the Ananta Matrix and make it his own power, however, he would be a level above even this.
He would have another entity with limited intelligence and unbreakable loyalty managing his mana and helping him move it. Not only that, but Eve, being a miracle of technology and mana, could do so at a level the human mind couldn't compare with.
And the AI chip was still functioning based on Asgard's specifications. Once it was connected to the Ananta Matrix and evolved to fuse with it, its fundamental systems would also be heightened to another level, giving Damien even more benefits.
Until now, Damien hadn't found the time to take care of this. Because Eve was an external source that he was attempting to turn into a part of his body, the process would be far more involved than when he created Nodal Points or other constructs out of his own mana.
Now that he finally had the time, how could he miss this opportunity?
With that thought in mind, he immediately went to work. Without any indication of the flow of time, he completely lost himself.
Another 3 months passed, marking 5 months since the second trial began. The pressure in the air was becoming less and less faint by the day, but Damien still didn't feel it at all.
His body was just too powerful. It was mainly due to this powerful body that he could compete with early 4th-class beings so easily.
When he possessed a body that surpassed those that went through Baptism, how could such a small amount of pressure affect him? He was still calmly altering Eve and extending Mana Nerves into his brain to connect with her.
But since he was working with his brain, he did so with utmost focus. A single misstep could turn him into an idiot.
Even if Transcendent Regeneration healed his brain afterwards, he'd lose all the progress he made, and he might even fry the AI chip that was at the core of this procedure. He didn't have any room for mistakes.
It was just, the current environment didn't necessarily provide him with the total security he needed.
As if the universe felt challenged by his casual demeanor, the rate at which the surrounding pressure increased hastened exponentially.
Within a week, the pressure had doubled. By the time 6 months passed, Damien's skin was already turning red from enduring.
It wouldn't be much longer before his body started truly feeling the pain that came along with this. Even in his utterly focused state, he was doing his best to maintain his calm and continue the procedure.
He was in too deep to back out, but if he took even a few days too long to complete the process, the pressure would break his concentration and ruin it.
Suddenly, Damien found himself in the midst of an extremely high-stakes gamble.
