The results were much greater than his expectations, but he decided to think rationally about it. There's no way he was powerful enough to kill late-stage 3rd class beasts with a single hit.
The first explanation was that the lion already had some hidden injuries in its body that Damien had aggravated in their physical fight, the second was that the sunfire used the lion's own flames as a base and devoured its body, and the third explanation was that it was simply due to the amount of magic power he had put into the ability this time.
Each of these made sense in their own ways, so Damien assumed that it was most likely a combination of all three that led to the lion getting instantly incinerated.
'It was supposed to be a simple test of strength, but I ended up using most of my mana in the first fight.'
But Damien didn't really have anything else to test. When it came to his new dimensional magic, it was still spatial magic at its base, so it wouldn't show its prowess until he figured out how to use it properly.
'Ah! I can do that!' Damien immediately sat down and concentrated. He had already checked the area around him and it was devoid of beasts, so he was free to do as he pleased.
Damien was currently focusing on his sword art. It had been a long while since he created a new move for it, and this was largely due to the mana consumption and the fact that he was running out of ideas.
He wanted to make something grander and more wide area, but he didn't know how to beat spatial collapse in this area of focus.
So until he had some sort of spark of insight or idea, he'd try something else. He focused on the concept of space. How did he perceive space? What was it at its base? He didn't know the answer. His knowledge was too minuscule.
But he had a faint feeling of what he thought space was. Space was a concept that was related to the birth of everything, as almost everything exists within space. Without space to contain it, even life itself couldn't thrive.
He thought back to the tip he had received from the system back when he conducted his very first class change. 'In the beginning, there was nihility, then creation and destruction, then space and time.'
Space was something he saw as 'all-encompassing'. Space was like a massive domain. And a main concept within space was distance. Distance was determined by the space between two points.
'So what if I try to ignore the concept of distance? Isn't teleportation technically doing that already?'
He knew it was an oversimplified explanation of how he teleported, as he had already understood the base mechanisms of this ability, but teleportation was, at its base, something that ignored distance within a certain range.
He thought of how this concept would look in a sword strike. He imagined facing an opponent at range, or an opponent who was fleeing. He simply slashed his sword, and his enemy would fall.
He could stay in place and pierce forward, and his sword would pierce his opponent's heart even if they were kilometers away.
Damien got excited just thinking about it. But he calmed himself down. 'Isn't that just an extrapolation of bladeless?'
Bladeless was used by merging his sword with the spatial layers and directly attacking the space in which something existed.
A byproduct of this action was the spatial tears created in the wake of his blade and the banishment of anything that existed within that space.
It was the concept that many people used to argue about on earth to outline the negative aspects of teleportation.
"If you teleport into a wall, wouldn't you fuse with the wall on a molecular level?" The molecules wouldn't be able to share the same points in space, causing this phenomenon.
And this was a true downside to teleportation. The reason Damien never encountered this situation was simply that he always pinpointed where he wanted to teleport before he actually took action.
Well, that was before he achieved 3rd class. By this point, his vector control had reached a level where he could easily move molecules in a way where this type of situation was negligible.
Besides, if he truly lost his arm this way, he could just regrow it. That small amount of pain didn't faze him anymore
What he wanted to achieve now was based on the same concept, but it was an entirely different take. Bladeless would destroy the space, resulting in any molecules existing within it being banished into the void.
Meanwhile, this new attack would superimpose his sword into the points in space that his enemies were, causing the original molecules to be destroyed. This new move was much more direct.
'I was too focused on grand scale things that I never thought of this sooner. Once I succeed in creating this move, I'll have to rearrange the order of my sword art.'
This move was fit to be the 2nd step of his sword art, not the 4th. Luckily, the art he used was self-created and wasn't a strict and patterned art. He had always put more focus on fluidity. Because of this, it wouldn't be hard for him to change the order his attacks took.
By the time Damien finished thinking about these various issues and solutions, the sun had already begun setting. Although it sounded easy when describing it, it took many hours to form a concise idea of what his next step would be.
And he still didn't have an idea on how he would carry out this next step. Distance wasn't a concept he'd explored much, as he had mostly wanted pure destruction. This type of thinking was a new direction for him, but it opened up many possibilities.
'Distance, huh. If I start playing around with the concept of distance, can't I…' Damien's eyes shone like stars when he thought of a certain move he wanted to learn before he returned to earth.
'Wouldn't that be the perfect way to say hello to that bastard?' Damien cooked up a grand plan for Jin, unaware that the arrogant young master had been turned into a eunuch by the girl he was recently realizing his feelings for.
Standing up, Damien felt his mana capacity had been replenished enough. He had passively been gathering magic power while he was in his thoughts, so this was to be expected.
Without any further delay, Damien made his way to the rendezvous point to meet with the girls.
When he arrived, he saw the two chatting happily with satisfied smiles on their faces.
"It seems you two also achieved some good things, didn't you," Damien said as he walked up to them.
Rose nodded. "Yeah, the new skill I got is amazing! It'll be a lot of fun showing you what I can do, though you're a blockhead who won't be able to appreciate it like I can."
She was referring to his ability to see through any illusions, but she felt like wording it that way was too much of a compliment. She had to one-up Damien whenever she got the chance.
Damien shook his head lightly. "Alright, you can show me once we find a good opponent to fight. For now, let's reach the peak."
He once again got onto Zara's back with Rose as they flew the rest of the way. Even though they expected to get attacked, the beasts were surprisingly docile. Many of them had heard the sounds of battle, and knowing how quickly those battles ended, they had no interest in throwing their lives away for nothing.
As for the others, they either didn't bother fighting without reason, or they held back their hostility for another unexplained reason.
Either way, the trio had a smooth ride to the peak. They figured that there would be an intense battle waiting for them when they arrived, so they were properly vigilant, but they were bound to be disappointed.
There was nothing on the peak of the mountain. Rather than fight a massive 4th class beast, all they could do was marvel at the natural beauty around them.
Flowed bloomed in a seemingly orderly fashion, with each color being separated into its own area, while a beautiful lake was present in the center.
The lake water was clear as if it had never been touched by human hands, and the entire meadow gave off a calming feeling. It was entrancing, giving the trio the feeling of wanting to lay down and sleep without worry.
But none of them were naive enough to believe that feeling. Damien and Rose directly bit their tongues, forcing themselves to stay awake, while Zara showed open hostility and growled at the empty area.
It was then that the sun finally set and moonlight descended on the world. When the light shone onto the central lake, it glowed mysteriously, shimmering in and out of existence and blinding the trio for a split second.
By the time the glow receded, the lake was no more. In its place was a massive temple that let out an aura more ancient and domineering than anything any of them had ever felt. They were subject to a force that gave them the inherent urge to kneel as if it was the most natural thing to do.
Although they didn't succumb to this urge, they were forced to revolve their magic power to ease the burden that was placed on their shoulders. This was caused simply by the temple's appearance, nothing more.
They all looked at each other for a moment before Damien made a confident declaration.
"Let's enter."
