Chapter 112: The First Spark

Sitting in the middle of the training area was Valerian, still in the lotus position he had assumed before he started.

But the orbs that had manifested around him like celestial objects in his soul space also appeared around him here.

A thin layer of distorted space surrounded him and the orbs that slowly rotated around his body.

’What is that?’

She didn’t even know what she was looking at. She could feel a strange fire mana from the ball of purple flames; the lightning ball gave her a feeling that resembled Arthur’s void more than actual lightning mana; and a crushing gravity and darkness seeped out of a small black hole.

Frost began to crawl up Valerian’s body, forming a thin layer around him.

She had no idea what was happening right now, but by the calm look on Valerian’s face, she could see that whatever this was, it wasn’t harmful.

Suddenly, a strong pull gathered all the mana in the atmosphere toward him. No, it wasn’t all the mana. It was only the ambient light mana that was sucked into his body; Seraphine could even feel her own light affinity respond by humming in resonance.

’Light? Why does his body attract light mana?’

She wanted to know what was happening, but she didn’t want to interrupt whatever process was taking place. As she felt the light mana react, a thought came to her.

’What if I release light mana?’

If Valerian’s body wanted light mana right now, then Seraphine, who had an affinity for it, could release it into the atmosphere.

’I don’t know what is happening, but if this helps, then I will do it.’

She began to channel her light affinity and released it in a pure form without converting it into an actual spell, something that wasn’t easy to do. But with her mana manipulation, it was fairly simple.

The light mana that was released from her body was sucked into his like the rest of the mana.

After a few seconds, the pull stopped, and Seraphine stopped channeling her mana.

Soft silver lines and dots appeared around him and the elemental orbs, connecting them in constellation-like lines.

These lines began to glow brightly and began to fuse with the orbs that they were surrounding, creating a bridge between them.

When the bridge of starlight was established, the pull began again, but this time, Valerian’s body was sucking in all the life mana around him.

Realizing that the element had switched, Seraphine began to release her own life mana into the surroundings like before.

As his body absorbed the mana, Seraphine could feel her mana reserves dropping lower and lower by the second. She had a huge amount of mana, and her mana was even of a higher quality than that of others, but these large reserves were nearing their end.

As she dropped below 5% of her total mana, the pull stopped, and a soft green light began to envelop Valerian’s body. His skin became even healthier than it was before and took on a subtle glow.

His limbs began to bulge and shrink at a fast pace, looking as though little worms were crawling under his skin. His body began to creak and split before being healed by the green light.

Silver lines began to connect his body with the celestial orbs around him, forming a connection between his body and the elements.

All at once, the elements stopped rotating around him and became still. They didn’t stay still for long, as they soon began to move toward Valerian’s seated body; even the spatial distortion around him began to shrink.

When they closed the distance, the elements began to merge with his body and disappeared inside him. For a moment, Seraphine wasn’t sure what would happen next as the world remained silent.

The silence was shattered by an explosion of mana. The mana was so incredibly pure that it overloaded Seraphine’s own body, sending her flying and knocking her unconscious.

The mana explosion didn’t just happen in the training room; it spread across the entire academy. While Seraphine got the worst of the explosion by being too close to it, weaker students all over the academy grounds fell unconscious from the overload of pure mana.

As students began to suddenly drop to the ground everywhere across the academy, Sylas Starlight stood in a place separated from the flow of time and space, looking outside a window that led into the cosmos.

If Valerian were to see him, he would recognize that place as the principal’s office he had visited at the start of the academy.

Sylas’s eyes were glued to the cosmos in front of him; it was like he was hypnotized by the celestial giants that filled the void.

His hypnotic state was broken by a faint glimmer of excitement and reverence, and a wide grin appeared on his face.

"It finally happened... He took the first step toward divinity."

"I have to see it."

All at once, his body disappeared from his office, leaving the pocket outside time to go see Valerian.

The mana wave didn’t just stop at the academy; it traveled much further. While the brunt of it hit the academy and the city below it, the strongest beings on Eldoria, those who had left the mortal ranks and stepped onto the path of ascension, all felt it and turned in the direction of the Starlight Academy.

The ripples spread even further, leaving Eldoria behind and reaching into the outermost parts of the cosmos. Everywhere in the void, ancient primordial beings opened their eyes for the first time in eons, and their gazes, which had seen god-like beings rise and fall, turned toward the remote planet called Eldoria.

Yet the person who had caused this reaction all across the universe didn’t notice any of it, as his body was currently being reformed from scratch.

After successfully combining all his affinities, Valerian could feel his body undergoing a fundamental change that altered the very foundation of his existence.

In his soul space, he felt his seven affinities merge and combine, finding perfect synchronization through the constellations made of starlight.

Space, Cosmic Fire, Void Lightning, Event Horizon, Absolute Zero, Starlight, and Genesis Spark.

These affinities that had been with him since the beginning, some longer, some shorter, but all belonging to him, began to reshape his body to harness the full power behind them.

It wasn’t just working to better utilize his current affinities, either; as if knowing that there would be more in the future, it evolved to fully wield every affinity in existence, even adapting for ones that had never appeared before.

His mana began to swirl in his body and converged in his chest, right where his heart was supposed to be.

His mana, which normally held a bluish color, moved like a vortex swirling inside his chest, until a golden shine began to run through it.

This blue-golden mana moved faster and faster until the vortex began to swallow itself. It grew smaller by the second, and then it completely disappeared, along with the pure mana that had shaken the entire universe.

By now, Sylas stood in the training room and watched as Valerian underwent these changes.

When he arrived, the first thing he did was protect Seraphine, turning back time on her body so that she wouldn’t suffer any injuries to her brain or core from the mana overload.

Then he dedicated his full attention to Valerian, an excited grin overtaking his face.

Inside Valerian’s soul space, the bodily reformation ended, and he opened his eyes. The small galaxy hidden inside his purple eyes grew in brilliance, giving them a majestic glow.

As he looked around, he noticed that inside this cosmos representing his soul, filled with countless distant stars, a cluster of them stood out against all the others.

It was a constellation of six stars that each glowed in a different color, connected by bright silver lines. He didn’t need to guess for long to know what that was, as he could feel his body resonate with them on a much deeper level.

There was another thing he noticed: the countless stars around him felt different, more... alive?

Not that there was life on them, but he could feel a steady stream of mana flowing from them and fueling his body. The mana he received from these stars felt different than before.

Purer, much, much purer.

His mana was already beyond anything Seraphine could measure before, but this time it didn’t feel like normal mana at all. It felt...

"Divine."

Valerian’s voice echoed across the void, and a familiar voice answered.

-I guess you are no longer a normal mortal.-

He turned back to Valerie, and when he saw her, he could clearly see the same majestic glow in her eyes. Valerian looked down at his arms; they felt different. He didn’t know how to describe it, they didn’t just feel stronger, it was an entirely different sensation.

’I wonder what changed. [Dragon Eyes]’