Fighting a dual awakener was harder than fighting two awakeners in equivalent paths.
Why?
Because as power got more and more concentrated in one person, they would get several benefits.
One. More stamina.
Any divine path used one aura derivative, while dual awakeners had two and triple awakeners had three.
This meant their stamina was double and triple.
Two. Crowd Fights.
Depending on the dual paths, a dual awakener could form a synergy between the two paths and fight far more people than his equivalent two awakeners.
For instance, a dual awakener in Space and Telepath paths formed a terrific synergy.
The Telepath powers would interfere with multiple opponents while Space powers could be used to target opponents one by one.
Since Telepath powers weren't trying to kill off the opponents and are only trying to stall them, the consumption would be lower.
This would allow the Dual Awakener to control the crowd and pick on the target he pleases.
Three. Stronger Opponents.
If a Space Awakener wanted to attack an enemy, then using space blast was a good choice.
The only weakness of such space blasts was their slowness—anyone sufficiently alert and sufficiently fast could escape them.
But with telepath powers, that weakness was covered up.
This meant even stronger enemies could be picked up.
These three were the primary reasons why having multiple paths was such a cool thing.
But if these paths weren't balanced, then they would just become add-ons and wouldn't help much.
Varian faced that situation since the beginning.
But now, he had the chance to set things right.
Shau!
The cool liquid flowed down his throat and the rich aura quickly dissolved into the aura derivatives.
Varian instinctively felt a reaction from all his divine paths. This enlightenment potion was like pool of Xp and he needed to quickly assign the Xp to different paths.
But there was a catch.
One drop of liquid would provide only one-fifth the Xp in level 6 as opposed to level 5.
For instance, if one droplet gave +50 Xp to level 5 Lightning Path, it'd only give +10 Xp to Level 6 Body Path.
Originally, this wasn't a problem.
After all, anyone who could win the enlightenment potion was at the peak of level 6.
They took the potion mainly to loosen the bottleneck.
The few times a high level 6 won the potion, they would use it to reach peak level 6.
'But seriously, this much aura and they only went from high to peak level 6?' Varian didn't know that the efficiency of using the potion also depended on talent.
And his talent…was just abnormal.
'Anyway, no level 5 used it until today. I don't know how helpful it'll be.'
'Wait a minute, I also have level 4 paths, don't I?' Varian thought and said 'Status'.
[Body Path (Enhanced) Level 6: 0/4000
Space Path Level 5: 1200/2000
Lightning Path Level 5: 0/2000
Morpher Path Level 4: 400/1000
Telepath Path Level 5: 0/2000
Telekinetic Path Level 4: 0/1000]
Varian squinted his eyes and tried to feel the amount of Xp a droplet would give a level 4 path.
His breath turned erratic as his lips curled up.
If one drop gave +10 Xp to level 6, then it was +50 Xp to level 5 and +100 Xp to level 4!
"Go!" Varian wasted no time and directed the enlightenment potion.
Then like a tide, system notifications rang in his mind.
[+50 Xp]
[+100 Xp]
[+50 Xp]
….
Varian shut them down and concentrated on the changes happening in his body.
His mind was in an ethereal state and like the famous myth of enlightenment under a tree, he felt like he could see the knowledge of his divine paths.
If his progress in divine paths till now could be equated to walking in darkness by exploring the path in front bit by bit, then this enlightenment potion was like a giant light that lit up his path forward.
He simply ran forward.
If any genius that used enlightenment potion was here, they'd freak out.
Even the best genius wasted more than 60% of the aura. In fact, the best record was only 39.9% by Sovereign Julius.
Many thought the record would be broken by Charles and he'd reach at least 45%.
But Varian…he was leaving no aura out.
He didn't realize the effects, but the System told him long ago that his talent was changed to 'Celestial Grade'.
It was the grade which Roxanna worked for all her life.
Not counting the obvious higher rate of progress, any resource taken by these talents was also efficiently utilized by them.
Varian's body started to emit various aura derivates.
There were not two or even three, but five!
Thankfully, Varian was now in the ghost ship and his aura fluctuations couldn't be sensed by anyone.
Or if Richard did sense them, then the old man would probably suffer a cardiac arrest.
The space around Varian twisted wildly. His hands turned into sharp brown branches. His legs were firmly rooted on the floor and his vitality rose tremendously.
The injuries that were yet to heal from the trial were being quickly healed.
At the same time, a huge potent mental force was emitted by Varian's body and it floated him into the air.
The telekinetic force formed a tornado with him in the center.
Boo watched in silence as its master did the impossible once again.
It could feel his five divine paths progressing at an insane rate.
'…Even Jai Empire can't do it.' The thought involuntarily popped up in its head.
'Huh? Jai Empire? Who?' Boo racked its brains but all it felt was a deep seated fear without parallel from that name.
Like a good ghost, it decided to forget it.
If just its vague memories evoked so much fear, then how scary was the total memory?
'Wait, thing is…Master is doing something even they can't do.' Boo's eyes lit up and it looked at Varian with reverence.
Boom!
Boom!
Aura exploded from Varian's body and after a while, it quieted down.
Varian floated down and gently landed.
"Gulp!" Boo felt like something changed in its master.
Strength? Aura?
No…
The striking feeling was temperament!
He seemed like a contradiction of paths.
The chaotic auras were all under his order.
And yet, his order only included more chaos.
A small white and black light flashed around Varian and then quickly disappeared.
"Gulp! Gulp!" This time, Boo wiped its forehead. It recognized those two lights.
Those were the scary lights that blew up, no, disintegrated its Celestial Walls.
Thankfully, they weren't activated or Boo was really afraid its spaceship would be devoured in half.
Varian's eyes snapped open and the three Avenue colors—Red, blue and yellow flashed in his eyes.
'Enigma.' Boo suddenly recalled the mysterious woman.
Her eyes and hair were the mix of these three colors.
'Wait, wait, even if she's a hybrid, what are those colors supposed to mean?'
'And master, just how does he do it? Awakening in two paths of same avenue is just impossible…argh! But he won't tell me, wooo.'
Varian didn't know about his ghost's worried. As his eyes shone like the brightest stars, he muttered.
'Status.'
***
Do you want the Sarah-Evander part to be skipped? Or do you want to hear their talk?