But Neo was different.
“You can send my Intent back, right?” Neo questioned.
“…I can try.”
Losing his enlightenments and masteries didn’t matter to Neo.
He could easily get them back.
‘This is a good choice. I lost too much while rushing to grow stronger,’ Neo thought while looking at his scarred hands.
His goal had always been to be the strongest.
And yet he was giving away his powers.
There was a reason for it.
The Angel grew stronger as the two fought for centuries.
If the Angel’s strength had not grown, Neo could’ve defeated it 2,000 years earlier.
To match up with the Angel’s pace, he had to make a lot of compromises.
It led him to make mistakes, which made his foundation weak.
It was just like with his Concept of Darkness.
The Concept of True Darkness was stronger than the Concept of Emotion and the Concept of Pathfinder.
Pathfinder gave high temporary stats in exchange for sacrifices.
The user of this Concept could devour everything, but the gains were temporary.
The gains could range from 30 to 500 stats, depending on what was devoured.
This was when the user was at Expert mastery (Lowest).
Reaching Expert mastery (Peak) would increase the stat gain severalfold.
Emotion granted low permanent stats in exchange for emotions.
The users of this Concept could devour only emotions.
Needless to say, the ‘low’ here was significantly higher than what Darkness users without Concepts could get from devouring normal objects.
True Darkness allowed the user to devour anything, and the chances of receiving stat gains increased.
The pace of receiving gains was slow, but they were permanent (unlike Pathfinder) and the user had infinite things to devour (unlike Emotions).
This was enough to understand that True Darkness was better than Emotion and Pathfinder.
But in the short term, True Darkness was the weakest.
Neo had encountered similar things as he progressed on the path of World Energy.
And he had made many mistakes.
‘But if I give away everything now, I can redo everything and become the strongest.’
“You should double think about this.” Professor Daniel, unaware of Neo’s thoughts, said.
His voice was calm, but it still revealed the tension in his furrowed brows.
“You’ll lose—”
“I’m not lose anything. I’m making use of it.” Neo said firmly. “Besides, I can get them back easily. But…..
“I’m not sure we can fix everything even with this.”
The amount of white threads dancing over Neo’s palms increased.
They grew brighter glow.
The energy crackled softly, twisting like living strands of silk in his grasp.
He started to infuse his enlightenments and masteries over it.
The threads pulsated with every technique he poured into it.
Professor Daniel wanted to tell Neo to not give away everything.
His expression worsened as he saw Neo’s hard work of thousands of years disappear into the ball of Intent.
However, Neo did not stop.
This was what Neo was.
He always walked the path of his own beliefs.
He hadn’t grown strong because he was afraid of losing a bit of strength.
“Sigh…. Stop looking like that. I’m not giving away everything. My Will is still with me,” Neo said when he noticed Professor Daniel’s countenance.
The professor looked as if he was watching his own child die.
His lips were slightly parted and his face was pale.
The white threads started to wrap around each other, forming a glowing sphere that pulsed rhythmically.
Stats.
Elemental masteries.
Sword techniques.
Enlightenments.
Neo put as much as he could into it.
The ball of Intet began to swell with condensed brilliance.
As he started to put his World Energy directly into it, Professor Daniel stopped him.
“Don’t put energy into it. That will increase the Intent’s weight, and I won’t be able to send it back into the past.”
If everything Neo had put into the Intent was a bullet, then the Energy was the gun.
Putting the two together would make it no different from a powerful Demigod.
Either only Energy could be sent back, or the techniques.
Neo was sweating heavily by the time he was done.
His chest heaved up and down, and his eyes looked tired.
Professor Daniel stared at the white ball of light floating above his hand.
“Anyone who inherits that ‘thing’ will burst apart like an overcharged battery, even SSS rankers. How will someone inherit it?” Professor Daniel asked, despite knowing the answer.
“That will happen only if they inherit my Intent all at once. I’ve made sure that won’t happen.”
Neo had upgraded Kane’s transfer technique.
The changes would allow step-by-step inheritance of techniques instead of receiving everything at once.
“This is it. Can you send this back?” Neo asked as he looked toward the ball of Intent.
It contained centuries of his hard work.
What he was doing now was a necessary step to create a better, stronger foundation for himself and to fix the past.
He had to do this.
Instead of answering, Professor Daniel hovered his palm above the ball of Intent.
He closed his eyes, concentrating.
A faint hum filled the room as ripples of energy pulsed from the sphere.
Just then, the world started to shake.
The Angel, bound by chains, was trying to break free.
The chains rattled violently as it strained against its bindings.
It was making use of the opportunity now that Neo had given away his masteries and enlightenment and weakened.
“Can you stop doing that?” Neo asked the Angel.
‘You lying asshole!’ the Angel shouted.
‘Why the fuck are you acting like a melodramatic bitch!?’
‘These chains haven’t weakened for shit! Give away your powers properly if you’re going to do it!’
The Angel felt wronged.
It had thought it could escape.
But it seemed Neo was still quite strong.
Listening to it, even Professor Daniel frowned, his concentration breaking momentarily. Discover stories with empire
“Why is it cursing so much?”
“…I don’t know.” Neo muttered.
The Angel had not picked up Neo’s way of speaking after thousands of years being together. Definitely not.
“And you, shut up. I’ll deal with you later.”
Neo increased the output of World Energy.
He transferred the energy into the Hell inside him, strengthening the chains binding the Angel.
Will and mental strength were something that could not be transferred.
With them, Neo could produce World Energy without any issue.
Professor Daniel focused on the ball of Intent.
The sphere of light hovered below his palm.
“I think I can send this back. However…..”
“This is the best we can do. Don’t worry, I’ll look over the guy who gets this and make sure he saves the Child of Mana.”
Professor Daniel frowned.
Neo should’ve known what Professor Daniel wanted to say, yet he gave an answer to something else.
Shaking his head, Professor Daniel started to use his time element.
A faint aura enveloped him, distorting the space around him.
His aura grew denser, pressing down on the area as if the air itself resisted the bending of time.
Space seemed to collapse around Professor Daniel.
He grabbed the ball of Intent.
“Since normal time manipulation won’t work for the amount of time we have to cover, I need to lessen the load.
“I’ll be using an anchor point that exists in this world and the timeline where he has to send this Intent,” Professor Daniel said.
“Go ahead.” Neo nodded.
The only thing that was present in both places was Professor Daniel.
His words meant the Intent would appear near his own young self.
Knowing this, Professor Daniel’s sadness and grief appeared in his eyes.