Neo made his decision fairly quickly.
“These two should be the best.”
He began his breakthrough.
The air around him grew still.
Wisps of white flames began to materialize over his body.
He wrapped his Will over Will, creating a humongous amount of World Energy.
The chamber, built to contain and withstand breakthroughs of powerful demigods, started to shake.
The energy circled within Neo before gradually slipping out like an untamed river breaking through a dam.
Powerful waves of World Energy pulsed outward, making the walls tremble.
The energy leaking from his body swelled with passing moments.
With a final pulse, a wave of raw energy blasted out in all directions, shattering the walls of the chamber.
Debris fell to the ground, and a cloud of dust filled the room.
The chamber was a compartment within a much larger building.
The walls began to repair themselves.
Neo exhaled deeply and opened his eyes.
He flexed his muscles, testing his newfound strength. He could feel the immense power coursing through him.
“This… This feels completely different from my previous breakthroughs.”
Neo felt as if he could defeat any Paragon with a flick of his finger.
Was it because he possessed three sources of power—two traits and his own ascension?
“I feel like I can fight an Exalted now,” he muttered.
The biggest change, however, was in his senses.
Neo’s vision—Intent Vision—was improving with each moment, as his body continued to adjust to its newfound power.
He could see the tiniest details in the rubble.
The same was true for his other senses.
Taste, smell, hearing—all of them were evolving to a level that made him feek like his senses had been ‘sleeping’ until now.
The distant sound of water flowing far within the earth reached his ears.
“Status.”
A translucent blue screen appeared before him.
[ Neo Hargraves ]
[ Rank: Half-Step Ascension ]
[ The World: ??? ]
﹂World Core Rank: N/A
﹂World Energy Rank: Stage-1
[ Stats ]
﹂Strength: 5,451 → 9,998
﹂Speed: 5,567 → 11,201
﹂Dexterity: 5,765 → 10,346
﹂Constitution: 5,970 → 11,019
﹂Luck: 0 → 0
[ Affinity ]
﹂Death, Shadow, Darkness, Void, Water, Time, Life, Holy, Nightmare
[ Magic Spells ]
[ Incantations ]
[ Trait ]
﹂Monarch of Death (Rank: Grade 5 Paragon, Potential: ???): Death, Immortal, Eternal, Primogenitor, Crownless King
﹂Mind Invasion (Rank: Grade 5 Paragon, Potential: Grade 1 Empyrean): Mind Invasion, Mind Control, Emphatic Bond, Empathic Transcendence
[ Quest ]
[ Sacred Treasures: Skyfall, ???, Obitus (Incomplete) ]
“My stats nearly doubled, and… what’s this ‘Potential’ of my Traits?”
It didn’t take long for Neo to realize what Potential signified.
“Potential is the highest rank a Trait can reach.”
He held his chin as he pieced his thoughts together.
“Since I took Mind Invasion from Anomaly #33, who was born in a Stage-0 world, that means his ‘potential,’ in other words, his gene limit, was Empyrean rank.”
He paused and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“As for why it reached Paragon rank despite having a gene limit of Empyrean rank, it must be due to {Link Lock}.
“It links my traits.
“My original trait seems to have no limit, and it must’ve helped Mind Invasion to break past its gene limit.”
He nodded slightly, feeling that his deductions were mostly correct.
“The only thing I don’t understand is… how did Monarch of Death have a limit so high that it’s shown as question marks?”
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted.
A sharp pain tore through his head.
He stumbled slightly and clutched his head.
His vision blurred as the sensation threatened to overwhelm him.
The pain dissipated just as quickly as it came, leaving Neo disoriented.
Panting lightly, he straightened.
“What the…”
Neo’s voice trailed off as he ‘looked’ at his surroundings with new clarity.
Thanks to his new trait, Empathic Transcendence, Neo could sense things he had never noticed before.
His gaze widened in awe as tiny motes of colors floated in the air around him.
They were Elementals.
Air elementals, a lighter shade of green, darted through the air like restless fireflies.
They seemed incapable of staying in one place.
Their movements were playful and chaotic, almost childlike.
The floor beneath him was no different.
Metallic elementals—iron, copper, mithril Elementals—existed within the shattered floor.
As for Space Elementals–
Neo’s brows furrowed.
“Why are Space elementals like this?”
His eyes locked onto faint silver motes suspended in the air.
Unlike the air elementals, the silver motes of Space elementals remained stationary.
That wasn’t what confused him.
Sometimes, the air and space elementals appeared to overlap, occupying the same space simultaneously.
“Space and air elementals are… fused? No, they aren’t fused, but how are they existing in the same place?”
It was like keeping two objects in the same spatial coordinates.
Something like that shouldn’t be possible.
He stepped forward, extending his hand cautiously toward the motes.
The air elementals phased through his fingers, so did the space elementals.
He couldn’t touch them.
While Neo was scanning his surroundings, he began to notice faint noises.
They were too faint to make sense of.
From what he could hear, the murmurs resembled the Voices of Time and Voices of Darkness, yet there was something distinctly different about them.
“First, my vision upgraded. Now my hearing is,” Neo realized.
The breakthrough had brought extraordinary changes to his senses.
His body was still adjusting to them.
He ran a hand through his hair, which was damp with sweat.
He finally noticed the sweat and black gunk covering his body.
“Why do a breakthrough have to be like this everytime?”
He snapped his fingers and tried to use Water affinity to clean himself.
The World Energy inside him entered his Divine Energy Core.
Inside the Core, the resonance converted non-elemental World Energy into Water-elemental-infused World Energy.
Neo closed his eyes.
He observed the process carefully.
The Water elementals inside the Core coursed through his bloodstream, before exiting his body through the Magic Circuits on his palms.
Cool droplets materialized in his hands.
Neo observed every detail, every movements of the Elementals.
Then, he reached into his Shadow Space.
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The inky blackness swirled momentarily before he withdrew a simple water bottle.
He tilted the bottle, letting the water spill onto the ground.
The liquid pooled in the cracks of the floor.
Neo crouched.
He compared the Water elementals created by his Core to those naturally present in the water.
“Both Water elementals are the same, but mine seem… mechanical.”
He extended a hand over the pool of water on the ground, sensing the natural Elementals within.
They lazed around, moving as the water pulled them along.
“My Elementals are only doing what I’m telling them to do.
“But the Water elementals inside this water seem to have a mind of their own.”
Neo focused intently on the water before him.
To properly use his new trait, he needed to know how it worked.
The ‘noises’ returned.
This time, they were slightly louder.
As Neo focused on the water, he suddenly seemed capable of hearing the water elementals.
‘Baah… It’s too bright… why did you bring me out of my home,’ a lazy voice grumbled.
Neo, startled, stared at the pool of water.
Before he could process what had just happened, another voice—light and playful—cut in.
‘Hehe, want us to help you?’ The air elementals seemed to glow brighter as they spoke. ‘We will help you ‘evaporate,’ and in exchange, you…’
Their words trailed off abruptly.
The air elementals seemed to freeze mid-movement.
They focused on Neo.
‘You can hear us…?’
“I can.”
‘Wow!’
The tiny pale green motes began to swirl around him like a whirlwind.
Their movement sent gales thrashing through the chamber.
Loose debris was kicked up into the air.
Countless voices overlapped.
Each belonging to a different Air Elemental.
They were different individuals, yet there was ‘something’ that tied them together, something that made them ‘one’ even though they were ‘many.’
‘How can you hear us?’
‘Is it related to what you were doing a few moments ago?’
‘Tell us! Tell us!’
Their voices blended together.
They were too excited to notice Neo couldn’t understand their overlapping words.
Neo frowned, feeling a headache.
Their voices were hard to understand.
If not for Eternal granting Neo 50% resistance to every harmful effect—and himself being an Ascender—he might have died the moment he heared the voices of elementals that didn’t belong to his affinities.
“Speak one thing at a time. I can’t hear you all like this.”
The motes paused.
Then, in unison, they spoke again, their excitement barely contained.
‘What are you doing? How can you hear us?’
Neo felt like he was surrounded by a hundred overly energetic children who had just downed an entire case of energy drinks.
“I can talk to you all with the new trait I gained. As for why I’m doing this, it’s to train my trait and see how it works,” he explained.
‘Ohhhhhhh!’ The voices rose again in a collective cheer.
The pale green motes whirled faster in a strange excitement.
‘Training?’
‘Do you want to do some interesting training?’
“Interesting training?”
‘Yeah, we will teach you something nice. Think of it as a greeting gift,’ one of them chimed in, its voice sweet and persuasive.
Neo frowned.
Something smelled fishy about their offer.
Still, he decided to entertain their idea—for now.
“Go on.”
The motes seemed to vibrate with delight at his response
‘If you can see us, you can see the old man Space too, right?’
‘To you, it must look like we and the old man Space exist in the same place.’
‘But that’s not true.’
‘We exist in different places.’
Neo frowned.
His gaze shifted between the glowing pale-green motes of Air Elementals and the silvery, stationary forms of the Space Elementals.