There were two main things that Damien knew he had to focus on when it came to the gains he made. The first was his golden flames, and the second was the dark material he devoured.
As far as he was concerned, there weren’t any other gains he made, but he had to check on his own body to be certain. He didn’t end up devouring Polius after he died either.
There was a simple reason for this. In that final moment when the dark material was desperately resisting his Seven Stars Encircle The Moon attack, it had sucked Polius dry of all his vitality and experience, making his corpse completely useless even if devoured.
The first thing Damien did when he sent his awareness into his body was attempt to locate his flames.
When he summoned lightning, he usually just transmuted his pure mana into lightning mana to produce his black lightning. After all, besides its color, there wasn’t anything special about it.
It was definitely more destructive than normal lightning, but that was all it had in terms of unique properties. Along with that, it was never an external force even though he received the affinity after his first ever devouring.
It was the same with spatial mana. He didn’t have a container in his body to store the essence of space specifically, but since he always had an intrinsic connection with space even before the awakening of mana on earth, he never had to concern himself with it.
His flames, on the other hand, were different. From the start, his sunflames originated from his power as a Celestial. At first, he had simply used the connection he had with the stars in the crudest possible way to draw flames for him to use.
They were entirely external.
But as time went on and his control over both his Celestial Authority and his sunflames increased, he began to refine the sunflames into a flame that was incorporated into his body.
The sunflames then became something he could call upon and use at will without using an absurd amount of mana to draw them directly from the sun.
Of course, this also meant that the intensity of the sunflames didn’t nearly match up to when he drew them directly, but the difference wasn’t much.
The Nihility Flame was an even better example. He had drawn the Nihility Flame Seed from Elitra’s body and directly swallowed it, allowing his Void Physique to manage it in his stead while he went and joined the battle that was about to occur.
Due to his focus being elsewhere, he hadn’t noticed anything. Even during the battle he had no time to question the change in his flames’ color.
Now that he had specifically gone to look for it, his awareness accurately pinpointed a small flame seed resting within his Mana Heart.
Similar to the color of the flames he had seen previously, it was mainly gold. However, it also contained wisps of black that he didn’t notice before.
‘Rather than a positive reaction between the two flames in my body, it seems as if they were forcefully melded together and fused into something entirely new.’
His sunflames didn’t possess a flame seed due to their nature. It looked like the Void Physique had taken his sunflame source, which was essentially just a ball of fire, and merged it with the Nihility Flame Seed.
‘This result is probably the best I could’ve hoped for. Although I’ve lost the ability to use Sunflames and the Nihility Flame separately, the combined product isn’t just a matter of simple addition.’
As he continued observing the flame, the more surprises he found. Indeed, the power of the flame seemed to have exponentially increased after the two flames combined.
‘Their properties merged too…’
The sunflames were, at the end of the day, flames that came from a star. They were also very closely tied to his power as a Celestial. Due to this, the sunflames had always carried slight properties of starlight within them. Only, these properties had been far too muted to show any worth.
But now, they were out in full force. Damien could clearly feel the stellar energy that the flame contained.
‘As for the Nihility Flame, it seems its consciousness was preserved, and its devouring abilities have been enhanced by Void Essence.’
Damien didn’t think this was unnatural. After all, the Void Essence was the king of any devour-type abilities. Now, along with the fact that his flames could devour other flames to gain strength, they could also absorb the properties of those flames similar to what happened when the sunflames and Nihility Flame fused.
‘What kind of flame would this become? If I can find the 22 flames that trumped the Nihility Flame on the Heavenly Flame Index and devour them, what kind of monster would I create?’
Damien grew excited at the prospect. A flame combining the properties of all the most powerful flames in existence…he had the urge to go out and try his luck immediately. But he quickly calmed himself down.
How could it be so easy to find a flame on the Heavenly Flame Index? There were only 100 ranked flames, and of them, he had only seen one even in the close to 6 years that he had been practicing.
It was best to take such a matter slowly and let fate take its course.
As for the fact that his flames had a budding consciousness, this was even better. While controlling his flames on his own was natural and didn’t have much delay, he still had to put attention on shaping and guiding his mana.
This was normal for any practitioner to do.
But a conscious flame would be able to perform those processes for him, making his efficiency and output reach their greatest potential.
‘I must nurture this flame spirit well. Perhaps it’ll become one of my most trusted allies in the future.’
Damien soon withdrew his awareness from his body and stood up, summoning his golden-black flames on the tips of his fingers.
The best way to learn the true limits of its abilities was to test it practically. Although he didn’t have anyone to fight at the moment, he had a spacious training area that he could destroy as he pleased.
Damien flicked his fingers, causing a flame arrow to shoot towards a nearby tree. Before it even reached a foot away from the trunk, the entire tree had been incinerated.
‘Not bad at all.’
It wasn’t just a matter of heat, nor was it the devouring properties of the Nihility Flame. It was also a result of the stellar energy residing in the flame.
Properties of gravity, nuclear radiation, and even cosmic force were slightly represented in the flames.
Stellar energy was something Damien hadn’t totally explored yet. That and starlight were the defining features of a Celestial, but he had entirely neglected them.
He felt embarrassed about it, but there was nothing he could do. He had so many skills and so many energies to focus on that he was always diverting his focus during training to choose whichever path would be most beneficial in the short term.
Perhaps this realization was the biggest gain he had made from the battle.
Damien was someone who always prided himself on his versatility. Unlike others, he was always gaining new paths and new methods that he could use instead of being stuck with only the affinities and talent he had from birth.
Of course, neither his affinities nor talent were bad. They could even be considered as heavenly. But he had always been ready to give himself more choices.
However, he had realized that his outlook wasn’t entirely correct.
During the previous battle, instead of simply abusing his mana capacity and being freeform with his elements, he had mainly stuck to physical combat and the use of skills he had created.
And frankly, he felt that this structured battle style reaped him much more advantage than the untamed battle style he usually used.
Even though he hadn’t managed to kill Polius using Dimensional Severance due to the interferences of the dark material, he had completely suppressed his opponent to the point where he had no other paths to turn to.
If it had been anyone else, they were guaranteed to die by Dimensional Severance, and that was if they managed to survive the onslaught that came before that.
As for Seven Stars Encircling The Moon, it was an ultimate attack that didn’t lose out to Dimensional Severance in the slightest.
Damien knew that his versatility was indeed a good thing. It wasn’t something he should ever take for granted. But he now knew that too much versatility could also be harmful.
The saying was ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ for a reason. If he wanted to reach a pinnacle, he needed to become more single-focused than he had been before.
But that didn’t mean he needed to totally throw away his versatility either.