Placing his fingers to his chest, Elias began his vitality absorption technique, and he hardly needed to chant once before red and blue Lumina erupted from around him, seven streams came from the cannibals he had slaughtered, and three streams of blue emerged from the three unfortunate corpses being consumed.
Perhaps for an average Level 9 Wisp, consuming the Vitality of seven peak Fury Forge would be enough for them to break the boundary that separated them from the Wisp Stage to the next, but for Elias, he knew that all of these Lumina could hardly fill the space in between his teeth.
If he did not have eyes watching him, Elias would have used the power of the Ascendant Swarm to seize the Lumina from the bodies of the fallen.
Elias could reveal the secret that his Armament could draw Lumina from the bodies of the fallen, but he knew that his swarm not only seized Lumina, but also what seemed like the souls of his prey.
He could not be sure unless he were given a chance to fully experiment, but Elias believed that the reason he was able to reach the peak of the Wisp Stage was due to the fact that these souls were taken by his swarm.
It was the same with his instincts given from his Elder Talent that made him aware that he needed to push himself beyond the limits to grow.
Those same instincts were giving him hints that a certain combination of several of his traits, talents, and attributes had created a situation where he could fill up infinity and yet still keep it empty.
It was similar to the way that most people were not aware of how the little organs and every piece of themselves worked in harmony to keep them healthy and active; if they were to monitor the entire process, they would not be able to even move a finger, let alone breathe.
Elias knew there must surely be many complicated structures and laws ongoing inside his Lumina Space that gave him an Infinite Pool, yet still provided a way for him to grow these pools, but he was too ignorant to understand these mysteries.
He knew that the only thing he could do was slowly figure out all these enigmas as he grew stronger and more knowledgeable; for now, it was enough that he could still grow.
The streams of Lumina followed through the pattern he had made with his fingers and entered his body, and under the relentless pull from Elias, the bodies around him began to shrink as if all their vitality had been sucked away.
His Title, Late Bloomer, gave him 15% more Lumina on his kills, and Elias figured out that this extra Lumina wasn’t coming from nowhere; it was being pulled from the flesh and marrow of his prey.
He had briefly observed that when the cannibals were eating those bodies, the stream of Lumina in their bodies was subtly increasing.
Elias knew that most of an individual’s Lumina was stored in their pools, and as they grew stronger, Lumina would begin to enter their bodies and change them in certain ways.
If an individual were killed, their killer would be able to harvest the Lumina inside their pools, but collecting the Lumina from the flesh was harder. Elias was sure that the Vitality Absorption technique played a part in the reason he was able to draw out so much Lumina from the flesh, but his powerful Title was a prominent factor.
Knowing all this, Elias figured out why these seven men became cannibals. If they were not like him, who had the ability to draw out Lumina from the flesh, then the only way to get to this hidden storehouse of Lumina was to consume it.
It was horrifying and yet still pragmatic, and Elias could not fault them for their actions. If he was desperate enough and found a source of Lumina that would benefit him, Elias did not mind eating his prey alive. Others would do the same to him.
Only the foolish and the ignorant believed that getting power was something that was relatively orderly or pretty. No, the true nature of reality was brutal, and only those with the stomach to handle brutality would come out on top.
With the speed he was drawing away Lumina from the bodies, Elias figured he should stop before they disintegrated into pieces. Not that he was softhearted, he simply did not want to mistakenly drag away their souls from their bodies, not when the Commander was watching.
Slowly disengaging his fingers, Elias expected the dwindling streams of Lumina flowing into his body to stop, but his eyes widened when he discovered that it was not stopping; in fact, the draw seemed to become stronger.
He could only helplessly blink in the next two seconds as all the bodies around him turned to dust and ten souls were dragged into his body.
Elias shuddered and waited for a few seconds before he began to move. His mind was in a frenzy as he went through everything that had just happened.
He quickly noted that when he activated the Vitality Absorption technique, only his finger positions were correct; he had barely begun chanting before all the surrounding Lumina from his prey began to pour into his body.
Elias also noted that he had been able to harvest the Lumina from the bodies of the three prey slaughtered by the cannibals. With the amount of time that had passed, all the Lumina in their pools should have been harvested by the seven cannibals, and what he had acquired must have been from the Lumina in their bodies.
That should have been his first warning, but he had ignored it. Elias sighed. It seemed that his Oceans of Lumina had a powerful pull on all the Lumina that surrounded him, and the activation of his Lumina Absorption technique was just to open the gate to the Abyss.
Elias gritted his teeth in annoyance; all of these things should have been clear to him if he had the time to slowly figure out his powers before he was thrust into another battle, but that was the fate of the weak.
He was not a fool, and he was aware that the Commander was pushing him to battle without giving him much information because he would not be able to properly hide his secrets from her.
If he had been given a week of preparation, then Elias knew that most of his secrets that were his own to keep would not see the light of day.
Nevertheless, as much as it irritated him, he knew that he had no choice in this matter, and what happened was a direct result of the path he had chosen to take. Still, he wanted to be valuable, but not too valuable.
If push came to shove and his talent drew too much greed, Elias needed to have a hidden weapon that he could use to buy himself his freedom.
He knew that inside him, his Elder Talent had a wave of upgrades that would cause a new transformation in his body, and Elias’s eyes glinted in thought as his body pushed deeper into the forest.