?When he began practicing this Meditation Art he had felt the growing discomfort with every level he ascended, but Andar had accepted that pain.
The Endless Vault meditation Art caused great pain to the user due to the nature of the technique. It was powerful, but it was a double-edged sword, and for others, they could only touch a small part of it, but Andar was different, he saw this pain as something not to conquer, but to accept, but still, his body had reached its limits, so too his mind.
There were times when the person closest to him Mira would see his eyes fixed in a far-off distance, his gaze would be clouded as if in great thought, and she would think that he was considering great events that most Mages would be unable to grasp, sometimes she was right, other times it was Andar enduring the urge not to scream out as his mind was kept at the brink of madness.
'Everyone else sees the glory, but who understands the weight of it? Perhaps, only my creator… only he knows.'
Yet the next day, he would return to the Endless Vault and he would strive to climb higher, unlocking more Engraving Tiles and increasing the pain brought on by this Art… although his main body had gone silent, he could still feel his silent strength, and strangely he could feel it more closely today, as if Rowan was coming for him.
'Damn, will that not be a sight,' He chuckled inside, 'If he comes to this place.'
After that thought crossed his mind, he hurriedly dismissed it. If Rowan came to this place, his teacher and his friends would be doomed. After spending years with them and making friends, Andar did not know how he would feel when they were crushed beneath the heels of his creator. Rowan was not one for mercy.
'Stop such grim thoughts and focus on why you are here.' Andar chided himself and walked faster.
The surrounding Mages began to zoom toward the Nyre Flower, but Andar was not worried that they would reach the Crown before he did, the flower had powerful defenses, and most of them would not be able to make it halfway through before the native defenders of this flower stopped them.
This treasure was born from the vitality of those who were dispersed when they died inside the Underverse since only a minuscule amount of vitality could be gathered at a time because most of it had already been devoured, it took a long time to gather, but this flower bloomed tens of thousands of years early and it produced more than one Crown.
The Crown of the Nyre Flower resembled a long black rod measuring a hundred feet where the greatest portion of its vitality was clustered. This Nyre Flower had five Crowns.
Andar's musing was interrupted when he sensed three Mages moving in a manner that would intercept him when he came halfway near the flower, he ignored them and began to visualize the path he would take to the Crown.
Unlike any other Mage that needed to gather Aether around themselves and pull on those stored in their Spirit Matrix, Andar's body was flooded with his pure Aether and he only needed a gesture and an effort of will to activate reality-breaking powers.
With every Tile he created inside his Spirit Matrix, his constitution became stronger, and his heaven-defying physique became more tyrannical. Andar had run many simulations in his mind when he fought against other Mages, and he knew none of the participants here were his match, even if their numbers were multiplied by a thousand.
The three figures intercepted him, a female and two males, all of whom were Rank 3 Mages and judging by their youth and the Aura of power surrounding them, were all geniuses of note.
If he was not wrong the female who had long blond hair and a prideful look in her eyes had a Spirit Body.
"Hello, Acolyte Andar Erikson," She opened her mouth and started speaking, her first words were clearly intended for him to know his place, after all, which Acolyte would be privileged enough to be warranted the honor of being spoken to by a Rank 3 Mage, even one such as Andar.
"Tsk… Tsk.." Andar waved a finger at them in dismissal, making the eyes of the female Mage open wide in astonishment, and before irritation could cloud her features, in a tenth of a second Andar activated Gray Will that had entered the second level and his black hair turned white, just as his mind scattered into ten million different portions.
Time seemed to stand still, as Andar Spirit covered the entire base of the Nyre Flower and all the candidates that were here.
'485 Participants, 398 Rank 3 Mages, from the Aura of their Elementalised Bodies, 234 chose the direction of Fire to Ascend, 46 followed the direction of Ice, 21 followed Darkness, 19 followed Light, the rest followed various directions… interesting one of the Rank 3 Mage follows the direction of Sound. His Elementalised Body must be something special.'
Everyone below Rank 3 was of no concern for Andar, the weight of his Aether was enough to crush them all, but every Rank 3 here was at the peak of their level, and they had various tricks up their sleeves that he would have to factor for, in addition to the fact that they could wield Mid Order Spells made them difficult to handle.
It was the reason he checked the direction of their Elementalised Bodies to understand the sort of spells they might favor and counter them effectively.
A part of his many splitting had gone over the tens of thousands of spells he knew and rapidly filtered them until he was done with 83 spells, after running twenty different checks to ensure there were no loopholes in his calculations, he released five percent of his Aether.
'No, with five percent, there would be two casualties, I should reduce it to 4.899964 percent, those two Rank 1 Mages are too weak for my Aether's weight.'
Andar's body shone for another fraction of a second and all that glow gathered on his fingertips where it transformed into a single drop of clear water.
The Rank 3 Mage who was also a Spirit Body glanced at the drop of water on Andar's fingertips and her eyes went wide, tens of defensive glow surrounded her body and Andar smiled and crushed the water drop.
Everything went white.