Left alone with his thoughts, Lucien was forced to move, to do something to occupy his mind. Fortunately for him, there were two things he hadnt quite grasped yet.
His Aspect Legacy, and Runic Sorcery.
Even after months of studying Runes, Lucien only made progress after getting the first piece of Nether's artificial lineage. Unfortunately, he had to leave soon after, and couldnt study the runes properly.
Apart from sorcery, he had spent months practicing his Aspect Legacy. He had tried to mould the lightning into the shape of a sword. He had made some progress there, especially with the new idea of making sheets of lightning.
Sitting down in the middle, Lucien first summoned lightning to form the outline of the blade. As soon as that was done, Lucien began working on making the sheets of lightning. Each of these sheets were different in size and shape, made to fill the gap in the blade of lightning. After weeks of practicing, this had become like second nature to him.
Slowly, one by one these sheets were attacked to the blade, until finally it represented an actual sword.
Opening his eyes, Lucien stared at his creation, at the blade made out of pure lightning. Grasping it in both hands, Lucien poured more of his storm essence into it, flooding the hollow interior of the blade, filling it with electricity.
There it was, after nearly half a year of practicing, he had finally done it. He had made a sword purely out of lightning. His skin had begun turning pale from the blood he was losing, but it was worth it.
Smiling, he raised up the weapon triumphantly, expecting the spell to whisper in his ear any moment.
…
Why wasn't the spell saying anything?
Just as his concentration waned, the blade of lightning lost it's shape, releasing all of its pent up energy at once. Lucien was thrown across the room, until his back crashed with a wall. The lightning washed through the ampitheatre once before dissipating.
Surprisingly, nothing had been damaged, well apart from Lucien that is.
Groaning, Lucien pushed himself up to his feet. What exactly had gone wrong, he had successfully remade a sword with nothing but lightning. That should have satisfied the condition for his aspect legacy.
Frowning, he checked the runes describing the legacy.
Aspect Legacy : [Decree of Creation]
Aspect Legacy Description : [For a walking disaster, creation was an unfamiliar thing. Yet, following in the footsteps of a daemon, the Hour of Calamity chose to create rather than destroy.]
"To create rather than destroy." Lucien whispered and looked at his hands which still had arcs of lightning bouncing on its surface. But he had created, he had made something out of something as volatile as lightning. Was that not enough?
"I don't get it."
"It is because you did not create anything." A voice suddenly said. Lucien looked up to see the Stone Goliath slowly walking out of the tunnel.
It looked down at it's hand and continued, "When Nether created us, did he use the mist and darkness he commanded to take our shape? No, he used the stone and the gems to mould a body for us. That is creation."
Lucien frowned, shaping the lightning didn't count as creation? He had to make something out of matter, not energy? Something that was more permanent?
How the hell was he supposed to do that?
Did he need to start shaping the stone around him?
Furrowing his brows, Lucien thought back to the memory Nephis had gotten from killing the Fallen Terror. An illusory sword made of light that overlapped with the Dream Blade, becoming one with it to enhance it.
Lucien did something similar when he enhanced his armament with lightning, but that never advanced his aspect legacy.
Throughout his experiments, he had managed to infer a few things about how his aspect legacy functioned. He knew that he had to make something personally, out of his own storm essence for it to count. Otherwise, he would have unlocked it when he was making weapons back in the Dark city.
He also knew that he could not use something as a base and build over it, he had to do it all himself.
If he had to make something out of matter, then he would have to find a way to convert the lightning into stone or steel.
…Just how was he supposed to do that?
Frowning, Lucien raised his hand to summon a ball of lightning. He had to turn this violent ball of energy into something as calm as steel?
Sure let's give it a shot.
Glaring at the ball, he first willed it to calm down, forcing the lightning to stay within the boundary of the orb. When no tendrils of lightning lashed out, Lucien moved on to the next stage.
Taking the miniature sun in his hand, Lucien tried to command it to change. His will crashed down on the orb of lightning, telling it to change, to become something else that Lucien could control. He willed the lightning to turn into wind.
The ball of lightning stood unchanging, retaining both its brightness and violence. It refused to change.
Lucien brought his remaining hand to the orb, and exerted even more pressure onto it. Using both hands to maintain the orb, Lucien commanded it to change again.
Under the pressure from Lucien's spirit, the orb of lightning began to waver. The miniature purple sun began trembling between his palms. Patches of it began growing transparent, allowing him to see through it.
The holwing of wind suddenly filled Lucien's ears, and for a brief moment shock overcame him.
Almost instantly the orb shattered, throwing both his arms away and pushing his torso back a bit. But Lucien did not care.
Staring blankly at where the orb used to be, he whispered, "It really changed."
The lightning really changed to wind. The surprise had overwhelmed him, breaking his control and allowing the orb to dissipate mid transmutation.
Wind was nothing but moving air, and air was made of matter. Lucien had turned the lightning into wind, he had managed to convert energy into matter.
As the grin slowly returned to his face, Lucien summoned yet another orb of lightning. With both hands holding it, Lucien commanded it to change once more.
The orb of lightning complied without much resistance this time, patches of it began turning into transparent wind. Lucien stared in awe as the purple sun turned into a transparent vortex of wind. The orb of volatile lightning turned into a vortex of wind.
Just as he was coming to terms with this new developement, a thought struck him.
If he could turn lightning into wind, could he do the opposite?
Focusing his attention back to the vortex of wind, Lucien commanded it to change back. Soon, arcs of lightning began branching out inside the vortex, as if he was holding a tiny storm between his hands. This storm grew more and more violent by the second, until the branches of lightning filled the vortex, turning it into a ball of pure lightning.
Lucien stared at the orb for a good while, before allowing it to disspate. He had turned energy into matter, and matter back into energy. From the little he had learned from the other sleepers, that wasn't supposed to happen.
But it had.
Lucien had done it, his aspect legacy demanded it.
The next step, was to make solid matter, like stone or metal. But first, he had to understand what metal was.
He attempted to summon the Storm Blade, but remembered how it had changed after the wave of darkness had struck him. The only other metal memory he had was the [Iron-Warbow].
In a shower of sparks, the metallic bow appeared in his hand. The limbs of the bow resembled spider legs, and were made entirely out of iron. The string was made of iron-silk, an incredibly strong, yet flexible type of silk.
Lucien looked at the iron limbs of the bow, and activated [Fountain of Knowledge]. As the red glow flashed in his eyes, he learned about the metal called iron, he learned exactly what it was composed of. Each atom was composed of twenty-six positive and negative charges and thrity neutral particles. These atoms were kept in a cubic structure, with one atom in the middle. This formed the structure of iron. The information flowed into his mind, carving itself deep into his memory.
Once it was done, the red glow left Luciens eyes and he dismissed the memory. Taking a deep breath in, he summoned the lightning again, this time in a sheet.
A bright purple sheet of lightning formed in front of him and floated between his extended arms. Lucien commanded the lightning to change, to transform into the structure of iron, like it had done with wind.
Unlike last time, the lightning did not comply. The sheet remained unchanged.
Frowning, Lucien tried again, forcing the lightning to turn into solid matter. But it didn't work, the lightning stubbornly remained as energy.
Lucien paused for a moment, and then thought of something.
If he couldnt convert the lightning directly into metal, how about doing it indirectly? With that, he commanded the lightning to turn into wind.
Near instantly, the sheet of lightning complied, and turned into a sheet of wind. It remained between Luciens arms.
Then, he tried commanding the wind to turn, to change into iron. But the wind did not listen, it remained a sheet of wind, unchanging.
What was going on? Was the difference between wind and iron too great to overcome too? What else could he turn it into?
Slowly, Lucien looked down at his chest, rather at one of the soul cores in it. The core that held the Remnant [Mictlan's Demise].
A stream of sand began flowing out of his chest,and down his torso, it flowed out of his armour and coagulated over his lap, forming the twin daggers. A thin strand of sand connected the weapons to his body.
With the Remnant out, Lucien gained the ability to control sand. With that, he turned back to the sheet of wind, and commanded it once again, this time to turn into sand.
The sheet of wind suddenly trembled, and a golden spark caught Lucien's eye. He forced more of his will at the sheet, commanding once again.
The spark of gold came again, and began spreading out from the center of the sheet. Wherever it passed, the wind turned into golden sand. An amount of blood suddenly left Lucien as the sheet of sand was formed.
Beads of sweat formed on Luciens forehead as he forced the sheet of sand to maintain his shape. There was only one step ramining.
Taking a deep breath him, Lucien concentrated on the sheet of sand once more, and a silent command passed to the sand, to turn into iron.
The seet of sand froze, and then began shaking. Parts of the sand lost their golden sheen, replaced with a silvery-gray luster. Grains of sand turned into grains of metal, and a small part of the sheet turned into iron.
At that moment, Lucien suddenly lost focus as his skin grew dangerously pale. His dreadful flaw had claimed its price even before he could turn the whole sheet. Right in front of his eyes, the sheet of golden sand which had been partially turned into iron, lost all cohesion, and the grains of sand and iron fell.
Lucien could do nothing but watch it fall with a pained look. He was so close, just a bit more and he would have succeeded.
Cursing his abominable flaw, Lucien dismissed his memories and laid down on the cold stone floor.
This…this experiment would take a while to finish.
That's alright, he had all the time in the world now, all the time he could ever need.