The scent of blood was the only thing that followed Master White as he pushed deeper into the Sylvaran Woods. Over the next few hours, the forest became a slaughterhouse. The air here was different from the capital—it was thick, saturated with a unrefined Enos that sat heavy in the lungs. He moved like a ghost without any wasted energy.
The scent of damp earth was constantly masked by the metallic smell of fresh blood. Over the first day, the forest became a graveyard. He was a predator in a world of predators, but he possessed a cold, mechanical focus that the beasts lacked.
One by one, the denizens of the first realm fell. A Stone-Hide Boar was sent tumbling with a single kick that shattered its reinforced ribs like glass; a Twin-Tailed Serpent was snatched from the air and snapped into two like a twig before its venom could even reach its fangs. By the time the sun began to set below the horizon, casting long, skeletal shadows across the damp floor, twenty-five beasts of the First Realm lay dead in his wake.
As he wiped the dark, viscous liquids of multiple beasts from his knuckles, a familiar blue light flickered in the corner of his vision.
[Quest Window]
[Quest: The Path of the Elements]
★Objective: Kill 25 Realm-1 Beasts (25/25)
★Objective: Kill 25 Realm-2 Beasts (0/25)
[Reward: The Anasir Logos.]
[Note: Master White, the 'Anasir Logos' is a fundamental scripture. It will allow your elemental affinities that are laced with the Law of Life and Death to be functional, your law remains dormant and ordinary for the time being. This will help you build an unprecedented foundation.]
[The elements appearing black&white and their actual activation is completely different. You must complete this quest to get your hands on the "Anasir Logos"]
"Activating the law..." Master White murmured internally.
"Ordinary flames or winds won't suffice for the heights we intend to reach. If the System insists this is the foundation, we must treat it as a priority."
"The rewards are enticing," Azrael replied, his voice echoing in the shared space of their mind.
"But look at the jump in difficulty. Realm-2 beasts aren't just stronger; their Enos density is on a different level. We can't just 'muscle' our way through them."
Master White took control, his eyes turning a deeper, sharper blue, glowing faintly in the twilight. "I am aware. This is no longer a test of our strength. But a fight for an ultimate foundation."
"We will retreat for now." He said. But suddenly,
A low, vibrating growl shook the leaves of the towering trees. Emerging from the dense clump was a Thorn-Back Bear, a Realm-2 beast. It stood nearly ten feet tall, its fur infused with Enos that had hardened over years into a natural suit of armor.
As the bear charged, Master White didn't dodge. He wanted to measure the gap. He struck out with a palm thrust—BANG. The impact sounded like a heavy hammer hitting a granite boulder. The bear was pushed back a few inches, its momentum momentarily halted, but it was otherwise unshaken. On the other hand, the recoil of the strike vibrated violently back into Master White's arm, numbing his fingers and sending a jolt of pain up to his shoulder.
"The density of their hide acts as a dampener," Master White analyzed, narrowly dodging a massive claw that leveled a nearby sapling. "My raw strength is being reflected rather than absorbed. I am wasting force on the surface."
Seeing that there is no point in continuing this raw powered brute battle, he retreated into the shadows, and made his way back to the inn.
***********
In his room,
The candle light at the edge of his room flickered, casting his shadow on the wall. Azrael sat in silence, massaging the dull ache in his forearm where the recoil from the Thorn-Back Bear's hide had rattled his bones.
"We are treating force like a blunt hammer," Master White's voice echoed in the room, his materialized image manifesting with a cold, analytical gaze. "To the Realm-2 beasts, our current output is nothing more than a loud knock on a reinforced door. We are wasting fifty percent of our energy on the surface impact alone."
Azrael leaned back, a dark realization dawning on him. "So we stop hitting the door and start vibrating the hinges." Master White nodded, his eyes glowing.
"Precisely. Tomorrow, we will not rely on raw power. We will use Force Manipulation. To Negate their resistance upon contact and Multiply the kinetic energy internally. We aren't going back to the forest to hunt with muscle; we are going back to crush them from the inside out."
He spent the next day practicing on the environment itself. He stood before a massive waterfall, attempting to Negate the weight of the falling water against his palms.
He learned that Negation wasn't just about stopping an object; it was about the total erasure of kinetic energy upon contact. To the outside world, he would appear as an unmovable mountain, at the point of contact, momentum would die.
Then, he turned his attention to a field of boulders. He began to practice the art of Adding and Multiplying. He didn't strike the rocks with a full swing. Instead, he would touch them lightly and then layer the kinetic energy of his Blood Core in rapid, micro-successions.
"One wave of force is a strike," White whispered to himself.
"Two waves is a puncture. Four waves is an explosion. If I multiply the output at the moment of impact, the armor becomes irrelevant because the force is moving through it, not against it."
The max he was able to generate and multiply was four times his initial power.
By the second night, the "grind" turned into a masterclass of physics. He began hunting the Realm-2 beasts with a new, terrifying precision. He found Iron-Beak Hawks and Gale-Wolves, using each encounter to perfect the method of his manipulation. No longer were there prolonged struggles. A single, well-placed tap to a hawk's wing would send a multiplied shockwave through its hollow bones, shattering them instantly.
Finally, as the second day reached its peak, he arrived at a clearing thick with the scent of ancient pine and rotting vegetation. This was the heart of the sector. Suddenly, the atmosphere went eerily silent. The birds stopped chirping; the insects ceased their buzzing.
The shadows shifted. From the treeline emerged a pack of Gale-Wolves—eight of them, all Realm-2.
They were apex pack hunters, their fur shimmering with a vibrant green Enos that granted them the ability to move faster than the human eye could track. They didn't growl or posture; they simply moved, surrounding White in a perfect circle.
"Eight of them," Azrael noted, his heart rate steady.
"A final test."
"Efficiently and elegantly," White replied.
"Watch closely, Azrael."
The wolves lunged simultaneously from four different angles. They were a blur of green fur and silver claws. Master White stood in the center, his posture relaxed, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. To a common observer, he looked like a victim about to be torn apart.
As the lead wolf's jaws snapped inches away from him, White didn't move his head. He merely raised a single finger and touched the wolf's nose.
[Force Manipulation: Negate]
The wolf's massive forward momentum, boosted by its elemental Enos, vanished instantly. The laws of physics seemed to break as the beast simply dropped to the grass like a stone, its heart stopping from the sudden, absolute cessation of movement.
Without pausing, Master White also moved. The second and third wolves were mid-air, their claws outstretched. Master White's foot swept out in a low arc, connecting with the second wolf's ribs.
[Force Manipulation: Multiply]
The sound of shattering bone was muffled by the wind. The wolf wasn't just kicked; it was launched sideways with enough force to liquefy its internal organs. It collided with the third wolf mid-air, the combined mass of their bodies slamming into a tree with a sickening crunch. Both were dead before they hit the ground.
The remaining five wolves faltered, their primitive instincts screaming in terror. But they were committed. They lunged in a final, desperate coordinated strike.
Master White moved like a dancer. He parried a claw with the back of his hand, Negating the impact so the wolf stumbled past him, then delivered a short-range palm strike to its spine, Multiplying the force to sever the nerves instantly. He moved with a coordinated motion that was beautiful and horrifying at once. There were no wide swings, no wasted breaths. He was a seasoned hunter, a killer who understood that true power lay in the absolute control of one's environment.
To an outside observer, it would have looked like the wolves were simply throwing themselves onto his fists and dying. In less than ten seconds, the clearing was silent once again, littered with the corpses of eight Realm-2 predators. Not a single drop of blood had touched White's black robe.
[Quest Complete.]
[You have received: The Anasir Logos]
A blinding white scroll manifested in the air, glowing with an ancient, primordial light. It didn't wait to be grasped. The scroll unraveled into a stream of pure, crystalline information and starlight, surging directly into Azrael's forehead.
He dropped to his knees, his hands clutching his head as his mind felt like it was being scratched and rewritten. It wasn't just information; it was a fundamental shift in his soul's construct.
The "Incomplete" Law of Life and Death began to hum in a low, resonant frequency. The dormant affinities for Fire, Water, and Wind—which had previously been mere potential—began to churn and transform. They were no longer just elemental forces; they were now tinged with a gray, heavy essence. The fire felt "colder," carrying the touch of the grave; the wind felt "sharper," carrying the breath of the dying.
The elements had been laced before, but now they were activated. The foundation was no longer ordinary. Although it was never ordinary to begin with, but now it contained something which was impossible in the entire known cosmos.
"Finally," Master White whispered, standing up as the light faded, leaving behind a mark of Yin-Yang on their forehead which disappeared in the next instant.
He looked down at his hands, where a flicker of gray-tinged flame danced for a moment before vanishing. "The real cultivation begins now."
Azrael stood up beside him in the materialized form, a dark, satisfied smile on his face. "I wonder how the others will react when they see elements that carry the weight of Life and Death."
"They won't react," Master White replied coldly. "They will simply cease to exist."