Unsealing Emptiness

Sadly, the duo did not have any more of the breakthroughs since the amount of Mana wasn’t actually sufficient, to begin with.

Although there were no more breakthroughs, Raven and Blaze felt even better than that after absorbing all the essence!

They hadn’t felt any changes after absorbing the essence for the first time because the improvements weren’t visible. Only with time did they realize the changes inside their body.

Not only did they have more stamina, but it seemed way more comfortable to control each part of their body. The duo had yet to notice, but their control over the Mana had also improved! It was just that the Elemental Seed controlled all the Mana, so they hadn’t tested it for themselves.

When Raven and Blaze opened their eyes, another thing they noticed was how they could see things more clearly, even when it was dark all around them.

They stood up from their spots and stretched their bodies while testing all the other improvements in their bodies.

.....

Ozul limited himself to watch from his spot as the duo closed their eyes to feel the changes. After a while, they opened their eyes, and both of them had bright smiles stretched on their faces.

“The essence is surprisingly supposed to be absorbed in the bloodstream!” Raven exclaimed. She was sure that everyone before them who had used a drake’s Mana Core had been using it the wrong way.

Because they had absorbed more than 40 percent of the Mana in their Cores, but nothing had happened. However, separating the essence before absorbing it into their blood instead had shown the results far out of their expectations.

Not only their eyesight, but all of their senses had gotten sharper and precise! Even after a breakthrough to the next Rank as a Fighter did not feel as good as this.

Moreover, the duo had a hunch that the benefits of absorbing the essence did not end here. And they were correct since they would realize the real advantages later in the future.

“Tell me everything,” Ozul suddenly asked when the duo was still lost in their own thoughts.

It was clear that he was asking about their improvements that he couldn’t sense. One by one, Raven began to explain everything to him together with their own hypothesis that they might have yet to explore the real benefits.

“Hmm... You didn’t have to start replacing the cells with Mana, yeah?” Ozul pointed out something that left the duo wondering as well.

It was surprising for them because after Rank-5, the Mages were required to start replacing most of the matter with Mana.

Replacing the matter with Mana was a necessary process because the body wouldn’t be able to handle the density and purity of the Mana at those stages!

However, the duo hadn’t yet started this process while they had already been cultivating the Mana. For normal Mages, it would’ve started to suffocate inside their body. Gathering the Mana inside their body would have already started to get difficult.

But nothing as such happened with the duo. Instead, they hadn’t felt better than today since forever!

“It just shows how effective the essence has been. I am now starting to think that there really may be some credibility in the legends of a drake being related to dragons.” Ozul concluded and spoke out his thoughts.

“Anyways, sit back down. You guys still have a lot of Mana to cultivate,” he ordered, confusing both Raven and Blaze.

“But we used it all. There is nothing left,” Blaze said since he thought that Ozul might have been misunderstanding something here.

“Yes, you did. But shut up and sit down.” Ozul did not want to explain the entire process again. It would be the same to practically show them anyway.

“Okay...” the duo replied in a low voice. They hurriedly sat back on the ground even when they had gotten quite sick of sitting all day.

Ozul gave them a few basic instructions before coating himself with a fragile layer of Ball of Purity. Because of how light the layer was, Ozul had to concentrate for quite a while before he was able to maintain it this way.

He took out the five remaining Elemental Seeds that had previously been stored in the Ball of Purity’s cube.

Raven and Blaze looked at him curiously as he quickly threw them in his mouth. It surprised the duo that Ozul had even swallowed the Elemental Seeds.

And not to mention that he swallowed the five Seeds at the same time!

Although the duo could not see it since Ozul had coated himself with the Ball of Purity, he closed his eyes to concentrate on controlling the layer around him.

The excess Mana would be released any moment now, and he did not want to let any of it escape since he planned to make full use of it.

A blinding light flashed before the Mana was released from his body. However, none of the light escaped the lay made up of Ball of Purity around him. Ozul hurriedly compressed the layer to wrap all the excess Mana at a single point.

The Ball of Purity left his body, letting a tiny trail of Mana to escape. Still, it was negligible in the face of such an amount that he had gotten from the Seeds.

Before Blaze and Raven’s eyes, all of the excess Mana was rounded off in a square shape by the Ball of Purity.

Ozul did not have any trouble controlling the Ball of Purity so efficiently as it seemed that the Seeds weren’t so useless to him after all.

“Ready?” Ozul asked as the duo nodded their heads.

He controlled the cube to split into two equal parts and sent each piece inside the duo’s body. When he figured that the Raven and Blaze had already put all of their concentration in the Elemental Seeds, Ozul released the Mana inside of their bodies.

The cubes had looked small from the outside. However, each cube contained so much energy that it could probably kill a Rank-7 Mage!

When Ozul let the Mana out of the cube, only then did they realize much excess Mana he had released this time around.

“Don’t lose your concentration. Although the Seeds are helping, think of them only as useful tools. Never trust your lives in the hand of some useful tools. So keep all of your attention to the Mana or be prepared to face the consequences.” Ozul advised as the expressions on the duo’s face turned severe.

Raven and Blaze began to cultivate the Mana that moved around their Core. The Elemental Seeds played a massive role in all of this since it was also these Seeds which prevented the Mana to enter a violent state before exploding.

After he checked that everything was okay, Ozul came back to his spot and started to test his improvements. He did not expect much after almost getting nothing by absorbing the Rank-8 Core from Duke Edwin.

But what he saw surprised even him because he was already on par with a Rank-9 Mage now!

Before, he could only hold his ground against a Rank-9 Mage and have no chances to win. However, now Ozul was confident enough to face a Rank-9 Mage without being at a disadvantage. Though winning or losing would depend on the situation.

Ozul trusted his judgment, but each Rank-9 Mage was a mystery on his own, so he couldn’t underestimate a Rank-9 individual either.

The Ball of Purity had gotten a little denser, and the most significant improvement was his control of it. It seemed that the Elemental Seeds really helped everything in controlling the Mana.

Sadly, he couldn’t fight a Rank-9 Mage right now to test his own capabilities.

Maybe, the forest had something that would let him go all out at once? Since the monster that had swallowed one of his feet, he hadn’t found anyone to go all out at once.

It was already midnight, so most of the people outside the tent were sleeping. Meanwhile, Ozul waited for the duo to absorb all the Mana. The process was relatively easy for Raven and Blaze since the Elemental Seed helped them absorb the Mana.

The only real problem they had right now was to preserve all night as well after cultivating for the whole day.

Ozul himself had nothing better to do, and he did not feel like watching Raven and Blaze cultivate all night as well.

Meanwhile, he took out the book strapped to his back, which contained information about many of the rare Beasts and herbs. He wasn’t really interested in some plants’ names. It was just that all this information on the rare things all around the continent was fascinating to him.

At the same time, the duo did not stop even once...