Rivers of the Night - Chapter 550

Chapter 550: Cloud

Theron walked into his Immortal Cave, his face a bit pale.

He didn’t need to go so far to face off against the likes of Kaelen of all people, but he had wanted to test out his Echoes in a battle against a person.

Beasts refused to fight him for some reason, and there was no easy way of getting one-on-one interaction with a human without having a whole Clan, Sect, or Guild breathing down his neck—not if they were going to be powerful enough to provide a challenge to him.

He had never expected to stumble into this sort of problem, one where he couldn’t find easy experience even if he wanted to anymore.

Though he was certain that there was some sort of limit to the grace beasts gave him, he also had a feeling that the moment he found where that limit was, he would be facing off against a creature that could kill him in a few blows if he was lucky, or a glance if he was about as unlucky as he usually was.

Even so, the interaction he had with Kaelen now filled him with assurance that his path was possible. If he had been able to use [Entangling Blood Vein Pupils] more openly, he had a feeling that his Mana fusion would be even more powerful than that.

Still, he didn’t have a chance to test out his other Echo as well. It seemed he would have to wait for a more opportune time.

The reason Theron needed people to test these methods was because he was already confident in doing it alone. What he wanted to see was if the control of other Mancers, especially higher-level Mancers, could disrupt his Mana or cancel his fusion.

Obviously, in any situation Theron would need to go as far as to summon his Echoes, he would be in grave need and danger. And in almost all of these situations, it would be because he was facing off against a cultivator far more powerful than himself.

In a situation like that one, if his trump card was easily countered by them, what would be the point of the trump card?

Luckily, it seemed that a Runebound Gold Mancer was unable to interrupt it. In fact, a Runebound Gold Mancer was directly suppressed, being entirely unable to move. This should mean that even an Arcane Gold Mancer wouldn’t be able to disrupt it.

Theron would only have to worry about Celestial Gold Mancers and beyond, then.

In fact, because Kaelen was a Dark Mancer, Theron was fairly confident that only a Celestial Gold Mancer who likewise specialized in either Dark or Water Mancy could pose a threat.

Because Kaelen controlled one of the two Manas Theron was fusing, he was in a better position to disrupt than most others. The fact he couldn’t and was even firmly suppressed was a great sign.

‘Not only did I take Dark Mana away from him, but I converted it into a form he couldn’t control, disallowing him the right to fight for it. It could be said that right now, I’m even more powerful against Dark and Water Mancers than I’ve ever been before.’

Theron had always had an advantage against Water Mancers, but that was in a world not nearly as advanced as this one. But now, he had a more systematic way of suppressing those that shared his path.

If things ever went south with the Nightingale Sect again, he would be in an excellent position to fight back and deal with the situation.

Theron took deep breaths until he recovered, his eyes closed in meditation as he sat on a prayer mat of sorts that seemed connected to the stream of Dark Mana he had noticed flowing overhead.

The fact it was liquid was fascinating… especially since this simply wasn’t a state that Mana appeared in within the body, whether that was in the first three Core Realms, or the Cloud Realms.

What Theron had learned about the Cloud Realm was also part of what triggered this idea in him.

Back when he first saw the Core of the unnamed cultivator, he thought it was odd that there was such a foggy formation around it. It looked almost like the man had done a poor job at compressing his Mana into his Core.

The fact that Theron could touch it without being harmed only further went to bolster that point in his mind.

If this cloud formation around the Core was really such a powerful boost to a cultivator, then it should have shredded his hand apart for even daring to touch it. So how in the hell could he touch it without being harmed in the slightest? What sort of weird path of cultivation was this?

That was when Theron learned that the stability of the Mana despite being in such a dispersed, gaseous form was precisely what made it so powerful in the first place.

And the secret to what was being done in the Cloud Realm was exactly what led to the Dome of Heaven Realm being so powerful.

All this time, Theron had thought that forcing his Mana into a solid sphere was a form of perfection. Maybe that was only natural since he had grown up in a world where Gold Mancy was seen as the pinnacle of everything. Who would guess that the next Realm would be so counterintuitive?

But the way the Cloud Realm experts explained things to Theron… it seemed that the solid spheres of the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Mancy Realms were just crutches.

Much of the Mana within couldn’t be controlled by a Mancer, and every time Theron needed Mana, he only took a wisp.

The so-called Mana Depleted State was actually a state where he had taken enough from his Core that it began to destabilize. If he took any more, the Core would break apart and flood his body with Mana even he would be too overwhelmed to control.

The Core was practically like a gravitational pull keeping the gaseous Mana Theron could control at bay, allowing him to take bits and pieces of it when he was ready.

The Cloud Realm was the process of releasing that Mana bit by bit. Not only did it make it faster and quicker to access, without the sublimation between solid and gas constantly, there was much more Mana and much less loss.

But this was still the simplest way to look at things.