Chapter 7: The Lonely World
Grey
Like a ribbon undone, mana unfolded.
Dots of diversified colors traveled in a set path. Claws made of pure mana extended from my fingertips as the elements heeded every single will of mine.
Flames danced on the tip of my fingers as wind beckoned at my call, water swirled around me while earth rose in tandem to my will.
A tug of war continued amongst the golden and silver energies as they fought for dominance. With a clear and steady mind, I had to keep the two in a balanced cycle since the win of either one of the two would imply doom for me.
Each clash of the two energies sent tremors throughout my body.
One, two, three. Like the flap of the wings of a bird, time flew by.
Alongside grasping the flawless flow of mana, I was taught about the runes properly this time.
For each error from my part, Helio helped me in correcting them and letting me get a better understanding of it.
Apparently, what he gave me that day was actually his Beast Will. Something that is passed over as abilities to offsprings by mana beasts.
There were three phases when activating a Beast Will. The first phase being called Acquire Phase, allowing me to use only one skill of the beast the will belonged to.
The second one was called Integrate Phase, which allowed me to use the most powerful skill of the beast.
The third one was named Resonance, it allowed me to tap into the deepest strengths of the Beast.
Even after being assimilated with the will, I wasn't able to access Acquire Phase properly. According to Helio, it was due to the constant clash between the aura of my Dragonic Physique and the mana from my Phoenix Will.
Mana entered into my veins, cleansing the impurities in them as it made its way to the core.
The core was lightened in a color of bright Orange, signifying that I was a Solid Orange Mage.
My hair had turned completely white while my eyes were a mixture of colors of amethyst and azure.
With a flick of my hand, flames sparked to lightning, water froze to ice, wind vibrated to form sound waves as earth mana vibrated and a greater force of gravitation came into realization.
"You have developed quite a bit in the last few days," Helio said, "I guess there isn't much left to teach you regarding this."
With his sudden statement, I was left dumbfounded. "What do you mean nothing else left to teach? You haven't even taught me the more important spells?"
An irritated sigh escaped his mouth. "Magic isn't based on powerful spells that you need to memorize all the time. Imagination, it is the prime aspect for any spell. Without imagination you can never hope to truly grasp the actual strength of mana arts."
My body flinched as I was slightly taken aback by Helio's sudden seriousness.
"Today I will be teaching you how to build artifacts," he said. My legs came to a halt, my eyes opened wide as I stared at Helio. Seeing my expression he sighed once again.
"It is universally believed that a man practicing one kick a thousand times is stronger than a man practicing a thousand kicks one time right?" He started, "But life isn't so easy on people who cannot keep up with the changes of the world."
Turning back, he continued, "Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't master one thing. If your path is unclear to even yourself, then you are destined to be carried off by the storm of life. So you should start by first mastering one thing, and then getting the basics for everything as much as you can."
Sitting on one knee, Helio spoke on, "You see, even if you think creating artifacts is not worth it, it is quite an important thing to you. I am sure that you have heard that the difference between Augmenters and Conjurers completely disappears when reaching White core right? That is nothing but a load of bullshit."
His palm rested on my shoulder, with a steady voice he carried on, "If you are a conjurer, focus on being a Conjurer. Trying to do something different so late in the stage would be nothing but detrimental to you."
His eyes met mine, it seemed firm yet unsteady. "Remember when I said there is a mana art unique to everyone? With the help of artifacts you will be able to access some of them, this way you will be able to gain versatility, something you will need a lot."
"Deities and Lessers, a difference created for nothing," a rare smile bloomed on his face. It seemed almost bittersweet. "But it stopped mattering to me ever since I met her, so I shall say this again. This world isn't so kind to people who remain stuck on one thing, you have to move along with the changes if you wish to survive. Always remember this."
His eyes were sincere, genuine. Each of the words he said echoed in my mind. Without letting me get a moment to contemplate what he said, Helio started to walk forward. From the Iridescent tree he plucked off an orb that hung on one of the many branches.
The tree seemed to lose its shine a little.
"This is an artificial tree created by an Asura to draw in mana from the atmosphere and create condensed mana cores," Helio explained as flames formed on his left arm, the one where the orb rested on.
"Who are Asuras?" I asked, despite knowing that he wouldn't answer. "You can basically call them wannabe Gods."
My eyes widened as I was unable to believe that he answered a question of mine. "What do you mean by that?"
Flicking my forehead, he replied, "Taking in too many information at once isn't good for your health."
The orb seemed to melt at the flames, soon when the orb appeared to be deformed a bit, pure mana coalesced at Helio's right arm as he meticulously crafted it like a ring.
After a while, ten translucent rings were formed from the orb.
"Keep them, they absorb mana from the atmosphere and when you imbue a bit of more mana, it will explode," Helio explained, "Now give me that ring you have."
After I handed it to him, he took out the accessories that were stored inside the ring and crushed it. "That ring is a weak one, so I will be creating a better one for you. Until then continue to practice how to craft artifacts."
He then plucked a branch from the tree, taking seven orbs from it he gave them to me as he took the branch with him. "Use four of them to practice your crafting, but failing might cause some explosions so before practicing, use the other three to purify your mana."
"Also, do remember to condense the mana from the orbs thoroughly since only a proper foundation will give way to a powerful structure," Saying all that, he then disappeared. Wisps of fire lingered in the place he was as proof that he was there just a moment ago.
Sitting down in a meditative posture, I started to draw in the mana from the orbs. Like Helio said, I focused on refining the mana from the orb as I used it to purify my core.
It almost felt like a waste to only use that little of mana from the huge mass, but only after a while did I realize why.
The purity of the mana from the orb cleansed away a major amount of impurities from my core. But I held on to the Solid stage, I continued to fortify my core foundation like Helio said as I absorbed the other two orbs as well later.
My core stage hit the Light Orange stage after the absorption. After stabilizing my current stage, I took out the fourth core and started to craft it.
The first trial was an instant failure, an explosion occurred in tandem. The second and third one were also failures.
It was only until the fourth trial that I managed to advance a little bit, only for it to lead to a failure as another explosion occurred.
On the surface it might seem easy, but it wasn't. The fire that was used to melt the orb needed to be really high in temperature without much mana in it. If mana more than the limit was infused in the fire, then the orb would explode.
Even after trying four times, I was only able to delay the explosion.
Losing all of my strength, I collapsed to the ground. Soon after, Helio appeared in front of me.
"You got a little too impatient I see," he mumbled. "What do you mean by impatient?" I asked, my voice cracking a little.
"You noticed that using mana over the limit would cause an explosion, then why didn't you take the slower method and slowly melt the orb?" He asked.
"Besides, there is another way to do it. Remember when I spoke of mana special to one's blood, spirit and physique?" Helio asked as I nodded in reply. "If I am not wrong, then you can use a certain mana art that would help you a lot."
Saying that he stood up. A fire of iridescent colors burned on his palm. "This fire is linked to my blood, the healing flames of a phoenix. Despite its name, it can be pretty lethal when used as a weapon. A mana art that is linked to your blood, another that is linked with your spirit and the other that is linked with your physique."
Extinguishing the flame, he continued, "For the blood art, imagine mana pulsing forward like how blood does in your artery and veins. I will help you with it."
His palm rested on my back, warmth spread throughout my body. "Retain the feeling."
Mana surged out of me as I followed how blood pulsated in my blood vessels.
"There you go." I heard Helio mumble. Opening my eyes I was met with red blazing flames in my arm. It was as crimson as blood.
The flames seemed to eat away at the world, its entire existence being menacing and ferocious.
"It seems I was right after all," Helio spoke, "But that flame is incomplete."
"Incomplete?" I asked. "If I were to simply note it down, Blood art is the raging flow of mana, Spirit art is the condensed flow of mana while Physique art is the stagnant one. Although this flame of yours meets the criteria for the Blood art, it still hasn't reached its full potential yet."
Grasping at the flame, I extinguished it. "For mastering Blood Art you must come to accept the world, for mastering spirit art you must come to accept yourself and for mastering the physique art you must accept your life. This is something I heard from the ancient legends, I don't know if it is true or not," Helio stated.
My eyes settled on my palm. "Your life and your decisions are for you to make, you have a long life ahead. Don't just take on all the burden yourself, learn to lean on others as well."
"Huh?
"Nothing, just continue on your-" Helio stopped as if he remembered something. He took out a cuboid from his pockets, he held my hand and embedded it in my hand. "Ouch!"
"This is something that will continue to drain your mana until it is complete. It can either be a familiar of yours or a weapon, depending on what you need the most at the moment," Helio paused, his fingers scratching at his cheeks, "And I thought this would be a good gift for a birthday."
My eyes widened to his words. With a bewildered expression I stared at him. "What? Is this not good enough?" He said while coughing. For some reason at his words I felt something inside me crack slowly. "Anyways, there is still a lot for you to learn. Today you will be given a break so get ready for the hellish training from tomorrow onwards."
Like that, time continued to tick on.
Helio continued to teach me about crafting artifacts by both beast cores and skins, engraving of runes and how to better my use of Blood art.
My core seemed to break closer to Dark Yellow. After months of arduous training I can finally see a path towards my future. I tried to use Spirit art, but to no avail. For some reason I wasn't able to do anything.
A small wish cemented deep inside me, a wish that things would continue just as it is right now.
But fate was never really kind to me.
Helio's coughing fits turned worse day after day until he finally collapsed one day.
Despair filled inside me, desperation evident from my movements. Leaning Helio's collapsed body to the tree, I continued to rub at his wrists.
But while doing that I noticed something, his veins were popping out for some reason. His skin was paler than it used to be, fear seemed to leak out of me.
"Hah, I really showed a bad side of myself to you now, didn't I?" Helio sneered.
"What is all this?" I asked. "I am sorry, I thought I could hold on a little bit more, but it seems like the decay mana inside my body have gone berserk. Even when I wanted to teach you so many things."
His teeth clenched, with a steady voice he spoke further on, "Listen to me, there is this one thing I wanted to give you, two actually. One is this."
Saying that he took out a staff . It was the very definition of divine.
The staff looked like an amethyst crystal ball fell into a sea of white flames. The flames, looked as if it wanted to devour the crystal whole but instead froze around it, looking as if it were meant to protect it.
A single wing of the flame rose above all, pointing to the sky, sharp enough that one would mistake this staff for a mastercraft spear. But the amethyst crystal said otherwise, as it sat in the center of it all, like a king on a throne.
My whole concentration was focused on the staff while Helio brought his finger up and pointed it to my forehead. "And this, I hope will help you as well."
Iridescent flames materialized as they engulfed my whole body. Soon a branch from the tree descended and connected to my sternum.
"Here's my last gift to you, I hope you will remember me and live, enjoy life for what it is," Helio said weakly, golden flames engulfing him whole.
Words halted in my throat, everything that I wanted to convey to him, all the words I wanted him to hear, every single one of them now seemed to disappear.
"Goodbye, Grey," Before disappearing he smiled, a smile which was the happiest and the most genuine I had ever seen. I was left baffled. My whole surroundings changed.
Kneeling upon the green expanse of grass field, I stared at the horizon that was dyed in a mixture of red and orange while an orb slowly receded further downwards. In contrast the other side of the sky was wrapped in a curtain of darkness trailing behind the rising moon.
And there I was, all alone amidst all of this as the warm memories of the past few months prickled me like a sharp pin.
Like at the end of my past life, like when my truth was revealed, and like a while ago, everyone left me behind. No matter when or where I was, I was always left behind.
Even in this vast world, I end up alone, as always.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
KaiAsukawa
KaiAsukawa Sorry for the delay but due to school pressure I can't maintain a proper schedule so I will be updating every 4 days since it usually takes 4 days for me to write a chapter
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