Feeling wronged, Zilan looked throughout the area however, he could find no clues.
As getting angry would only waste time, he immediately calmed his emotions before sitting down to recover.
At first, he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to restore the energy he lost within this locked off environment but thankfully he was overthinking things. As if it could tell Zilan was out of energy, the area around him suddenly produced Universe energy which automatically seeped into his pores getting him back to exactly five percent of his full Blood force capacity.
Relieved, he stood up and stared hard at the big ‘10’ in the sky.
“Maybe that’s it.” A thought suddenly dawned on him.
“Let’s try it out first.”
The two gigantic Dragon claws once again took shape on both sides of Zilan. Taking a deep breath, he focused himself on conjuring just one, yes one, Rain Storm claw.
The space above him suddenly trembled and a single large, tangible, not vague, liquid Storm claw was produced.
*Click*
A subtle yet striking sound echoed throughout the space at exactly the same time the claw was formed.
Looking up at the sky, the number 10 had now become 9.
A small smile of accomplishment appeared on Zilan’s struggling face. After witnessing the failure of his previous attempt, he thoroughly analysed the whole series of events before coming up with a conclusion. To prove he was right though, he needed to first test out this environment.
He wanted to know what the environment considered as ‘1’ Storm claw since his previous ‘10’ all crumbled.
How did he come up with this?
Well, the previous 10 conjured claws had actually been modified by Zilan to the point that they barely passed off as Storm claws. For a more accurate representation, should Zilan use the 1 Storm claw he had just conjured, he would be able to easily destroy upwards of fifty of the ‘modified’ claws, let alone those 10 he had constructed before.
Why were they so different? It all lied in the amount of Blood force he had used in creating them. For the 10, despite all of his Blood force being consumed when making them, individually each claw only possessed about 0.5% of the 5% of Blood force he currently possessed.
For the 1 he had just created though, he had opted to use the exact same amount of Blood force he would have used were he in the physical world, which was about 1.5% of his Blood force when it was at 100%.
Their difference in power was clear to see.
“Looks like I was right. This place will only accept full powered Storm claws as a pass.”
The problem though was that even if he consumed all of his current Blood force, the number of full powered Storm claws he would succeed in creating wouldn’t exceed 3.
Feeling lost as well as confused as to how he was supposed to create 7 more Rain Storm claws with no extra energy infusion, Zilan failed to notice that the pressure in the environment was growing unstable.
Without warning and as fast as lightning, the pressure suddenly spiked causing the 1 Storm claw he had just created to destabilise.
Zilan however, was quick to react this time. Thanks to last time’s occurrence he expected this to happen, he just couldn’t predict when it would happen. Luckily, due to the sturdiness of his newly constructed Storm claw compared to the ‘modified’ ones it did not immediately dissipate upon coming into contact with the pressure.
Focusing all of his concentration, Zilan fought against the pressure for as long as possible. Just when it looked like his claw was about to crumble he stubbornly injected it with the rest of his Blood force causing it to stabilise amidst the scary storm that was the relentless pressure.
Unfortunately for Zilan though, the pressure was set on destroying his claw and unable to hold out any longer, he could only watch as his Storm claw was crushed.
“F*ck!!” cursed Zilan. “How am I supposed to create ten of them if you destroy every single one I create.” His shouts echoed across the space and despite knowing there was no one around but him, he still continued shouting.
It was a while before he finally settled down.
Siting cross-legged on the floor, he once again calmed himself before awaiting the arrival of the Universe energy. He did not have to wait long as about a minute later the energy flowed through his pores, revitalising his channels.
“Eh…something’s off.”
The energy coming in was the same as before however, once it was inside of him the energy began experiencing changes.
“It’s growing denser.” He exclaimed.
His channels were now acting as a filtering system, accepting only the purest of energy while ignoring the impurities i.e. the things his body did not need. In this way, unlike last time when he absorbed 5% of mixed quality energy, this time the whole 5% he took in was at the very least of a higher quality than before. And from what he could tell this was only the beginning, his meridians, channels as well as the energy inside of him had only been affected slightly yet this was the outcome, if he was to continue this for days and days, what would the quality of energy he stored be like?
“It’s that spike in the pressure. It is the true tempering agent.” Thought Zilan.
Yes, the everlasting pressure played a role however, the ferocious spike in pressure was the real cause of the major development in his body.
After the initial excitement wore off though, Zilan couldn’t help but furrow his brow. The new development in his body wasn’t exactly an all-good thing.
Universe energy was one of the purest energies in existence but there were grades of purity that existed within the ranks of Universe energy. Encountering the higher grades of Universe energy was too rare thus most made do with the abundant energy in the atmosphere. For Zilan though, thanks to the new development in his body absorption of Universe energy just became a little trickier. Yes, he could still absorb it at the same pace as before however, the amount he would actually take in and store would only be that of the purer variety.
The physical world unfortunately was not like this environment where the space would not stop feeding him energy until he had 5% filled up in his core. There, depending on the area, he could absorb every bit of energy available but still only fill up half of his full capacity. Naturally the quality would be tens of times better but the quantity would seriously suffer, limiting the number of things he could take on at one time.
“I shouldn’t be too greedy.” Thought Zilan to himself.
The reason even the pure Universe energy was considered to have ‘things he did not need’ was simple. It was because the energy catered to a multitude of existences across space and time. This meant that Universe energy did not cater only to Zilan’s needs but the needs of trillions upon trillions of other species across the Universe. Thus, although those extra things within Universe energy cannot be classified as impurities, they did qualify as things he did not require.
…………………
Seeing the number ‘10’ back up on the sky, Zilan no longer felt the confusion he did before.
“Let’s see how many I can produce now whilst still using 1.5%. I bet it won’t be just one this time.” He licked his lips in anticipation.
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