Enigma of Sin

Once Clara and Talaro realized Kayn was messing with them, Kayn chuckled. The three proceeded to talk about how long Kayn thought it would take him until he was ready to enact the plan. Talaro wasn't a fan of letting Kayn go alone, but when it was pointed out that he had zero capability to be stealthy, he reluctantly agreed.

Kayn ended up saying that he had one more thing to test before he could give them a definitive answer, and so the group started making worst case scenario time frames excluding one where both the Emperor of Carnet and the Lich King got involved.

Unfortunately, Kayn could only give them a time frame for progressing to the 3rd stage. He wasn't confident about getting to the 4th stage within a year, evening hoarding the room to himself. For one, if the amount of mana he needed from the 3rd to the 4th stage jumped even more than it had been, then that in itself would increase the timeframe by multiple folds.

However, Kayn estimated that the 4th stage is where he needed his power at in order to fight the army's members without struggle. He had a bad feeling thought that even that wouldn't be enough for the Emperor of Carnet, something just felt off about him when he thought about his actions and growth throughout the years from what Kayn had read about in books.

He needed to hit the 5th or even the 6th stage by the end of all of this, and for that possibility to become a reality, he really needed what he was going to experiment with next. Also, he needed to have good results before he knew exactly how long it would take before he could confidently attack the enemy.

Kayn was also planning on splitting his thought process into two parts while he was inside the mana gathering room in the future. One part of him would focus purely on cultivating his core while focusing on his breathing and the Void Star technique, the second part of his mind would work digesting more of the information and elemental mastery that was stuffed inside of his soul.

After using his body this last month to engrave it from his soul to his mind, Kayn discovered that with the help of the All-Seeing essence he gained from Odin, he would be able to skip the body portion, but still get the same effects if he simulated things enough while in meditation.

The only downside to learning this way was that if he was interrupted for some reason and was only partially through disseminating the information, he would experience a backlash with the severity depending on the power of the information he was trying to enlighten himself on.

Kayn's soul felt like something akin to a massive library of topics, and during meditation he would be looking through those topics and studying the books held within each book. Due to the amount and types of god's knowledge he now had, he would need to pick and choose what to learn that wasn't already put in his mind while he was actively meditating in their temple.

Once back in the room Kayn was provided, Talaro and Clara left him alone saying that someone would be by with food for him shortly and that they needed to have a war meeting with the others to update them on the situation. Kayn only wished them luck before shutting the door and sitting on the bed.

Kayn waved his hand and before him were five 6th stage mana cores. As soon as he killed a 6th stage, he would immediately dig out their core and toss it into his Void Loop where the void would keep them in stasis without degrading, as he discovered belatedly only recently.

Kayn only had these powerful cores aside from a couple SS-class cores that he was reluctant to use unless he had no other way as they could be made into powerful trump cards for his sister and Kinzie if needed. He had long ago consumed the black-market ambassador's core. Tessa was only at the 5th stage and he ate hers before he left Earth thinking it might help him after how much his father's core had, but alas it did next to nothing.

Kayn said a prayer inwardly, but not to any specific deity as he had come to realize there were only what could be considered gods. One definitely reigned supreme over the others, but there was something above him that wasn't technically a person or maybe even a thing. He could only pray to the emptiness and hope that these cores would give him a good boost.

Because his mana was now dense and of extremely high quality, it took several thousand times more mana than a normal person would use in order to go from one stage to the next. What made up that difference was the fact that Kayn could force the purification and condensing of ambient mana within his body using his Demonic Dragon Heart and the reworked Void Star technique.

If he sat and did nothing but cultivated in the normal mana on Talgonoth, he would probably only take a few years to get back to where he was before, rather than the 12 it had taken originally. Especially since he had familiarity with those stages, it would be easier to move through them. His progress should theoretically slow down between the 4th and 5th stage though.

According to his estimates, it would take the same amount of resources and time it required him to move from the 1st stage to the 4th just to get to the 5th stage, and similarly the effort from the 1st to the 5th for the 6th stage.

If he really thought about it, even though he was about to consume five 6th stage cores and they could be considered more than just a drop in the pond, they weren't much more potent. If he purely looked towards the 6th stage, these cores were each maybe a bucket of water in the required ocean of mana he needed to get there. Hopefully the further along a 6th stage core was, the more it would help him out.

For now, these cores would work as his immediate goal wasn't the 6th stage, but the 4th. Just as he was about to put one of the cores into his mouth, he changed his mind and thought it would be best to wait until he was back in the mana gathering formation. That way he would be able to utilize the increased efficiency of his Void Star technique to beat the foreign mana into submission before purifying it and making it his own.

With that in mind, he closed his eyes to get some good sleep for the first time since his body was ripped apart by the void.

…

"So, you're telling us that this man was previously a professor of healing at your Astaro Academy, but now he's some ridiculously unheard of talent that can wield every element and treats the tyranny of rank like a joke?

"On top of that he wants to monopolize the mana gathering formation room in order to use some secret technique in order to get stronger fast? Do the two of you realize how ridiculous this all sounds? We need that room so we can maintain the barrier!" One of the gathered individuals sitting around a large table shouted.

"Even as the former headmaster of the academy, I find it hard to believe. I saw his mana pathways and core. They were robust and strong, but nothing that could lead to what you're saying. Unless he somehow messed with the device, in which case that would make him a monster in itself."

Alman looked over at Clara and Talaro who both had guilty looking faces. Both had stated they couldn't explain it in full detail, but that Kayn was a path to survival if they gave him some special privileges.

Another man that looked like a massive bull man, similar to what a minotaur would look like from Earth mythology then opened his mouth for the first time during this meeting.

"As the tactical commander and second only to the Emperor, what I want to know is how that boy is going to lead to our survival?" He asked in a deep, but calm voice.

"And as I was trying to explain before you all interrupted me," Talaro glared at the individuals around the table as he paused, "the boy has a unique ability that allows him to advance his core quickly inside of the dense mana of the gathering room.

"He is also quite proficient in stealth as he was able to hide from even my basic senses, unless they are specifically using their exploratory senses, I believe he could sneak in. His plan is to utilize the room to its fullest extent for a few months while we focus on defending and powering the barrier.

"Once he is ready, he will sneak inside of the area with the teleportation seal and he will destroy it, allowing all of us to use the escape teleport formation that leads to the port at the northern tip of the Great Forest. From there we will most likely have to flee to another continent. However, something tells me that once we find safety at the port, if we remain patient, the land we once called home will be within our hands once more."

After Talaro's little speech, the individuals sitting around the table sat in silence, they all had things to think about. For now though, they all would trust their leader and allow the newcomer to do as he wished as long as the Emperor himself had no issues with it.

Thus, after Kayn woke from his nap to the smell of food which he promptly ate, he was told that the mana gathering formation room was all his until he was prepared to go out, however Talaro would be checking in on him from time to time.

Kayn grinned as he prepared for a good ole power up session, though this one would last a few months and he was going to be digesting other information at the same time.