Heir of Synthesis: The World Mage

All the distant Beasts stood completely catatonic.

At the same time, the wind element covering the area began to disappear.

The dust slowly settled...

When the scene became even remotely visible, a single solitary figure remained in that distorted region of space.

The ground was completely painted with blood. He was surrounded by a dense, dark mist, saturated with pure corruption and Death Yin.

Priam was in terrible shape, covered in blood and wounds. His clothes were in tatters, and he was breathing heavily, feeling an immense weakness.

’Damn... it was way too close. I almost died along with them...’

That level of power was definitely beyond what his body could handle at the moment. He only realized it when it was already too late.

Mirra had burned through all of her Ether. Then Priam burned everything he had left, along with all the energy accumulated inside the Qi Heart. In the end, he felt that if he had had even slightly fewer resources, he wouldn’t have survived.

Priam let out a heavy sigh and activated the System.

[Absorb?] [Yes / No]

With a simple nod, all the corruption contained within the dead Beasts and Sorcerers moved, being completely absorbed.

As for the Death Yin, compared to the Yin of herbs, it was extremely low-quality and filled with impurities. Only demons could benefit from that kind of energy, so Priam simply ignored it. He had to leave quickly, since he was extremely weak.

Much of the dark mist disappeared.

’The direction of my last brother is southwest.’

The shield’s voice echoed in Priam’s mind. However, its tone was clearly different now. It was even completely bewildered by what it had just witnessed.

While trapped in that underground Temple, the shield could still sense a little of what was happening on the surface. It had witnessed the power of countless invading Mages throughout the ages, so it was certain: the young man before it was an indescribable anomaly. The level of his abilities should never have been possible in this realm.

Priam took a deep breath and swallowed an emergency pill.

Then, he turned in the correct direction and sprinted away without looking back.

Watching him leave, Arvid and Mo Lan clenched their fists anxiously. They didn’t know what to think or how to react; something deep in their chests made them uneasy as they watched him depart.

But... they soon relaxed when they remembered one crucial fact.

In just a few months, they would inevitably meet Priam again when the Central Region of the realm opened.

...

Priam ran for a long distance until he found an isolated cave. After making sure there were no threats nearby, he entered and sealed the entrance. Then, he fell into a deep sleep to speed up his recovery.

Six hours later, he opened his eyes, feeling refreshed.

He sat down and gently adjusted Mirra in his lap. He examined her condition and realized that she still needed plenty of rest to fully recover.

Leaving before she was ready would be an unnecessary risk. Since he had plenty of time, he decided to wait.

Priam took a deep breath and pulled out the Qi Heart.

He examined its interior, noticing that even after just a few hours, it had already accumulated a reasonable amount of Qi.

If he could use this thing in his world, his life would be much easier. Unfortunately, after returning, this thing would become useless.

Without wasting any time, he took out some of the liquid Ether he had obtained recently and began examining both energies side by side.

He did this because he felt that these fundamental energies from two different worlds were far too different. Something seemed out of place.

After an hour of analysis, a voice echoed in his mind.

’This Ether is the power of your world, if I understood correctly.’

”That’s right. Everyone in my world is a Mage specialized in manipulating Ether in various ways. This Qi doesn’t exist there,” Priam replied to the shield without hesitation.

’I see... Based on my experience, I can confirm this for you: this Ether is much closer to the Great Mist than it is to Qi. Compare them.’

Priam’s eyes widened in surprise. Then, he took out a crystal and made all three energies float in front of him.

”...”

If the shield hadn’t mentioned it, Priam would never have analyzed it from that angle.

Now, feeling the flow of energy from all three, it was obvious that Qi was something completely different, unlike the other two. However, there was still a huge gap between Ether and the Great Mist.

”It’s as if... Ether is something contained within this Great Mist at a lower concentration... how is that possible?”

Priam murmured, remembering that the Great Mist was nothing more than the essence of all the energies from the destroyed universes of that world.

The shield remained silent. After all, the answer was pretty obvious.

It didn’t take long for Priam to swallow hard.

”So that’s how it is...” He sighed, his expression serious. ”Those damn Sovereigns send Mages to other worlds with the goal of plundering everything valuable there, or something along those lines.”

Priam remembered the legends he had heard in his homeland about the creation of the three Great Races.

In the ancient past of his world, there had been countless powerful races. However, when the Sovereigns ascended to the throne almost simultaneously, all the universes began to change.

Ether appeared, and life everywhere was forced to mutate and evolve in order to survive.

That was how the three Great Races were born: they were the only ones that perfectly adapted to Ether. As for the common Beasts, only a few species managed to survive through some miracle. Possibly because the world needed disposable races to serve as resources.

’I think you already understand. This Ether probably came from power stolen from other worlds,’ the shield’s voice echoed, filled with resentment. ’I feel like this Ether is only a basic byproduct. The really good stuff must be kept by them.’

After a few seconds of silence, the shield continued:

’Those Sovereigns you mentioned... In the past, I heard from the Will of Heaven that, in some high-level worlds, mortals can break through to a level beyond immortality. That level allows them to manipulate the power of the entire world, surpassing even the Will of the Heavens in governing the laws.’

’Following that logic, your world must be an incredibly bizarre anomaly, because it produced many figures like that at the same time... And they didn’t kill each other; they joined forces. Then they discovered how to break through the limits of their own world and chose to devour everything they could find.’

Priam felt a chill run down his spine.

The stronger he became and the more knowledge he gained about the Sovereigns, the more terrifyingly unreachable and powerful they seemed.

At first, he had imagined they were simply extremely powerful Immortals. Now... *above* an Immortal? That sounded insane.

Priam had no idea how or why he had been placed in that world.

On top of that, there was the fact that the shield had said he carried the power of a World Pillar—something that had to be directly related to the System and the Nexus Seed.

”Fuck it... I’m way too weak to worry about this right now.” Priam shook his head, clearing his thoughts.

”Let’s focus on what matters. You said Ether and the Great Mist are very closely related, and that Ether seems to be a weaker base energy. You know a lot about the Great Mist... Can you give me some pointers?”

’Indeed. I noticed that you absorb this Ether through a strange rune in your body. If I’m right, I can help you a little. Consider it an advance payment for your work.’

Hearing that, Priam’s eyes lit up.

He had already studied quite a bit about the Magic and Energy knowledge he possessed, but he felt that he was still far from understanding everything solidly.

The shield began explaining what it understood about the Great Mist and the flow patterns of the energies contained within it. There were around 7,000 different types of energies interconnected with one another.

Then, it explained their similarities with Ether, pointing out that around 333 of those distinct energies were connected to Ether in an unconventional way, making them seem like a single thing.

In short, it shared its theories, guiding Priam to nourish that Ether with a tiny fraction of the Great Mist’s energy.

The proportion was ridiculously small, but... after just a few tests, Priam saw the Ether change completely, transforming into something terrifyingly more intense.

It was like turning water into wine.

The Ether now pulsed with subtle golden hues, no longer even resembling the ordinary energy of his world.

Priam stared at the anomalous energy floating before him, feeling his heart pounding in his chest like a drum.

”This... I’ll call it Divine Ether!”

After succeeding on his first attempt, Priam continued practicing, learning to produce that new energy faster and more smoothly each time.

Since he only used a tiny amount of the Great Mist and had an astronomical reserve of stored crystals, Priam knew he could create Divine Ether almost infinitely.

After some time, he began using his discovery to nourish the Creation Rune within his body—the same rune that all the sect’s new disciples had received after the entry ceremony. (Chapter 167)

After reaching the Mage Master level, advancing to the maximum level became as simple as it had been for a Mage at the initial Rank. All he had to do was nourish that rune with Ether, allowing it to completely fuse with his meridians and body.

From the way it worked, it was easy to tell that this would become a new power core.

Logically, upon breaking through to the Sage level, everyone gained a second core beyond the Jade Core. That was possibly where the overwhelming and anomalous strength of the Sages Priam had felt several times came from.

...

About six hours after Priam woke up, Mirra woke up as well.

At that exact moment, Priam opened his eyes.

’Level 7...’ he murmured internally, excited.

With Divine Ether, the speed and ease of his evolution had skyrocketed.

However, he still needed more ordinary Ether to convert, since his recent stock had been almost completely consumed while advancing through these levels.

He turned toward Mirra. ”Let’s eat. Then we’ll head out to look for Dandara and the others.”