The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

By the time Ravian moved on from classifications to practical study, books covered three desks around him.

Aura theory began with the body.

An Aura user refined soul power through an Aura Core, circulated it through flesh and pathways adapted through training, then imposed their will upon that power until it could reinforce movement, defense, weapons, and eventually the world beyond the body. Mana followed a different logic: mana circles organized power into stable patterns, while magic transformed those patterns into phenomena through structure, calculation, visualization, and control.

One disciplined the body into an expression of the soul—that was Aura—while the other disciplined power into an expression of the element, and that was Magic.

Ravian gathered introductory manuals, military methods, academic critiques, failed dual-path studies, elemental circulation maps, and texts on spell construction, even when the only available reference consisted of a single paragraph warning that no reliable information existed.

He simply gathered everything available to him.

Then he entered the mental world created through Absolute Focus, and the archive vanished from before his eyes.

A perfect reconstruction of his body appeared within the darkness of his mind: bones, muscles, blood vessels, Aura Core, mana circles, and the white lines of his soul, all represented according to everything he currently understood. He selected the simplest breathing method from the first manual and began a simulation.

The technique assumed the existence of a single conventional soul within Ravian’s body. The power drawn from his Dual Soul divided unevenly, collided with the Void within his spiritual lines, and lost the structure required by the manual.

It was a complete and utter failure, caused by a technique that had never been designed for him in the first place, though Ravian had certainly expected as much.

He adjusted the distribution and tried again.

The second attempt overloaded a simulated pathway within his right shoulder beyond what it could endure, a painfully predictable mistake from someone attempting to manipulate something he barely understood. Naturally, it ended in another crushing failure.

Had that failure occurred within the physical world, it could easily have destroyed the very foundation of Ravian’s body and, with it, his entire path of ascension. It was entirely possible that he might have lost his life as well; when it came to the soul, there was no room for jokes.

Ravian therefore continued experimenting within his meticulously constructed mental world.

The third attempt stabilized the flaw in his shoulder, but caused his Aura Core to pulse in opposition to his mana. Unsurprisingly, that was another failure.

The fourth attempt would have torn apart the very essence of his mana.

’Hmm... This will take a great deal of effort to complete.’

It did not take a researcher to reach that conclusion, but how many attempts would completion require?

That was the real question.

Ravian reset the simulation each time.

He moved on to a mana exercise, failed to stabilize the first pattern, corrected its geometry, then watched his Void Element erase the connections he had created through one of the training methods he had acquired. He returned to the books, obtained the missing principles, rebuilt the model, and, as usual and entirely unsurprisingly, failed again.

’Come on, man!’ Ravian shouted within his mental world.

Hours of simulated attempts dissolved into an uninterrupted cycle of observation and correction.

Unfortunately, Absolute Focus could not force the incorrect knowledge he possessed to become correct. It did not grant him experience he lacked or protect a flawed technique from its consequences. What it gave him was the ability to remember every failure, isolate every variable, and repeat the process without allowing frustration or exhaustion to corrupt his judgment.

He failed dozens of times, then hundreds.

Eventually, a single thread of simulated Aura completed a stable circuit through his body and returned to the Aura Core without colliding with his mana circles.

After considerably more time, a basic mana pattern completed an entire cycle without collapsing beneath the influence of his Void Element.

Neither success was impressive enough to be used in battle—not yet.

However, they proved that the problem could be solved if Ravian was given enough time. He was not attempting to execute one particular technique; he was blending numerous techniques, combining their principles, and modifying them until they suited him.

Ravian opened his eyes within the Grand Archive and extended his hand toward the next book.

The stacks surrounding him continued to grow little by little. Every book he read left a copy of its contents within his mental world, where, incidentally, time passed far more slowly than it did in the real world.

Hundreds of volumes passed through his hands. He retained not only their conclusions, but also their assumptions, contradictions, diagrams, failed experiments, and the reasons one researcher or inventor had rejected the methods of another. Through Absolute Focus, Ravian organized that knowledge into a structure that no ordinary reading speed could have produced during the few hours available to him.

It was then that the familiar white window appeared above the open pages. Red veins spread across its edges as usual, while dark shadows gathered behind the words.

[A sufficient knowledge foundation has been acquired.]

[Identified Fields: Soul Refinement; Aura; Mana; Magic; Elemental Theory; Infeasible Dual-Path Research; Spiritual Languages.]

[The host has used Absolute Focus to organize the acquired knowledge and complete repeated causal simulations.]

[Sovereign Pride has begun integrating all compatible principles acquired by the host with the host’s body, soul, Records, abilities, and Void Element.]

Ravian leaned back slightly, watching through weary eyes as more windows took shape.

[No recorded traditional path is compatible with every aspect of the host.]

[A personal path can be constructed.]

[Path Classification: Forbidden.]

[Proposed Path: Void of Prohibition.]

[Establishing this path will permanently determine the host’s method of using Aura, Mana, and Magic.]

[Does the host wish to establish the Forbidden Path—Void of Prohibition?]

Ravian read the name twice.

It sounded dangerous, arrogant, and irrational enough to belong to him in particular out of everyone.

’I want it.’