Chapter 74
The journey inward is a descent into a reality far more profound than the physical world.
The soul is not merely a part of a person; it is deeper than the very origin of one's being, existing in a dimension that lies completely beyond the understanding of ordinary humans.
People delude themselves with the surface of the world—its politics, its pleasures, its pains—never suspecting the vast universe that exists within.
But it is only within the soul that the true source of existence is held.
It is a pure, primal energy, something that stands above any other force that has ever existed or will ever exist in the cosmos.
It is the foundation upon which everything else is built.
At this singular moment, Lucas had finally reached the deepest parts of his own existence.
He floated, a lone consciousness in an endless dimension of existences, a silent void that was both terrifying and beautiful in its infinite emptiness.
And there, at the heart of this inner cosmos, he saw it: a ball of silver light.
It was not large, perhaps the size of a fist, but its light was not like the light of the sun or a flame.
It was a soft, profound, and intelligent glow that pulsed with a gentle, rhythmic beat, like a heart made of pure energy.
This was his soul, the true limits of a person, which he now understood were, in fact, limitless.
His Mana Eyes, which to any onlooker would seem like two miniature cyan suns blazing with power, focused intently on the Silver ball of light.
He wasn't just looking at it; he was studying it with the full force of his being, trying to decipher its secrets.
The first discovery was about the nature of this inner space itself.
Time flowed differently here.
It was, he calculated, one hundred times faster than the outside world.
For every single hour that passed in the real world, a hundred hours could be spent here in contemplation.
Days passed in this deep meditation, and in that time, he felt he had made progress, though it was infinitesimally small.
He estimated he had gained barely 0.00000001% understanding of the soul's true nature.
It was like trying to understand an entire ocean by studying a single drop of water.
A crucial, frightening realization soon dawned on him.
He could not use Mana to directly enhance or grow the soul in the way he might strengthen a muscle.
It was technically possible, he could sense it, but the result would be disastrous.
Forcing Mana into the soul would be like trying to strengthen a delicate silk tapestry by pouring concrete into its fibers.
The soul would grow, yes, but it would become brittle, weak, and impure.
It would be a corrupted version of its true self.
This thought immediately brought a sharp pang of memory and fear.
He thought of his mother, lying in a coma, her soul damaged.
He thought of Ezra and Aris, and the risky, desperate methods he had used to help them.
He knew, with absolute certainty, that he could not do the same thing to his own mother.
Healing a soul with brute force, with mana, would leave it weak and flawed.
Such a weak soul could lead to countless problems in the future—vulnerability to possession, mental instability, or a stunted capacity for growth.
He had to be much more careful with her than he had ever been before.
The control required to manipulate what he now understood to be Soul Essence seemed, for the moment, completely impossible.
He was not yet ready to even attempt the true, natural method of nurturing it.
Frustrated by his lack of progress with the soul, his brilliant mind, always seeking solutions, pivoted to a new, related line of thought.
If he couldn't yet nurture the soul with Mana, could he use this deeper understanding to nurture the body?
The idea sparked a storm of possibilities.
He imagined a technique for quicker growth in physical strength, a method to forge an even sharper and more resilient mind, and, most importantly, a way to drastically strengthen his internal organs.
He knew this was a critical area.
Most elites used basic reinforcement spells to protect their internal organs.
The reason was simple: as one's physical power grew, the body's fragile insides became a severe liability.
The heart, the lungs, the liver—they were not designed to withstand the forces generated by a body that could shatter stone.
Reinforcement spells were a patch, a temporary fix.
They allowed the organs to grow stronger alongside the body, but they never grew strong enough.
They remained the ultimate weak point for anyone.
Lucas recalled a pivotal scene from the story of his past life, the one that had become this reality.
The Leader of the Abyssal Moon, a figure of terrifying power, had been struck by a direct attack specifically designed to damage internal organs.
It was a killing blow, one that should have exploited the one weakness every living being shared.
But the attack hadn't affected him in the slightest.
It was as if his organs were made of the same unyielding material as his legendary exterior.
Lucas now understood that this invulnerability was likely connected to what he was just beginning to grasp: complete control, not just of mana, but of everything within oneself.
This led to another breakthrough.
His intense focus on understanding the soul had forged a new link within him.
For the first time, he gained full and complete access to every single memory he had ever possessed.
It was as if a dam had broken.
From the moment he was born into this world as Lucas, to the moment he had died in his past life and awakened in this one—it all came flooding back in perfect, crystalline clarity.
Every single detail was there, no longer hidden in the fog of his subconscious.
He could feel the impossibly soft touch of his mother's hand when he was a baby, and he could also feel the precise, horrible moment when that same hand had turned cold and lifeless as she fell into her coma.
He could recall the smell of the air in his childhood home, the scent of rain on stone, the specific texture of a wooden toy he had played with.
Every breath he had ever taken, every thought he had ever had, every location he had ever stood in, from the grand halls of his clan to the dusty backstreets of a foreign city.
All of it was there, a perfect, unending library of his own existence. He realized he had finally unlocked what people called a Photographic Memory.
Nothing could ever escape his soul or his mind again.
The link that should have always been there, connecting his consciousness to his complete history, had finally been forged.
With this perfect memory, he re-examined the fight with the Abyssal Moon Leader.
It wasn't just the man's powerful organs that made him unique.
It was his complete and utter flow of mana.
This was the secret that made Lucas's own clan so unique and so fiercely desired by all the other Empires and hidden cities.
They didn't just have a lot of mana; they had a higher percentage of control over it.
Complete Mana flow meant that mana was not just a resource you shaped with effort, but an extension of your will, responding to your command instantly.
For someone with complete flow, there was no need to waste precious moments in battle performing complex hand signs or chanting ancient words to cast a spell.
Their will was the spell.
Lucas already experienced this for some of his simpler spells, but the truly powerful ones, like his Astral Mode, still required the ritualistic casting.
For others, the process was entirely different.
They had to memorize the specific, intricate pathways their mana traveled when they chanted or made hand signs.
The more powerful the spell, the more complex the pathway, and the longer it took to cast.
They practiced for years to reduce a ten-second casting time to under three seconds, a feat that was considered the peak of mastery.
But the Abyssal Moon Leader had no such problem.
His spells were instantaneous. Lucas now burned with the question: Why?
He could understand his own advantages.
His bloodline, the legacy of his clan, granted him a massive percentage of control over mana.
He estimated his own control to be around five hundred percent of what a normal elite might possess.
He knew, however, that a huge part of this was due to his unique Mana Eyes.
If he didn't have them, his natural bloodline control would probably be closer to two hundred percent—still extraordinary, but not the god-like command he currently enjoyed.
But the Abyssal Moon Leader didn't have Mana Eyes.
So, what was his secret?
A question formed in Lucas's mind: Was breaking through to the Platinum stage really that great? He had always assumed that was the answer.
From the first stage, Copper, all the way up to the peak of known power, Platinum, the path was always the same: increase the volume of your mana and improve its quality.
So why would things change now?
Yes, breaking through above Platinum was a monumental shift.
The quality of your mana underwent a complete transformation, becoming denser and purer.
Your mana volume would expand vastly, eventually rivaling that of a Tiered Mana Beast.
It was a massive power-up.
But then why, in the final movie of his past life, when the main character had fought and defeated an Elder of the Lotus Clan after reaching a stage above Platinum, was he not like the Abyssal Moon?
The main character was stronger, yes, he had more raw power.
But he lacked that unique, almost supernatural quality of the Abyssal Moon Leader.
He still had to exert conscious effort to control his mana.
It wasn't a perfect, instantaneous flow.
Why was that?
Lucas's mind began to storm with the implications.
He had spent so long planning to improve his body, searching for the secret arts of hidden clans that Ezra was looking for, with the white Tiger.
He had never, not once, considered that there might be improvements he could make to his mana itself, beyond simply increasing its quantity and density.
A cascade of new questions flooded his mind.
Could he actively work to increase the flow of mana inside his body?
Could he create new, more efficient pathways for his mana to travel, pathways that offered zero resistance, allowing it to move at its maximum possible speed?
Could he train himself to cast spells faster, to shorten the gap between thought and execution?
Could he eventually eliminate chanting and hand signs altogether, even for his most powerful spells, like Astral Mode?
He didn't know the answers.
He couldn't know them yet.
The only path forward was through improvement, through relentless experimentation and training.
But now, he had a new goal, a new frontier to conquer that was just as important as physical power.
He had to understand the flow.
With this new fire burning in his mind, he pushed all other thoughts aside.
His attention, now sharper and more focused than ever thanks to his newly unlocked memories, turned back to the silver ball of light floating in the endless void.