Adrian took out a parchment from within his spatial ring, etched with the emblem of the Origin. The symbol detached from it, glowing softly as it floated above his palm, its white-grey radiance casting faint reflections across the table.
"This is the method my warriors use to wield multiple concepts. This is what the Origin Empire can offer."
The rulers leaned in, confusion flickering beneath their composed expressions. None could truly understand how such a thing worked.
Adrian glanced at Lysandra, "Would you like to try?"
Lysandra hesitated only a moment, then nodded. The symbol drifted toward her and pressed gently onto the back of her hand.
A sharp jolt of pain made her inhale sharply, her fingers curling reflexively. But with her comprehension of many concepts, the pain dissipated in seconds. She lifted her hand, examining the tattoo. It was not simply runes; it was art, complexity compressed into elegance.
Even with all her knowledge, she understood only fragments. And even those fragments felt like she was reading a truer form of the language of mana, as though she had been interpreting broken grammar for her entire life and finally encountered the original script.
"This is…" She trailed off, unable to articulate what she sensed.
Adrian spoke calmly, "Do not worry, this is only a special type of skill scroll. We discovered a Tattoo Symbol that allows runes to be etched directly into the flesh, and unlike traditional scrolls, it does not burn away after a single use."
The rulers exchanged thoughtful glances. It was impressive; it worked as a permanent skill scroll, and this explained how SSS-ranks used stellar spells, but it still did not explain how they used spells based on multiple affinities.
Adrian understood their skepticism.
He simply said, "Try channelling pure mana and think of healing someone."
Lysandra blinked, "Healing? I don't have a life essence seed."
"Just try," Adrian repeated.
She infused liquefied mana into the tattoo and imagined sending healing toward Alice.
The chamber filled with a whisper of green luminescence. Life essence flowed from Lysandra's hand, materialising into a warm mist that seeped into Alice's arm, knitting a small bruise she hadn't even noticed she had.
Every ruler froze.
Alice stared at her arm, then at Lysandra, then at the faint green glow still clinging between them.
Drazmir's mouth opened, but no sound came.
Lysandra stared at her own hand, stunned, "How…? I used only pure mana, and I do not wield life."
Adrian nodded, "Because the ink we use is not ordinary mana ink, it removes affinity binding."
The rulers went silent.
Affinity binding was not a law of inscription; it was a law of existence, a rule of the universe. Every spell required the correct essence to function, every concept demanded its own element.
But this ink broke those rules.
Seranth's voice came out hoarse, "That's… impossible."
Lysandra tried it again, channelling her liquefied mana through the tattoo with deliberate precision. Green light flickered across her palm, but this time she focused inward, tracing the flow.
"No," she whispered, "This is not removing affinity binding."
The others turned to her.
She lifted her hand, staring at the symbol as though it had just whispered a forbidden secret, "Every concept requires the correct essence; no one can break this. It is a fundamental law."
"This ink is acting as a medium," Lysandra continued, her words spilling faster now, "It converts our pure mana into any type of essence. This ink functions as an essence seed on its own."
The chamber fell into deeper silence.
For thousands of years, Lysandra had studied the boundary between mana and consciousness, the mysterious bridge through which comprehension transformed into a seed. Yet she could never touch that boundary.
Essence seeds were treated as divine creations, manifestations of conceptual truth crystallised by forces beyond mortal reach. They allowed cultivators to convert pure mana into conceptual essence. Something only the universe itself could forge.
But the ink she now held on her palm was replicating it.
Drazmir nodded slowly, his tension easing just slightly, "So it's… a manufactured essence seed?"
Lysandra nodded, still staring at the tattoo. "Yes. Rather than breaking the law of existence, it mimics the mechanism. It is still bound by the same rules, just… artificially replicated."
Hearing this, the others settled a little. The idea of breaking universal law was too terrifying to accept. But a creation that mimicked an essence seed? That was absurd, unprecedented, revolutionary, but at least it didn't shatter reality itself.
Adrian watched them in silence, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
He had said this same thing to Kaelith before. Even though she had been shocked, she had accepted it. Even the warriors who had been using the tattoos for years now didn't question it deeply.
But the moment Lysandra tried it, she pinpointed what the Source ink was actually doing.
Still, in a way, Adrian hadn't lied. His Source essence could power any concept, so it did remove affinity binding. It was just that no one could accept something like that, because to others it would mean breaking the law of existence itself.
Better not to reveal his secrets of the Source for now.
Alice leaned closer, her gaze fixed on the tattoo, "Then with this tattoo, anyone in the galaxy could wield any concept, regardless of the essence they were born with."
Lysandra's head snapped toward her, "You are too short-sighted," she said coldly. "You don't understand what this ink truly means."
The rulers blinked, taken aback by the sudden edge in her tone.
Lysandra's gaze swept across them, burning with intensity, "You all are thinking of the short-term goal, dealing with the war against the demons. You're not trying to see the true potential of this."
She paused, "Imagine what this would do to civilisation itself. Not to battlefields, but to everything. Industry, technology, formation engineering, starship propulsion, advanced manufacturing, resource extraction, medicine, planetary terraforming, even the construction of superstructures" Her voice rose slightly, "This isn't just a war tool. It will rewrite the very structure of our society."
Lysandra continued, her voice steady now, "Think about elemental crystals. Every formation, every ship, every world depends on them."
She gestured sharply, "Void crystals, for example. They're essential for starship propulsion. The cost of void crystals has always been astronomical because they're too rare to be produced naturally. The only production method is for a user with space essence to imbue their essence into a mana crystal and convert it into a void crystal."
Alice nodded slowly, "And that process takes months for even a small crystal."
"Exactly," Lysandra said, "The galaxy doesn't have many space cultivators. This is why void crystals have been high-priced for millennia. And this is why starship technology has barely evolved in thousands of years. Increasing speed multiplies void crystal consumption exponentially, and no empire is willing to spend that much."
"But now," she continued, her voice dropping, "if one created the starship formation itself using this ink, then they could power it with just pure mana crystals. Pure mana becomes space essence."
She continued without stopping, "Void crystals are just one example, think about other possibilities! Medical formations wouldn't need healers; anyone could run healing formations with pure mana! Planetary terraforming formation that generates heat, moisture, radiation shielding, and soil synthesis can run without requiring ten different cultivators to cooperate! Permanent weather-control grids, powered by simple mana crystals!"
"This ink collapses the entire essence-dependency economy."
"Do you understand? This is the largest leap since a being first touched mana."
Everyone stared at her, stunned as the scope sank in.
It was so simple… and so universe-shattering.
Drazmir's voice came out hoarse, "This would change everything!"
Alice's voice shook, "It would reshape the entire galaxy."
The rulers began to realise that the Demon War was only a near threat, immediate and violent.
The ink was the long-term one.
The one that would change the balance of power forever.
Lysandra whispered, almost to herself, "So that's how the Origin Capital's formation works. You powered it with pure mana."
They all knew about the star-system formation; now it made sense how Adrian powered it.
Lysandra looked at Adrian.
For a moment, she was terrified, not because he was the anomaly of the Astral Omen, not because he possessed the power to kill an ancient cultivator, but because of what this ink signified.
She was certain that, one day, with just this ink, the Origin Empire would become so powerful that even Lexaria could only watch from the sidelines. Worse, they would depend on Origin's ink.
She realised that the Origin Empire would not be just another empire among the others. It would grow to a point where it would be the head of all empires.
A Supreme Empire.
The others felt it too.
Adrian did not just have absurd power. He had a foundation no empire could compete with. Their glances toward him carried the same dawning terror, the same reluctant respect.
Adrian simply watched them in silence.
He had known this moment would come eventually. He had known the instant he created Blackwood Ink that it would change everything. But he had also known that without it, the Origin Clan would never survive the galaxy's hunger.
Better to become indispensable than to be devoured.
And the path to defeating the Demon Emperor shifted irrevocably in that moment.
Because the galaxy no longer saw the Origin Empire as a temporary ally, a useful weapon to wield against the demons.
They saw the future ruler of the entire galactic age.