Rivers of the Night

When Theron returned to the technique tower after his battle with Blackmaul, there were two things he had gotten. The first was a technique that taught him how to refine treasures as an Elemental Mancer—something that he had once thought only possible by Soul Mancers. And the second technique was a carving technique.

The first technique was there for him to learn to use his cauldron and attack from a distance. The plan was to see if he could use this method to learn how to better cast long-distance Spells in this world.

This second technique, though…

Originally, Theron was less interested in it. Why did he need someone to teach him how to carve?

But after trying it out himself, he realized that there was far more than met the eye to the method. This was why he never dismissed a path outright unless he tried it himself.

What surprised Theron, though, was that this carving booklet didn't teach him how to carve, but instead what to carve.

Theron's gaze flickered as he came to an understanding.

Of course.

This was the essence of it all, what made carving so powerful.

Thinking back, Theron's first major breakthrough in Mana Control was when he used his Water Mana to reconstruct his father's face. Since this, he had made a ton of incremental steps and changes, but he had never had such a large breakthrough again. Back then, he had even improved in his Resonance level and stepped through a completely new threshold.

Why was that?

Maybe the secret to the next step was not just using his own Mana to carve out something in the world, but manipulating Mana that wasn't necessarily his own, through a medium of sorts.

It was almost like trying to control a vehicle through a mirrored image rather than with your own eyes, fighting back against your own instinct.

However, this was actually far more complicated than that. At least in a mirror, your left would always be right, so you could compensate as such.

But while you were carving… every tree was different, every mystery, every knot and node, every branch and leaf, every dry spell and lush season…

Everything was different, and he would have to adjust and compensate for that every single time.

Theron flipped to the first page and what it wanted out of him couldn't have been simpler.

A sphere. A single, solitary sphere, a ball of wood, perfectly smooth, and perfectly uniform.

Theron could do this with his eyes closed with his Water Mana, but he wasn't even sure if he could make it so seamless with his Dark Mana, and yet now he had to do it through a carving knife.

And yet, he felt the same pride he had when he faced the old Dean back then.

He still remembered those feelings, those thoughts that Water Mancy was weak and his only path forward, his only hope in the world at all, was to maximize his Control to the greatest extent possible.

Now, he no longer felt that way about his Water Mancy. In fact, he was confident that he would make it the strongest Path in all of existence. He just needed time.

But right now… his Dark Mana was standing in his way.

'Not for much longer.'

Theron's gaze turned icy cold and he began to carve, his hand steady, his expression focused.

Theron completely lost himself in his carving. He didn't even know how many days passed, but sleep and rest were things that he could do without.

Even compared to other Silver Mancers, Theron was on another level because of how powerful his body was. He probably only needed as much rest as someone in the pinnacle of Gold Mancy would. But the tradeoff was that he needed food… and a lot of it.

Luckily, he had entered his cave prepared.

He forgot the world, he forgot time.

His clothes were tattered and dried blood actually caked his nose and chin from explosions of the Mana Wood, but he never flinched even when this happened, his eyes not even blinking.

Luckily, his eyes were extra durable now thanks to [Entangling Blood Vein Pupils], and even if these explosions could harm his flesh, they remained unscathed.

A pile of wooden spheres was piling up to the side. By the time you got to the top, they actually looked as round as perfectly polished marbles, but Theron still kept going as though he wasn't satisfied by something.

More. More. More.

He began to vary their size. Sometimes he made them as large as the thickness of the wood, sometimes he made them as small as a fingernail.

He found that doing either was actually just as difficult, though one would expect the latter to be more so.

The larger ones were more difficult because you had to smooth out more variations in the wood since you were crossing many more nodes.

The smaller ones were more difficult because you had to carve out more material, and by the time you were down to such a small little bead, the carving knife was impossibly heavy and dull. A single wrong move while using such force to cut into the wood could cost Theron his finger.

In fact, he had slipped and skinned off a large chunk of flesh several times already; he just managed to heal himself after the fact.

But every time Theron completed a carving and tossed it over his shoulder, his eyes glowed brighter.

And then he suddenly pivoted, beginning to smoothly carve out ellipsoids. From ellipsoids, he pivoted to cylinders, and then from cylinders to cubes, and then from cubes to rectangular prisms.

The transition to sharp edges was a huge leap. Having to carve out sharp edges meant the changes in the wood were more abrupt and he had to be even more focused than before, but after several explosions, he got the hang of even this.

As Theron continued, he found himself smiling. Not the fake smile he used outside when he played the role of arrogant young master, but a true, genuine smile.

He didn't notice it himself, or maybe he would have stopped. Nor had he noticed that this was the same smile he had when he read books from the library…

But regardless, the smile was very much there.

In that moment, he felt he was back home, sitting by the window as rain pitter-pattered against its clear form. He sat on a comfy chair, reclining with a thick book in his hands…