It wasn’t hard to find, and even easier to dig out. That was the convenience of having split the beast in two.
Theron might not have heard of this ’no-na’ beast before, but what was sure was that it was a powerhouse of epic proportions. The size of its Beast Core, and the Mana it radiated, obviously painted that picture more than adequately.
’Hm?’
Almost the mont Theron touched the Beast Core, though, he sensed the roaring life within.
He had never held a Beast Core before, but he assud by the fact Ninth Silver Resonance Beast Cores were the highest that could be absorbed, that a Gold one wouldn’t **have** an Echo in it.
However... this Runebound Beast Core definitely did have one.
Theron frowned in confusion. If Gold Cores had Echoes, then why would this not be an option?
Thinking about how many people never got a Ninth Resonance Silver Core, Theron couldn’t help but wonder if that was the reason, or if there was another. Was difficulty really the only thing stopping people?
Theron had thought he had a pretty good explanation for why no one ever did this.
He knew by now that Gold Mancy was related to the soul in so way. While the cultivation system of beasts and humans weren’t the sa, they often mirrored one another in the most important ways, while deviating in the details.
He had thought that maybe beasts did sothing with their Echoes while crossing into Gold Mancy that made **them** inaccessible the mont they left the ranks. But this... seed to paint a different picture.
These weren’t things that Theron had learned about. He just followed the most ancient of Water Mancy Cultivation thods—the simplest one to ever exist. It had been refined many tis over, so it was also the one with the fewest mistakes and likely had none at all.
But that wasn’t a 100% certainty. And Theron knew for sure that it took long winding paths in the na of safety other, more powerful cultivation thods wouldn’t.
Was this one of those long, winding paths?
Did the answer even matter now that he was already in Silver Mancy, having left Bronze Mancy long behind?
Theron decided to put these thoughts away for the mont and look at the real reason he wanted to look into this Core.
The Runes.
The oddity of this beast using light had really thrown him off and he didn’t quite understand. Of course, the light hadn’t been the usual gold of Light Mancers, but instead an odd tinted blue that looked almost like what Water Mana would look like, just without the liquidated form. But that shouldn’t have made a difference...
Theron actually didn’t know enough about Light Mana to conclude that for sure. But there was one thing that he beca certain of instantly.
This beast had no Light Mana affinity. Everything about its Core was Water Mana-related, and it wasn’t so rare dual-affinity beast.
Just to double-check, Theron went through the corpse again, making sure to store as much of its most nutritious at as well. His spatial rings had much more space now thanks to Vellan, Chopra, Exsaa, and Wren. But this beast was also enormous.
That said, Theron had a feeling that he would be on the run for quite a long while coming. Having a large amount of nutrient-rich food didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.
However, when he was done, he could confirm this:
There was definitely no second Beast Core here. That ant the no-na beast was, indeed, of a single affinity.
’A Water Mancy beast using light to suppress Water Laws?’
Theron found himself getting more confused, sothing that used to be rare for him, but now had happened twice in quick succession.
After not imdiately finding what he was looking for in the Beast Core, he chose to change tactics again. He swam up to what remained of the no-na beast’s body, pulling on the antenna and studying it.
This antenna had very little flesh on it and the bulb at the end seed ford of sothing similar to cartilage or bone, so it wasn’t really right for eating.
Because of that, Theron hadn’t bothered to take it for himself.
’Hm...’
Even after inspecting it, though, he didn’t find anything particularly special about it except for its density. Usually, fish bones were a lot weaker than what one would see from a land animal. But this sturdiness wasn’t a surprise—if it was a Runebound Beast, it was bound to have so advantages other fish wouldn’t.
What Theron was actually looking for was sothing like runes, residual Light Mana maybe, or even a treasure. But he found none of the above.
*’Is there a Water Law that could produce—’*
Theron froze. For a mont, he felt particularly foolish.
He had said it himself earlier. The light radiated a blue that was similar to Mana in use. The Runebound Beast wasn’t casting a light—it was casting a domain of sorts, one that directly turned the Water Mana it projected onto into Water Mana under its control.
Theron bet that on the surface, this antenna wouldn’t produce any light at all. Or, rather, it would only reflect light of the Water Mana it took forceful control of.
For a mont, Theron stood there, wondering how he didn’t see through this earlier.
Why? It was because it was completely unconventional. Usually, you needed to stimulate Mana in your body in order to control Mana in the atmosphere. It was an exchange of sorts, one that used Mana from yourself to pri Mana that wasn’t yours to command yet.
This sort of exchange was precisely why many Earth Mancers struggled so much to control the land around them. But if an Earth Mancer had such an ability—to forcefully convert the earth into their own...
’This was no normal beast. This bloodline ability is sothing Mancers would fight world wars over, but I almost completely overlooked it because it didn’t fit with my conventional understanding of things...’
Theron stood there for a long while, holding the antenna in his hand. The buoyancy of the water kept it steady; otherwise, he wasn’t sure if he would have the ability to hold it up at all.
’Conventional thinking...’
It was sothing that was bound to hold soone like Theron back. He liked to understand every little detail of what he was learning. And then he would use those details others would overlook to make deductions they would never see.
But the problem was that the scope of his world was far too small. And maybe even in the case that it was wide, unconventional approaches might benefit him more than not.
’Balance?’ Theron’s eyes narrowed.
He kept rejecting the notion that Balance was in reference to heat at all. It made sense to him. After all, why would a Law specifically designed for one Mandate Path need the presence of the other? It didn’t make sense.
If there were eighteen different Laws he **had** to learn, it didn’t compute that one of the nine would need to rely on a path that wasn’t its own.
But was he right to think that way?
And that was when it clicked for Theron. He **had** been right. It was, indeed, his previous deductions holding him back.
The Law of Balance...
When he exhaled a heated breath, it was because he felt fury or pride and he allowed it to smolder. However, when he exhaled a cold breath, it wasn’t because he was calm. It was specifically because he chose to be calm when he could have otherwise been furious.
Cold did not exist on its own. By definition, it was the absence of heat.
And for his chilling Mandate, it seed to be the sa. His calmness only had real power when it ca from a place of fury. The chilling path wasn’t one of emotionlessness. It was one of acknowledging emotion, and yet having the ntal fortitude to ruthlessly trample it nonetheless—to rein it under control because your mind was your own.
*’This path... it’s no wonder the Heavens hate it so much...’*
Theron looked up, the water around him crackling like ice. Although the space around him continued to churn and move with water, around three ters or so from him, waves of ice were forming.
Even beneath all of the water pressure, it was like it couldn’t be helped.
But then it all shattered to pieces, forming icy currents that passed over the no-na beast’s body and turned it to ice sculptures.
Theron felt as though his chilling path had suddenly reached an unprecedented height. His thoughts couldn’t help but turn to the heated path...
It all made sense now. He knew why it had lagged behind and why it was so hard for him to learn the Law of Balance. He had comprehended sothing about the chilling path back then, sothing that set his path of cultivation on a road that was difficult to turn back from.
Maybe because of that almost unconscious choice, his heated path would never be able to keep up. But honestly speaking... Theron preferred it like this.
He couldn’t allow his fury to rule him... not yet... not until the mont was right...
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