Inside the villa's cultivation room.
Ethan took out two magic stones and embedded them into the two slots at the edge of the magic circle on the floor.
The moment the magic stones settled in, a ring of pale gold light lit up at the bottom of the slots.
The light spread along the runic patterns like water returning to a parched riverbed. One line after another lit up, converging from the edges toward the center.
A few breaths later, the entire runic array on the cultivation room's floor was activated.
On the pitch-black stone surface, those complex patterns emitted a faint blue shimmer, and an indescribable energy fluctuation began to permeate the air.
Ethan sat cross-legged in the center of the magic circle and closed his eyes.
He needed to find that "feeling" first.
His consciousness withdrew inward, like diving into deep water. His breathing gradually steadied, his heartbeat slowed, and all surrounding sounds faded away until only the sound of his own breathing and the flow of his blood remained.
In the darkness, he tried to find that void space deep within his consciousness.
There was nothing.
Only darkness.
Ethan wasn't impatient; he simply maintained that focused yet relaxed state and continued to search within.
After an unknown amount of time, a tiny, extremely faint light appeared in the darkness.
The light was very dim, so dim it was almost invisible, as if it might flicker out at any moment. But it indeed existed, quietly shimmering at an indefinable location deep within his consciousness.
The mental sea.
Ethan's consciousness moved toward that speck of light.
The light gradually expanded, and the surrounding darkness began to recede, revealing a gray space. The space wasn't large, its boundaries blurred like a wasteland shrouded in thick fog. The fog rolled slowly; there was no wind, yet there was an indescribable sense of flow.
That was his mental sea.
It was empty, with nothing in it.
Ethan took a deep breath and began attempting to condense his mental power.
Under the guidance of his consciousness, the gray mist scattered throughout the mental sea began to gather slowly. Like merging scattered streams into a riverbed, it required patience and precise control—one couldn't be hasty or use too much force.
The first wisp of mental power was successfully gathered into a line.
The line was as thin as a hair, moving slowly under the pull of his consciousness. Following the guidance of the meditation method, Ethan began to use his mental power as ink to sketch the first stroke in the void.
A downward slant from the top-left to the bottom-right.
The force had to be even.
No pausing, no accelerating.
The moment his mental power touched the void, a strange resistance came from his fingertips. The resistance wasn't large, but it was exceptionally stubborn, as if the void itself were resisting being written upon.
Ethan steadied his mind, maintained a stable output of mental power, and pushed forward stroke by stroke.
The first stroke was finished.
The line steadied for a moment, then began to tremble, its edges blurring until it finally dissipated without a trace.
First attempt, failure.
Ethan opened his eyes, his brow furrowed slightly.
He believed he had been focused enough and controlled the force well during that stroke. However, the mental power line simply couldn't hold in the void; it was like writing on an oily surface—the ink dispersed as soon as the brush touched it.
"The output is still not stable enough."
He closed his eyes and re-condensed his mental power.
This time, he spent some time first adjusting the rhythm of his mental power output.
Like sharpening a knife, one couldn't be hasty; it had to be done bit by bit.
Second attempt.
First stroke, steady.
The second stroke connected to the end of the first, hooking back upward.
When the two strokes were completed, the resistance suddenly surged. Ethan gritted his teeth, kept his mental power output constant, and continued to push forward.
Third stroke.
Fourth stroke.
Fifth stroke.
With every stroke, the void's resistance increased. By the seventh stroke, the mental power line began to tremble again, its edges blurring.
Ethan took a deep breath and steadied his mind.
Eighth stroke.
Ninth stroke.
The moment the tenth stroke landed, the entire line suddenly shattered, turning into scattered fragments of mental power that dissipated into the void.
It was a failure, but it was much better than the first time.
At least he had sketched a small portion of the rune.
Ethan wasn't discouraged. He simply kept his eyes closed and repeatedly replayed the failed process in his mind. The direction of every stroke, every change in resistance, and every fluctuation in mental power output were precisely reviewed under the enhancement of his twenty-fold learning speed.
The problem was the tenth stroke.
That stroke required a brief acceleration, but he hadn't kept up with the rhythm, causing the mental power output to lag and the lines to lose continuity.
Once the problem was found, things became easier.
Third attempt.
First stroke, steady.
Second stroke, steady.
...
Tenth stroke: mental power accelerated, the line turned smoothly, forming a curve.
Continue.
Eleventh stroke: connecting to the end of the curve, slanting downward, the force increasing by a notch.
Twelfth stroke.
Thirteenth stroke.
...
Twentieth stroke.
The rune was more than half-finished. Those lines sketched a complex and precise pattern in the void, emitting a faint gray light.
Twenty-fifth stroke.
The resistance had reached an unimaginable level. Every stroke felt like walking through a swamp, requiring immense mental effort.
Fine beads of sweat broke out on Ethan's forehead, and his mental power was being consumed rapidly.
But he didn't stop.
Twenty-sixth stroke.
Twenty-seventh stroke.
Twenty-eighth stroke.
When the twenty-ninth stroke landed, the resistance suddenly vanished, replaced by a strange sense of smoothness. The rest of the rune seemed to be activated, beginning to actively guide the subsequent strokes.
Thirtieth stroke.
Thirty-first stroke.
...
Thirty-sixth stroke.
The moment the final stroke landed, the entire rune suddenly lit up.
Light shone through every single stroke of the rune—a grayish-white glow that wasn't blinding but carried a strange sense of weight. The rune rotated slowly in the void, its peripheral patterns beginning to contract inward, condensing and solidifying.
A few breaths later, the light dissipated.
A complete Primal Seal quietly floated in the center of his mental sea.
The pattern formed by the thirty-six strokes was complex and orderly. Every stroke was clearly visible, with smooth and even edges, without a single flaw.
Ethan opened his eyes.
His connection with his mental sea felt completely different now.
The originally scattered gray mist now had a core. They slowly rotated around that rune like planets around a star, possessing order and direction.
More importantly, he could now sense the outside world.
The energy particles that permeated everything became clearly perceptible. They were like invisible dust, floating, flowing, gathering, and dissipating in the air.
With just a thought, his mental power could pull them.
A slight curve appeared at the corner of Ethan's mouth.
It was done.
The first mental rune had been successfully condensed.
From this moment on, he was no longer a mortal.
But this was just the beginning.
Next, he would condense the second, the third, all the way to thirty-six.
Each one would be harder than the last because the mental sea would become increasingly "crowded." New runes had to be stably formed without disturbing the existing ones.
But that was a matter for tomorrow.
For now, Ethan, his spirit severely overdrawn, decided he needed to get some sleep.
Rate on N.U.
