Akata no longer paid much attention to the battle between Lord Tafei and Priest Bambe as he was experimenting with his application of the illusion rune. However, he was paying attention to the different ways the same rune could be used. He especially paid much attention to the illusion rune.

As the battle raged on he watched as the illusion rune was used to create clones, or cause beasts to appear, or cause the area to ‘change’. It was an amazing rune that had many uses to it.

“With all of these uses for the illusion rune, how is it not an Outer Element?” He said silently to himself. “It’s like this rune can do anything that the mind can think of.”

“Inner Elements and Outer Elements are worlds apart. While the Inner Element of Illusions is one of the Inner Ten, it is still pitifully weak when compared to Outer Elements.” Noluck said. “And that is because Outer Elements are backed by the power of Heaven. The Inner Elements, on the other hand, are only capable of using the power of Earth. This use of power clearly draws the line between the weak elements and the powerful elements.

Yet, that is just only one of the many things that make Outer Elements fundamentally stronger and better than Inner Elements. I would tell you more but you should probably figure these things out for yourself.” Noluck sounded quite pleased with himself as he gave his answer.

“Oh come on, please tell me some more. Just anything will do. I want to learn all I can about elements and runes that I can. Just one more bit of information would do.” Akata forced out a loving and begging face while trying to sound deeply affectionate. It wasn’t that he truly cared about getting this information, rather, he felt that this information was key to him becoming stronger even faster.

Noluck was silent for a moment and then let out a hearty laugh. “Ahahaha! Well if you insist then how can I not comply. Sure sure I’ll let you in on one more piece of information. Each Outer Element has a pair that matches up with it. The matchup doesn’t have to be compatible as it can also be highly resistant toward the other. For example, the fifth pair of Outer Elements, the Path of Essence, is made of the Outer Element of Holy and the Outer Element of Demonic. The holy element and the demonic element are extreme polar opposites, yet they come together to form a perfect pair.” Noluck sounded joyful as he spoke.

Akata committed this information to memory and then thought for a moment. “Umm… Noluck, I’ve learned about this already. Can’t you tell me anything new?”

This was true as Tabet had told him all about the pairs of outer elements before. Although he didn’t go into as much depth as Noluck, Akata could still get the gist of it even before Noluck started to explain.

“What? You already know this? Then did you know that some Outer Elements are stronger than others?” Noluck asked curiously.

“Wha?! No! How? Aren’t they all at the same level?” Akata felt very intrigued by this bit of information that Noluck had casually dropped.

“Well just like the Inner Elements can be divided into groups that classify the strong, so can the Outer Elements. In the Inner Elements, there are the Inner Ten, which consist of the top ten strongest Inner Elements. They are classified the strongest by the amount of energy from Earth that they receive. The Outer Elements are somewhat the same way.

In the Outer Elements, the pairs are grouped by weakest to strongest as well. The fifth pair, the Path of Essence, is actually the weakest pair of Outer Elements one can wield. While the first pair, the Path of Presence, is the strongest. Nobody knows why some Outer Elements are stronger than others, that’s just the way it is.

Well, that’s all I’m saying now. You got your bit of information from me, now you have to get the rest on your own. I can’t baby someone to the realm of immortals. Otherwise you’ll be killed easily by others.” Noluck seemed to have a cold gleam in his eyes as he spoke to Akata. But that gleam quickly disappeared. It wouldn’t have mattered though as the mist covered up his whole entire body.

Akata sat there silently thinking to himself. He was taking in all of the information that he had just heard. He knew that this would be very important down the line and he definitely didn’t want to forget any of this at all. After a brief moment his eyes showed with an anticipating gleam. “I need to hurry and learn how to use my Outer Element. That will make my battle prowess rise off of the charts.” He was expectant to start learning about runes and truly step into the world of runic magic.

Soon he calmed himself and cleared his mind. He focused in on the battle and looked at the whole thing with his gaze. He wasn’t going to miss a single detail from Lord Tafei and Priest Bambe. After a few moments passed, Akata would make a new rune and tweak it a bit, each time having it improve little by little.

In this fashion, a few hours went by quite fast. Akata sat with a hand outstretched and a bright purple rune within it. The rune was exquisite and showed brightly in the night sky. Soon, it began to rotate slowly, and out of the rune came an illusory hand. It greatly resembled Akata’s finger but it was easy to tell that it wasn’t his. As this one was blurry and faded in and out.

He was practicing his Mirror Reflection skill but obviously on a much smaller scale than before. Even though it was on a much smaller scale and looked blurry, it was actually pretty resilient and tough. It could also be strengthened by Akata’s energy, becoming much more stronger.

Akata closed his hand and crushed the rune making it disperse into sparkling tiny dust. He wasn’t destroying the rune but was instead turning the element of illusions into the element of sand!. Akata waved his hand and caused the sparkling purple and tan dust to spin around and form a cyclone. The cyclone then split apart into two, then into four, and finally ending in five. After a moment the five cyclones started to bend inward and rush forth, where they converged together into a fist.

Akata had been watching the battle for some time now and had gained some insights into the Inner Element of Sand. Therefore he was now capable of wielding the element of sand, albeit only a little bit. However, even that little bit was enough to put him in a class of his own. He was actually capable of mixing two different elements together, thus making the fused element four times stronger than normal ones.

“So that’s how it is then.” Akata had a smile on his face as he stood up. He waved his hand causing the illusory sand fist to disappear. “I’ve learn all that I can from these two. It’s just a shame that Priest Bambe isn’t that good at controlling the Outer Element of Time otherwise I could probably gain some insights to that too.” Akata shook his head and sighed.

Akata could tell that the element of time was an Outer Element because of the energy that it put out. It was much greater than all of the other elements that were being released. It completely outclassed the other elements, whether it came to speed, power, or resilience.

Priest Bambe’s use of the Outer Element of Time was just too basic. Even he himself didn’t have many insights into the element of time. This caused all of his attacks to be quite easy to defend against or even outright destroy. Thus, Akata wasn’t able to gain much of any insights regarding time.

Akata looked out into the distance and saw flashing colors everywhere. The battle between Great Priest Bayou and Great Lord Taple was still raging on with fierce abandon. In fact, it had even gotten more fierce as time went on. Akata could see the lights of the runes being displayed from their fight.

“If only I can get over there to see the fight between those two. I’m sure that I will be able to gain a lot more from their fight than I did from these two. Tabet’s grandfather even has an Outer Element, and given how powerful he is, I’m sure he has much greater skill in it than Great Priest Bambe.”

Akata was very conflicted right now. Right now, he was missing a great opportunity to obtain important information and probably gain insights into a heavenly power. It might even be the Outer Element that he is innately skilled in, the Outer Element of Souls. But, if he did go then he would be putting himself into a dangerous situation, possibly threatening his life. The battle there was just too chaotic.

Even though these thoughts went through Akata’s head, they only briefly stayed before flashing away. Akata grit his teeth and dashed off in the direction of the brilliant lights in the distance. As he got closer the pressure from the fighting figures and the attacks weighed down heavily on him. Akata felt his bones begin to crack as the pressure was literally crushing him. It took all the effort he had to rotate his mortal cultivation base and plant cultivation base and resist the pressure. Even with that Akata was barely able to get into a distance where he could see only one figure in the distance.

“I have to get closer than this.” Akata said as blood started to ooze from his mouth. He clenched his teeth and rotated his red and gold runes as he pushed himself harder to get closer. It was a tough struggle between the pressure and Akata’s willpower.

“Hehe. What a tough battle of attrition, but… I don’t like to lose or back down!” Akata pushed his energy to the max as he made his way closer and closer to the battle between Great Lord Taple and Great Priest Bayou. After a while, Akata finally stopped advancing and sat down forcefully. He was gasping for air but even so a smile was on his face. “I made it into a good range.”

From his position he could see the battle between the two clearly. This was because their battle had destroyed most of the vegetation and trees making a clearing. Of course Akata wasn’t seated in the clearing but a little ways off from it. He could have gone further but then he would have to expend and even greater amount of energy to sustain being there.

Here, he could spend a reasonable amount of energy to resist the pressure and still have a clear mind to gain insights. “Time to get to work.”