Soon enough, the azure comet landed on the ground and the frost energy dispersed. From inside, a one-tailed clone of Rakna stepped out with a roll of his shoulder. He and his original-self gazed at each other for a moment before snickering at the same time.

“How was it?” Rakna ultimately asked and the clone huffed.

“Pretty fruitful,” he said with a hum. “First of all, Harvester isn’t available to me but there is no problem using Scavenger. But it has reduced effects. I can also use Wings of Collapse but it costs me more; my MP reduction is half of yours; 25%. The same applies to my senses; the multiplicators have all been halved. And as we expected, Ascension of the Titan is out of the question.”

“What about our Traits and Magic?”

“Hm, well, all the Traits are usable. The only difference is the shapeshift. The Werewolf form only increases my attributes by 40% instead of your 62%. The Wolf form’s speed boost is reduced to 60% from 82%. As for our magic, Sloth and Mystic are unavailable. But that’s it, otherwise. I can use our spells like normal; granted, with reduced magical damage and extra mana. Ah, but, count the Manifestations out. They don’t appear on my spell list.”

Rakna quietly processed what his clone was telling him. “I see. There are several more decrements than I anticipated but it’s not too bad.”

“I agree. For skills and our knowledge, it’s all the same except for soul-related stuff. I only have a shard of your soul, perhaps even just a copy in the form soul power only, so it doesn’t allow me to use the Core or the Decree. Then, our titles. Most of the buffs apply, but titles like Wolf Emperor, Imperial Designation, Chalice of Wishes, and The Kind Demon’s Kin are only yours.”

“Makes sense. And our experience?”

“Oh yeah, I can’t gain any exp,” the clone said with a scowl. “Kind of disappointing.”

“Well, we can’t be too greedy. Anyway, we already confirmed that you could use System privileges like messages, your status, and Plateau teleportation. Now, the only thing is…” Rakna trailed and conjured a frost crystal barbed spear with energy confined inside.

He whirled it and opened his mouth. “Gungnir,” he uttered and threw the spear at the sky, where it exploded grandly. He then glanced at his clone who was already checking his status without him asking.

“We’re good,” the clone let out a satisfied smile. “Our mana is shared but not our cooldowns. I think the only time we have identical cooldowns is the moment we split up. For example, since you still had Horologium on cooldown when you made me, I also have it.”

Rakna nodded at the clone’s observation, which also made him remember the long cooldown of the Horologium constellation. It was obviously a very powerful spell and Ceres had also divulged that time-related abilities usually had escalated cooldowns. In Horologium’s case, it was exactly 200 hours, or in other words, approximately 8 days.

He sighed. “Whatever. Let’s merge back. We should just meld our memories for the rest.”

The clone nodded. “Sure,” he said and walked to his original. He placed his hand on his shoulder and instantly, his body began to lose consistency and it momentarily appeared like an amalgam of nano-machines before it shrunk and slithered over Rakna’s shoulder on its own. It went to his tail bone and transformed back into a normal tail; returning the count to four.

Right away, Rakna felt a rush of information enter his head which was readily swallowed, filtered, and sorted by Eye of Symphony in a blink. He mused at the new information and removed one of his gloves for a moment. He then watched as his hand became metallic with blue lights traversing the linear traces of the material.

He then willed it to change shape and it followed his orders. One of his fingers turned into a blade at first, and then the whole hand followed. He inspected it carefully and with a thought, it detached itself from his wrist.

Immediately after, his body began to undergo a strange process. The density of the material across his limbs and other body parts seemed to decrease to reconstruct his lost hand. The process only took about three seconds.

“And now it’s recreating new resources…” Rakna muttered to himself. From what he understood, and from the observations of his clone, his body seemed to have a sort of ‘capacity’. The material he was made of could go up and down in density without altering its properties.

Whenever an injury is detected, the resources are spread out to fill the gap. What is used to close wounds or regenerate limbs is the mass of the body. As long as it has enough density, regeneration will occur in a fast and costless manner. But when the material hits its lowest reasonable density, mana will begin to be used to keep up.

However, in both cases, once the injuries are fixed, the density will thereafter be reconstructed passively over time by expending insignificant amounts of mana.

“Together with my Star Reinforcement, this really makes me hard to kill,” he commented.

“{Truly. At this point, your only vital area is your brain. But even then, thanks to Eye of Symphony, there are chances that your brain can be healed as long as it is not important parts.}”

“Or someone could use an attack powerful enough to destroy my entire body,” Rakna casually said as he crouched to pick up the dark blade he had created from his own physique. “If that were to happen, even turning my body into star energy wouldn’t save me. I can also be defeated if I’m out of mana to regenerate.”

[Rakna,] Ceres spoke up with a certain curiosity in her tone. [Would you please use Appraisal on the blade you are holding?]

He blinked at her question but then realized that might not be a bad idea at all. And so, he followed through her suggestion and a window appeared in front of him.

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Unknown Fragment…

Quantifying…

System Item Approved.

---

Designation: Material/Weapon/Blade

Name: Prima Materia Shard

Rarity: Exotic

Attack Power: ~50

Durability: 100%

Perks:

- Eion Energy Production: This item constantly generates energy and is incidentally able to regenerate the systems composing it with time.

- Eion Energy Decline: If this item gets more than ten meters away from the original material it was created from, its production of energy will shut down and then reverse, eventually decreasing the durability of the object until it hits 0.

Description:

A discarded part of a Prima Alkahest Materia Physique uniquely possessed by the Host, Rakna Xiorra, to this day. It possesses miraculous properties for those capable of harnessing them.

---

You have used Appraisal on an Exotic Item!

You have used Appraisal on a Non-Quantified Item!

Appraisal has Excelled!

Appraisal has Ascended into Appraisal Vision!

Appraisal Vision has leveled up!

Appraisal Vision has leveled up!

The user can now use Appraisal on everything in their field of view at once. It is now possible to inspect specific parts of a broader target and comprehend things normally out of the user’s cognizant grasp.

❮ ◈ ❯

“{Exotic Rarity!?}” Fray exclaimed. “{That was possible?! It wasn’t only for Paths?!}”

Rakna almost wanted to laugh at that. This was great news to him. Not only had Appraisal reached Ascended Stage after being stuck for a while but he was now potentially capable of making exotic materials out of his body; infinitely. It’s a dream-like ability for artisans.

‘I’ll have to try it,’ he thought and stored the blade. He then turned to his newly evolved skill and promptly activated it. If it wasn’t for his augmented brain, the amount of information that flowed into his mind right after would have overwhelmed him. Everything in his view was being analyzed and transferred to him as data.

Even the grass, the flowers, the dirt, the rocks, the leaves… He could even ‘read’ the past of objects and determine that an animal had touched it at said day or hour, and even how it happened.

“No wonder Appraisal is considered a top-tier analysis skill,” Rakna muttered. “What would even happen if I raised it to the Demi-God stage? Or even the Divine? Would I be able to know even the future occurrences of the object?”

“{Perhaps,}” Fray sighed. “{To my knowledge, no one has ever reached that level before. Analysis skills are one of the hardest categories to advance. They are only topped by martial proficiencies that are said to allow mortals to harness magic-like power with mere technique. Some claim that reaching the Divine stage on any combat proficiency alone can turn one into a God.}”

Rakna turned Appraisal off and hummed. “Now that you say it, it’s true that my Weapon Mastery has been stuck at level 9. Even though I don’t focus a lot on it, the rate of improvement is lackluster compared to the rest. What do you say? Do you think it’s a good candidate for Skill Points?”

[I would say it is,] Ceres said. [But I recommend you at least reach Max Level before doing it.]

“Hm, I know. I would like to Excel it preferably but we’ll see,” he mumbled and unfurled his wings as he transformed into his quadrupedal form. He grunted bestially and triggered Artzpul. He had not used it since it broke through level 10 or even since he got his second pair of wings. As such, he was wholly unprepared for what followed.

Every single one of his wings glowed and released a burst of black and silver energy. He almost let out his voice when he was violently propelled into the sky. ‘Holy--!’ He gritted his teeth and focused on recovering his balance. His Eye and instincts worked in tandem and he quickly got the hang of it before using it a second time to fly off to the horizon, stably this time.

‘My normal flying speed has doubled,’ Rakna thought in shock as he heard a sonic boom behind him.

The Eye of Symphony displayed his current speed; he almost felt like he was looking at a car’s HUD. It was currently shifting between 900-1100 meters per second and with a glance, he could see that his wings were releasing light without even him using mana.

He smiled internally. ‘So, this is a Royal Luquila’s power, huh?’ He remarked internally and his eyes flashed. He injected mana into his wings and began to pump 150 MP every minute. Right away, his vision started blurring, and his speed doubled again. He didn’t stop there and started reinforcing himself with star energy.

[Mach 6…] Ceres gasped out in a very human fashion.

“{Good lord, even I have a hard time keeping up,}” Fray croaked out.

Meanwhile, Rakna barrel-wheeled with a carefree smile on his lupine face. He had since long put a small GHB barrier in front of him to redirect the airflow and thanks to his new constitution, he didn’t even need air.

Once he had enough fun, he powered down his reinforcement and returned to a speed of Mach 3 to avoid expending all of his mana. Instead, his eyes became golden. Fabled Sight had become much more powerful after ascending. His kinetic vision, field of view, and far sight were out of this world. Truly, they fitted a Divine Eagle.

‘Not enough,’ Rakna thought and once again activated Appraisal Vision at the new cost of 1 MP every minute. Then, he ordered Eye of Symphony for something his clone discovered. ‘Accelerate time perception by a factor of 2,’ he instructed internally and the world slowed down around him.

Immediately, he could feel the strain on his brain. This feature allowed him to forcefully make his brain perceive the world faster. However, prolonged use tired him out in manners that exceeded his immunities and it had the side-effect of heating his Eye.

By combining Fabled Sight, Appraisal, and Eye of Symphony, Rakna was profoundly scanning his surroundings to the very last detail in a radius of nearly 50 miles due to how unobstructed the landscape was. And he did it repeatedly as he continued to fly forward.

“{You are unbelievable…}” Fray groaned. “{Well, your speed attribute is probably at 180 with your wolf form, so I suppose it is to be expected. Anyway, what are you searching so hard for?}”

‘There’s a reason I came to the 45th Plateau,’ Rakna responded. ‘There’s something I want that only appears in the Plateaus 45 to 49.’

[The Celestial Kindle?] Ceres inquired as she recalled what Old Wang had said. The sentient flame that the dwarf used in his forge came from these Plateaus.

“{Oh? Are you going to build your own forge?}” Fray asked.

‘Yes. But I want to find Celestial Kindles for two reasons. One of them is to help my forging, but that’ll be for later. The second, well, you’ll see,’ the wolf vaguely replied.

“{I see… Why are you not using your compass constellation for that then?}”

‘Because it has a 24-hour cooldown,’ Rakna grumbled. ‘And even if I could use it, it wouldn’t be very useful because the larger the search scope, the less accurate it is. Celestial Kindles are rare. But the good news is that they are usually in groups of 10 to 50 within special areas called ‘Fire Wells’. I’m looking for one right now,’ he explained and Fray fell into an acquiescing silence.

A few moments later, while Rakna was still scouring the 45th Plateau, a system window appeared to his right that unconsciously made him smile.

❮ ◈ ❯

Your Pet, Eion Hydra Fledgling, Pronos, has reached Lv.100!

Your Pet is choosing his evolution path…

Your Mystic Bloodline resonates with the Hydra Bloodline!

Congratulations, your Pet has successfully evolved into the Unique Class Creature; Nine-Headed Eion Hydra!

❮ ◈ ❯