"I can't cultivate here," Silas mused with a smile after he tried to release his aether.
He had forgotten that everything about him had been reduced to normal on this planet.
'Would I be allowed entrance to the academy?' He wondered, stroking his chin lightly.
After making up his mind, he stood up and stepped out of his room.
Everywhere was silent.
The only other thing in the place were the dim lights lined along the ceiling.
He took calm strides towards the elevator.
Soon, he was at the basement, staring at the portal that led to the academy.
"Rion, can I access the academy's menu at this time?" He asked.
"Yes, it is always available," Rion replied almost instantly.
"And I can use the facilities too, right?" He added.
"Yes, " Rion replied.
Silas nodded calmly.
"Open it."
It did not take long; the menu appeared before him, displaying the same set of information as before.
Silas accessed the facilities tab, and the list of available facilities unfurled before his eyes, alongside their prices and functions.
Silas looked through all of them, then found what he was looking for.
[Facility: Lightning Core Condensation Chamber (Low-grade)]
[Price: 1,000 points per hour]
[Function: Contains a higher concentration of the Lightning element]
Looking at the price, Silas did not know whether to smile or frown.
Ultimately he shook his head.
Although it was very expensive for him at this stage, he needed it.
With a thought, he booked it for the next two hours.
"That should be enough time to grasp the fundamentals," he muttered as he stepped through the portal, eyes closed.
The atmosphere shifted.
Silas felt all his strength rush back to him like a tide.
Then his eyes snapped open. He was back in the Academy's compound.
Everything was the same as before.
The only difference was that there was no one to welcome him this time.
Silas looked around before stepping down from the platform.
"Rion, how do I even find the place I am going to?" He asked, taking slow steps forward.
"There is an administrative office right beside the hall," Rion replied.
"Thanks," Silas replied, walking towards where Rion had directed him.
Soon, he saw the small but elegantly designed white bungalow.
He walked in without pause.
There was only one man there.
"Good day, sir. I made a reservation for a Low-grade Lightning Comprehension Chamber," Silas said directly, not wasting time with greetings.
"Your name?" The man asked.
His eyes were fixed on the monitor in front of him and he did not so much as glance at Silas.
But Silas responded anyway.
"Silas Lancaster."
The man nodded.
"The Low-grade Comprehension Chamber is…"
The man began giving Silas directions.
In no time, Silas had memorized the route.
"Just find a Lightning chamber and insert this into the door."
As he spoke, the man handed Silas a small chip with the depiction of lightning bolts all around its surface.
Silas nodded with a smile before stepping out.
The man looked up from his seat, then at the person who was just entering through the back door.
"Welcome, Master Sebastian. How was your coffee?" He asked, standing up.
Sebastian nodded with a smile.
"You make good coffee. I just wish I could steal you from him," he sighed.
The man smiled as he watched Sebastian leave the office.
"This should be the place," Silas muttered, looking at the hundreds of buildings.
None of them had doors, only labels.
But even without doors, what lay beyond each passage remained hidden behind an invisible force.
Silas quickly found the Lightning Comprehension Chamber and entered.
Inside, there were thousands of doors, lined beside each other.
There was no space between them.
Silas would have commented on how small the space inside was going to be, but he had come to learn one thing — he could not judge a room by its exterior.
Literally everywhere had been expanded with spatial techniques in one way or another.
Looking at the small chip slot attached to the door, Silas brought out his own chip and inserted it.
The door clicked, then swung open on its own, revealing a large space.
At a glance, the place was larger than even Silas's living room.
He shrugged it off as normal, then stepped inside.
The door shut behind him.
Silas looked around the white space.
Blue sparks constantly drifted through the air.
Silas could tell without a doubt that those were Lightning elemental motes.
"So many of them," Silas mused, drawing in a sharp breath.
Those were things that only gathered where the concentration of an element had reached an extraordinarily high level.
And so many were already here.
"I wonder how higher grades would be," Silas could not help but wonder.
Then he snapped back into focus and sat on the floor, legs crossed.
A deep exhale rippled outward from his position, and aether began to roll out of his body, filling the space in a thick, dense, blue haze.
Silas could barely make out anything but the shining blue motes whose light pierced through the haze.
But his mind was not focused on seeing anything.
Following the instructions of his manual, he began to assimilate with the core essence of Lightning in the space.
Close to thirty minutes passed, then Silas exhaled.
"That was easier than I expected," he mused.
The thought only made him appreciate the place more, but he chose to focus.
Beads of sweat dropped from his forehead, but he did not mind.
His aether began to swirl back, everything condensing right before him as sparkling, blue-orange energy.
Most of his aether was lost in the transformation.
By the time he had used all the aether he had poured out, all that remained was a tiny mote of energy, no bigger than the ones already drifting through the air.
Silas did not attempt anything else; he analyzed the energy carefully.
"This is bigger than what most manuals can achieve," he muttered with a frown of dissatisfaction.
"But my manual has a zero-loss guarantee. I am not getting it right, that's just it."
He pulled out a recovery potion from his AI space and downed it.
Before it could fully settle, Silas had already begun expelling the aether it brought with it.
The cycle went on and on.
And with each session, the amount of aether lost reduced.
"At this pace, I should be able to condense a full core within 5 days."
He stopped at those words.
He could not believe it himself.
The fastest recorded time for the condensation of an elemental core was a month, and that could only be achieved by peerless geniuses with the wealth to back their talent.
"Well, since reaching here, I know that is just a fabricated standard, and many people can condense cores much faster," Silas whispered beneath his breath.
"Maybe this skill is finally paying off."
Compared to other skills on his planet which granted direct boosts, Silas's Infinite Library skill only made him better at comprehending things.
Although it had given him a few bonuses when he broke through, Silas still felt he was behind most people.
"Nah, I will reach them and surpass them soon."
With that resolution, he dove back into his aether, pulling everything out.
His aether began to condense again, changing form and color as it converged into one point.
Finally, it was done — a core, the size of an egg.
It was more than ten times bigger than the first one Silas had created.
"This is zero percent loss," Silas muttered, standing up from the floor to inspect the core.
It stood tallest among the countless others.
"Rion, how much time do I have left?" He asked.
"28 minutes," Rion replied immediately.
"I can use that to fuse everything," Silas whispered.
As he spoke, he downed another vial of recovery potion.
With a thought, all the Lightning cores he had created began to move towards the largest one.
Like an endless pit, it absorbed them greedily.
The core began to expand until it was the size of a ball.
"That's all," Silas mused, looking around.
Then, his palm clasped over the orb, pressing hard against it.
Aether flared along his arm, shielding him from the erratic bursts of lightning.
Silas gritted his teeth as he pressed harder.
Boom.
The space shook as the core condensed back down to barely the size of an egg.
"Repeat this ten times, and I have a full core," Silas muttered as he absorbed the egg-sized core into his body.
A tremor swept through him as he felt something change.
"Even the passive effect is already so good. I wonder how much better it will be once I am done."
[Your time here is up. Please exit within 3 minutes or you will be charged an extra 100 points for every minute spent.]
The words appeared across all the walls of the space, bold enough for Silas to read clearly.
Silas nodded as he stood up.
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