MMORPG: Rise of the Primordial Godsmith
chapter-827

"Hmm…"

Rubbing her chin with her hand, Sellifer watched as Valyr used a great portion of the skills in his arsenal that were related to the matter at hand.

Keeping her judgment of Valyr's control over the skills more or less within the perspective of achieving the first stage of Azure Energy in mind, a number of thoughts had already popped up in her mind.

For one, she was quite surprised at the amount of control the young man showed whenever he unleashed his skills.

Recalling how he had mentioned to her earlier that he had no support from the Zeihardt clan whatsoever in his journey to power, Sellifer was surprised to see that the young man showed a level of expertise and prowess that could put him amongst the top of the elite.

Then again, with how Valyr had poor mana and Shadow Energy quality, the young man could not show all of that prowess through his skills, which Sellifer found quite a shame.

'Well, it's been a long time since the notion of purifying one's energy for greater power died down,' thought the woman to herself, reminiscing over a long-forgotten past.

With the amount of information she knew on what was happening in Veldanyr as of late, only mages and magic-related classes would bother attempting to purify their energy for greater power.

And that was only after they had done everything to elevate their power.

Returning her attention to the actual skills Valyr was showing, Sellifer noticed that although the skills the young man unleashed were using both Shadow Energy and mana at the same time, its approach was vastly different to the one she used.

'Before I discovered the Azure Trace, I was braiding my Shadow Energy and mana together to achieve greater power,' muttered Sellifer to herself inwardly.

'On the other hand, Valyr's utilizing both energies as if they were pieces to a jigsaw puzzle.'

From her point of view, whenever Valyr unleashed a skill that used both, he would summon the two energies together like she would do so in the past.

However, by the time he released the skill, it was as if the mana and Shadow Energy he summoned had already separated themselves into their respective areas, reminding her of a well-managed business.

Going through all of the skills Valyr had shown thus far, Sellifer felt that the delineation between both energies was fully shown when he threw out what he called an [Arcane Shadow Bolt].

'Shadow Energy to form the main body of the bolt, bringing forth the property of destruction,' thought Sellifer to herself. 'Then, mana to act as a propellant, while at the same time protecting the Shadow Energy from external interference.'

If Sellifer were still in her phase of trying to grasp Azure Energy, she would have thought that this method of using both energies was groundbreaking.

However, with her having more than mastered the concept of Azure Energy at this point, another thought filled her mind instead.

'What a waste.'

Rather than make use of the properties of Shadow Energy and mana to its fullest, Valyr instead focused on their properties separately in a way.

In her eyes, it was as if the young man was approaching a peak that would only lead to a dead end.

But that did not mean that she ignored the accomplishments the young man had achieved thus far.

Pondering over the ingenious bolt of Shadow Energy and mana had thrown sometime ago, Sellifer already knew how she would modify it to make it use a braiding of both energies.

But before doing so, there was one thing she'd have to get Valyr to fix first.

"Alright." Feeling like she had gathered more than enough information through the skills Valyr showed her, Sellifer asked the former to stop.

In response, the young man nodded back, storing his spear on his back as he let out a faint exhale.

Then, after catching his breath for a bit, he looked at Sellifer, wondering what she was going to say.

"First and foremost, your skills tell me that you have great control over Shadow Energy and mana," said the woman, causing a hint of delight to appear on the young man's face.

"With how much control you've shown me, there's no doubt that you'll take less time to achieve a basic level of success in this endeavor."

Though, that all changed with the woman's next few words.

"However, that only applies when you're using the energies separately."

"I've seen no sign of you making use of the energies together at all."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Valyr in response with a slight frown. "Haven't I just shown you all of the skills I have that use both energies at the same time?"

"You have." Sellifer nodded in agreement. "However, if you call that using both energies at the same time, then you're still quite a ways off."

After saying those words, the woman told Valyr the things she noticed while using his skill.

Hearing that his skills actually put clear boundaries on which energy among the two went were, the young man went silent for a bit, surprised that he did not take notice of something like that.

All this time, he was led to believe that the skills he used were actually quite similar to Sellifer's skills before she came across the Azure Trace.

Only to then find out that that was actually not the case.

From how he interpreted Sellifer's words, it was as if his skills worked like a hybrid car while the two energies acted like the two types of fuel powering the car.

While driving a hybrid car, it could be powered by using one of the two types of fuel, keeping the other one as a backup.

With that, the other type would be left mostly unused, only being used in certain situations such as when the car needed more power to go up an incline

With this in mind, Valyr felt that the analogy fit nicely.

According to Sellifer, his skills had some areas where it was powered by only mana, as well as areas that were powered by only Shadow Energy.

However, if one were to use the hybrid car analogy to describe Valyr's situation once more, then his skills still lacked a feature that could be said to be a staple of hybrid cars.

Making use of both types of fuel in the same place at once.

In other words, Valyr had to incorporate Shadow Energy in areas that were only powered by mana while doing the same thing in the other direction for areas only powered by Shadow Energy.

Once Sellifer had brought him to this realization, Valyr could not help but scratch the back of his head, realizing that there was still a long road ahead of him before he could achieve even the most basic level of Azure Trace.

In response, Sellifer assured him that it would take far less time for him to achieve the same things she did, considering that there were many things he was better at compared to her at the time.

"Plus, you're way younger than me. You have a lot of time ahead of you to work this out," said Sellifer, reminding Valyr of the two that were still asleep.

Opening up a rift back to the inheritance proper out of nowhere, a wave of relief washed over the young man's body as he saw the moon still near the peak of its trajectory.

Though, at the same time, it made him curious as to how much time had passed since he touched the Azure Serpent Staff.

"There's not much point thinking about the ratio of time dilation in this place," said Sellifer, getting an idea of what was going on in the young man's mind.

"We'll definitely be here for a considerably long time, but it'll only feel like we've disappeared for a day or two from the others at most."

Recalling how he'd promised himself that he would only traverse the Gates of Awakening while the two were asleep, Valyr bitterly smiled as he thought about how he would make the two worry over his disappearance for the next few days.

'Then again, in front of an opportunity to gain more power…'

With that in mind, the young man took in a deep breath before focusing his attention once more on Sellifer.

Asking her what he needed to improve upon after that, the woman faintly smiled in satisfaction as she began to speak. "Obviously, the end goal for now is to have you make full use of both Shadow Energy and mana in your skills."

"And when I mean make full use of both energies, I mean incorporating even the small interactions between Shadow Energy and mana in your skills."

"But before we get to that, there's one thing we need to fix first."

"As long as we don't fix that, you'll end up wasting far more energy than needed whenever you activate your skills."

"What do I need to fix first?" asked Valyr in response, feeling a bit uneasy from how Sellifer worded her statement.

Though, after hearing her reply to his question, all of that unease quickly subsided.

"Of course, it's none other than the quality of your mana. Can't have your mana and Shadow Energy in different levels of purity, lest you want to create a new type of energy altogether."

"With that being said... let's get the two energies balanced, shall we?