"Not yet. You're not ready for another one. Give it an hour or two."

I drop the red fragment back into my storage and speak back to him while staring at the rock wall in front of me that is no longer made up of millions of violet ethereal strands.

"What was that...? I— I could see it. Everything. I could see everything."

Ember turns toward me with a curious gaze.

"So you could see it? It must be that perception skill of yours, impressive. That saves me from doing a lot of explaining."

Both of us stare up toward the sky for a moment, but after a few seconds, I realize my body is still being torn apart from the inside by the leftover threads of red energy.

It's nowhere near as intense as it was when I first swallowed the gem, but it is still using up a large amount of mana for my self-regeneration skill to heal.

I sense that Ember's body is also going through the same violent breakdown and repair process too.

He's plundering mana from a very large diameter around us in the air, as not much is needed to continue the healing process.

Over the next hour, the red threads within me completely fade away, and Ember explains a few things about the fragments that make far more sense to me now that I've eaten one myself.

The energy that we're absorbing doesn't usually exist in the form it's taking right now. The red gems are a crude manifestation of what pure Divine energy really is. This entire simulated world we stand in is a mere construct for challengers like myself to comprehend the complexity of this unique energy.

The red, orange, and yellow crystals that were shown in that recording before we entered this realm are all fragments of a single stream of energy, divided into visible and malleable parts for those that want to participate in this trial to absorb with more ease than the higher density raw energy itself.

Ember hints that there are more than just these three, but he isn't sure if a physical construct like this one will be able to create them. On top of that, we're both not sure how the monsters that roam this realm have made their way in here, but the more I think about it, the more likely it's all part of the creator's test.

After another hour goes by, the burning completely stops, however it does feel as if I've just had an all-out battle for the last two hours.

While I only consumed tens of thousands of MP to heal myself, it almost feels like I've exhausted hundreds of millions worth of MP in attacks and constant buffs.

"Is it going to be this energy exhausting every time?"

Ember nods and grins.

"Oh, it'll only get worse. However, just like when you began to learn Qi, harnessing a higher level of control with any energy type always increases the effectiveness of the others. I wasn't kidding when I said those two A-class hunters won't even be close to our strength level once we're done here."

He stares up in the air and lets out a sigh.

"That reminds me, I believe I figured out why that Director is so obsessed with healers... It all factors into why he's having the strongest hunters from the 8 great regions farm fragments for him in a rift that can only be entered once per challenger..."

He turns back to me, and gears start shifting in my mind.

I remember back to the time Trax was healed in the tournament area by the healer tank, and they seemingly switched conditions in an instant, bringing him back to as good as new.

Then, I reply.

"He's collecting healers to help him absorb the fragments from this rift..."

Ember shrugs.

"That would make sense. Considering how long this rift has been open, it seems to be working quite well for him... But I don't know for how much longer."

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My head turns toward the cliff as at these words I begin to see my teammates waking up.

However, I still reply with a question.

"Not for long? What do you mean?"

Ember looks up toward the sky again.

"Well, there's always a time limit on these sorts of things..."

He looks over to the cliff where I looked as well, watching the three applicants wake up one by one and continues to respond.

"Let's just say, I have a hunch the Director is sick. He's looking for a cure. From what I can tell, this rift has been forcefully kept open since the great war. There are traces of challengers to this trial that trace back even far before that. If he wasn't desperate, I doubt he'd have allowed us to enter this place at all."

If what Ember is saying here is true, the motives of the Apex Region's Director are beginning to make more sense.

However, there are so many things left out in Ember's explanation that learning these things only make me feel like I know less than when I started.

While the thought of the Director being a wielder of Divine energy may be a concern, there is one bigger than it that I want to ask Ember. The question of who or what is capable of creating a test like this, and if they're here; do we really want to meet them?

A familiar white-haired healer's voice interrupts my thoughts.

"Hey Ray! Emrie! We're ready to continue the climb!" Nat yells in a cheerful tone while Dane rubs his eyes and wakes up on the other side of the cliff.

Marcie grips her spear tight and gives me a nod too while they place all their sleeping gear back into item storage.

With a smile, Ember and I slowly float over to them and I reply.

"Yeah, we're ready too."

Ember shakes his head.

"About 2 minutes, then we'll be ready."

He pulls another red fragment from thin air, then looks at me and nods.

"For optimal absorption, we'll be eating one every 1 to 2 hours, there's no point in hiding it now. It would be a waste to wait any longer."

He throws the gem in his mouth, then everyone on the cliffside flinches when his eyes glow crimson.

I let out a sigh and do the same, letting the world around me turn into purple ethereal strands once again.

My vision turns red too.

This time, I know what to expect going into it and it's a much more enjoyable and controlled experience.

I don't waste the first 30 seconds trying to comprehend that every cell of my body is being burned from the inside out. This time, I immediately activate my all-seeing eye and turn to look at the cliff wall.

The three applicants near the cliff look like very foreign material.

There are thin purple threads that flow through them, but it's in no greater density than the air itself.

I can see through their clothes, skin, muscles, bones, deep into their mana cores, and right through them without even having to try.

All of the layers of reality are shown to me at once, and in this instant, I can process everything I see equally as fast like it is just normal sight.

Their figures are interesting for a moment, but my attention changes to where I left off last time very quickly.

The cliff wall.

Glistening threads of purple light make up its surface, and when I place my hand against the wall, the millions of red shimmering threads that make up my hand begin to vibrate and ring with their own high-pitched frequencies.

Individual tendrils of the energies mix and weave together, while others just drift by each other.

When looked at as a whole however, the two main masses of purple and red energy slightly repel each other more and more the closer the gap between them gets.

It appears as if my palm is pressing against the purple wall, but there is an ever-narrowing gap that I cannot seem to close.

I'm mesmerized by this phenomenon, staring into the void between my hand and the cliff until the ringing bells fade away and reality flashes back to me, robbing my eyes of their true sight.

The flooding feeling of warmth leaving my body, and the yearning to be whole again hits me even harder than last time, but I just ramp up the effects of my self-regeneration skill and bear through it.

I take a few deep breaths, then turn back to my teammates. I see them staring back at me with wide eyes and shocked expressions.

Marcie is the first to speak up.

"You already farmed some of the stones while we slept... It seems they have other uses than just getting points."

Nat is especially shocked, as it looks like she knows a little more about these than the others.

"How- How did you do that? I've only seen the Apex Hunters manage to take one of those without collapsing from exhaustion..."

Then Dane smiles ear to ear.

"What does it do? Can I try...?"

Ember smirks while flying over and shaking his head while pulling out a fragment from thin air.

"If you eat one of these right now, I guarantee you'll be burned to a crisp from the inside out and explode into millions of pieces before you even know what's going on. Even if you decide not to, it's better not to hold onto them with your bare hands for too long."

His eyes widen and his outreached hand quickly retracts.

"R-Really...?"

I roll my eyes and chuckle, then think about the physical toll on my body the fragment takes even with these constant healing skills activated I'm using even now to recover.

"Yeah, probably. But he could have phrased it better."

Then, shake my head and point upward.

"Anyway, come on, let's go. It'll probably take us another day to get up to the altitude where you can farm them yourselves. None of you are strong enough for these stones, don't even think about eating one. Even once we make it up there, these are points for the exam stage, don't try to absorb them."

I start to float upward, speeding up my ascent to set a pace.

Ember follows and shrugs, putting the fragment back into his invisible storage.

"Yeah... right, that's basically what I said too."