A good night’s sleep was a luxury Kyon couldn’t afford. He yawned tiredly and continued what he had begun. Despite the incident with Anna, he was in a good mood. He had finally mastered the four elements. Now he was a rightful master of pure energy, ether, darkness, and light! Even if they were only of the basic grade... In Rosarrio, they called people like him great geniuses. Now it was no big deal to gain respect in the Stone family. He just had to find out how his elements worked.

His main goal didn’t change. Kyon intended to be officially acknowledged in the Stone family, to get a high rank and power over the rest. And, of course, to gain the trust of important people... The right connections would open any door for him, making it easier to get to the top of the world, which was self-evident for Kyon.

He was going to prove himself to the strongest young Stones during the traditional fights at the party. Unfortunately for him, the other families were going to be present as well. So, he had to get as strong and powerful as could be in next to no time.

It was essential to work on his foundation, i.e., the unique body. In addition to special features, the cultivated body significantly increases the development ceiling. The better the body (“E” “D” “C” “B” “A” “S”), the further and faster you can go developing and enhancing the soul.

It struck Kyon as strange that he hadn’t found any instructions for creating a unique body or medicine for developing it. There were no techniques, secret knowledge, secret family formations, no money or keys... Nothing but objects with formations inside. What a lame treasury!

Kyon took the sound transmitter, but then he changed his mind and decided not to wake Juno, who was peacefully sleeping. He’d better experiment with darkness and light. He hadn’t had the opportunity to use them yet. Would the elements help him get stronger? What were their special features? How does a spatial attribute work? Kyon had learned about it from the books, but it was so tempting to see everything with his own eyes and check how it all worked with his own keys.

Kyon decided to start with the element of darkness. He released it in his hand. Black fog appeared in the center of his palm, spreading gloominess and depression. Kyon felt sullen, everything started irritating him. The element influenced his mind in an unknown way. Kyon supposed that darkness emanated some invisible waves that affected the soul. In its turn, his soul affected his mind and body.

The swirling black fog didn’t harm his skin and flesh. Kyon remembered that any released energy had the same frequency with its owner. It had almost no effect on his body. If you release heat, your insides won’t turn to ashes. If you use darkness, your organs won’t rot. When releasing ether, the electricity flows through the body with no harm to the organism.

Black fog wrapped his hand. He waved it, delivered some blows in front of him. His movements left a beautiful, dangerous dark veil. It beckoned to inhale it and fall asleep forever... And let time gobble up your flesh and take it into oblivion.

{How depressing...} - An evil smile appeared on Kyon's face. If he was experiencing all this, what would it do to his enemies?

He caught an unsuspecting bug crawling up the wall. As the fog touched the insect’s armored body, it trembled. In a flash, the carapace and legs became liquid, fell apart, decomposing at once and turning into homogenous yellowish liquid. Just a fraction of the moment and the bug died a terrible death.

Kyon was delighted. The element of darkness was terrifying! However, he knew pretty well that the result would be different in the case of a powerful, well-developed enemy. With each next stage of development, it’s getting harder and harder to get through. And still...

Kyon dismissed unnecessary thoughts and continued experiments. He infused darkness into a stone and tapped on it. The stone crumbled into crumbs. His knowledge from the books was confirmed: darkness was good against living as well as other physical objects. It reduced their endurance.

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Kyon wondered what would happen if he infused darkness into a weapon? Would it become as fragile?

{No, it won’t ...} - The answer was obvious. Inside the handle of any weapon, there is a formation that automatically tunes the metal to the same frequency as the soul of its bearer. Not a single element can deform or ruin it. The sword is a real part of the body and soul, i.e., it exists in harmony with the energy of its owner.

Kyon grinned and drew a long sword, enchanted for strength. He grabbed the handle... And frowned. - {Oh shit! I completely forgot...}

Unfortunately, the sword, or rather the formation in it, did not accept the new owner. The frequency of the weapon remained neutral, different from Kyon’s. The formation belonged to the Stone family that placed restrictions on the sword. No stranger could use it properly. Only the Stones of 2nd rank and above could own this sword.

An idea flashed across his mind: why not destroy the formation and impose his own. But Kyon ruthlessly rejected it. In this case, the sword would be damaged from the inside and would be useless. The inheritance was protected forever. It made no sense to steal personal weapons without knowing the “code” of the formation.

Kyon groaned in frustration and put the sword back into the ring. This problem had a solution, but he couldn’t deal with it right now.

He went on doing the experiments with the element of darkness. Kyon found out that he couldn’t possibly keep infusing darkness into a sword for a whole minute to make the blow especially powerful and cut or disintegrate a strong enemy (by analogy with pulling a crossbow).

The black fog keeps in the weapon just a bit more than a second. Then it dissipates in the wind and can’t stay inside any longer. However, it would be nice to kill a powerful enemy with one blow even if it took some time to get ready for the attack.

Kyon wondered. {I know two ways to solve this problem partially: either a higher grade of the element or a skillful technique...} - In both cases, the charge of the attack could last longer, respectively, the blow would be much more powerful. There was only one problem: what idiot would ever give him the time to cast a spell?

A few hours had flown by. Kyon was still was doing the experiments. Kyon had found out lots of useful information: flesh rots in contact with darkness; a solid physical object becomes fragile, and the liquid completely loses its properties. Everything useful becomes an ugly, useless mass. For example, tea turns into rat poison, milk turns dark and sour, a cookie crumbles into gray sand fit for nothing and smelling of ammonia.

When he combined darkness with another element, for example, pure energy or ether, nothing special happened, and he didn’t notice any negative effects. However, it didn’t mean anything, as his energy was of the same frequency, therefore, it couldn’t negatively affect him.

Kyon understood perfectly well that darkness could be mixed with his other elements. However, he needed to learn the appropriate techniques, combinations of darkness and energy; darkness and ether; darkness, power and ether... It all came down to using a technique.

According to the books he had read, Kyon knew that darkness absorbed the ether barrier, but he needed a sparring partner to check its efficiency.

He imagined the sweet little angel in agony after tortures by the attribute of darkness.

Kyon concluded that the element of darkness harmed almost everything it came in contact with. Everything but its owner and his energy... It was kind of the element of death, the negative side of life. But if darkness worked even on stones, then everything in this world had life force. Even a zero constant could go into negative… The laws of physics were absolutely illogical here!

Kyon was done with his experiments with darkness. He did not come up with anything special but using the attribute during an attack. All of his grandiose plans to find an infinitely destructive element remained a big challenge. He needed a sparring partner to assess the real power of the attribute.

Next, he had to experiment with the element of light and mix the two elements to create space.

Kyon released the attribute of light in his palm. Fog that appeared on the surface was glowing with soft sunlight, sending waves of peace to his soul. It gave him a feeling that everything was wonderful. Deep inside him rose an unselfish desire to bring kindness, care, and joie de vivre to the world. It was the absolute opposite of darkness.

Kyon noticed a little spider nearby. He “squeezed” a bit web out of it and checked its strength. Then he infused the arachnid with the attribute of light.

The spider was not hurt at all, only... A thin white cobweb shot from its bottom in an indecent stream.