He kept drawing out the array, and watched as it started to suck the mana from the air. Evidently satisfied, the guards clamored to be the first, but in the end, Edgar went before them.

Jonathan quickly etched the sigil into the man’s flesh with his gauntlet, eliciting a hiss of pain. He did not have to worry about anything like infection, given the other man’s high stats. A moment later, Edgar took a deep breath, and smiled, evidently feeling the power return to him.

A few minutes later, everyone else was done as well, and they seemed pleased with the results of the array. The guards vanished over the next few moments, leaving Jonathan standing with Eva and Edgar.

“You were quite generous to share such a gift with my men,” Eva said, giving Jonathan a look of gratitude. “Few wizards would have done such a thing.”

“Wizards?” Jonathan asked. He knew what the word meant, but was not sure how it applied to him.

“Ah, do you not call your path that?” Eva asked. “In my community, those who could manipulate the glyphs were called wizards. Perhaps you know it by a different name.”

“Wizard works well enough,” Jonathan said, grinning slightly.

At one point in a person’s life, at least on Earth, they had dreamed of harnessing the power of magic. This was no different. He took in his handiwork on the bodies of his allies, watching as mana was drawn into the arrays, and cycled into their bodies. Jonathan knew that what he had achieved was nothing more than simply using runes that somebody else, namely the System, had already created, but perhaps he would eventually be able to make his own runes. That would be a far off day indeed.

Throughout the Ash Heaps

The tread of thousands of steel clad feet echoed through the empty ash, heralding something that had not been known to this realm in eons. War. For the first time in thousands of years, Granath was worried about the strength of another being enough to send his forces after them. Not only that, but in massive numbers. Garrisons had been emptied, old favors called up, and powerhouse fighters dispatched to lead the army. With over five hundred Tier 2 leaders, and innumerable Tier 1s, multiple strands of regiments and detachments marched across the endless ash. Of course, this was but a small fraction of the totality of Granath’s armies, but it was a sizable force for its target.

They had been marching for the last few weeks, at a pace that all of the soldiers could keep up. If the Tier 2s had raced ahead, they could have made it to Jonathan’s base through other means, whether through flight of simply overwhelming speed, but they had waited. Granath wanted to make an example of the rebel against his name that was Jonathan.

As the army had passed through the realm, they had left a burning pyre of rumors to spread, ushering out an old era, and bringing in a new. For the first time in a while, people had a spark of hope in the darkness, the belief that perhaps something might change. Of course, none dared to voice this, but people mysteriously vanished in the night, leaving only a message that alluded to them leaving for a better land. These departures were always small compared to the number of people living under Granath’s thumb, but they were still noticeable.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

A coalition of powerful fighters led the army, some of the greatest figures from across the Ash Heaps. Some of the upper echelon of the Crimson Sect traveled in style on vast floating barges of blood, while the generals of the army strode below, their auras billowing across the land. It was nothing compared to the armies massed in the later realms, where the stock of fodder was easier to draw on, but it was imposing for the Ash Heaps. Jonathan did not know what was coming for him.

In Jonathan’s city

Jonathan knew that his city was in jeopardy. The forces of Granath were no doubt swooping towards it, and there were only so many things that he could do to increase his power. None of his Pathway skills were anywhere near ranking up, and he could sense that none of his normal skills were near a breakthrough either. All that was left were his levels, and his elemental mastery.

Edgar had hinted at a transformation coming at 10 percent mastery, which had spurred Jonathan on to train continuously for the few days after allocating the arrays to the strongest fighters of his city. Cultivating his elemental energy was difficult, but not impossible, and he had seen minor improvements in that time.

It was more of a matter of filling himself with the concept of his element, rather than fully understanding it, at least at this point. Perhaps he would eventually have to comprehend what the Void truly was, but for now, all he needed to do was to increase his connection.

He sat in silence, meditating on the vast ball of purple energy that rotated in some conceptual plane, deep beneath his consciousness. It was in a place without a place, a time without a time, somewhere where the primal forces of the universe could be observed by a mere mortal. If not for his True Affinity, Jonathan knew that there was no way that he would have ever mastered the Void. Even using it would have torn him apart before doing anything to his foes. However, he was immune to its effect, likely because it saw him as a part of it, which meant that he could channel its power. He could sense that this was part of what he needed to break past ten percent, but he needed to codify it into an insight that would allow him to pass that mark.

The Void was an element that represented utter destruction. The complete erasure of everything, without boundaries. For a mortal to channel that meant that a piece of the Void was inside of them. But how did that work?

“I need to approach this in a different way,” Jonathan thought. “What is the Void, conceptually speaking? Why does it not simply eradicate the universe? It does not have any elemental partner, like the other ones.”

Then, after days of meditation, it suddenly hit him. The Void did have an elemental counterbalance. It was of all the other elements. If the twelve elements made up Creation, then the Void was Destruction itself. With a sudden surge of power, he felt his mastery creep up to ten percent.

You have reached the 10% percent mastery milestone of your element!

You are eligible to direct your mastery towards a new skill, from one of the following categories.

Physical mastery

Y/N

Magical Mastery

Y/N