Once they were done with the food, Alnea, and Cecilia went back to the cave to continue their training, while Yuri continued with her guard duties. That was their normal routine. The only reason they had deviated from it was because of how hungry all of them were. And since that was taken care of, it was only natural that they would go back to their normal routine.
Wandering the Origin, practising his Martial Styles, and Forging his Spirit, before venturing into the darkness of the canyon to explore its depths, and fighting Oren Beasts, preferably those in the initial phase of their Adolescent Stage. Though the latter was probably going to change after their recent gains, and the fight they had against the Dark Wind Wolf.
Of course, they still tried to keep their Wanderings limited to once a day. Becoming a Wanderer was not about just solitary Wanderings after all. And Wandering the Origin was dangerous. Doing it beyond a limit could result in overconfidence, dulling of senses, and even degradation of the state of Heart, all of which had extremely dire consequences.
It had already been around a day or so since he had gone to the Origin Sea though. So, after informing both Cecilia, and Yuri, Alnea closed his eyes, and reached out to his Roots, travelling through them to his Domain, the dark and empty world, with only a small dark blue cloud of Oren as an exception. And of course, the giant golden disc, the door to the Origin Sea, which he pulled from the depths of his Domain to materialise in front of him.
Drifting in front of the golden disc, he pushed against it slightly, and as usual, the disc collapsed in on itself, leaving a giant gaping hole in his Domain, leading the way to the wild reaches of the Origin Sea, which flooded his senses with an endless barrage of attacks the moment he stepped into its depths. Even the reaction of the Aspects was the same, rushing to surround him, playing all sorts of games.
Unlike with his meditation though, Alnea was not bored of either the Aspects, or the Origin Sea. No matter how many times he came to the Origin Sea, he was always left in awe at its vibrancy, and might. The omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient origin of all, containing all the things that existed, and the things that could exist, even the things that could never possibly exist.
And the most impactful of all the sights were the Aspects, and their endless variations in all colours, shapes, sizes, brightness, and even their movement patterns, the last of which came about more as a result of the inherent nature of the Aspects themselves. Though, on second thought, all variations of the Aspects had something to do with their inherent nature.
The Aspects related to lineages of Day, and Justice mostly had a white, or golden hue, while the Aspects related to the lineage of Night, depending on what part of the lineage they were related to, kept glowing in black, dark blue, or a silvery blue hue. As for the Aspects related to the lineage of Trickery, their colours all depended on their abilities, but mostly, those Aspects had a tendency of often shifting their colours, and even shapes, and sizes, so it was hard to tell.
Similarly, the variations of other Aspects also had something to do with the lineage they were related to. However, Aspects were just a part of the Origin Sea. There were also the endless layers of Oren, with the layers existing in the deeper parts of the Origin Sea having a greater density than the preceding layers. Yet, instead of the varying density of the layers of Oren, it was the ability of Oren to manifest the Mysteries that caught his attention.
Alnea had always thought that it was manifestation of the Mysteries which caused the Oren to behave strangely. But what if it was the strange behaviours of the Oren which caused the Mystery to appear in the first place? After all, whether it was when he was casting an Arcana, or when he was trying to create one, both required him manipulate Oren in a certain way to call upon the Mysteries hidden in the Origin Sea.
Unfortunately, he had no evidence to back his theory. Rather, all the evidence that he had claimed that it was the manifestation of Mysteries which caused Oren to behave in a set pattern. Evidence like the fact that the Mysteries summoned from manipulation of Oren could never be comprehended. Only the Mysteries which had manifested naturally allowed Wanderers to glean their meanings.
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His master had said that Mysteries were like the rules of the Origin Sea, while what Wanderers comprehended was how those rules behaved with them. In a way, the results of a Wanderer’s manipulation of Oren were their interpretation of Mysteries, rather than the Mysteries themselves. Was this why comprehending Mysteries was also often termed as gleaning Mysteries?
Alnea suppressed his stray thoughts into the Serenity of his Heart, and concentrated back on his Wandering. After all, letting his thoughts wander off, while he was Wandering the Origin Sea was not a wise choice. Thankfully, the Good Fortune he had received had not just increased his Spirit Power, but had also tempered his Heart, allowing him to easily suppress his errant thoughts. Much more easily than before.
Maybe, his greatest gain from the fortune had not been in his Spirit Power, but in the state of his Heart. At the very least, his Serenity should be nearing the level of an Advanced Stage False Wanderer. That gave him one less thing to worry about. Of course, the deepening of his Serenity came from the Fortune Spring, so he probably had to meditate for a while to truly make it his own, but that was much better than spending months to slowly temper his Heart. Especially since there were so many things he had to train, that he had to cut down on the time of his meditations.
In any case, he did not have anything to worry about. And even if he did have anything to worry about, the Origin Sea was not the right place to do it. So, letting his Serenity take over, Alnea laughed along with the Aspects, and swam about the Origin Sea, chasing after his naughty little friends.
Since he had just had an increase in his Spirit Power, he reckoned he could spend a little more time playing with them. And of course, go to a greater depth of the Origin Sea as well, both to explore the Origin Sea, and to make friends with new Aspects. Yet, the Origin Sea once again proved why it was always so unpredictable, and dangerous.
When he Wandered only for a short while, expending barely a hundred units of his Spirit Power, the layers of Oren around him, which usually liked to stay silent, began rippling, pushing all the Aspects away from him, and even forcing the Origin Sea to halt its attacks. However, it was not just the Origin Sea that was changing. Even his Roots had begun pulsating in a golden light, resonating with the strange forces around him. The same forces that were assaulting his Spirit, trying to crush it under its pressure.
Fortunately, his Spirit was much stronger than the last time he had encountered the Mystery. As such, the waves, that felt like mountains, were not able to supress him. They did manage to shift all his attention to themselves though. The circular waves, that just stood standing in one place, rotating about their own axes, with a taste of eternity, and time to them. A taste of—
As usual, right before Alnea could observe anything meaningful about the Mystery, the circular waves started shaking, before breaking off, and turning into countless smaller thread like waves, which then gathered together to form an even bigger circle than before. A circle that existed in not just one plane, but in all planes of existence. Even in the plane of thoughts, and imagination. The origin of all that was circular. The origin of pressure. The—
Once again, right before Alnea could truly understand what the wave represented, the circle collapsed in all planes of existence, except for the physical plane, existing as a sphere, rather than a circle. It did not exist for long though, and soon exploded into countless smaller spherical waves, moving around in a chaotic swarm, with a hint of order within that chaos. An order that came about from his observation, rather than from its inherent nature, but an order, nonetheless.
Taking the point where the giant spherical wave had exploded, the smaller circular waves started going around it in circular paths. And as if they remembered how he had interacted with them before, those circular paths slowly reduced in radius, causing the spherical waves to lose their speed, and collapse towards the centre, creating an explosion that collapsed everything in his senses. Except for a bright golden light that had imprinted itself into his Spirit, everything else had blacked out.
However, Alnea did not panic. He had already experienced the Mystery once, so he knew how things were going to play out. And as he had expected, gradually, the golden light faded away, as his senses returned to normal, allowing him to perceive the intense fluctuations from the epicentre of the explosion, causing the entire layers of Oren to move as waves. Since they were more like an aftereffect to the Mysteries though, those fluctuations too soon faded away, leaving just the strange circular waves, rotating about their own axes.
The Mystery had completed its demonstration. Yet once again, Alnea was left completely clueless as to what the Mystery actually was. He was not disheartened though. He still had around seven hundred units of Spirit Power left. And though he had no clues as to what the Mystery was, he had some clues as to how to go about comprehending it. This time, he was definitely going to comprehend the Mystery.