Chapter 530 - The Realm Of Kings (1/2)

Leonel's aura was like a raging tiger released from its chains. It commanded absolute respect within its territory.

”Chain Domain.”

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The instant the words left Leonel's lips, the crumbling domain around him suddenly resurrected, coming back in full force. No, to say full force would be to assume that it came back just as strong. But, the reality was very much different.

In the past, the Chains were illusory and their rattling rang hollow. But now, it looked as though real chains had manifested into the air, their bodies exuding a black fog that suffocated their surroundings.

However, just when it felt as though just these changes were shocking enough, the Domain began to change again.

Royal Blue Province was a tropical location that experienced Summer almost all year 'round. It never seemed to get too blistering hot and it never snowed. It could be said that the Spring and Summer should have been the Seasons Leonel was the most familiar with.

Still, even to this point, Leonel had failed to comprehend the Four Seasons Realm on his own. The reason was simple, he found it difficult to wrap his mind around the concept of the Seasons suddenly becoming a battle technique. Even if he knew it was possible, his mind couldn't cross an artificial barrier it put up for itself.

Even after experiencing the same Seasons everyday for all his life, Leonel couldn't cross the final step. How was he supposed to translate such gentle climate into a battle technique? It simply didn't make any sense. For that matter, how could someone with Fire Elemental Force ever hope to grasp the cold of Winter? Or how could someone with Ice Elemental Force ever hope to grasp Summer?

Leonel didn't know how long he would spend stuck at this barrier. However, what he never would have expected was for Lionel to break it for him.

To say that Lionel helped Leonel grasp the Four Seasons Realm was incorrect. Rather, Lionel taught Leonel the way he should look at this world.

Leonel was often bound by logic. He felt that everything should have a natural progression and that the world should have cause and effect. In fact, even now, he still believed this.

Leonel felt that there was no issue with his beliefs. Rather, there was an issue in the method by which he implemented them.

In order to understand cause and effect, one had to first grasp the rules of a system. Trying to understand what was going on in a sports game without first grasping the rules would only leave you lost.

To this point, Leonel was still using the rules of Modern Earth. In that world, such fanciful abilities couldn't be reality, science was the ruler, and something like a fairy tale character coming to life was nothing more than a joke.

These thoughts not only fueled him, but they restrained him, bogging down his mind and limiting his thoughts.

Simply put... it was foolish.  But now, things were different.

Leonel thought that the only Seasons he was familiar with were Spring and Summer. As for Winters and Falls, though he had experienced them when traveling to other Provinces, his understanding of them could be considered to be minimal.

But was that really true? If Leonel was as logical as he claimed to be, he'd realize that Seasons were decided by the tilt of Earth and its location around the sun. A Season wasn't restricted by temperature, it was simply a cycle of time.

Leonel was so bogged down by his own preconceptions that he didn't even manage to remember such a simple concept.

The reality was that Leonel had experienced Winter once a year, every year, for his whole life. Just because it didn't get bone chillingly cold, didn't mean he hadn't.

What did this mean? It meant that the Seasons were about more than just surface level conceptions. Temperature was irrelevant, climate was irrelevant, even the beautiful gradient of colors the Seasons shifted between were irrelevant.

In that case... what were the Seasons?

Everyone experienced them differently. In fact even if one shared the same planet, if you were located in different hemispheres, the cycles wouldn't even be the same.

So what was a Season? What was the Four Seasons Realm....?

Wasn't it just a journey around the Sun?

To the current Leonel, it wasn't even this. To him, the Four Seasons simply represented a cycle, an infinite loop dependent on countless factors. If he tweaked these factors as he pleased... he could make what he wanted out of the Four Seasons Realm.

On a large scale, the cycle encompassed an entire planet, its orbit, its tilt and its people. On a small scale...

All it took was one's own Domain.

The moment Leonel grasped this, his aura completely changed. The amount of Universal Force around him skyrocketed, reaching levels that dwarfed even the Savants.

When Leonel unleashed the shackles on his mind, what he had done wasn't as simple as understanding the Four Seasons Realm for a particular weapon or a particular Force Strengthening Deviation. Rather, he embodied the Four Seasons Realm. Everything within his Domain was under his control.

If Uncle Montez had been here, he would have laughed uproariously. It would have been the kind of laughter that shook the skies and forced the earth to quake.

This was the true Four Seasons Realm. Only by grasping it could Domains display their true strength.