Chapter 1415 (1/2)

Randidly sat cross-legged in the center of his floating island and focused on the Nether Nebula in his chest. Below him Kharon was abuzz with activity as the populations of the Wandering City and the Orchard mixed, but Randidly completely ignored the bustle. His entire focus had narrowed to a point within his chest.

In the days since his fight against Kaan Swacc, the Nether Nebula had slowly been recovering. At this point, the density of Nether had returned to the viscous thickness that had even been able to dampen the image of the Special Investigator, when he hadn’t been suppressing Randidly with that infuriating Skill. It might not be Randidly’s peak, but it was close.

Although in terms of dangerousness, by far the strangest part of the battle against Kaan was that Skill that teleported him to a location without Nether...

Still, Randidly set aside the capabilities of the Xyrt Brigade for now; he needed to focus on his current project. During the climax of that fight, Randidly had briefly conjured a… more concentrated version of Nether in the form of a fragile-seeming grey bubble. It was a Nether equivalent of liquid Aether.

But what fascinated Randidly was that mistakenly summoned bubble had held such immense weight that it had both shattered the suppression Skill and then shattered Kaan’s body in a follow-up attack. Now, Randidly carefully examined his Nether Nebula to review the steps that had brought him to that power. Because the grey bubble was a failed product. Instead of conjuring ‘liquid Nether’ Randidly had meant to construct the equivalent of a Fate: Randidly had been aiming to make what he had named a Penance.

In retrospect, it wasn’t a surprise that he had failed to accomplish that lofty goal. Randidly created no basis for this Penance to be formed in his desperate attempt, as a Class provided for a Fate. He had his Nether Nebula, but that was a more organic mass of Nether currents than any sort of actual planned construction. In fact, it might be better to say that it was a miracle that he had any sort of result at all from the half-baked idea.

Randidly had ground the currents against themselves in the heat of battle, trying to crazily power-up in the moment. This decision had forced the density of his Nether to increase by just enough to generate that grey bubble, but it was very close to simply causing his Nether Nebula to detonate and level his entire Soulspace. The pressure had been immense.

Randidly suspected that he would have been able to survive the damage from a ruptured Nether Nebula, but he wouldn’t have been able to go on to beat Kaan Swacc in that condition. Thinking of how close he had come to losing everything was a splash of cold water on Randidly’s dreams of quickly mastering Nether.

Still, even if he had no functional understanding of Nether, that didn’t mean he didn’t have methods to address that. Randidly’s memories were full of impressions of Nether Gatekeepers, Nether Heralds, Nether Princes, and even a Nether King. Of course, the information he could extract from his memories regarding the Nether control methods utilized by the first Nether King was tempered by the fact that the Nether King had been controlled by Aether forces.

But just recently, he had sensed the powerful Nether of a Nether King during its attack on the Seventh Cohort. That gave him two points of data regarding Nether Kings. With that as a comparison, Randidly was able to discover a few things about the way these Nether beings utilized their energy.

While still sitting on the cool stone ground, Randidly brought both of his hands up and pressed the palms together. Due to the decreasing temperature, his metallic limb was pleasantly chilly to the touch. Randidly still wouldn’t trust his metal arm in a fight, but the damage had been steadily knitted together to the point that he was no longer immobilized the limb to protect it. Besides, it had recently been becoming a serious interference with his training.

Once the connection between his hands was established, Randidly released a breath and then gradually pulled his palms apart to create a small space between his hands. Under Randidly’s careful watch, two flows of Nether energy wound their way down his arms to his palms and began to circle each other.

After careful study of Nether King’s using the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night, Randidly had discovered a few patterns in the way Nether was manipulated. The methods to accomplish it were rather complicated, but the process was simple; Randidly simply had to make his Nether currents flow in both directions at once.

Which wasn’t entirely accurate, because to make the process work involved a lot of mental gymnastics to fold the flows back in on themselves in certain specific ways, but it was at least something to work with. Essentially, an ideal Nether current would have Schroedinger's Flow. It would simultaneously flow both directions and neither.

Randidly’s emerald eyes were locked onto the two thin flows of Nether between his hands as he began to work. The process was awkward at first, but Randidly didn’t mind that. If anything, he was glad there wasn’t an immediate surge in his Nether density; he still wanted to head into the Dungeon soon. He was slightly wary that some strange force was going to strike soon and make his training session unable to occur.

Due to his wandering mind, Randidly felt the flows collapse. Gently chiding himself, Randidly focused and tried it again.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 222!

Time and time again Randidly lost control of the Nether flows and everything to nothing between his palms. But to reach this point, Randidly had gone through tens of thousands of practice hours to hone his Skills. When he failed at this new task, he simply reflected on what went wrong and made another attempt. His Willpower surged forward and began to fold the Nether once more.

His gaze never wavered.

Each time he failed, he proceeded a little further. He was a little bit more adept with the way he could manipulate Nether. Randidly began to twist while folding the flows to avoid direct conflict between the same flow as he wove it together in both directions. When it became apparent that his current method was fundamentally flawed, Randidly just grinned.

Rather than trying to draw up a new method from scratch, Randidly just began to experiment. Since it seemed that his folding strategy wasn’t the right answer, he didn’t become bitter. Instead, he used it as a lesson; learning to utilize an entirely new energy wasn’t easy. So his intense Nether exertions became more of a thought experiment. Framed in a new way, a lot of tension went out of Randidly’s shoulders. With that more relaxed approach, Randidly began to play.

If the Nether flows he wove together were doomed to collapse, perhaps he could create a shifting flow that could only reach the omnidirectional flow for a brief instant before separating? Randidly tried it.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 223!

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 224!

Just as quickly as he had thought of it, Randidly attempted it and then tossed that idea to the side. The implementation of the idea was more difficult than just accomplishing his original goal. So instead, Randidly tried to design a way to gather three woven Nether flows together so that they would collapse inward toward each other. Perhaps they could balance each other out, like his images could against Kaan Swacc.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 225!

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