In the ancestral grounds of the Black Raven Kingdom, Daneel was standing at the spot where the black-robed man had placed his Natural Energized Training Chamber before.
He had definitely been a man who knew a thing or two about energy concentration, as according to the system, this was the place where energy was at its highest.
He had come here to find out the core of the formation so that he could see what he would find inside, but to his puzzlement, the core was already open.
It was just lying there-in the form of a s.h.i.+ny, l.u.s.trous feather that was constantly glowing.
Daneel hadn"t seen this on his trip before, as it had been hidden underground.
Now, he had dug it up on the system"s directions, even though it had told him that there was no benefit in finding the core and taking control of it.
He had just wanted to see it for himself.
Standing beside him, Faxul shook his head and said, "I just asked him. There"s nothing inside. The Protector Raven tells me that the core was never unmastered. It"s always under his control, and he"s sure that his ancestor said nothing about objects being hidden away."
Right! The Raven!
The Black Raven Kingdom was unique in the fact that it"s core formation was controlled by a sentient, living being instead of some inanimate formation which needed mastering.
Clearly, the parameters here were different.
However, Daneel couldn"t help but feel disappointed.
3 forces, 3 inheritances.
He had hoped that he was on a roll, but that was obviously not the case.
Even now, he could wrest control from the Protector Raven, but he saw no point in it as just like it had said, there was nothing hidden anyway.
Something felt wrong. As if he was missing a piece of a puzzle.
This feeling infuriated him, but Daneel had already promised himself that he would move on if he didn"t find anything, as time was short.
So, bidding goodbye to Faxul and deciding that he would get back to this matter as soon as his other pressing engagements were handled, Daneel headed to the Kingdom of the Elves.
Same as in the Black Raven Kingdom, there was practically no formation that could stop him.
By now, one thing had become clear: with the system at the Champion level complexity, he could go anywhere he wished in the Central Continent.
After all, the highest level of formation that was present here was at the Exalted Champion Level, meaning that the system could a.n.a.lyze and deconstruct it to find its weaknesses.
So, evading any and all manners of detected, Daneel made his way directly to the core of the formation in their palace.
Faxul was a friend, so he had given him the courtesy of calling on him when he had gone to his Kingdom.
Eldra had no such relation with him. In fact, he knew that she had even entered that oath with reluctance, meaning that if she had a chance to circ.u.mvent it, she would take it in a heartbeat.
It was unavoidable. The oath was the only way he could use to ensure loyalty, but he didn"t like it at all.
So, now that he was here and because he had the capability to do so, Daneel decided to place a countermeasure, just he had done in the Black Raven Kingdom before handing it over to Faxul.
But first, he needed to check out the core.
Alas, it seemed that he was destined to be disappointed again.
So far, the cores of all the major formations he had seen so far had been in the body parts of mythical creatures.
In the Kingdom of the Elves, it was different.
The core was a fascinating cube which emanated golden light. As he heard the system"s a.n.a.lysis of it, he grew shocked.
[A highly sophisticated trinket that was built to mimic the role of a mythical beast"s body part as the core of a formation. Although the effect is not as good as the former, it comes close. With the enchantment capabilities of the current age, it is impossible to create such a trinket.]
This made him get a clue regarding what was going on.
Where the other Kingdoms must have obtained body parts of mythical beasts, the elves of the olden times must have pooled together their knowledge in order to build something to mimic those cores.
It sounded like something an elf would so, so Daneel felt that he was right.
Although he was very interested, again, Daneel left more speculation for another day. He needed to focus on getting stronger now, and that meant not going on tangents whenever he found an interesting mystery.
The disappointment was due to the fact that the system had just told him that there were no objects inside.
Another dead end.
It seemed that his luck had completely run dry, but Daneel really couldn"t complain.
He had already found three inheritances that anyone would kill to have, and he had also had an ultra-high grade energy source which allowed the Natural Energized Training Chamber to chug out Ker Gems.
With all of his stops done, Daneel headed back to Lanthanor, which would be his training site.
After making sure that no one knew he was here, Daneel secluded himself in the underground room where he had found the core of the formation and the mysterious items.
Back in that spot in the ground where the Ker Gem mine had been found, the rate of production had been 1 Ker Gem every 50 days, which had already seemed like quite a good number.
After all, Ker Gems were just too valuable. He had the unlimited supply of blood of mosquitoes, so he had h.o.a.rded the gems for occasions when he couldn"t use the blood.
The problem with the blood was that it was slightly slower than training with Ker Gems. He could afford for this slight loss usually, but now, he was in no mood to give anything up.
Besides, he was excited to see just what the rate of production of Ker Gems would be at this new location.
With high expectations, Daneel opened the door of the Chamber, and gawked in surprise.
It had only been 2 days since he had left.
2 days!
But already, there was a Ker gem forming on the ground.
He had observed one in this stage before when he had gone to pick up the gems from the chamber when it had been in its previous location, so he could estimate that the Ker Gem would finish forming soon.
Wait, he had the system to do these estimations, and to give him the answer he needed.
[Ker Gem production rate: 1 Ker Gem every 20 days.]
Almost a 3-time increase in speed!
It seemed that the tag "ultra" wasn"t there just for show, after all.
Seeing that he finally wasn"t disappointed about something, Daneel asked, "What is my burn rate of Ker Gems? How long would I take to consume one if both me and the clone trained together?"
He knew that training along with the clone meant that he would burn resources at a much faster rate, but it seemed that he had underestimated just how much of an Energy-guzzler it was.
[1 Ker Gem every 10 days.]
Daneel had known that the rate of resource consumption would increase with his level, but he could never have expected that it would be this much of a rise.
Of course, there was also the consideration that it was said that Ker Gems were wasted on Humans, as they would only increase the training speed. Warriors were the ones who could use the gems fully.
Still, he couldn"t believe that he now needed to absorb the equivalent of 10,000 Ether blocks every 10 days.
He could still remember a time when just a single Ether block could last him for hours.
Right now, he couldn"t decide whether to feel happy that he had come this far, or scared just how much this rate of consumption would multiply into the more he grew in power.
Regardless, it was useless to think about it now.
As his rate of consumption of Ker Gems exceeded the rate at which they were being produced, Daneel had no option but to rely on both blood and the gems to carry out his training.
Sitting down in the center of the training chamber, Daneel asked, "System, show me my status."
It was about time he found out exactly what kind of timeline he was looking at.
[Host status updating. Please standby.
Host status:
Host Fighter Level: Human-8(54%)
Host Mage Level: Human-8(92%)
Host Body Potential: A+
Host Comprehension Level: ????
Host Condition: Nominal]
Before, the two levels of Fighter and Mage had been equal, as his techniques trained both aspects of his body equally, and he had had equal levels of talent in them both.
However, after that incident with the remnant spirit when he had broken through to some unknown level of comprehension, his mage level had started to exceed his level of a Fighter.
He had regularly been training every night, and this was the result.
Daneel was almost at the peak of the Exalted Human realm.
All he had to do now was sit down and train continuously, day and night.
No matter how monotonous or bored he felt, he had to just let the Energy flow through him, again and again, until his body couldn"t take any more.
It was going to be tough. Very, very tough.
However, when had anything been achieved without going through difficulties?