Extra's Path To Demon King

The fervor and the competition had died down somewhat after a month, but the gossip and myths about the one named Ashborn did not die down; it only increased to a frightening degree in the outside world. But with that increased fame, so did Axel’s paranoia.

Things have been going quite well for him recently, but that was the point, the problem that things were going too well. Maybe something bad would happen soon enough. So, he created a bunch of top-notch safety artifacts for his little brother and made sure that the librarian would always keep an eye on him if he was not able to. The librarian agreed with some hesitation.

So, Akon was basically armed with an almost insane amount of safety defense artifacts, which even the boy himself did not know about, apparently. Axel, in the meantime, prioritized studying the supreme meditation technique and the ’Domination Sword Art’ given by the berserker sect’s vice leader from time to time.

The supreme meditation technique was truly a wonderful thing that added a totally new perspective to his viewpoint and his polygon circle in how things could be based and all the possibilities, in fact, he had a sneaking suspicion this thing could only be deciphered by someone who had the runic eyes. It would also explain why no one else had ever received it.

Or has any attempt been made to research it? Technically speaking, Runecasters did not really need Meditation techniques like the usual mages. But this one seems to be something exclusively for the Runic magic.

But even with his Runic eyes, he could barely decipher some of the things, The technique seems to give the ability to better harmonize different runes together with a greater efficiency and no apparent drawback.

In a greater depth, it seems to suggest creating a second layer of connections between his red sun, the soul space, and the 2nd and 3rd polygon circles. Instead of the indirect connection through the 1st polygon. He was quite surprised, how come he never thought of that idea? But the idea seemed feasible in theory, but wasn’t actually so feasible in being able to do so.

Unrelenting, he continued researching month after month, on how to do it properly, without too much risk. Practicing the sword from time to time, but his progress on that was quite slow as well, as for creating the 10,626 four-rune artifacts. He had put it on a backlog for now. Once he created the 2nd and 3rd layer of direct connections, with the 2nd and 3rd polygon circles.

His progress should increase incomparably, not to mention being able to do that would actually allow him to be able to succeed in one of his other research projects. Creating a new ’crystal subphase’. That’s right, the so-called peak state is basically the liquid mana filling the entire core, not exactly a qualitative change.

6 whole months after the competition had finished, and he had finally succeeded. The moment he succeeded. He instinctively felt his connections with the runes deepen even further. The complex concepts that seemed hard for him to grasp despite having mastered them now seemed ’near’ in a strange way.

With increased excitement, he started working on his 4-rune artifacts. Again, time started to flow like a river, days, months, and even a whole year and a half passed. Marking it 2 years after the competition, Axel had finally reached the cusp of the third circle.

His mana core was filled with the liquid mana, surprising? Yes. If it were at the previous pace, even if he had double the time, he wouldn’t be confident in being able to do so.

But here he was successfully mastering engraving 10,625 of the 4-rune combinations. Only one left.

Yes, he had also found a way to attempt the mana crystallization of his core. Which he was going to do now. With a sigh, he looked around the ground to see if everything was set up correctly.

24 of the swords engraved with the 24 basic runes placed circularly.

276 of the swords engraved with the 276 twin-rune basic runes placed circularly.

2,024 of the swords engraved with the 2,024 tri-rune basic runes placed circularly.

Axel controlled his mana carefully and charged the first circle of swords with it, then started rotating the circle faster and faster and faster. He was basically imitating the process of his breakthroughs but artificially. As it kept spinning faster, the swords turned into lines of energy with only the 24 runes glowing, it turned smaller and smaller.

But instead of entering his soul space upon touching him, Axel wrapped the artificially made first polygon circle into the shell of his mana core. An oppressive force pressed onto his core, which felt utterly revolting to him; the world itself was telling him that he was meddling with something that he should not.

The process repeated with the second circle of swords he placed all around, but it became much harder and harder. Since his mana almost seems to be going haywire. When the second ring formed around his mana core, the revolting sensation increased tenfold. Everything seemed wrong to him.

A part of him wanted to back out, he was scared, unsure. Many other negative emotions swept through him. But he held on and repeated the process for the third time, controlling all the 2024 tri rune swords. Blood was coming out of his mouth, his eyes. Even his skin seemed like it would wither. But instincts forced him to continue, so he did.

Placing the ring perfectly on his mana core on top of the previous two rings of energy. As if a connection that was set wrong from the start had been corrected. His mana went back to normal for a moment and started to compact. A crushing force invaded his entire being.

The three rings placed on his mana core had judged that the liquid mana wasn’t good enough, there needed to be more, a greater transformation for it to be worthy. Mana kept compressing on its self, and extremely small pieces of tiny crystal fragments of mana kept being generated in his core, mana in the surrounding churned towards him like a tornado, his entire body kept devouring all the mana possible.

The process was painful, disgustingly painful than the usual breakthrough and creation of a new circle. But without a fuss, he endured, and it was done; he gasped for breath. He was physically injured and gulped down a bunch of potions. After calming down a bit and checking himself, the effects were wonderful.

It was done, the power of his energy in the crystal state was massive, his mana actually reached the power it would have after the 4th circle breakthrough. Axel smiled excitedly, he couldn’t imagine how much power his mana would hold after the actual 4th circle breakthrough.

And he was simply 1 rune away from that very breakthrough. Thankfully, he had set up many barriers around his entire engraving space. He didn’t want his master to peer at him from higher floors whenever the old man wanted. He was kind of grumpy with his master because of the one thing he did at the end of the competition.

Which was adding the name ’Apollyon’ as his first name out of nowhere. His master didn’t even ask for his permission, though he didn’t care too much, and the name did sound cool enough. But shouldn’t the old man at least ask him about it once, before announcing it to the entire world?

Axel shook his head and brought out a small, normal-looking letter that was sent to him. The letter was actually from the detective, it had been here for a few months rotting away. After what happened a few years back, he never thought about the guy anymore. But he was still sour about what happened back then. With a sigh, he opened it and started reading the plain letter.

After reading it fully, he was a bit surprised. The beginning of the letter started with the obvious apology of the detective, which he apparently did not give two hoots about, but the latter parts of it explained his reason for sending it. It seems a wandering Berserker had stumbled upon Rugen, yes, the little boy detective Malric took in, for some unknown reason.

The Berserker had told the detective that little Rugen had a very strong and unique physique, he could become a very talented and powerful berserker with such a rare physique. But the detective was unsure about it, so the guy asked him for advice, essentially.

For a moment, he thought if this was a ploy by the Berserker sect’s Vice leader, if he somehow found out the connection between him and Rugen. But Rugen has cancer and when Malric had revealed that fact to the Berserker, the wandering warrior inspected Rugen more carefully, then he revealed that they have a special training that might be able to help him suppress the cancer even more, not only that, if the boy can cross a certain threshold of power and keeps improving.

The body itself will be strong enough to filter out the cancer or disease in general. Even if he was not cured, the boy would be able to live much, much longer. The berserker had promised.

First of all, he completely dismissed the notion that Rugen would be cured automatically as he grows stronger out of the window. He had extensive discussions about this topic with his master. More often than not, it would initially stop the cancer for a while, but then it would kill the host midway.

He also dismissed the notion of the Berserker sect’s vice leader going in such a roundabout way to recruit the boy just to threaten him, he did like the little kid named Rugen. However, he didn’t care about the kid so much that he would feel threatened for the boy’s well-being.

So, he wrote a simple letter of his own, writing that it should be okay for the kid to get into the Berserker’s sect. He did not send it magically, since it could be traced down to him. So, he sent it physically through people.

Now that this matter was out of the way, he should attempt the 4th circle breakthrough.