It was lukewarm and dark. Sometimes an occasional fsh of light would streak through the space, but nothing that completely dispelled the darkness surrounding Merlin. But he remained calm regardless. He was well aware of how delicate one had to be with handling the whole mana dissecting process, and he was not willing to be lost in the void because he let himself lose his head. He controlled his breathing (if what he was doing could even be called that) and thought of what was happening and what he could do.

  The shining stars he had seen surrounding the nucleus were nowhere to be found, but Merlin was certain they had not just up and disappeared. Maybe if he was able to find them, then he would be able to decipher something about this pce that he was.

  Another fsh of light streaked through the space then and Merlin’s eyes narrowed.

  What could those lights probably be? It would have been easier for him if Kieran had partook in something like this in Singurity Mage, but he couldn’t keep hoping for handouts now, could he?

  Merlin took a deep breath and exhaled. If there was nothing in this space, and the only clue of something besides a bck void existing was the light streaking through the sky, then maybe…

  A thought wandered into his head. He nodded in alignment with the thought and waited. He watched the bck space in anticipation for the reappearance of the streak of light, and when another appeared, he followed it.

  Merlin didn’t believe that he was faster than or on par with the speed of light, but his mana was within his body and aligned with his subconscious; in other words, where he was was his world, and he had full control of the occurrences within it.

  Willing himself to move faster than he was, Merlin’s body turned ethereally light. He fshed through the dark space, chasing after the light, and without much trouble, he caught up to it. The problem was that it had no particur direction. The light kept going, not stopping for once or just vanishing out of sight. Merlin arched his brows as he realized what was going on. He had not been seeing different lights streaking to the sky. It had been one singur light that had kept going round, like an orbit.

  Am I to just keep following it then? he asked himself. I’ll be here for all eternity at this rate.

  Merlin’s mind became a whirlpool of thoughts, but he didn’t let it bleed into his emotions and throw him into disarray. He calmed his heart and thought of what he could do. Which was truly only one thing.

  Every time he’d wandered into his subconscious to interact with his mana, the way he had been able to do that was by directly coming in contact with it. Obviously, now it shouldn't be any different.

  Merlin had been keeping an arm’s length from the streak of bright light, but now he closed that gap and reached for it. As soon as his fingers connected with it, though, a scorching heat burnt them and pain fred in his head.

  In an instant, the void shook and veins of cracks appeared all over it. He quickly pulled himself back, realizing that he had lost control of himself there. But reining himself in didn’t repair the cracks that had appeared.

  Merlin pinched his lips. Was his thought fwed, or was this the part where he got through the whole process without letting himself succumb to pain? Was that even humanly possible? Just touching the light had given him a glimpse of what happened when one was caught in a fire. It was like every single tissue in his fingers had been snapped out of existence by a bzing force in mere seconds. There was no way he could withstand that.

  Maybe I should just get out of here… Merlin shook his head. No. That was not the right train of thought. Taking the easy way out was no longer on the cards for him. He had a lot to take care of now, and he couldn’t let himself be weak.

  Merlin grit his teeth, held his breath, and reached for the light again.

  The pain was enormous. It burnt through his fingers, up to his hands, and to his forearms, before completely shrouding him completely. Merlin wanted to scream, but he tried his best to hold his ripping mind together. Cracks slowly appeared around the void, and he knew he was failing. But he didn’t stop; he kept on trying, battling through the pain. Humans were beings known for their ability to adapt and evolve. And that was what he had to do here. He pushed further into the light, telling himself continually that pain was temporary. He couldn’t die here, and he wouldn’t. For a moment there, though, he’d tried to use his power over his subconscious to reduce the toll on his body, but nothing changed. It seemed he wasn’t exactly omniscient. So, instead, he closed his eyes and pushed. And his effort paid off when he suddenly stopped feeling any pain.

  Merlin opened his eyes to a different space this time. He was in an empty white chamber with pilrs to its sides and a rge door at its end.

  Success? Merlin asked himself, unsure what to call his unusual transportation. He looked around the pristine chamber. Am I inside the light? Then what am I to do now?

  The colossal doors to the end of the chamber groaned open of their own accord then, drawing Merlin’s gaze in their direction. He blinked as he was met by a vast bckness and he clicked his tongue. Was he really to walk from light to darkness again? For how long?

  He sighed and shook his head. It didn’t matter that the whole process was daunting and annoying, he just had to do what he could. There would be light at the end of the tunnel.

  As Merlin took a step forward, hands shot out of the colossal doors. He had made up his mind to not let his emotions leak out, but there was only so much he could do when he was taken by surprise in such a manner. He flinched and pounced back, readying himself to evade whatever those hands were pnning to do to him, and thankfully, the room he was in didn’t react to his spike in emotions.

  However, he was unable to avoid the hands. They grabbed onto him, as they moved faster than he could, and he was pulled into the doors, shutting him inside.

  By the time Merlin got a hold of himself, he found himself in a bubble filled with countless lesser bubbles.

  What’s this? Merlin blinked as he used his fingers to probe the getinous bubbles that were surrounding him. All they did was bounce off of each other. But he knew that he wasn’t here to just py with the little balls. He tried everything he could, however, grabbing the balls, probing them, but nothing happened. Which left him with only one other option, the one that always got him answers.

  Merlin took a deep breath, crossed his legs within the bubble as he floated, and took on the burmese pose. Shutting out the noise and concentrating had never failed him, and they didn’t this time as well.

  Merlin’s eyes snapped open, first a blur and hurting, then they cleared up. He gnced around the sitting room where he was and saw that Chima and Hakyun were still within their trances, and sweating rather profusely. He wiped off his own sweat and turned on the air conditioning. They had put it off while making the kimchi and had forgotten to turn it back on before moving on to their next agenda.

  He exhaled, uncrossed his legs, and fell backwards onto the rug as he concentrated on the words floating before his view.

  [Progress to leveling up Intelligence: 38.5%/100%]

  Oh… Compared to my usual growth, that’s some significant progress. It went up by ten percent…

  Usually his exploits into his trance world produced a single percent for twenty minutes in that state. Merlin picked up his phone and confirmed that he had spent only just a minute over the ndmark, and yet his progress had gone up by ten percent. It shouldn’t be surprising, after all, Miss Eun-Wol had told him that he had been doing it wrong ever since, he had not just been expecting the growth to be this significant.

  The problem with this method, however, was that he couldn’t seem to do it continuously. He was trying to keep a cool fa?ade, but his head was hurting so much more than it usually did when he came out of his trance, and his body was aching. He had been bombarded with so much information on his mana while he had been in the getinous bubble, and he knew that he hadn’t even scratched the surface. There was so much more to mana than met the eye, and if he figured it out completely… He gnced at his fist as he clenched it. He would be so much stronger than he already was. His progress with his Intelligence would be boosted significantly, and he would also become much more versatile with the concept of the ability.

  At this moment, though, Merlin just wanted to sleep. But before that…

  Assign three Attribute Points to Resilience…

  [Assigning...]

  [Successful]

  [+3 Attribute Points have been assigned to Resilience]

  [Progress to leveling up Intelligence: 38.5%/100%] → [40%/100%]

  It was more like a band aid, but it did well enough to reduce the intensity of Merlin’s headache. And because of that he was able to take a deep breath and rex a bit.

  Merlin sighed as the words of the System hovering before his view took their leave, recalling a certain finding he had come about while probing through his mana.

  It doesn’t have an identity, huh? His brows narrowed as he stared up at the ceiling. I wonder what that means…