God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Chapter 206: Secrets of The Soul (2).

"An anchor that links all these energies back to one..."

"The Soul..."

Cain stared at that line for a good ten minutes before raising his head to stare straight at Azazel.

"What exactly is a soul?" Cain asked

Peering deeply at Cain, Azazel shook his head with a soft sigh...

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" Cain was a bit surprised by this. He was sure that the demon was very old, and would have had all these things figured out by now.

"Well, no one knows exactly what souls are. They are the very pillars that allow living beings to control the energies, but no one, except maybe a few celestial's, knows exactly what the soul truly is." Azazel explained.

"I see..." Cain said. However, the thought was still brewing in his head.

"Don't think about it too much. You have a whole lot more to learn. I suggest reading the Magic theory of Sorcery first!" Azazel said with sparkling eyes.

'Hmm... Seems like he is invested in this. Noe that I think about it, he did call himself the demon of sorcery.' Cain thought as he started at the mystical creature standing before him.

"What exactly is sorcery?" Cain asked the demon, to which the demon responded with a small chuckle.

"Young Human, Sorcery is the art of manipulating the elements of magic to produce your heart's desires..." The demon's words were just like the true whispers of an evil being, causing turmoil within Cain's heart.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Cain asked another question,

"And how will it help me in improving my magic?"

"Hehe... Rather than just telling you, it would be best to show you." The demon said, excitement evident in his voice.

"Show me?"

"Yes. As the ruler of this planet, I am its god. For example..."

The demon moved with lightning speed and placed a hand on Cain's shoulder. In a split second, they were standing within light brown clouds.

'Shit!' Cain was unable to do anything but watch as they both plummeted down to the ground from the brown sky.

"As the god of this world, not only can I do anything I want here, but I can also control its laws." As soon as the demon said those words, Cain noticed he couldn't feel the force dragging him toward the ground anymore.

"If I want, I could change the very color of the skies." With a wave of his hands, the dull brown skies turned purple, causing the entire land to be dyed in a bright purple hue.

The denizens of this world qlls stared at the skies above their heads in both awe and fear. However, very soon, things were returned to normal.

"And this is only possible..." The demon said, producing an ornamented chair with a snap of his fingers.

"With the power of sorcery."

Cain stared at the barren lands below him with awe. He knew the demon was powerful, but the ability to change the nature of the atmosphere of a planet with a mere wave of the hand was wild.

"I'm convinced. How exactly do I go about learning this sorcery?" Cain said, his eyes filled with excitement as well.

"For starters, I want you to throw away all previous knowledge you have of magic as they are all garbage anyway," Azazel said.

Cain felt his heart twist a bit as it had taken him quite a bit of effort to gain his current knowledge.

Seeing Cain'acceptance, Azazel continued,

"Now that you have accepted your ignorance, let us begin..."

"There are eight basic types of elemental magic. Fire, water, earth, wind, light, life, time and space. Any other elemental magic is either a sub-element or a paraelemental. Elemental magic like darkness or illusion magic are sub-element of the light element. Blood and nature magic are sub-elements of life magic."

"To truly understand sorcery, you must delve into the basics of each element and their sub-elementals and paraelementals. Let me ask you this; What element did I use to execute this spell?" Azazel had a serious look on his face for the first time as he began his teaching...

"The element you used?" Cain couldn't quite understand it at first. What exact element did the demon use? Was it light? Was it fire? He was unable to tell...

"It is quite simple actually... I used fire, wind, water, and light magics simultaneously." The demon said with a proud smile.

"Simultaneously?!" Cain couldn't believe his ears.

"Well, it is a bit more complicated than that, but basically, yes. This technique is called inlay magic. It allows one to cast multiple spells with contrasting elements at the same time by laying the specific magic circles and weaving them together to form a giant super-spell!"

The excitement in the demon's words couldn't be hidden, indicating to Cain that this technique must be something rare, even in the wide and boundless universe.

"The advantage of this technique is that there is no limit to what you can do with it, or the amount and complexity of the spells you can create. However, whether they are useful or not will depend on your creativity."

"I see..." That was all Cain could say, as he was very shocked.

"Now that you understand this, we will begin test number one."

"Test number one? What is that?" Cain asked innocently, unaware of the woe that would soon fall upon him.

"Hehehe... Prove to me you actually understand what I am saying." Azazel said

Cain responded with a question, "And how do I do that?"

"Simple... Try not to die." All of a sudden, Cain felt the force that kept him suspended midair suddenly disappear. Before he knew it, he was plummeting toward the ground.

'Crap... I should have expected at least this much.' Cain thought as he looked up at the smiling demon that was waving at him as he fell to his death.

Immediately understanding his current situation, Cain quickly began thinking of all the possible ways he could escape. His eyes lit up as he realized his mana wasn't locked. Previously, he was unable to use his mana outside the cave. Yet here he was, feeling the mana coursing through his body.

'What skill can I activate that can save me?' Cain thought optimistically.

"Just so you know, I locked all your active skills before I dropped you. Which means you won't be able to use any of the skills you currently have." The voice of the demon rang through Cain's ears, sending chills down his spine.

However, he couldn't tell if it was the voice of what the voice said that made his blood run cold. He did not doubt in his mind that the demon was telling the truth. He had to think of something, or else, he would fall to his death...

"Think! Summon the elements and think..." The voice whispered into his ears once again, only this time, it actually worked in calming him down.

'There are eight different elements. Each one represents a different form of application. Fire is mainly offensive and hence wouldn't be really useful in this scenario. The same goes for the others except for wind, earth, and water. However, my affinity for the earth element is zero, so that leaves me with only metal, water, and wind.'

Closing his eyes, Cain felt around with his spiritual senses for the elements most predominant in the atmosphere and was shocked to see that a majority of the mana was composed of earth, wind, and fire elemental particles. There was barely any water, and there was absolutely no metal.'

His brain worked a million miles an hour as he tried to piece his thoughts together and come up with a solution. The wind roaring in his ears did nothing to help him much.

'Wind...' Cain thought to himself...

It was like a switch had gone off in his mind,

'My {Air Whip} skill isn't very useful both in and out of combat. What if I use the same concept of the {Air Whip} skill, but reverse it to slow myself down...'

The skill {Air Whip} allowed him to decrease the speed of an opponent with each air Whip he created and attached to his opponent.

Now, he was trying to reverse engineer the skill...

With the minute of his death approaching with every second, Cain knew he had to work fast...

'But since I won't be able to activate the skill, I'll need to activate it from scratch without the system's assistance.

Executing a skill was a three-phase operation. The first part was gathering the desired element. The next one was creating the necessary magic circle or using a symbol or a rune, which would lead to the final part, the execution.

The trickiest part was the middle step...

One step wrong and it was even possible to have the spell backfiring and killing him before he even reached the ground...

Spreading his fingers apart, he began forming the magic circle. With his soul as the guide, the magic elements obeyed his commands. The wind around him began to swirl violently.

'This is harder than I thought!' Cain thought as he fought to maintain concentration.

Without assistance from the system, it was harder to activate spells and skills. Although it was still possible, it was also very difficult to do.

Taking a deep breath, Cain increased his concentration to the max. His mind became empty, and his sea of thought was as still as a lake.

"Oh? Seems like I underestimated him." A smiling Azazel said out loud.

A magic circle began to take form above Cain as he plunged headfirst toward the ground. Another magic circle appeared at his feet and an identical one appeared on his outstretched palm.

The wind element surged violently toward him, creating an incredibly powerful vortex of wind...

A deep breath escaped from his lungs...

Gathering as much wind elemental mana and focus as he could, Cain activated the spell...

"Windweaver..."