God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Chapter 316: Elemental Vault (1).

"Again!"

Splat!

"Again!"

Blegh!

"Again, damnit!"

Cain gritted his teeth as beads of blood rolled down his cheeks and mouth. He had tried numerous times in the last few minutes but to no avail. The last one was the worst. His left eye had simply exploded, leaving behind a fountain of blood and a gaping wound.

This was happening, because he couldn't control the amount of mana the {Eye of Clairvoyance} skill was taking. Every skill and spell had a set mana cost. Removing the limiter on the magic circle or rune of ability would lead to it not needing to follow the mana cost.

However, the skill or spell still absorbed mana at a certain rate. This rate was constant no matter what. The limiter controlled the amount of mana a skill could have. However, the rate at which it absorbed energy was simply a product of all its components working together.

Usually, the rate of mana flow was constant, so this wasn't an issue. However, if for some reason it was lower than normal, then the skill or spell will not be activated. If it exceeded it, the caster would be forced to deal with the backlash.

An exploding eyeball was a very small price to pay and with the help of the {Draconic Transfiguration} skill, he could pay this price as much as he wanted.

The only problem with this was that he was not going anywhere. What he needed to do, was activate his special eye so he could see through the messy mana flow patterns and find some order in the chaos.

Evangeline's excitement had died down a long time ago, so now, she was seated beside Cain,

"How much longer do you need?" She said, her voice laid back as usual.

Cain shrugged, "A few more times. I think I am almost there."

Evangeline hummed as she played with a strand of her white hair,

"While I do not understand magic theory too well, perhaps voicing your problems out might be of help."

Seeing that she wanted to help, Cain was very much inclined to universe with her. Although he was a hundred percent sure she was doing it only because she was bored.

"The problem we are facing right now is the fact that not only is the cave saturated with too many conflicting elemental energies, but they are also flowing too fast. Activating a skill here is like trying to stop a tsunami with a surfboard." Cain said with a bitter look in his eyes.

Evangeline scratched her head, "Then that just means you need better control, no?"

Cain shook his head, "If it was a being of a higher tier, sure. However, simply trying to activate a single skill had made me lose an eye over twenty times."

"I see."

A complicated emotion flashed through her eyes but was gone as quickly as it had come.

Seeing her try so hard to understand made Cain feel like letting out a chuckle. However, he had no desire to make fun of her efforts.

Although Evangeline couldn't quite grasp it yet, she still tried to use her own understanding of magic to help Cain,

"Blood magic is more about learning intricate control as opposed to brute force. Same with water elemental magic. Both require extreme precision as well as coordination."

Cain nodded as he listened,

"However, that doesn't mean it doesn't require force. Sometimes, greater force is needed to tame great force."

Cain's heart littered when he heard that...

"But what force can tame something like this? This may just be impossible to tame..."

They both fell silent for a while, each embroiled in their own thoughts after the short conversation.

Cain tried to see the deeper meaning in her words but could come up with nothing. Meanwhile, Evangelien sifted through her experiences in order to find something that could help Cain understand better. Her eyes suddenly lit up,

"What if... instead of trying to stop the flow, you redirect it?"

'Redirect it...'

Cain puffed out a steamy breath of air as he spoke,

"That might not be possible."

"Why?"

Cain turned and faced the white-haired beauty seated beside him,

"Where? Where do I redirect it to?" Cain asked, his voice filled with exhaustion.

Although he could repair his body after getting injured, that didn't mean he didn't feel pain. Rather, he felt it more than the average person. The eyes were a delicate part of the human body. And yet, he had gone through the torture of losing one of them multiple times. He couldn't help that he was tired from the continuous failures.

Hearing the pain in his voice, Evangeline frowned,

"Seems like you need to rest. Although I applaud your grit, you are simply pushing yourself too hard at this point." She said.

Cain sighed, "Maybe I am. There are so many things I should be doing right now. The lives of people are in greater danger every second that passes because of me."

Although he wasn't a Saint, he still couldn't bear the fact that the lives of Susan, Jenny, Ignis, and even the others that had been left on Urbus, were all in some form of danger because he couldn't stay put...

'After this, no more traveling for me for a while...'

The grim look on his became heavier as he continued,

"Hence, there is no time to waste. I'd rather lose my arm and eye a thousand times than allow someone else to die for my sake." He said, his conviction burning within his words.

Evangeline stared at him blankly for a while before she finally relented with a sigh,

"Three more trials. If you can't get it done in three trials, we give up for now and go back up to regroup."

Cain nodded, "Agreed..."

He knew this couldn't keep on going forever. A solution had to be provided. If not, then he would have to give up for now,

"Good..."

With that, Evangeline no longer bothered him.

Cain cleaned the blood off his face and continued to concentrate. His mind wandered again as he thought about what Evangeline said.

'Redirect... More like control the flow. I'll need to control the flow of each individual element, which will be exponentially harder than trying to redirect the flow. However, it all boils down to the main issue. Where do I control the flow to? Energy as chaotic as this will prevent any skill or spell from activating.'

Suddenly, a hint of inspiration hit him...

'Hmm... Although executing a spell will mean death, that isn't the same as drawing a magic circle or rune.'

To put it in more mundane terms, a stand-alone magic circle is an incomplete spell or skill. There will be no changes as long as mana isn't poured into it. Like the code a machine uses to run. As long as there is no power supply, it will be unable to influence the machine.

Hence, he could easily create magic circles. Cain felt this was the way. If he could create a few stand-alone magic circles and somehow force them to draw all the power they needed from the environment, then he would not need to it himself in harm's way.

Cain immediately got to work...

He descended into his subconscious. As long as he was within his mind, he could spend a long time working on various rune designs that would fit the criteria he needed.

'Since these energies are in their elemental form, I will need individual magic circles as well.'

Although his eyes kept exploding every time he tried activating {Eye of Clairvoyance}, Cain could still tell what elements were the most prevalent and violent here.

Lightning, Fire, Earth, Metal, Wind, and Blood, with lightning being the most chaotic and blood being the least chaotic. There was also an insane amount of devil essence and aether present. In terms of sheer quantity, Blood was the first, with lightning being the least. However, there was still a lot of each element.

In fact, lightning, which contributed the smallest to the overall quantity of energy in the entire place was more than three times Cain's entire mana pool. T

This couldn't be helped, as all this energy was being attracted by a dormant Primordial devil that was gathering power to become born once again.

Although Lyx and Og-solath were powerful, they had been sealed for an unknown number of eons. Bemethshal on the other hand had used all this time to absorb more and more power as he hadn't been sealed like the other two.

Even then, all he had managed to do was create a new skeleton and heart. This could be for two reasons. Either it couldn't go any faster than it already was, or it was taking all the care in the world to make sure its new body was perfect. Cain was inclined to believe the latter one more.

'It doesn't matter either way. Controlling six elements at once is also tantamount to suicide. Is that even possible?'

Cain could control two elements at once without any stress. He could control three with a bit of strain. Four was his absolute limit. And all this was the assistance of the system as he didn't need to recreate the magic circles needed to execute the skills or spells every time. Each additional element added an exponential amount of strain to his brain.

Despite that, he was still a bit excited to push his limits. {Neophyte Mage}, one of the skills he had gotten not too long ago ensured that his magic-related abilities were much stronger than before.

But was it enough? There was only one way to find out...