As death loomed over Lewis. As his shield against offensive magic was worn thin and his body was cut and burned from deadly magics seeping through, his entire left arm blackening as his flesh died and turned necrotic, his mind reached a higher state of being, time slowing to a crawl, far beyond any reasonable degree, as if it wasn't simply his brain working overtime, but his very soul grasping at the river of time and disrupting the flow of their waters. But Lewis's mind had no time to spend on such pointless questions; instead, he directed all his attention to the immediate and mortal danger before him, simply taking advantage of the time he had left, no matter how it came about.
All the facts came to him unbidden, and he analyzed them without emotion, simply taking stock of what he knew with the calm clarity of a man on the verge of death with nothing left to lose.
First up was his mana. He was running low and it would be entirely used up in less than a second, and when it was, he would have no way of reinforcing his nullfield and his defense would crumble under the combined assault of a dozen high level orcs unleashing their skills and spells on him, with not even his arcane nullfield hugging right up against his skin seeming to make any difference.
But then again, why would it? Sure, the nullfield would weaken if he spread it out too far, like when he had purposely condensed it into a single far reaching pulse to weaken the magic in his surroundings, but such an option was no longer viable, the spells assaulting him would tear him apart before he got the chance to deploy such a move, not to mention his lack of mana to start with.
What he needed was more mana and better defense.
But thinking back to the description of his Arcane nullfield, didn't his skill passively destroy the mana with his mere body? Shouldn't that mean the skill wasn't actually depended on mana, but on the properties of his body and whatever the system had done during his f-rank evolution? Thinking on it further, shouldn't his body itself be the most resistant to mana in the first place? Rather than the field around his body?
Without thinking further, Lewis tried pulling his nullfield directly into his body instead of forming a defensive field outside of it. It would be the most logical decision; instead of having a strong wall to protect a fleshy body, he just made his fleshy body an indestructible wall.
But just like blowing wind at someone, simply smacking the two elements together and hoping they fuse into one was a delusion. Still, he felt he was on the right track, his rapidly churning mind spinning out ideas faster than he himself could keep up. But the clarity of a man on death's door allowed him the unnatural clarity to let go of all other concerns beside solving this quandary.
Instead of forcing his arcane nullfield to sink into his body, he decided to take the opposite route, locating the source of his field in the first place. It was clearly located somewhere inside of him since that was were his anti-mana was located, but had never been able to properly pinpoint exactly were, despite his best efforts. In fact, locating this source was his first real goal on the path of spiritual cultivation, he simply wasn't expecting to be forced into rushing through it. After all, such a process would apparently take a lot of time and familiarity with one's skills and inner self.
Lewis didn't think he had good understanding of his inner self, and the manual had mentioned feeling the connection to his skills, but that had only been for those that didn't possess mana, and so what Lewis had been doing when feeling out his skills and what the other practitioners of the cultivation art had experienced must have been worlds apart. But for once, that was a good thing for Lewis, as it meant he had a tether to guide him in the form of his mana.
With his eyes closed in deep concentration and the world all but frozen around him, Lewis ignored his bodily pain and focused on the sensation of his arcane nullfield. It's responsive nature being something that had allowed him to take control of it fairly easily, allowing him to move and mold it to his desires without much effort, but this time, he wasn't pushing and moving the field with his will, but instead lightly touching it, tracing it back to it's source like a blind man feeling the presence of the walls, not in an effort to change and reshape them, but simply to navigate himself deep into the unknown of his own being.
As Lewis searched deeper, he found himself almost entering a sort of mind space similar to the system shop as he found himself deep inside his own psyche. His connection to his mana field acting as a guide to the center of his being, were a distant reflection seemed to show himself staring back.
It felt like looking down a hallway at a copy of himself, only this copy was tinted a purple color. Its body is slightly ethereal and almost cloud-like in places, as the proportions felt a little off. Still, Lewis instantly knew that this reflection in the distance was none other than his very spirit.
He felt a spark of surprise at actually managing to sense his spirit, but recalling the passages in the manual made him worried. It had claimed that for most people, sensing their spirit for the first time was like staring into a perfect copy of one's figure, and only those who were strong-willed and true to themselves could perceive it. But Lewis's spirit seemed far from a perfect copy, and nor did he think it should see to be so far away.
He felt fear at the idea that he wasn't ready, that he was too early to be sensing his spirit, but the manual had never mentioned anything of that sort. Perhaps because no-one else had the help of their mana to guide them to their true spirit. Either way, he couldn't turn back now, especially not when he sensed what that purple color within his spirit was.
Lewis had long since wondered why he was able to use mana and cultivate a path available only to those with untainted spirits, and now it looked like he had gotten his answer. His spirit itself was not only made out of the spirit matter he had read about, but also fused with the distinct energy of his anti-mana. The two perfectly fused into one, forming something altogether different compared to any other mana touched by being.
In fact, Lewis was pretty sure the manual had specifically said that what he was currently looking out was outright impossible. After all, mana and spirit matter where like trying to mix oil and water. No matter what kind of mana you used or what technique you employed to get them to mix, the result would always be the same... Until now.
Lewis wasn't sure what it meant for him to have such a mutated spirit, nor how that would affect the cultivation the manual described. But what he did know was that he could clearly sense the source of his arcane nullfield coming directly from the copy of himself standing over on the other side of the reflection.
He moved as close to it as he could, but the purple-hued version residing deep within himself seemed to be locked behind an invisible shield, like a barrier between realms that refused to allow his consciousness to approach any further. He got the feeling that he shouldn't have even been able to dive so deep in the first place, only by following the flow of his nullfield had he been able to find it, but it was still not enough. The immovable pane of glass was unyielding despite how hard he mentally pushed. The reflection is still far out of reach.
He knew that he needed to get close to it. To merge with his spirit, like every mana-touched person naturally is. It was the first step to spiritual trifecta, the hidden path to power only available for the most determined and least fortunate. It would grant him the power he needs to overcome his situation. Allow him to recover what the system had taken from him upon his advancement, but it was simply out of reach, frozen behind an impossible wall as his spirit wasn't ready.
,He had known this. Known that this was a path of patience and perseverance. That others had spent decades honing their spirits before even being able to sense them. But he had cheated, had discovered it early, before it was fully formed and ready to be elevated. His own was surprisingly dense considering what the manual had described, but still clearly incomplete as if floated beyond his reach, still weighed down by so-called impurities and whatever the hell 'being true to himself' meant.
But Lewis had no time for all that monk bullshit. He needed the power stored within his soul, and not just the ambient vapor that drifted up from it to recover his reserves. He didn't have time to wait for his mana to regenerate naturally; he needed to align with it and use his dormant power.
He had made t down here by cheating, and brute forcing his way through the trials; he was supposed to gradually overcome to refine his spirit, so why stop now?
Sensing for the threads of mana linking him to his spirit, he began sending his will through the mana instead of pushing against the invisible barrier. Bypassing the restriction as he began tugging at the mana within his spirit, coaxing it to move closer.
Lile tugging at a ball of yearn, the reflection began drifting closer, its details shifting slightly as its cloud-like shape was slightly altered with each tug, making it begin to degrade into an even less perfect copy of Lewis, but he didn't care.
The manual had describe a persons spirit as being a translucent outline that reflects their hosts, but Lewis's spirit seemed far from transparent. As if everything about him was entirely opposite in relation to the cultivation manual. But he didn't mind.
The outline of a denizen that they connect with while first beginning to cultivate allows them to precisely control their bodies and strength, giving them a minor boost to their actions, but sharpens them greatly, allowing them to overcome foes far stronger than them through strategic use of their abilities. Lewis was the complete opposite. He didn't care about precision, he simply needed raw power, enough to bolster his defense beyond anything the orcs' spells could inflict and give him the strength to tear them to pieces. he could work on refining and precision once that was done.
The purple hued reflection was now only an arm's length away as Lewis strained, his mind and soul pouring into the task as his entire being was honed to a point. All the desperation and determination to survive filling his mind and willpower as he painstakingly dragged his reflection towards himself, the now blurred purple humanoid figure finally reaching the opposite side of the invisible glass and passed through, slipping into Lewis's body like an echo, as his spirit and consciousness merged and connected, an explosion of power sending raw energy through his veins, as the sea of hidden power and potential within him was now fully within his grasp.
His spirit, now on the other side of the wall, aligned itself inside Lewis's body. It's blurred features slightly misshapen, but all four phantom limbs snapped into place as his spirit naturally fitted itself inside the body of its host. It's power, previously sealed away as a growing embryo, now fully unleashed as energy suffused Lewis's body. His mana pool skyrocketing as it was not only refilled, but expanded. His injured body was healed in an instant from the wave of lifeforce from within, a palpable wave of power washed out from Lewis as time resumed and the many orc spells turned to dust before they could reach him, a wave of power rolling out around him and briefly smothering all magic in his vicinity, including that black beam from the orc shaman.
The sound of disbelieving noises and sharp gasps rang out as the cornered and near-death human suddenly released an aura of palpable power, his suddenly pristine and uninjured body radiating a sense of insurmountable strength, as if containing the force of a descending mountain, while all the spells and skills they had been activated to crush him were now unable to land, disappearing the moment they approached him.
Lewis opened his eyes barely a second after closing them, but in that short time, everything had changed. With an indescribable sense of power coursing through his body, he couldn't believe that only a moment ago he was at deaths door. Now, only burnt and disintegrated tatters of his clothes remained as proof that it had ever happened at all.
Time for some payback.