Bro, I'm not an Undead!

[Depths of the Core | Lv.2]

To attain great strength, one must understand their own source of power. The core. The more one understands the more they can evolve their strength from the standard to the elite boundary where very few reside. When this skill is used, the user can alter their core in the direction they want.

<Current limit: Blue>

Mana Requirements: 500 Mana Points

Duration: 1 minute

Cooldown: 100 days

~~~

Skullius had more than enough mana to cast this skill but what caused him some hesitation was the fact it had a 100 day cool down.

That was a very long time.

Was the skill able to grant him a blue core in one use though. Skullius didn't know. It's description was more hype than detail.

It was too vague.

But the Penetrator knew he had to try this class specific skill now and at least get to know what it could do.

1 minute.

That was the entire duration of the skill and he had make it count...somehow.

"Alright, here goes. You've had your share of benefits. Now let's see what I can get," Skullius said to Red Rage as he activated [Depths of the Core].

His vision dove deep within him at an incredible speed, hastening towards a large white object which emitted a bright white light.

OOOOM!

'Interesting,' Skullius thought as he gazed at his own core which lit up an unknown space where it seemed to reside on its lonesome.

As he looked at it closely, he saw channels leading in and out of it, carrying a white stream of energy.

Mana!

These channels were like glass tubes that ran from within the core, looking like blue coloured lines when they were within the sphere and assuming the aforementioned appearance when outside of it.

There were endless networks of these lines within the large spherical core, Skullius finding this arrangement familiar.

'It kind of looks like how the internal structure of objects I try to extract skills from looks... Hmmm...'

Skullius felt attracted to the thin blue lines, sinking his sight into the core where he seamlessly entered without restriction.

1 minute.

His time was limited so he had to make the most out of this time.

For convenience's sake, a prompt appeared in his vision, showing the time he had left.

As he delved within, Skullius saw the bunch of networks he had seen explode in size, becoming more vivid in their appearance.

One thing that Skullius noticed was how these networks never joined together. In fact, it seemed like they were making an effort to not meet, which was strange.

'What if I try to join these blue lines? I don't think it's a coincidence that they have the same colour as the next core level. Maybe if I can join all of them, I can attain a blue core. But...'

The sheer quantity of these lines are insane. They looked to be thousands of them and surely the task to join them all would be incredibly arduous!

Still though, Skullius decided to give it a try. With 50 seconds left on the clock, the Penetrator rushed up to one of the blue lines.

He focused on it and tried to make it move by exerting his will, as he did when extracting skills from objects.

The blue line began to sway this way and that as per his will, which made Skullius a bit more confident in this endeavour of his.

'Okay then. Now let's try...'

Skullius pulled the line towards another blue line which was at the side and...

...!

'I knew it!'

The blue line he held refused to touch the other one!

Its end began to resist furiously and it took much of Skullius' focus to even maintain his hold over the it!

But still, the Penetrator refused to be beaten by a mere line. A simplistic construct whose entire existence depended on thousands of others like itself to give it any semblance of meaning!

Was that rude?

Maybe.

Skullius pulled the line with all his might, particularly its end which still resisted but ultimately touched on the body of another blue line!

The moment this occurred...

GOOOONG!

A loud noise rang throughout the entire core with a slight quake!

Skullius was bewildered.

Did he do something wrong?

The answer to this question was revealed when he turned to the lines that had touched each other.

A seamless connection had been made at the point of contact, a surge of energy moving from one blue line to the next!

No!

This was definitely correct.

Skullius thoughts were pinpoint.

He had to connect the blue lines, regardless of the immense difficulty attached to the task.

The Penetrator began to focus on the objective, connecting all the lines he could by exerting immense amounts of strength despite how much the lines struggled.

Why did these lines resist?

Was it just to make his life difficult?

Or was it a fundamental mechanism in all things that restricted their elevation to higher levels as a way to make them put in more effort and evolve.

Perhaps.

Skullius watched the timer reach the last five seconds when he had barely connected three dozen lines together with each time producing a loud thrum that caused a change which was unknown to him.

Then...

As Skullius had just finished linking another blue line to one other, he felt his vision forcefully being pulled away, his image flying from within his core.

When he exited, he saw his spherical core again, noticing a subtle change about.

It was several shades brighter, with its size reducing somewhat.

Maybe that was just because he kept being pulled away from it, creating the visual illusion of reduction in its size.

'Did I accomplish something?' Skullius asked himself sceptically.

He had hoped to see at least hints of blue but that didn't seem to be a possibility.

The reason was, cores only had absolute colours when one was ascending.

Dual colour effects only applied in special circumstances like the monstrous guardians within the Labyrinth of the Yoke.

Skullius found himself looking at Red Rage back in the outside world.

[Depths of Core] had timed out.

"Hmmm I can't tell if there is a change or not," Skullius said.

One thing was for sure though, he didn't have a blue core yet.

It was rather disappointing. So to get one, he had go through the task of joining all those blue lines?

That seemed to be the only valid explanation.

"That's too hard to do in one minute. Gah! The skill is on cooldown now!" Skullius frustratedly groaned.

It seemed the only possible way forward with this skill was to level it up. Perhaps there would be a more optimistic change then.

Or...

"I guess I could ask look into how the mercenaries get their blue cores. The books didn't mention how to. At least the ones I've read. I'll have to find socketholes worth asking. Would Frock know?"

Skullius unconsciously sighed but nothing came out in this form of his.

Since this turned out to be a long term thing, the Penetrator once again shifted his focus towards another goal.

'I plan to focus entirely on my lessons with Oliviana in Inhone City while I wait for [Demion's Dance] to be repaired. I won't be clearing Clusters within that time. So...'

"Red bro. I've come to a decision," Skullius said, jolting the Pelvis Boar-Man up. "We'll hunt some Clusters together for a few hours before going back to the city. We should be able to find some. Before that... let's get some levels. Enough stocking up experience!"