The way Rick was staring at Ryan so intensely throughout his experiments had been distracting. At times it looked like the madman was fascinated with him. At times he had just flopped back onto the monster corpses in what looked like depressed defeat. One-Eyed Rick wore his expressions openly without any sort of guile.

  While Ryan felt like he had gotten better at ignoring obnoxious reactions by a third party, the yelling was a step too far.

  He snapped at Rick. “I’m not actually going to do it. Why do you even care if I blow myself up anyway?”

  “Why do I care?! Are you a moron?”

  “You tried to take over my body. You failed, now shut up.”

  “There is that and then there is completely wasting an opportunity like this.”

  Rick genuinely seemed enraged at the possibility that Ryan was about to blow himself up. That thought just made Ryan narrow his eyes.

  “You’re still trying to take over my body aren’t you?”

  “N–no!” Rick stuttered, indicating that he had, indeed, been thinking about taking over Ryan’s body. The [Seeker of Magic] coughed, trying to cover it up. “That is not what would have happened anyway. One cannot simply just replace your memories with mine and you would be me—at least I don’t have any ability to do so. It would have been a gradual shift. Sooner or later you would have begun to behave and act like me, at which point you would have been susceptible to accepting my memories.”

  “ Sorry if I don’t believe you.”

  “Pah. Believe what you want. The simple fact of the matter is that you need me.”

  “And why do you say that?” Ryan lifted his left arm, watching the way his mana traveled through it. “I think I’ve made good progress.”

  To his surprise, Rick nodded at the arm. “Not only could I make it so that your circulatory system will be truly perfect, but I can provide endless amounts of the right volatile mana for your evolution.”

  “Only at the cost of my body right?”

  “That ship has long sailed. Your two classes are already too dominant for my plan to work. Even if I had gone through with it, I believe you would have eventually overcome it in the end.”

  That seemed… honest enough. In seriousness, Ryan really had no idea how long Rick’s ritual to take over his conceptual space would have taken. He also couldn’t imagine the Aura Tyrant playing nicely with an invader either. So, Rick was after something else.

  “Let me guess. You want me to put in a good word with the Witch Tyrant and have it so you don’t have to be stuck down here.”

  Rick didn’t even try to hide it. “I will fulfill my promise with her and you and I will never have to meet again.”

  Ryan stepped down from his hill. When he reached the bottom, he made it seem like he was seriously contemplating Rick’s offer.

  Then Ryan sneered. “And leave you alone so you can find another body to take over? No thanks.”

  To Rick’s surprise, Ryan just walked around the monster corpse pile, ignoring One-Eyed Rick and his offer. He bent down, picked up Rax’s personal golem he had dropped on the ground, then walked to the entrance where the digging golem lay. Ryan carefully ripped it apart with his bare hands until he found what he was looking for.

  A much less stable, much more roughly made core was in his hand. He walked back up the hill. Now he had three cores.

  He grinned down below at Rick.

  “Sorry, but I have zero desire to compromise for your help.”

  –

  Ryan had a problem. It was that, of the cores, only one of of them were probably suitable for his evolution. Rick was right that the system exchanged golem heart was completely unsuitable for the task. It had a [Stability Matrix] that he honestly had no idea how it would interact with his mana.

  Rax’s personal golem was also not something he could use either. The Trial System said that Rax’s personal golem’s core was in terms of how much mana was stuffed in there. If he attempted to make all of it into volatile mana it would probably kill him.

  Which left the core from the digging golem. A sixth realm core that had been made in classic Rax’s fashion. A bunch of scraps and a bunch of runes that looked sloppily put together, even in his inexpert opinion.

  In other words, it was perfect for a volatile antimagic skill.

  Only–it meant that Ryan would have one chance. If he failed then he would have no choice but to go on ahead without a mana core.

  On the other hand, there was no reason not to at least try it. His right arm still felt topped up from making One-Eyed Rick afraid of him. The worst thing that would happen would be that he’d temporarily lose an arm for the fifth Trial.

  Not that big of a deal.

  Ryan began by encompassing the digging golem’s core with solidified aura first. He held the orb in his right hand and began pumping as much of his volatile energy into a knife with his left hand. It was one of his knives of returning, the only material around that was suitable enough to hold his highly leveled volatile throw skill and not break apart.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Once it reached a suitable stage, Ryan surrounded it with his aura and then–stabbed into the core.

  The white blade surrounded by his own aura had no problem bypassing the solid red aura of the orb. The knife hit the golem core and for a moment, nothing happened. The enchantments held against his volatile energy.

  That brief pause gave Ryan time to take a deep breath.

  It was like time was slowed as the white volatile knife began to rip apart at the outer layers of enchantments. Some of the Rax’s runes had were flaking off–but the moment four runes were scratched off it passed a moment of no return.

  The metal and flesh scraps that made up the outer layer were immediately engulfed by the expanding sea of volatile mana. It melted the material down, turning them into what looked like molten mana as the orb tried to explode outwards.

  It cracked the inner walls of his aura as Ryan gritted his teeth to keep it stable. The cracks spread as he desperately tried to repair and reinforce the inner layer. He screamed and held on.

  The cracks ceased, they began to repair themselves as the timely skill improvements made his things so much easier. The sphere of red becoming somehow both more clear and more solid at the same time.

  Now was the hard bit. This orb of volatile mana was still too large to shove into his shoulder. Rick’s ascension to the tenth realm used a mana core that was the size of a fingernail. While Ryan didn’t have confidence to make it that small, he did want to try to make it as dense as he possibly could.

  He took a deep breath and started cycling the aura in his arm.

  He squeezed, imagining condensing a hill, the churning volatile mana fought against it with all its might.

  But Ryan kept pushing.

  Now it was the size of his fist. Any material that had been left in the ball of volatile mana had been completely destroyed and melted, turned into pure energy.

  Ryan considered using [Resource Overdrive] for this. Go around and beat up some monsters, maybe even bully Rick some more, but he’d decided against it. Namely because he had no idea how long this realm evolution would take. At his level, [Resource Overdrive] was more of a one-time use burst skill.

  So he just focused on what he had.

  Which was a goddamn apex title and the [Arm of the Aura Tyrant].

  Now the orb was smaller than his palm. It stopped churning and was a brilliant ball of white. It was so bright that it shone through the solid aura, illuminating the room through a filter of red. If you stared closely at it, it looked like a viscous liquid.

  Now it was half the size of his palm. Ryan pushed a little further and it finally turned a pearly white. Almost solid.

  It was as much as he dared to push it.

  With insane dexterity, Ryan took another knife with his left hand and stabbed backwards into his left shoulder. He sliced open his shoulder, exposing muscle and bone to the world.

  Ryan didn’t hesitate, he took the small ball of volatile mana wrapped in aura in his right hand– Funnily enough, it was easier than trying to condense the orb. After all, he’d already conditioned himself for the pain during his previous experiments.

  Holding the wound closed with his right hand, he took out the vial of moderate healing potion with his left hand, uncorked it with his teeth, and poured it over the wound. There wasn’t any point trying to conserve the remaining potion. This was too important and he didn’t want to lose any focus on the sphere of aura.

  The wound closed around the sphere.

  An awkward few seconds went by. For a moment Ryan thought he’d messed up. Then the notification hit.

  Ryan held his shoulder with his right arm, focusing on keeping the aura sphere solid. A couple more seconds went by, then a minute.

  No more notifications. Nothing was changing. The sphere wasn’t stabilizing. Ryan could feel it, if he let go of his shoulder, the mana would explode and at minimum he would lose an arm. At most? His shoulder was way too close to both his head and heart.

  He started to sweat.

  It should have stabilized by nowHe’d seen mana cores being formed by Realmers before. It didn’t take this long when you had the core formed. Yet his one didn’t feel like it was stable at all.

  A haughty voice cut through his concentration.

  “I did give you the idea, but I didn’t think you would actually go through with it. Did you think an antimagic mana core would be that easy to create? By its very nature, it cannot be a stable core.”

  Rick’s voice echoed out from the tunnel entrance. The mad [Mage] couldn’t leave so he stayed in the cavern, staring into the tunnel. Ryan hadn’t noticed because he’d been so focused on his arm.

  Unfortunately, Ryan was pretty sure Rick wasn’t lying. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t any progress or change within the orb of aura at all. The moment he lost focus, it would immediately shatter and explode. The only option he had was to cut off his arm and throw it at Rick’s face before it exploded.

  Naturally, Rick didn’t know what Ryan was planning. He continued on his arrogant tirade.

  “The only option, I believe, was for you to have studied the stability matrix in that other golem heart. But that would take months, years without proper knowledge. The other option, of course, is much easier.”

  Rick formed runes in his hands, woven out of thin air like it was naturally formed. Five spell circles criss crossing each other into a spherical shape.

  “Fuck off Rick. I’d rather lose an arm than accept a deal with you.”

  Rick nodded. “I see that. I am curious why. You must understand that the moment I failed to infect your concepts I lost all hope of taking over your body. Even then, given your concepts. It would have taken far, far too long for me to take you over. You have nothing to fear in that regard.”

  Ryan’s eyes were as cold as an uncompromising tyrant’s. “”

  “Indeed I don’t.” Rick accepted gracefully. “But that’s why I offer this for I give this without any condition on asking the Witch to free me. I give this to you so that you might succeed.”

  Ryan’s hand was shaking but his class refused to relent to the volatile energy trying to explode. He was more focused on Rick, watching his every expression.

  “Why?”

  “I wish to see how far you would go. Because I believe that you have potential to surpass everyone . Most of all, I simply wish to see where your madness will take you.”

  Both Ryan and Rick stared at each other for a long moment. Rick had seen through Ryan in some regard. He had seen the madness that lurked under the surface of his arrogant veneer. Ryan understood Rick’s madness too. He remembered how Rick had been delighted when it looked like the Passive Tyrant would ascend with him.

  Rick others to delve as far as he could. The [Arcane Seeker] would always look for that next spark of madness.

  Ryan could accept that. He also knew this was all a ruse for Rick to gain bargaining power with the Witch Tyrant. So that he could be free.

  “Just know. That if you go free and you start killing people in The Realm. I will drop everything to find a way to put you down for good.”

  Having realized that Ryan had seen through him, Rick laughed once more. “If that was your problem with me you should have just told me so! I swear upon magic itself that I will not cause undue chaos in The Realm!

  Ryan stared at Rick for a good ten seconds. That was as much as he could realistically hold it in before he had to make a decision.

  He decided to step out. He stuck his left arm and shoulder out into the cavern, where Rick could operate his magic.

  Rick’s spells fell into his shoulder and surrounded the orb.

  “Now, you’ll have to let go of your aura sphere.”

  Ryan took another deep breath, then removed the aura surrounding the volatile mana. He immediately reformed it to cover his head and his chest. If it did explode, he would protect his vitals and he’d survive… probably.

  “Nothing’s changing.”

  Rick smiled. “Not to worry, you still have to make the mana yours, this stability matrix is still mine you see, what you want to do is to make it stable on your own. I am only giving you more time to gain experience with it.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “I take away a layer and you try to stabilize it each time. The idea is that by the time the last spell circle comes off, you will have found a way to stabilize that mana core yourself.”

  It wasn’t the worst idea. Ryan just wondered if there was a better method instead. A perfect spherical orb felt for his volatile mana, and that was what he was going to end up with if he followed through with Rick’s plan.

  Patreon is now 25 chapters ahead!