Affinity:Chaos

After refining the flame for almost one hour, he had refined almost forty percent of it and had finally acquired the fire element. Now, his previous chaotic essence orb was undergoing a change with the acquisition of a new element.

With the addition of the fire element, he currently had five elements, this, in turn, made his essence orb have five different colors with the fire element unexpectedly dominating it. But Grey couldn't bother about the reason for now and focused fully on breaking through.

He had currently reached the critical point of his breakthrough, that was, forming his essence beads. Although over fifty percent of the people who attempt to form their essence beads succeed, since there's a failure rate of almost fifty percent, it showed forming the beads was easier said than done.

Compared to Single Elementalists, the failure rate among Dual Elementalists was lower due to having higher spiritual energy, then for Multi Elementalists, their success rate was a whopping eighty percent. Because, forming each bead required a delicate procedure, and if Dual Elementalists succeeds in forming the first bead, given the experience from the first one, they shouldn't have any problems when forming the second one. But on some rare occasions, they fail to do so.

But for most Elementalists, their failures occur when forming the first bead. And once one fails in forming the essence beads, they would be stuck at the Arcane Plane, and only a few natural treasures could help them.

Only Dual Elementalists and Multi Elementalists have it better since even if they failed in one element, they could still succeed in the other. Although their strength wouldn't be what it was supposed to be, it was better than not advancing at all.

Being fully aware of this, Grey knew there was no room for errors. Rushing into forming any of his beads might spell disaster for him. But once he completes the process, then he would become an Origin Plane Elementalist. He was slowly getting to the pinnacle of the Azure empire.

Calming his mind, he decided to form the essence bead for his wind element first, the reason was quite simple, among the other elements in his essence orb, it occupied the smallest mass. So he would use it to get familiar with the technique of creating his beads.

The technique for creating the beads was by using his spiritual energy to form a sphere around the element and slowly start compressing it. If he rushes while compressing it, there was a chance he might lose control over it. If this occurs, the best case scenario was failing to break through and being stuck in the Arcane Plane, while the worst case scenario was death due to the essence exploding inside the body.

Also, if one's spiritual energy isn't strong enough, they might not be able to hold the elemental essence for too long, so they will not be able to compress it properly. If these type of people even manages to break through to the Origin Plane, their overall strength will just be slightly better than an Arcane Plane Elementalist, and geniuses like Grey and Alice could beat them easily even if they were still in the Eighth Plane of the Arcane Plane.

Grey slowly used his spiritual energy to first isolate the wind element from the others before forming a sphere around it. After successfully forming the sphere, he slowly started compressing it. Given his strong spiritual energy, he had no issues with holding the element in the sphere.

It took him almost fifteen minutes to compress the sphere to more than one-fifth of the previous size of the wind element while it was still in its previous matter state. While the wind element was still in a matter state in his essence orb, it occupied a space of at least twenty-five centimeters.

'I can still compress it a little further', Grey pushed it to the limit.

Although this seemed rash, there was a reason for it. The smaller you compress your essence beads, the thicker your elemental essence. This would then increase the boost in strength, speed, and defense it gives the user.

This is also one of the reasons why, if Grey or Alice was still in the Eighth stage of the Arcane Plane, there were a few people in the Origin Plane they could defeat. But, they had not battled any of such people though. These such people are only Origin Plane Elementalists in name, and there was also a chance their beads might collapse reducing them back to the Arcane Plane.

Another three minutes went by and Grey was able to compress it to one-eighth of its previous size. But after getting to this level, it didn't budge anymore. When he tried to force it once more, he realized it was already at its maximum, and trying any further would make it unstable, so he ceased his actions immediately.

With the knowledge from the first one, he started compressing the second element. Although he had done it once, he still didn't dare to act rashly. But compared to the first time, his speed in compression was faster.

While forming the first bead, it took him almost twenty minutes, but during the second one, he didn't take up to fifteen minutes. After it got that the same size as the first one, it also stopped.

He went on to the third element.

Thirty minutes later…

Boom!

An incomparably strong aura shot out of Grey's body, but he quickly retracted it when he remembered Void was still cultivating beside him.

After breaking through, another change started taking place, his body started growing stronger by the second. When he came to the trial land two months ago, the strength of his physical body could only rival a Third stage Arcane Plane Elementalist, and because he hadn't trained his body since arriving here, it only improved by a single stage.

But at the speed it was increasing, there was a chance it might get to the stage where it can rival the strength of an Eighth stage or Ninth stage Arcane Plane Elementalist.

Just as the strength of his body was increasing, an idea struck him. What if he used the rest of the flame to strengthen his body. It was a natural treasure after all, and doing this was different from honing his body with elemental essence.

There was a difference between strengthening the body with the elements when cultivating, and what he was about to do. He would literally have to use the flame to refine his muscles, tissues, and flesh thereby improving their strength.

Compared to refining with the elemental essence, this process was going to be painful.

Since he had already decided to do it, he didn't delay any further and struck the iron while it was hot.

Guiding what was left of the flame, he tried to use it to envelop his body, and to his surprise, the flame was able to easily cover his entire body. But unlike when he was using it for his cultivation, the heat of the flame increased exponentially.

Void who was still cultivating felt the sudden increase in temperature and quickly exited his cultivation to find out what was going on.

The scene of Grey being enveloped in blue flames nearly threw him off his little feet.

'What the hell is he doing? Even though it hasn't been long since I was born, I'm confident they don't absorb flames this way', he thought to himself.

He saw how Grey was refining it previously and knew he's absorbing the flame. But now, how did it turn out like this? Looking at Grey's face calmly, he could see it was distorted from pain. He could even feel Grey was in a tremendous amount of pain from their connection.

'Why would he put himself through this pain just to grow stronger?', he asked himself.

When studying Grey some moments ago, he realized the strength of his body was increasing at a dramatic rate. In fact, his body contained so much explosive energy that it was terrifying.

'How could the human body contain so much strength?', Void asked himself in disbelief.

Beasts are known for their tough bodies, but not humans. The body of a Magical Beast in the same Rank as a human is far stronger compared to the latter.

Grey's mind was currently a mess, the pain was stronger than he expected, it was even three times stronger than his expectations. It was like the flame was slowly eating away his flesh, tissues, and muscles, and slowly remolding them, making them stronger.

'It's almost like being reborn from fire', he thought jokingly while still in pain.

Being strong-willed, he gritted his teeth and endured the pain of feeling his body being burnt and remolded. Due to the speed at which his flesh, tissues, and muscles were remolding, Void couldn't see it.

It was only after twenty-five minutes of constant suffering did the flame slowly start to die down. Grey had cursed in his mind so many times already because of pain.

What was left of his clothes after the battle with the Elemental Warrior were burnt to nothingness, luckily he still had a spare.

'If I were to engage in another tough battle that might destroy my clothes, then I'll have to walk around looking like a beggar. That can't happen! *Sigh* Looks like I'll have to be careful when fighting next time', Grey shook his head wryly.

When he stood up, all his bones made cracking sounds. His skin was smooth, and one wouldn't find even a single blemish on it.,

"*Phew* Finally, I'm at the Origin Plane", he breathed out heavily.

Observing his body properly, his essence orb had long disappeared, in its place were five rotating beads.