Baines waited another day, until he was certain that he was finally alone in the vast open throne room space. He couldn't risk Martos finding out his next move.
Then, the next thing he did was dispel all the Ashenfall energy he had gathered into his core, his stomach core.
He sat outside the throne room, the same location he stayed when gathering Ashenfall. After a year of training, he had gotten used to the violent storm swirling at the center of the land.
It was no longer that dangerous and unknown energy as he felt when he first arrived. The more often he descended to fight against the ruinborns, his body got more accustomed to the energy, and that helped him largely when he began drawing the energy into his core.
Black energy slowly escaped the pores of his skin like tendrils of wisps and into the air as he reminisced on what he had formulated in the recent year.
Making this plan had robbed him of countless sleepless nights, but it was necessary.
The idea was born from the moment he began his training with Martos.
Martos never hid anything from him. He never told him he was talented or special. In fact, they barely spoke about personal matters. But without fail, he constantly made Baines painfully aware of his situation.
He made him aware of the overwhelming strength and power his enemies would have. He made him aware that his enemies weren't so weak-willed that they would care because he was still young. Because, after all, he could have very well been dead.
Whenever Baines couldn't keep up, Martos taught him to blame his weakness. He made him aware that his enemies had long since surpassed his level. He taught him that there was never a thing as being strong enough.
Everything Martos said meant the same thing. Power.
What he needed was power, and a very overwhelming one at that.
That was why he chose to stay back after Martos left, and for the sake of achieving his goals, he would become strong.
And to begin his plan, he had to dispel any progress he had made with Ashenfall.
The black energy still slowly escaped his pores as he thought,
'To achieve what I have set on, I have to track my progress.' He didn't need to do that himself
All he did was instruct Eye to record everything he did. His current state, his end goal, progress, and even the collections he had with him.
At the moment, his progress showed,
[SWORD RANKING: SWORD KNIGHT]
[HEART CORE: ASHEN-ORIGIN: 0-STAR]
[MIDDLE CORE: ORIGIN ARTS CULTIVATION: 4 STAR, AURA KNIGHT]
His sword ranking was at the knight stage. The trademark of this stage is the ability to produce sword aura. This worked in close tandem with the general level one had attained.
These levels begin from 1-star up to those above the 10-star, the demi-god.
For him, he had attained 4 stars, who were generally called aura knights. For example, if he used his fists instead, he would have been a fist knight instead of a sword knight.
As for how he had reached 4th star in just over a year?
It was all thanks to the dormant pure aura he found located in his heart core after the implantation.
What he did was to slowly transfer the aura from his heart core over to his stomach core during the course of his training, and it took over a year to achieve due to the cultivation technique he chose.
Origin arts technique.
It was among the collections he found in his family's basement.
More than a cultivation technique, it felt more like a filtering technique. This technique filtered the energy in the air to its purest form and gathered it into the body to form concentrated energy in the form of stars.
He hadn't decided on a proper cultivation method to grow his stomach core yet. After a while of contemplation, he decided to wait until he reached sword master before choosing one, and in the meantime, he could still gather pure aura to form stars in his core.
But he didn't limit it to just aura.
In this ruin, there was also an ambient energy called Ashenfall. The method Martos taught him only gathered 40-60% of its purity; however, with Orgin arts, he could fully absorb the natural energy in this place called Ashenfall.
He named the method Ashen-origin arts.
Naturally, Eye had assured him of the safety of this method, which would not only accumulate immense energy but pure energy, though at the cost of a longer cultivation time.
And with Ashenfall being clearly more powerful than the usual aura he was used to, he decided to make it his trump card.
That wasn't all.
He also shifted his attention to his family's collections.
He extended his hand, and with a soft glow, he summoned a thick, dark red energy from his wrist that extended to form a short dagger.
He released it and summoned it to his other arm.
Demonic Blade, Roesha. Its ability was simple.
It grew stronger the more blood it consumed.
"Rest for now. That time will come," he whispered, patting the blade. It vibrated before retreating into his body.
Next, he picked up a martial technique book:
[Absolute Cut Destruction]
Then another,
[Aging reversal technique]
After skimming through the texts, he raised a golden pill.
This was the elixir Eye had been warned against consuming previously.
"Can I take it now?" he asked.
[IT IS ADVISABLE TO CONSUME WITH 5-STAR]
He sighed.
It meant he had to become a master before taking the next step.
Without much choice, he placed it back before inspecting the rest of the weapons and techniques among the collections.
The collections of the Baek merchant family.
Just from their uses, he could tell. If he mastered even a single one of those techniques among the collections, he would become strong, and afterwards, it would be only a matter of time to achieve his revenge, but he had several of those.
However, as Martos had advised him, there was nothing like being strong enough.
By now, he had totally emptied his heart core of his previous Ashenfall arts.
Afterwards, he moved over to the open space.
His eyes glowed bright blue, and a hologram of Martos appeared from Eye.
Martos had clearly surpassed the Sword master level, which was a plus for him.
Using Eye, he could fight with any hologram he wished to. Every movement and attack of the hologram felt real, giving him a sense of real-life experiences.
It was perfect for training.
Though it was limited to what Eye had seen, he could just increase the power and aura output as he wished.
'I will use Eye to absorb all these techniques, get my body used to them with Martos. And master as many weapons as I can. The rest will come after I reach sword master.'
His plans had been laid.
This was his plan. Using the family's treasures to achieve revenge on his enemies and bring his family back together.
"Eye, set a timer for five years."
[TIMER SET: 4 YEARS, 11 MONTHS, 31 DAYS, 11 HOURS, 59 MINUTES.]