Chapter 283: Making An Early Appearance

The effect was instantaneous.

A violent pressure surged within his mind, a hammer striking against his skull. His breath caught in his throat, but he remained silent. The cultivation array beneath him blazed even brighter in response to this sudden influx of energy. Then something extraordinary occurred.

A tiny crack materialized in front of him.

It wasn’t large or dramatic but it was undeniably real. A thin line appeared in the air that bent and twisted as though reality itself had been scratched open.

From this narrow fracture emerged a tangled cluster of veins, delicate yet terrifying, glowing with a blinding crimson light that pulsed as if alive before drifting toward him.

Sage did not flinch.

The twisted crimson veins shot toward him and burrowed into his body without resistance. The sensation wasn’t sharp; it felt invasive, like something replacing what already existed within him.

His old mana veins began dissolving instantly not breaking apart but melting from within. Heat surged through his limbs, crawling under his skin until for the first time, his hands trembled.

Another figure emerged from the crack.

It was small and chaotic, a silhouette resembling Sage but composed entirely of pure shifting light. It hovered for half a heartbeat before rushing forward and piercing into his forehead.

Pain erupted through his consciousness.

Not surface pain, nothing he could simply grit his teeth against, it was deeper than that; it felt as though his soul were being violently stretched outward.

The potion’s effects took hold fully now: the small inner flame representing his spiritual core expanded rapidly not just doubling or tripling in size but multiplying until it felt like an ocean had replaced a mere candle.

His vision blurred.

Mana inside the chamber reacted violently; no longer calm, it rolled and churned like waves during a storm. The array beneath him shone brighter than ever until its carved lines burned with white light.

The abilities began integrating seamlessly.

Mana Overlord Gaze fused into his perception first. His eyes burned faintly, as if an invisible crown of pressure had settled around them.

Aetheric Insight activated fully, allowing him to see the flow of mana in the walls, the air, and throughout the tower itself, even with his eyes closed. He sensed it drilling into him, streaming toward him as if he were a vortex.

Arcane Overlord settled heavily within his aura. Instead of exploding outward, it compressed inward, condensing like gravity building at his core. His old mana veins had vanished. In their place, crimson divine veins from a crack in space spread through his body with ruthless precision.

They didn’t merge gently; they carved pathways through him. His bones vibrated violently as mana rushed through these new channels, tiny fractures forming and healing instantly, a relentless cycle of destruction followed by reinforcement.

Light began to pour through his skin, not blazing outward like a beacon but seeping through his pores and outlining his figure in a faint glow. His pale face flushed with color, turning rosy under the pressure. Though his breathing grew heavier, he maintained control.

The mana formation beneath him roared to life. Energy from the fifth floor surged downward before spiraling back up into him. The air twisted around him, forming visible currents that spiraled inward as his aura, once steady at the level of a 3-Star Apprentice Mage, began to rise.

Slowly at first… then faster.

The pressure inside his chest built until a sharp internal sound echoed, a puffed crack like something breaking open.

His aura surged forward.

The identity of 3-Star Apprentice Mage collapsed behind him like an old shell as he stepped into 4-Star Master Mage in one violent breath.

But it didn’t stop there.

The Divine Grade Mana Veins continued reconstructing within him, not merely channels but engines driving an accelerated absorption of mana at terrifying speed. Waves of dense energy flowed into him from the chamber’s surroundings. His bones thickened; muscles tightened; and his core deepened.

Inside, his Mana Pool transformed dramatically. Once roughly twenty feet wide, a contained space swirling with energy, it now expanded violently outward until it resembled a vast pond.

Mana swirled within it like a galaxy in motion, threads of light spinning around a growing center. Part of this pool began changing state: gaseous mana condensed and thickened until some turned liquid at its deepest point, not fully converted but undeniably denser and more stable.

The chamber trembled under this pressure; cracks formed in the stone walls but were immediately sealed by the tower’s reinforcement arrays beneath him that blazed brighter than ever before.

His aura continued climbing, more slowly now, as it stabilized at the threshold of 4-Star Master Mage status. The surge gradually steadied into a heavy presence without exploding further.

He opened his eyes, and they glowed faintly. The crown-like aura of Mana Overlord Gaze shimmered around them, barely visible yet undeniably present. Aetheric Insight pulsed to life, revealing every strand of energy in the chamber.

The pain lingered but had dulled to a manageable ache. He let out a soft laugh, not loud or wild, just a small breath of amusement. “Worth it,” he murmured.

But before the words fully left his lips, it happened.

BOOOM!

A thunderous sound shook the world, not just the tower or the Guild, but everything around him. The sound didn’t come from within the chamber; it resonated from everywhere at once.

The stone floor vibrated violently beneath him, walls groaned ominously, and the entire structure of the tower shuddered from top to bottom.

This wasn’t an explosion; reality itself trembled.

Sage rose smoothly to his feet as the chamber door burst open under the pressure wave. Distant screams echoed from below in the tower while windows rattled violently. Outside, the sky roared with fury.

Through Aetheric Insight, he sensed it before even turning toward the high stone window: mana across the entire region surged dramatically. It was no subtle shift; it felt like a tidal wave crashing over him.

Then, as if responding to this surge, the sky itself seemed to split apart. A blinding golden beam shot upward from deep within the Evergreen Mountain Range, piercing through clouds as if they were mere paper.

The beam remained steady and unwavering, stabbing into the heavens while surrounding clouds spiraled outward in a massive vortex that churned violently.

The ground trembled again; the Cultivation Tower rattled underfoot as adventurers below shouted in confusion.

Sage stepped forward into the center of the chamber, light still faintly radiating from his skin and his aura compressed yet immense. His eyes glowed as Aetheric Insight engaged fully.

Through layers of distance and distortion, he saw it clearly, the source of all this chaos: a rupture…an opening.

His expression changed slightly as his eyes narrowed into slits as he muttered under his breath,” Is…. that the Vault?”

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