One Last System

"So that's how it feels," Vaner muttered to himself as he looked down at his palms.

There was no physical manifestation of his energy that he could stare down at. It was all confined within his cultivation... cultivation, that the ritual Vaner activated somehow reversed.

"At least the seal broke," Vaner muttered to himself after checking up on his own situation.

The ritual wasn't perfect. Over the course of translating Vaner's energy into this other kind that was present in the borderlands, he lost an entire realm of strength. In other words, Vaner, for the first time in over a century, turned back into a normal human from a royal.

'That makes me worried whether the seal will reactivate or not,' Vaner thought, looking at his wrist where the royal seal used to be.

Back when the ritual sapped all of Vaner's spiritual energy to translate it into a different kind of power, there was no more energy flowing through Vaner's system to sustain the technique of the seal. As such, it simply shattered and vanished, all before the translated energy started to fill Vaner's veins again.

"I never would've expected to say those words, but I think I'm going to miss that seal," Vaner muttered to himself as he started to play around with various techniques he knew.

Within the borderlands, he no longer felt the pressure that he had to constantly deal with while in the zero zones. It was as if his energy was now in a place perfectly suited for it.

Instead of pulling him down, Vaner's surroundings now augmented his strength.

"The question is, will the borderlands expand? Or maybe the flows of mana will equalize across the entire world?" Vaner continued to think over the topic as he stood up and approached the exit of the cave.

For Vaner, the entire ritual took only a short moment. Yet, as he waltzed out of the ruin, he realized that not only several hours had passed, but an entire night to boot as well!

"Now then, what should I do?" Vaner asked himself, stumped by the sudden question.

For others, this might be the easiest topic to handle. After all, if there was absolutely no reason to go here or there, one could just pick a random direction. But for Vaner, who was under the influence of the royal seal for over a century, having the freedom to do his own thing was pretty confusing.

Vaner could strive to regain his status as a royal.

As someone who has achieved that level already, doing so would require only some effort and accumulation of spiritual energy. p

Vaner could also set off for the zero zone and establish a petty kingdom on his own, hoping that he could carve a piece of this new, changing world for himself.

'Thinking about the past, that's likely the path my ancestors would take,' Vaner thought as he started to move his body around in order to test his current capability.

Sure, the drawbacks of losing an entire level of cultivation were huge. To be completely honest, Vaner struggled with stuff as simple as walking straight, used to dedicating only a fraction of his strength for those motions.

Yet, he lost his status as a royal. And conversely, the percentage of his strength that Vaner had to use to do those mundane activities changed as well.

"Okay then, let's get training," Vaner muttered to himself as he approached one of the nearest trees. He then stood in position, took a deep breath, and then started slamming his fist forward as if he wanted to cut down the tree just by punching it enough times.

'I never expected a training exercise so simple, to be actually so useful,' he thought, repeating the moves he once saw Arthur practicing.

They were simple and repetitive. Yet, at the same time, they forced nearly all of the body's muscles to work in unison, allowing one to train their entire self all at once.

'I will have to find him someday,' Vaner thought, kicking the tree's trunk with his right leg only to alternate to his left and knee the wood.

Even though the original punching routine only had low kicks and high punches, Vaner changed its course a little to fit his own needs.

After all, while Arthur might be focused more on punching with his fists, Vaner's techniques oriented him more toward super-close-combat instead of full-distance combat.

And bit by bit, by repeating those extremely familiar moves, Vaner managed to regain full control over his body.

It wasn't even an hour when Vaner moved from training normal punches to the various fighting techniques he had in store.

Yet, while the progress of his physical recovery was insanely fast, he couldn't execute even a single of his moves properly.

"What the hell!" Vaner shouted, releasing his anger by infusing it into his punch.

Compared to the others, this punch did slightly more damage to the tree's bark, but it still has yet to reach anywhere near the level of strength that Vaner's punches had in the past.

'Are the techniques of this world's energy not suitable for the techniques of this new energy?' Vaner guessed, only to shake his head a moment later and return his attention to smacking the tree.

'There is no point in overthinking things now,' he thought, sending a hit after hit towards the tree.

Vaner had too little information to make any educated guesses about the laws of this new form of spiritual energy he received from the ritual. And that's why, rather than trying to guess those laws up, he continued to punch the tree, hoping that the energy in his body would move on its own at some point.

'Isn't that how our ancestors discovered the battle techniques?' Vaner thought to himself right when the drops of sweat started to form on his back and forehead. 'By finding a natural alignment of sorts, they would implement it into the structure of the punch, making the attack flow along with the natural laws of the world,' Vaner repeated the formula he once found in one of the books discarded in the ruins he liked to scavenge.

And back then, he thought long and hard about this idea, only to end up testing it out on his complete own.

And to be strict, Vaner managed to succeed back then. He somehow managed to find some small effect that allowed his fists to gain momentum faster than they should have. A special way of circling his energy through his veins while throwing a punch would fakely elongate the path of the punch, not only making it stronger but also harder to avoid.

The efficiency of the technique... It was an absolute dogshit. Even the trashy-techniques one could find for free at the sect's libraries presented a greater level of alignment with the world's will than Vaner's technique.

But his exercise back then was never about finding a new triumph card for himself. Back then, it was nothing more than a test to see whether that theory about creating techniques was correct.

'Maybe I should try that quickpunch?' Vaner thought, recalling the process involved in the technique he discovered.

Given how he spent several hours just punching the tree for no effect, trying out something different didn't seem like a bad idea.

"How was it done in the first place..." Vaner muttered, unsure of how well his memories preserved the process. Yet, after only a short few tries, Vaner threw a punch at a weird angle, only to then pull his fist up and bring the angle of attack.

His muscles responded to the move, guiding his fist more precisely than Vaner could ever do with his own consciousness.

Yet, just like before, the technique itself didn't activate. Because although Vaner circled this new energy of his in the same way that he would the normal spiritual energy, the connection somehow didn't appear.

His move somehow failed to invoke the will of the world contained within.

"What then? Should I try it sideways or maybe from the ass side?!" Vaner screamed out in frustration.

And just for the quirk of doing so, he attempted to throw his punch sideways.

As one could expect, this kind of variation didn't bring much effect.

Infuriated by his own failures, Vaner then seriously attempted to pull out the technique... by striking it in reverse. Or rather, instead of punching with his fist, he started with his hand ejected only to then pull his arm back.

Vaner spun the energy within his body...

And it responded, infusing itself into the reversed attack as if it was the most natural thing in the world, leaving Vaner stumped for words.

'What the fuck?!' Vaner only managed to curse in his thoughts, refusing to believe what just had happened.

For a technique to work with this new form of energy... but when only when executing the punch backward?

Just what kind of bullshit was this supposed to be?

'Wait, it might sound and feel like a bullshit, but it happened,' Vaner thought, refusing to act emotionally in this important moment.

Because regardless of the reason, the technique worked. And it meant that he somehow did something that was lacking when taking this new form of spiritual energy into account!

'What if I... spin the energy in the other way, then?' Vaner thought, instantly putting himself back in position and tensing his body all over.

And then, he threw a punch forward. Yet, right as he was about to change its angle, Vaner forcefully changed the habitual flow of his energy, spinning it in the opposite way to how he was used to.

His hand changed its trajectory... and then it burst forward, proving Vaner's guess.

And then, a vicious smile appeared on the man's lips.

This was the one discovery that he craved to gain an edge over the others!