?303 Limits
Sitting down and closing his eyes, Asher felt the mana around him.
C Rank was considered the rank where hunters could start enhancing their mana senses, but Asher had achieved this way before he reached C Rank, due to his Rank A Mana Flow Skill.
Mana swirled around his body as Asher dived into his subconscious mind.
This process was extremely hard for someone like Asher, who had to deal with his madness all the time.
But his urges were suppressed because he had been hunting many monsters recently.
Appearing in the same realm, with a blood-red sky and a single bridge with scriptures hidden behind the fog, Asher looked around. He could see that the scriptures that were visible had become easier to read.
Maybe it was because of the increase in his mastery, but he could see that it didn’t strain him to read them anymore.
Previously, even comprehending them took a lot of mental strain on Asher’s mind, and it was done under an artifact that enhanced his intelligence stat a lot.
The bridge started shaking as the scriptures began moving, and the fog in front started to settle.
Asher’s eyes drifted towards the scriptures being revealed, but they were not completely unveiled.
Asher started moving towards them, as the red stone that the bridge was made of trembled every time he took a step.
Above him was the red sky, and below was what seemed like endless darkness.
Right now, Asher’s face had gone completely indifferent, with nothing but coldness in his gaze.
With each step Asher took, the bridge trembled and fog settled down, and he was approaching the sixth scripture, which he couldn’t see the last time.
But suddenly the bridge started disappearing, and the path was nothing more than a few stones hovering in the air, and on the side lay the Sixth Scripture.
Asher looked below, and there was nothing but darkness, and the only way to go to the other side was to use those stones as platforms.
Asher tried to use Black Element to form a platform below to use Mir Steps, but there was no response.
“So, I can’t use it here,” Asher thought as he looked at the path in front.
The Sixth Scripture was not meant to be reached unless someone improved in Mir Steps and mastered it to move without slowing down at all.
“Mir Steps,” Asher said as he disappeared from his spot and appeared with his left on the first stone.
But the moment he stepped on it, the stone started turning into dust.
Without wasting even a moment, Asher kept stepping to the next stones that were placed in awkward angles.
Mir Step was essentially a movement art that allowed the user to move in each direction, and mastered perfectly, Asher could maneuver even more complex patterns than the current one he was doing.
Asher kept going forward, but suddenly the pressure on his body was becoming heavier as he kept getting closer to the Sixth Scripture.
Each stone he stepped on disappeared, and Asher had no way of going back now.
The only way was to go forward or fall into the darkness below him.
He was moving at full speed with his eyes drifting and forming a path that he needed to follow.
The distance was narrowing down as Asher stepped on the next stone, and only ten of them were in front of him now.
But some of them were placed so high that Asher needed to land on them upside down, propelling himself towards the one a bit below the one he stepped on just now.
Due to the fog, the visibility of the stone was limited, but with the last ten stones within his vision, Asher instantly formed a path in his mind.
Instantly, he stepped on one after the other, reaching the other end of the bridge, and he felt the pressure had gotten ten times heavier than when he was on the stones.
It was so much that he needed to use his aura to even move under that pressure.
He lifted his head and looked at the scripture that contained something complex.
It looked like a sword technique, but all he could comprehend was about movement.
He read it again, and it changed, as it seemed like a movement technique, but when he tried to comprehend it, it turned out to be a sword technique.
Asher kept reading, but no system information came about him comprehending the Node Art or any sort of increase in his mastery.
Something was wrong, and Asher looked around, and he could see that there was fog all around except on the path he took and the way the Sixth Scripture was placed.
Asher tried to move towards the side, but he could only take each step slowly.
He was using his full strength, but it was even difficult to move, and the mental drain was starting to appear.
But his suspicions were correct as the fog lifted gradually, and smaller scriptures floating in the air became visible.
[ Host has found a shard of a Sword technique ]
[ Comprehension not possible until more shards are obtained ] 𝑂𝑣𝚎𝔩𝐞xt.𝑐𝗈𝑀
Despite being completely visible, the small scripture didn’t make any sense when Asher tried to focus on it.
Asher turned his head, and as he moved a bit to his right, he slowly reached the other corner, as the fog lifted completely revealing another small scripture.
[ Host has found a shard of a Movement Technique ]
[ Comprehension not possible until more shards are obtained ]
With a similar message, Asher looked at both the small scriptures, but it didn’t look like they were going to be helpful for now.
“Two different ones,” Asher thought in his head as he started walking towards the opposite side.
If his guess was true, then there needed to be more small scriptures around this area.
But due to the heavy pressure on Asher’s body, it wasn’t easy to reach the other end.
A distance that he could cover in a second seemed like it was taking forever.
The time Asher could spend in this space wasn’t much, but unlike last time, Asher wasn’t looking past the Sixth Scripture.
He only attempted doing that the last time because of the Fallen’s Crown artifact that boosted his comprehension rate and intelligence.
And without it, Asher was sure that anything beyond the Sixth Scripture wasn’t something he could touch right now.
Step
Step
With each step taken slowly, Asher reached near the other side of the Bridge, and the fog that was disappearing revealed another small scripture.
[ Host has found a shard of a Defensive Technique ]
[ Comprehension not possible until more shards are obtained ]
And seeing this notification, Asher knew that all this was related to the fifth scripture.
“But what’s the last one?” Asher thought.
Mir Steps, Swift Strike, and Aura Shield, all of these techniques fitted the description for the shards he had obtained till now.
But the moment Asher took another step, the pressure increased slightly but not a lot to make Asher stop.
But it increased again with the next step he took.
Asher looked above as he could see a faint outline of another scripture, but to approach it got more difficult with each step Asher took.
His body started feeling the pressure, and his aura was fighting against the pressure, but it got more difficult the more he moved.
The distance was closing, but Asher could start to feel the mental drain that was tiring him.
It wasn’t his physical body holding this pressure.
But the more he moved, Asher understood why moving towards this scripture was difficult.
[ Node Art’s Mastery has increased ]
So, it’s something I haven’t learned yet,’ Asher thought.
The previous three techniques were things that Asher had spent a lot of time practicing, and he had increased his mastery in that way.
The fog became clearer as Asher reached the scripture that looked different from the ones he had read.
It was cracked and barely readable as Asher looked at it, and his eyes got stuck on the scripture.
[ Host has found the Last Shard ]
[ Must be comprehended first to unlock the Sixth Scripture ]
The system notified him, but Asher didn’t see these notifications, as his brain was already processing the information that he saw on the small scripture.
[ Node Art’s Mastery has increased ]
[ Node Art’s Mastery has increased ]
[ Node Art’s Mastery has increased ]
Multiple notifications popped up, but Asher wasn’t interested in them; his eyes were focused on the scripture that barely made any sense, with cracks hindering anyone from understanding it.
While Asher was doing this, Rifir, who was absorbing the mana gem, got alerted as his Blood Red Iris looked at Asher.
It was his instinct as a beast that made him feel a sense of danger from Asher.
The original form of Rifir wouldn’t have even felt something, but the current Rifir wasn’t strong enough, and its senses alerted it for a moment.
But it closed its eyes, as the feeling went away, and continued absorbing the mana gem.
It was a very strange thing that Rifir felt such a thing from Asher.