Chapter 47: The New Shape is a…! Cultivation Technique!

"Oh no!" Lian shouted before standing up despite the weakness he felt. "Why did I get a Mana Break as backlash?! Does the system want to kill me?" He could not let the monster hit him, not at all. Those mocking red eyes spoke volumes about the creature’s intelligence. As he stood, the golem slammed its arm into the ground, and moments later, a spike rose from the earth. Direction? Straight for Lian’s rear. Fortunately, the boy had risen just in time to throw himself to the side, rolling across the cracked ground. "That was close!" he whispered before standing and starting to run. Many would have called him a coward, but Lian called this a strategic retreat. Guess who taught him this technique? His father, Torren. A true master of battle arts. Running and cursing, Lian dodged more spikes while putting increasing distance between himself and the monster. After all, the golem’s short legs were a significant limitation to its movement, a weakness he exploited to gain ground. After running for several minutes, Lian successfully escaped, hiding and sitting behind a random rock. A sigh escaped his lips. "What the hell happened back there?" He closed his eyes, trying to recall the scene in detail. He was drawing the square, a very simple task. He was drawing it quickly—too quickly, in fact... In his haste to draw circles, Lian’s mind had grown accustomed to speed, overlooking a small detail. The square had no curves but had four right angles. The difficulty in creating a square lay precisely in drawing the angles accurately and, above all, without rounding the edges. "That explains it..." Lian murmured with a forced smile. The square he had drawn in blind haste had a slightly rounded edge. Result? The form’s creation failed, and Mana Break was the backlash. Even now, Lian felt exhausted, with no ability to circulate mana. "Sigh, nothing left but to wait a bit..." he said, settling in and leaning his back against the rock behind him. "Hm... strange. I definitely have something I need to check, but I can’t figure out what..." Closing his eyes, Lian began to reflect, only to jump to his feet. "I’m a damned idiot!" he exclaimed, slapping his face. "How could I forget something so obvious?" Sitting on the ground, Lian began visualizing the previous notifications, searching for one in particular. "There it is!" he murmured excitedly before sitting and checking carefully. [New form unlocked: HYPERSPHERE] [HYPERSPHERE: Draw a hypersphere to generate a ripple in time, creating a point of temporal anomaly. Reuse the same form to envelop an event or object, isolating it from the linear flow of time and allowing manipulation of its temporal state] [Mission: Reach 70% precision with HYPERSPHERE] "..." Lian was speechless. This reminded him of something... "Didn’t the exact same thing happen when I reached 70% with the circle?" he said after several seconds of hesitation. "It’s like the system enjoys mocking me; I don’t even have the slightest idea what this description means!" Lian began talking to himself, punching the ground below as he cursed. "Should I visualize it in my mind? Maybe it’s simpler than it seems..." he said after calming down a bit. "Geometric Spell, Hypersphere" "Huh?" Random lines appeared in his mind, each more distorted than the last. He could not grasp what the hell he was visualizing, but one thing was certain. It hurt. Lian opened his eyes with a scream as he imagined the surreal scene from moments ago. "What the hell was that?!" he cursed, holding his head in his hands. The hypersphere had nothing to do with the hypercube. While the latter was at least visualizable and imaginable in a two-dimensional world, the hypersphere seemed an entirely abstract and impossible concept to understand. "How the hell am I supposed to create that thing?!" he continued cursing, asking himself questions and shouting senselessly. And thanks to this behavior, something was drawn to his shouts. A golem, smaller than the previous one, was emerging from the ground in front of Lian. Before he could even notice, the golem was already out of the ground, ready to attack him. "Damn it!" he exclaimed, standing and dodging an annoying spike that nearly hit him. "Leave me alone!" he said, trying to summon a spike of his own, only to remember he was in a Mana Break state. "Damn it, then back to good old-fashioned ways!" he said, rolling up his sleeves and charging toward the Bronze 1 golem. He intended to punch it! Fortunately, Lian’s hands were tough, and after a few well-placed hits and several curses for the backlash of punching a living rock, Lian managed to end the monster’s life. His hands were sore and swollen, but all in all, he had succeeded in his endeavor. "I need to be more careful..." he murmured to himself while collecting the monster’s Mana Core. [Mana Core: Bronze 1] [Would you like to absorb?] "No—" Lian replied curtly, then remembered something he had set aside all this time. He did not know how long the Mana Break would last, but he knew he could rely on his body to face weaker enemies. So, it was time to focus on his body. "Let’s see how this new cultivation technique works..." he thought, calming himself with slow, deep breaths. After several minutes spent adjusting his mental state- "Geometric Cultivation!" As soon as he finished murmuring these words, something intangible yet visualizable appeared in the space before him. "Huh? Am I imagining things?" The space before him was no longer just cracked ground and scattered rocks. On its surface, a line glowed faintly, a subtle shimmer that beckoned him forward. "What should I do with it?" he wondered, approaching the line on the ground. "Maybe walk on it, keeping my balance?" There was no manual, only sensations and intuitions to figure out on his own. Placing a foot on the line, Lian felt a heaviness, as if gravity had increased, as if something was pressing him downward, a force that tested his resolve. "Oh, I get it!" he said, taking a few steps forward, slow and steady. "The cultivation requires me to traverse this line in a defined space. The more lines I cross in the space, the stronger my body becomes..." Lian moved forward while thinking, and the more he thought, the more he was amazed by both the simplicity of the exercise and its overall complexity. "Interesting..." he murmured as he took the final step, completing the line. A gentle yet powerful energy coursed through Lian’s body, a surge of vitality that invigorated him. "Ah—" he sighed, closing his eyes. It felt extremely pleasant, just like drawing lines in his mind and gaining pure mana. "This is pure vital energy!" Lian opened his eyes to observe the changes. He was a mere Iron 1; he had not advanced at all since becoming a Mage, as he had not trained. But now, with such a technique at his disposal, he would be a fool not to train and become the best. "Well, since the Mana Break persists, there’s nothing else to do but advance on the Knight’s path!" And with those words, he resumed his Geometric Cultivation. ---