God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

"Eh? Why would you want that happening to him?!" Steve asked incredulously.

"Cause he\'s an idiot who underestimated himself!" Susan said with a harrumph.

"Haha! Why didn\'t you say all that while he was still here?!" Steve said with an amused laugh.

Susan rolled her eyes as she responded in a freezing tone, "Cause then he wouldn\'t learn his lesson. That would teach him not to run off on his own." Susan said with spite.

Apparently, she was a bit pissed off by Cain\'s decision to up and leave so suddenly. Not only that but he had been gone for more than a few hours.

"Still... How is he able to stay underwater for so long without needing to resurface? Could it be that he..."

"He\'s definitely not dead," Susan said with surety.

"How can you be so sure?" Steve asked with a smile.

"You don\'t need to know that," Susan said while stomping her staff on the ice bridge.

"Hahaha..." Steve let out a laugh and decided to drop it. Stooping down, he put his hand onto the cold, hard Ice bridge. Despite being the product of a skill that was activated by someone they were more powerful than, it would take a bit of effort on their part to damage the ice bridge.

\'What a marvelous piece! It absorbs the surrounding water elemental mana to continuously strengthen itself.\'

"Why an ice bridge though?" Steve said with furrowed brows.

"Hm?" Susan turned toward him with raised brows.

"Why did he want to make an Ice bridge? I\'m sure there would have been better ways to travel from Island to Island without wasting so much energy and mana, right?"

Susan shook her head while staring at Steve with an awkward expression,

"Well, that\'s actually quite simple."

"Really?!" This time, Steve was the surprised one.

"Yeah... From what I can see, the main reason for the ice bridge aside from its ability to transport a large group, is caution..." Susan said with a contemplative look on her face.

"Caution?"

"In more accurate terms, an escape plan. Just in case we meet something ahead that we can\'t quite handle, with the existence of this bridge, we will be able to run back to somewhere with a bit more safety."

"Wow! That\'s quite impressive... And I thought he was being reckless for a second."

"Reckless? Cain is far from being reckless. In fact, everything he has done up to this point has been with a purpose. Some aren\'t very clear, but some of them are quite obvious." Susan said, a subtle proud expression showing on her face.

"You might be right, but that doesn\'t change the fact that whatever his plan is has gotten us stuck on this glacier for hours now," Steve said with a bitter expression.

"You can leave if you want to, you know?" Susan said with a frown.

"I can, but I won\'t..." Steve said.

"And why is that?"

"Well, just for one thing actually... I want to see how strong he will be when he gets back from whatever hell he went to. Ever since he left, that bear has been out cold, so I can tell right away that if he isn\'t dead, then he most certainly isn\'t going through good times." Steve said with a weird smile.

"Oh?" Susan couldn\'t help but stare at Steve a bit longer.

"If you want to stay longer, then make yourself useful. Find me somewhere to sit." Susan said, shooing Steve away with a wave of her hand.

"Damn... What sort of which is this lady?" Steve murmured to himself as he scurried away from Susan.

"How much longer do we have to wait?" Li said out loud all of a sudden.

"Li..." Jenny said in a soft voice that sent shivers down his spine.

"Fine, I won\'t ask again. But still, I\'m so bored with not doing anything. I need some excitement."

"If you need some excitement, then let me train you again. I\'m sure you\'d love it. There are so many new skills I\'ve been waiting to try." Sue said with a devilish smile on her pretty little face.

"Erh... I just remembered that I have to level up quicker, so n-no, thank you. Let\'s go, Stan!"

With lightning speed, Li dragged Stan, who looked clueless about what was going on, away and into the water with a yell.

"That should keep him busy for a while," Sue said with a satisfied expression.

"But really staying here for too long seems to be having negative impacts. I would have preferred to quickly reach higher levels. But..."

"I have a feeling we don\'t need to wait too long anymore," Jenny said with a beautiful smile spread across her face.

"Oh? Why do you think that?" Sue asked in surprise.

"I don\'t know why, I just feel like he\'ll be coming really soon," Jenny said.

"Are you sure?" Sue said with a somewhat relieved smile.

"Definitely!" Jenny responded with a vibrant smile...

***

"So in summary, everything I have been doing, from the very beginning, has been a load of rubbish?" Cain took a deep breath as he let out a heartbroken sigh.

"Quite frankly, yes. Although the purity of your mana is quite high for a mortal, it is a sad sight to continue watching you bumble around like an idiot." Azazel wasn\'t merciful when it came to his words.

Still sitting in the cave, Cain had the [Record of Akasha II] sitting before him. In front of him were a few oldnotes and manuscripts he could tell weren\'t written by the same person.

While reading through the tome, he came to realize something. His understanding of mana had been completely incomplete. In fact, he had barely touched the surface of what exactly mana and other forms of energy in the cosmos were.

"Just like a cup of water is made up of billions of invincible particles, so is energy and mana. By getting your control over the individual particles right, your proficiency with the element rises exponentially."

Azazel sat on a small stool before Cain with a monocle sitting on his eye, and a steaming cup of tea in his hand. He started at Cain as though he was looking at a project being done.

"And how exactly do I do that?" Cain said with furrowed brows, his eyes still digging through the contents of the book.

"Hahaha! There is no shortcut to success. All you can do is read and train. The second record of Akasha contains a part of the true theories of magic and sorcery. By understanding these theories, you will be able to better improve your magic control. Remember, until you do that, I\'ve placed a limiter on your mana.

If you can\'t break that limiter, forget about ever leaving this place." Azazel said to Cain.

Cain stared at Azazel with a pained expression, "Is all this necessary?"

"Of course! Since we have been brought together by destiny, there is nothing we can do about it." Azazel replied with a cheeky smile.

"Ugh!" Cain couldn\'t even find a response to that.

Seeing that he couldn\'t win against a demon that was possibly older than mankind, he diverted his attention back to the time before him.

Unlike the first book, this one dealt with the basics of magic and energy forms...

"In the universe, there are five main types of power."

"Ki, Mana, Aether, Devil essence and Spiritual energy..."

"Variations exist, but these five are the basic building blocks of energy present with the universe."

"Ki is a life energy that could be manifested. As long as something has life in it, it possesses Ki as well. However, to be able to harness this power, certain secret arts are needed. These arts are called Ki Plundering techniques."

"They are called so because they involve stealing life energy from the essence of the world and making it your own. And since Ki is ever-changing, just like mana, it also has variations."

"Mana is more abundant than Ki because it is the energy of the cosmos itself. It is constantly being created and can be used to influence the laws of reality, bending them to one\'s will..."

"Mana can create matter from nothing as well. A rock can be formed out of nowhere, fire can be summoned without any ignition and earth-rending gales can be called forth with just a thought."

"Mana is used to create life, but Ki sustains it..."

"On the other hand, Aether is energy that leaks into the physical plane from another plane called the Aether realm. This realm contains beasts that have been subjected to this violent energy, giving them power beyond what is comprehensible within the physical plane. However, due to the bond between the physical.

and the aether planes, creatures that are summoned from the aether planes are forced to obey their summoner."

"Aether can also affect creatures of the physical plane, giving them immense powers that affect both their physical and mental structure. Because aether is a corroding energy, absorbing it might have an adverse effect."

"Devil Essence is the energy granted to devils to control. Devil essence can be controlled by other races and creatures, but not to the same degree as true devils. A true devil has the power to transform all other forms of energy, including mana, into devil essence, and consume it to grow stronger."

"As for spiritual energy, it is the power of the soul that has been granted to all sentient beings. It is needed to control every other form of energy."

Cain let out a sigh as he continued to read, completely engrossed,

"To truly understand the concepts of energy, one must first understand the fundamental driving aspect of it all."

"An anchor that links all these energies back to one..."

"The Soul..."