Born In Ashes: The Enigma

Lia sat on a chair in the training ground, reading a book Kael had given her while she waited for Azrael to come out.

The book she was reading was the same one Azrael had read earlier, and much like him, she now wore a blank expression on her face after reaching the ending, as if wondering why she had wasted a few hours of her precious life on this nonsense.

"I need to tell My Lady about this..." Lia sighed, seriously considering filing a complaint against Kael.

She put the book away and looked at the closed door of the training room with a frown.

"It's already been three hours, and he is still inside..." She muttered as she walked over to the training room and checked the statistics on the small screen attached beside the door.

"According to the monitoring device, there is nothing wrong with the Young Lord... Then why hasn't he come out even after three hours?"

There was a reason why Lia had tried to stop Azrael from learning the breathing method.

First, it was not easy for an Unawakened person to locate primary energy veins.

Searching for primary energy veins consumed a great deal of mental power, and the mental strength of someone who hadn't awakened yet was usually quite weak, unable to sustain such a drain for long periods.

Not only that, even if by sheer luck they managed to find a primary energy vein, they would still need to guide the cosmic energy through it using their mental strength in order to refine it.

This intense mental exertion placed a tremendous burden on an Unawakened person's mind, potentially affecting their mental health.

Another reason she didn't want Azrael to learn the breathing method at this stage was because after his awakening, he would have to refine his energy veins all over again.

Upon awakening, the nature of the cosmic energy within a person's body underwent a drastic change.

For example, if someone awakened the power of fire, the previously neutral cosmic energy in their body would transform into fire-type cosmic energy.

The breathing method Azrael was currently learning was a universal breathing method, suitable only for neutral cosmic energy.

But after awakening, he would have to learn a breathing method compatible with his awakened power and refine his energy veins again so they could adapt to the transformed energy.

Now the question is... If he would have to repeat the refinement later, why was Azrael bothering to learn the breathing method now?

The answer was actually quite simple—even if he needed to refine his energy veins again, it wouldn't be difficult for him.

The main challenge in mastering the breathing method was locating the primary energy veins.

However, with his unique traits, Azrael could find them far more easily than others.

Once he located and refined them now, even if he needed to repeat the process later, he would already know their locations, making the task much easier.

Most people avoided learning the breathing method before awakening for two key reasons—

First, their weak mental strength made it very difficult to locate the primary energy veins.

Second, they preferred not to spend time refining veins they would need to refine again post-awakening.

Instead, they focused their time on physical training or learning more practical things that would help them once they entered Eonrift—the Land of Trials.

If it weren't for the fact that Azrael was completely unfamiliar with cosmic energy and needed to learn how to use it efficiently, he might have also postponed learning the breathing method until after awakening.

Unlike others who had been exposed to cosmic energy since birth, Azrael's case was unique.

He had only come into contact with cosmic energy one day ago, and if he wanted to quickly master it, learning the breathing method and refining his primary energy veins was the best option.

"My Lady will be back by tomorrow. She told me to let him do whatever he wants and that she will talk to him once she returns…" Lia muttered to herself, returning to her seat.

"I just hope he won't push himself too hard and exhaust his mental strength while trying to find the primary energy veins."

Inside the room, the training suit Azrael wore still glowed faintly, continuously channeling the room's ambient cosmic energy into his body to assist in the refinement process of his primary energy vein.

Another hour passed.

With a tired expression on his face, Azrael finally opened his closed eyes.

As he opened his eyes, the training suit ceased its energy transmission and returned to its normal state.

"Two energy veins in just a few hours…" Azrael murmured in a low voice, a faint smile appearing on his lips.

After finding the first energy vein early on, he had discovered another one a few hours later during his search.

Of course, he was still in the process of refining the first vein, so he had merely noted down the position of the second one to refine it later.

"It will take me a few more hours of effort to finish refining the first one… But searching for new energy veins, refining them, and using Infinite Comprehension at the same time is really exhausting."

Under normal conditions, Azrael's traits doesn't consume any energy.

However, using Infinite Comprehension to locate primary energy veins among millions of secondary ones— a process that involved analyzing every single energy vein in his field of vision— inevitably took a heavy toll on his mind.

If it weren't for his immense willpower and his spirit, which was significantly stronger than most people's, he would have already exhausted his mental power after just locating the first energy vein, without even being able to begin refining it.

"This is enough for today…" Azrael muttered as he stood up and took a deep breath.

He rubbed his forehead to ease the dizziness caused by exhausting almost all of his mental power and walked towards the door.

"Those two people will be coming back tomorrow. I should be in my best condition when I meet them."