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Falling to their knees, Eldrian joined in coughing out blood. Despite the pain moving through his body as his mana rebounded, and the headache assaulting his mind from his mageia being repulsed, Eldrian smiled.

"Did. You... feel it?" He asked between gasps. Brazen wasn\'t in any better condition, but the lizardkin was smiling just as widely as Eldrian.

"Wha-what was that?" He asked after coughing out another mouthful of blood.

"That. My friend..." Eldrian forced out, "Was what we were... after." A coughing fit ensued before Eldrian could speak again. "That is the source of power we were looking for!"

Taking their time to recover, Eldrian did not force Brazen to run their experiment again. Instead, the two moved to a nearby table (which came from the house Skepsi had repaired) and rested. They spoke very little as an hour passed, mostly reliving the exact moment where they had both felt it.

"Do you know what that was?" Brazen asked, his eyes burning with curiosity.

"Its called lifeforce. I\'ll admit, it\'s the first time I felt it in that state."

The name threw Brazen, bringing up a fear he did not even expect to feel at the moment. "Am I burning my life by using my powers?" His voice trembled as he asked the question.

Naturally, lifeforce wasn\'t something thought to civilians. Most mages were even clueless on the topic.

"I\'m not sure how it worked, but no. Think of it like using mana. No. Rather, think of it as using the mana of a mana crystal. But you don\'t want to damage the crystal when using it."

Nodding in understanding, Brazen soon frowned. "Wouldn\'t today have caused it to shatter?" The essence of drawing mana from a mana crystal without damaging it was control and regulations. To not use too much mana and cause the crystal to become unstable.

Naturally, what Brazen had lived through today couldn\'t be called regulated nor controlled. Perhaps it was by Eldrian, but by Brazen\'s standards... it had been hell.

Eldrian turned his head to the side sheepishly. "You\'re still alive, and seeing as you\'re conscious, I\'ll say at most you made some cracks."

Hearing Eldrian\'s reply, Brazen froze. It was clear Eldrian was talking from experience. Which made him wonder just through how much Eldrian must have gone to reach the point that he was at. It made him shiver.

Clearly, everything he had gone through wasn\'t even anything much to Eldrian. But Brazen also noted that the damage must be minor if Eldrian wasn\'t concerned.

"If you follow..." Eldrian paused. "Mmm, right? Let\'s try entering the magic abyss now. You know how your lifeforce feels, so this should make things easier." Brazen\'s soul wasn\'t in the magic abyss, but all... well, all those on the side of good and order were connected to it.

Skepsi\'s magical plane didn\'t welcome the devils and monsters who had been warped by their usage of magic. Eldrian didn\'t fully understand it, but he reasoned that they were considered tainted. Or, at least, that was the explanation he, or Two, had read somewhere while researching things.

Regardless, Eldrian\'s casual mention of the magic abyss had the lizardkin\'s snake-like eyes fluttering around in panic. He didn\'t want to repeat what he just went through.

"Relax, I won\'t rush you. I know the dangers. It is quite simple, though. The feeling you felt, that is your core essence. You can consider it the substance that makes up your entire soul. Focusing on it, while casting a spell, should pull your consciousness into the magic abyss."

Brazen wanted to say it couldn\'t be that easy, until he recalled the day he had lived through. Yes, it wasn\'t that easy. To find the feeling of your essence, of your lifeforce, of your soul—it wasn\'t easy at all.

—

Watching as Brazen headed to the top floor to find a bed, Eldrian started to analyze what he had happened. It wasn\'t his first time coming into contact with the lifeforce of another. In fact, it was his fourth—no perhaps fifth or even sixth time.

Eldrian wasn\'t sure whether he should count the AI.

Regardless, there was one thing that made today special. He hadn\'t invaded Brazen\'s soul, and his own hadn\'t been invaded either. Sure, they had both received backlash because Eldrian\'s mageia had clashed with Brazen\'s lifeforce, but it wasn\'t an invasion.

\'Mageia... it is a field produced by lifeforce.\' That was Eldrian\'s conclusion of today\'s experiment.

Naturally, he always used mageia. It was simply his focused willpower. What he used to connect with and control mana. Technically, what fueled the connection was lifeforce. But without focused willpower, without mageia, he couldn\'t do anything magical.

And today, he realized a property of mageia. It was like the magnetic field surrounding a magnet. Or perhaps, saying it was the electromagnetic field around an electromagnet would be more apt, since it isn\'t fixed. He could alter its strength and size at will.

Regardless, the revelation Eldrian had made today was that he had always been controlling his lifeforce. Only in such a small amount he never noticed.

It perhaps wasn\'t the most groundbreaking of discoveries. But it was a crucial step nonetheless. Especially since Eldrian had felt the source of Brazen\'s bloodline power. Had felt lifeforce in action.

While Eldrian had failed to analyze the situation, as it had lasted only for a split second. He had still confirmed that lifeforce could directly control matter. Not mana. Matter.

Eldrian now had a vague idea of what he needed to search for. Despite Skepsi\'s advice, Eldrian wasn\'t keen on following her method. And if this could bring him success, he would gladly rather progress down this road.

And, if he could make progress without calling on his own powers—which were far too dangerous—Eldrian would gladly do just that.

—

The next day, after escorting Brazen back to the border wall, Eldrian equipped the circlet and cloak and started to practice their usage. The wandering undead made for perfect practice targets.

\'I see. An interesting way of going about it,\' Eldrian commented as he soared through the air. In a shocking twist, the ability soar  did not have a cooldown.

Eldrian could use it back to back. Sadly, it fully dispelled after reaching its limit. Thus, if Eldrian was in the air at the time, he would end up plummeting down to Gaia.

Recovering from the fall wasn\'t as easy as one might hope. But through a combination of wind spells and wings, Eldrian had mastered the recovery.

Still, this was great news. It might be mana expensive, but being able to fly was an exceptional ability. The testing also allowed him to gleam some insight into the flight magic.

Unlike soar, flight magic worked by increasing the air pressure around a person\'s whole body. It was what made the spell so difficult to learn and control. Normally, a mage had to master a minimum of ten different modules to master basic flight.

Eldrian could skip learning different modules, since he could directly control the flow of mana of his spells. But staying balanced was still no simple task.

The method that the circlet used was far simpler—though, granted, in the same vein that it was simpler, it was also cruder.

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