An entire day passed.
Adrian stood near the edge of the Azure Garden's inner zone, watching disciples. The air felt clearer now, lighter. His thoughts moved without resistance, flowing naturally from one thought to the next. He could now feel that his mind had fully recovered.
Satisfied, he turned away from the disciples and began walking deeper into the garden.
Now, his focus shifted towards the willforce problem.
He deliberately avoided studying the authority technique scriptures or engaging in any further heavy comprehension. Those texts remained stored within his spatial ring, untouched. The Movement technique still beckoned, promising insight into spatial manipulation at scales he had not yet explored. The Offence technique could contain methods that would sharpen his combat efficiency. But he ignored them both.
For now, his priority was clear. He needed to find a way to permanently address the willforce problem that had been troubling him for so long.
Every time he formed a new divine concept, his willforce depleted sharply. Every time he studied advanced spell structures, his consciousness frayed at the edges. Even something as simple as using his Source Eyes for extended periods drained him. The recovery period was always the same: twenty-four hours of forced inactivity, waiting for his mind to rebuild itself naturally.
That limitation was unacceptable.
He walked slowly through the inner zone of the Azure Garden, his senses scanning the surroundings until he located a Crimson Will Lotus.
Once he found one, he sat cross-legged near it.
The ground beneath him was soft, moss-covered earth saturated with ambient mana. He adjusted his position slightly, settling into a comfortable meditation posture. His hands rested lightly on his knees, palms upward. He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes.
For a moment, he simply sat in silence, allowing his awareness to settle.
Then he opened his eyes and activated his Source Eyes.
Adrian had already analyzed the lotus's internal structure previously. He knew it contained rules governing feedback convergence, recursive reintegration, and accelerated coherence. These rule interactions combined to accelerate the natural recovery process of one's consciousness.
Now, as he observed the lotus again with his Source Eyes, he clearly saw those same rules operating within it. Adrian studied the structure for several minutes, confirming what he already knew. Then he dismissed his Source Eyes and turned his awareness inward into his source seed.
The familiar white-grey expanse unfolded before him. Chambers lined the infinite space, each one containing rule fragments from different arcane concepts and divine concepts. Others remained dim, holding only partial comprehension. Still others pulsed faintly, recently formed divine concepts waiting to be explored.
He examined his Source Seed carefully, searching for the specific rules he needed. To his quiet satisfaction, he realized that all three of those rule fragments already existed within him.
He had already comprehended these rules before when he was in the expedition.
Adrian smiled faintly. This was another benefit of the Source that he had not fully appreciated before.
In the universe, cultivators could not simply comprehend isolated rule fragments in the way he could. They had to comprehend an arcane concept first and then form an essence seed corresponding to that concept. Only the rule fragments contained within that arcane concept would become accessible to them.
No cultivator could simply observe a rule, like those within the Crimson Will Lotus, and directly extract and integrate those rules into their own essence. Even if someone experimentally understood the rules intellectually, they would not gain direct access to them in essence seed form, unless they were part of a comprehended arcane concept.
Adrian's situation was different. When he was in the UNI-Hub, merely observing boundary and continuity rules within teleportation formations had allowed him to integrate those rules into his Source Seed, even without fully comprehending the corresponding arcane concepts. He had not completely grasped Boundary or Continuity as full arcane concepts, but he still possessed the rule fragments used within the formation now.
Those fragments existed within his Source Seed, stored in partially-formed chambers. He could access them. He could manipulate them. He could combine them with other rules to create new effects.
That ability was unprecedented.
Previously, he had not understood how valuable that ability was. Now he did.
The Crimson Will Lotus was rare and expensive precisely because most cultivators did not even know which arcane concept those particular recovery-related rules belonged to. Without knowing the correct arcane concepts, replicating the lotus's effect was nearly impossible.
Even if someone identified the correct arcane concept and comprehended it fully, the specific rules might be scattered across different concepts. To replicate the lotus's effect, one would have to create a spell using all of those elements or combine those rules deliberately into a divine concept. That entire process was extraordinarily complex.
Within Adrian's knowledge, he had not heard of anyone forming a divine concept that replicated the Crimson Will Lotus's effect.
Perhaps great sects or extremely powerful organizations possessed such methods, but such knowledge was never made public. Therefore, Adrian had no information about it.
This is why the Crimson Will Lotus is expensive within the universe. Sects guarded them jealously, cultivating them in protected gardens and rationing access only to their most promising disciples.
But for Adrian, the path was clear, and he already had a plan.
Alchemy was undeniably useful, and mana pills were an excellent example of its practicality. However, Adrian did not wish to rely on traditional alchemy here. If he attempted to create pills from the Crimson Will Lotus, he would require a continuous supply of the plant. Even with accelerated growth formations, the supply would remain limited. So, that approach was neither sustainable nor scalable.
Instead, he preferred inscription-based solutions. If he created a divine concept containing those recovery-related rules and then constructed a spell from it, would that not replicate the lotus's effect?
The spell could be cast repeatedly, limited only by mana reserves rather than plant availability. If this worked, then it would mean there is no lock on the supply, since it's more dependent on the divine concept and the person inscribing it.
He did not know if this would be as he thinks right now, for certain. The theory was sound. His understanding of rule structures was thorough. But theory and practice often diverged in unexpected ways.
So, it was time to test it.
Within his Source Seed, Adrian created a new empty chamber.
The white-grey expanse responded instantly to his intent. Space folded inward, carving out a pristine hollow amongst the others. The walls shimmered faintly, waiting.
Carefully, he extracted the rule fragments governing feedback convergence, recursive reintegration, and accelerated coherence. He placed them within the chamber. Compared to the divine concepts he had previously constructed, which contained numerous rule fragments, this felt minimal. However, his goal was not complexity. It was functional replication.
He adjusted the placement of the three rule fragments carefully, aligning their interactions so that they reinforced one another rather than operating independently.
The fragments resisted at first. Their natural positions wanted to drift apart, each operating in isolation. Adrian pressed his will against them, nudging them closer. The resistance increased. He held firm.
Slowly, grudgingly, the fragments began to respond. After several minutes of fine-tuning, the structure stabilized.
The three fragments locked into place with a faint resonance. A gentle golden wave spread through his body, and his Mana Sea expanded by 1,500 mana units.
It had formed into a low-tier divine concept.
Adrian did not expect that these three rules would only yield a low-tier classification. He'd assumed the complexity of mind-related rules might push it higher. However, tier did not matter as long as the function worked as intended.
He activated its divine domain. Golden light erupted from his body, spreading outward in a smooth sphere. A small golden domain expanded around him. Immediately, Adrian felt a subtle but distinct clarity within his consciousness.
His thoughts sharpened. The faint fog that had lingered at the edges of his awareness began to dissolve. It wasn't dramatic. But the effect was undeniable.
"It works," he murmured softly.
The divine concept accelerated mental recovery. He had just formed a divine concept, which normally consumed some willforce. Now, he could sense his consciousness reorganizing itself faster than usual.
However, he quickly identified a limitation. Maintaining the divine domain consumed mana and a small amount of willforce. Although the cost was low, if his willforce were completely depleted, activating and maintaining a domain might not be viable.
He needed something more efficient.
Adrian shifted his focus toward constructing a divine spell instead. He dismissed the golden domain and settled deeper into meditation, turning his full attention inward. His idea was simple and rooted in his past experience.
Years ago, when he was on Earth, he had created a passive strengthening spell. Once cast, it enhanced his physical attributes for a set duration without requiring constant conscious control. When the duration ended, he could recast it.
What if he replicated that spell's structure but replaced the strengthening rules with these recovery-oriented divine rules?
If successful, a single cast could provide hours of passive effect.
Adrian immediately began constructing the spell structure within his mind. First, he recreated the structural framework of his old strengthening spell. Then, he replaced the strengthening rule fragments with the recovery-based divine rules he had just created.
The moment he swapped them in, the structure collapsed.
Adrian frowned and rebuilt it from scratch.
The second attempt gave the same result. On the third attempt, the structure held for three seconds before imploding.
Because divine rules were layered and complex, this substitution required precision. The strengthening rules he'd used before were simple, clean, planetary-level concepts. These divine rules were galactic-level, each fragment containing sub-layers of conditional logic and feedback mechanisms.
His initial attempts failed. The structure kept destabilizing multiple times.
Hours passed as he refined the arrangement. He adjusted internal feedback loops, optimized mana consumption, and reinforced structural stability to prevent collapse. He paid special attention to efficiency, ensuring that the passive duration would justify the mana cost. A spell that required ten thousand mana units but only lasted an hour would be useless. He needed something sustainable.
After nearly an entire day of focused effort, he finally stabilized a structure that satisfied him.
The spell was only a low-level divine spell. He could improve it further with more time and research. But creating a mid-level divine spell entirely from scratch without guidance would require significantly more experimentation. Weeks, perhaps months, of trial and error. For now, he was content with the result.
Adrian cast the spell. Golden essence flowed from his newly formed divine concept chamber, surging through his body in a controlled wave.
From the outside, nothing changed. He still sat cross-legged on the moss-covered ground. The Crimson Will Lotus swayed gently nearby, undisturbed. The ambient mana of the Azure Garden continued its slow circulation around him.
Internally, however, he saw golden essence begin circulating through his body. It flowed through his blood, carried by his natural circulation. It rotated gently around his brain like a slow, stabilizing current.
Clarity returned almost immediately. His willforce had been heavily depleted from the full day of spell research. The act of constructing and testing the spell structure repeatedly had fragmented his consciousness dozens of times. Each failed attempt had left tiny fractures. Now, he could clearly feel his recovery accelerating. The fractures were mending. The scattered pieces pulling back together.
The difference was stark.
And the spell cost five thousand mana units to cast. Even with willforce mostly depleted, he was still able to cast it. That was crucial. If the spell required active mental effort or significant willforce to activate, it would defeat the entire purpose. More importantly, it functioned passively and required no active maintenance.
The passive effect duration appeared stable for nearly an entire day.
He couldn't measure it precisely yet, but the spell structure's duration anchor suggested approximately twenty hours before dispersal. That was excellent. One cast per day would maintain continuous recovery acceleration with minimal mana investment.
He did not yet know the exact recovery rate. That would require observation over several hours. He'd need to track how quickly his willforce regenerated under the spell's influence, compare it to natural recovery rates, establish baseline measurements. Proper testing would take time.
Adrian smiled faintly.
This was the first step.
The spell worked, and the concept was proven. He'd successfully created a divine concept and corresponding spell that replicated the Crimson Will Lotus's effects through pure rules. No plants or alchemy are required. Just mana and comprehension.
But still, at present, the method was usable only by him. For others to use it, they would need to comprehend this newly formed divine concept. However, Adrian himself did not know which arcane concept these rule fragments originated from.
Without that knowledge, it was not feasible to teach it conventionally.
He couldn't hand someone a scripture and say, "Comprehend these three arcane concepts, then combine them like this." He didn't have the foundational information. The divine concept existed within his Source Seed as a functional construct, but the path to reach it remained obscure.
He considered another method. He could use Origin Ink to etch the spell structure directly into someone as a tattoo, allowing them to activate it with pure mana. However, that approach still needed at least basic comprehension of the concepts, or else the concept itself would reject the user, and also since its using the Origin Ink, this was not scalable for monetization across the universe.
He needed a method that allowed mass distribution. Something cultivators could purchase and use independently. Something that didn't require his constant presence or effort. Something that could spread across galaxies without revealing his Origin Ink.
The answer eluded him for now. Adrian slowly closed his eyes and relaxed.
The golden essence continued its gentle circulation through his body. The moss beneath him was soft, almost comfortable. The ambient mana of the Azure Garden pressed against his skin like a warm blanket.
For now, he allowed his mind to recover fully under the spell's passive effect. Once his clarity stabilized completely, he would think carefully about how to turn this breakthrough into something far greater.