"Let me try it," Adrian whispered, his eyes gleaming with white-grey light.
Within the quiet of his private chamber, Adrian closed his eyes and activated his Source Form. The transformation was instantaneous. Flesh, blood, and bone dissolved into a blinding white-grey radiance. His physical body was entirely replaced by pure source energy.
As the transformation took hold, Adrian made sure to keep his source essence strictly suppressed. He consciously locked away the full authority of his source. He didn't want to release his one hundred percent authority or allow the overwhelming conceptual energy to affect his surroundings. After all, this was not a fight, and he was not trying to intimidate anyone here; Adrian just wanted to test his Source Form now that his reserves had reached an unprecedented scale.
As his physical body dissolved, his consciousness merged with the Will of the Source, and a silence washed over his consciousness. The lingering adrenaline that had coursed through him from forging his Mana Sea to one billion units vanished in an instant. The frustration from his encounter with Navira in the Providence Hub simply evaporated, leaving no trace behind. Anger, grief, fear, hesitation, and the potential for wasted motion were entirely erased. In this state, he no longer had any emotions he normally had.
But even with his constant suppression, the Source Form still possessed an inherent effect on the surrounding environment. The space around Adrian seemed to bow in reverence, the very fabric of the chamber groaning under the existential weight of his presence.
Before this localized distortion could ripple outward to affect any disciple, the Azure Garden, or the fragile ecosystem within this planet, Adrian quickly blinked out of the planet.
He moved seamlessly away from the immediate surroundings of the planet, putting light-years of distance between them in mere seconds.
Floating in the endless dark, Adrian could feel that the traversal capabilities of the Source Form were extremely fast. Throughout his journey, his physical body had always possessed hard limits, forcing him to constantly refine, adapt, and improve himself. Even when he had fought with the Astral Stage elders from the major sects in the intergalactic void, or during his battle against Navira, his perception had been incredibly fast, but his physical body was still inherently limited in its speed, meaning he had to constantly adapt and manage both aspects.
But now, in this luminous white-grey state, the delay between intent and action was entirely eradicated; as soon as he thought of a destination, his form moved.
"Can you hear me?" Adrian projected his thoughts inward, attempting to communicate directly with the Will of the Source that now amplified his very being.
Silence.
The void around him was quiet, but the silence within his mind was even deeper. The Will of the Source pulsed, but it offered no words or acknowledgment of his question. It remained silent and perfectly indifferent to his inquiry.
Adrian gave a slow shake of his energy-formed head. He had half-expected this silence, yet another half of his consciousness had genuinely expected that it would be different while in his Source Form, since his own will had essentially merged with the Will of the Source itself. But at the end of the day, the Source was as mute as always, acting only when it saw fit.
But he had not activated this taxing form merely to talk with the Source. He had activated it to push his boundaries and to experiment with it under the new parameters of his massively expanded reserves. How long could he hold this form now? Could he actively cultivate with it? Could he train with it? Are there more mechanics, more hidden depths to the Source Form than he had discovered up until now?
His first, most pressing curiosity was about willforce techniques. Since he was currently merged with the Will of the Source, possessing a clarity unburdened by mortal flaws, how would the execution of a highly complex willforce technique even feel?
Adrian formed the intent in his mind and deliberately weaved his willforce to execute the willforce technique he had memorized from Navira. In a fraction of a microsecond, the dark void around him ignited with brilliance.
Thousands of needles of pure, condensed intent formed instantly and hovered around him in a breathtaking constellation. The sheer density and perfection of the construct were staggering. When Adrian had previously tried to replicate Navira's complex willforce technique during their desperate fight, he had managed to form barely a few dozen needles, and even those were trembling, uneven, and poorly structured.
But now, existing in his Source Form, he could effortlessly create thousands of perfectly stabilized needles. When he had just executed this technique moments ago, he felt the Will of the Source intervene; it had automatically corrected his crude, amateurish mental weaves, structuring the technique and executing it the proper way it was always meant to be utilized.
"It's flawless," Adrian analyzed, his white-grey eyes observing the impeccable geometric structure of the floating needles.
For the very first time, he truly felt what a perfectly executed willforce technique was supposed to feel like. He didn't just observe the final product; he experienced the methodology. He meticulously memorized the sensation, internalizing the exact rhythm of how his intent needed to flow, the precise placement of the structural anchors, and the necessary balance of mental weight and execution. He burned this muscle memory of the mind deeply into the core of his consciousness, ensuring it would not fade when he returned to his mortal shell.
As he did this, Adrian realized he had just unlocked the ultimate training method. He doesn't need to spend millions of years agonizing over the blind trial and error of willforce techniques like normal Astral Stage beings do. Instead of fumbling in the dark, he can simply let the Source execute the technique perfectly, imprint that proper, flawless feeling into his consciousness, and then spend his time practicing to replicate it exactly. It was a cheat against the very fabric of time and cultivation, a method that bypassed the foundational struggles of the Astral Stage.
To test this theory fully, Adrian willed the constellation of needles to dissipate. They vanished instantly, dissolving without the slightest residual ripple of instability. He then deactivated the Source Form.
Immediately, the blinding white-grey radiance receded, pulling back into his core as flesh, blood, and bone knit themselves back together in the vacuum of space. Adrian floated in the void, feeling his mortal emotions and physical sensations settling back into him. The cold logic of the Source faded, replaced by the beating of his heart and the familiar weight of his own mind.
Without pausing for a single second to rest, he immediately attempted the technique again, this time relying solely on his own, unassisted Anchor-stage mind.
He reached deeply for that residual feeling the Source Form had just imprinted upon him, treating that perfect memory as a master blueprint for his actions. His intent surged outward, weaving into the void with a newfound confidence and rhythm.
Hundreds of willforce needles materialized around him in a wide, sweeping arc. They were certainly not the thousands of perfectly created ones as he had commanded in the Source Form. Many of them still trembled at the edges and were noticeably crude in their fine structural details, threatening to destabilize if his concentration wavered. But compared to before, when only a pathetic few dozen needles were all he had managed to muster against Navira, this was a staggering, monumental leap in mastery.
This undeniable progress confirmed his theory! The Source Form was the ultimate training simulator. It provided the answer key to the universe's most complex mental puzzles, allowing him to reverse-engineer his way to supremacy.
Adrian allowed the hundreds of needles to fade, then checked his Mana Sea and the stability of his willforce.
The brief, intense session he had just conducted in the Source Form had indeed consumed a portion of his reserves, yes, but against a vast, churning sea of one billion mana units, the expenditure felt entirely manageable, almost negligible.
More importantly, his Anchor-stage mind, bolstered by the trillions of unyielding connections across the Milky Way galaxy, had absorbed the immense mental pressure of the Source Form easily. He barely felt any strain, avoiding the crippling headaches and near-unconsciousness that used to plague him after utilizing the form.
"I can sustain it," Adrian realized, his pulse quickening with anticipation. "If the drain is this manageable, I can use the Source Form for extended training, perhaps even sustained combat without the immediate fear of burning out."
Adrian smiled, a look of resolve settling over his features. The greatest titans of the universe had spent billions of years cultivating to their peaks. They had gathered inheritances, survived wars, refined their consciousness through eras of trial, and slowly carved their way toward supremacy with time as their greatest weapon. And now, Adrian had found a way to catch up with those ancient powerhouses.
With that, Adrian transformed into his Source Form once again, intending to perfect his willforce techniques. When he stepped into the Providence Hub the next time, he would be ready to face Navira.