Asher didn't go to any ordinary male's quarters but a high-ranking one. It only has one king-sized bed in a smaller room compared to other servants' quarters that is one big room with ten to twenty double-sized beds.
Sitting on the carpet, Asher took out the luminous objects from his bag.
There, in his palm, were small shards of crystals. Dancing waves of light, like a small aurora within them, were the source of their luminosity.
These crystals are a type of energy source called Elemental Crystals.
Elements such as wind and water naturally exudes energy and these stones contain pure energy as seen within. Not all energy sources are crystals and luminous such as this. These crystals are just on another level of their own.
Elemental Stones are commonly used as currency as well. However, with no one to trade with, Asher will be using all of them to grow his power.
From the mystical arts taught by the mysterious spirit within him, one of them is how to extract World Energy from various sources such as the surrounding, food, and of course, energy sources such as Elemental Crystals.
Asher didn't have the chance to learn how to use Elemental Energy directly. World Energy is incomparably more powerful so that's where he focused in the oncoming fight with the royal prince. On the downside, World Energy is much harder to obtain. His physical body also limits how much he can use or absorb it.
Once the mysterious spirit wakes up, hopefully it does and soon, he'll ask it to teach him how to use Elemental Energy directly to increase the flexibility of his arsenal.
For now, however, he's planning to use them to train his body.
When Asher accepted the spirit's will, they've become connected and it was able to enter his body freely. Upon entering, the spirit have learned that his Inner Lair, where his soul resides, is locked and the spirit cannot enter it.
This means it's not that Asher has a Birthlight of Dark Red. The midwife's statement [It's so dark, I don't even see a tinge of red!] is the most accurate description of his Birthlight as of yet.
It's because he doesn't have any!
For some reason, his Inner Lair is locked and even the seemingly all-knowing spirit has no idea why. Thus, he could never be a Soul Practitioner until he figured out a way to unlock his Inner Lair.
With the help of the mysterious spirit, this tragedy becomes an opportunity though. With his soul restricted, he is free to control other energy and it will no have complications with his Soul and Nascent Energy.
This means that even if the mysterious spirit chose another person, that person wouldn't necessarily be able to control the World Energy like he could without consequences.
On top of that, the difficulty of absorbing World Energy is incomparably higher than learning the highest-ranked soul skills. At least, that's what the spirit says.
Asher didn't have any reference on speed but, thankfully, he was able to control World Energy in less than a month. Based on the spirit's reaction, he guessed he was fast on that matter.
Anyway, with the Elemental Crystals in his hand, he will be able to expand his body's capacity to store World Energy.
Roughly speaking, he could store ten World Energy right now. Using one Epitome-Ranked Soul Skill would need two to three full strands. However, this is not an accurate measurement as strands can have different sizes. In the future, once Asher's mastery over World Energy increases, one strand can be used to activate multiple Epitome-Ranked Soul Skills.
Excitement rushed through Asher thinking about that. Thus, using an enhanced loupe he got from the underground treasury, he inspect the purity of these crystals.
3 shards of Wind Crystal, purity of 12.
2 shards of Fire Crystal, purity of 10.
4 shards of...
All in all, he got more than a hundred shards. If the world turned back time, Asher could freely buy lands and build a manor filled with servants. Meaning, he could have a lavish retirement with this amount.
But even this is just a fraction of the O'lothe Family's wealth. The main treasury has much more. Not just shards but concentrated pills as well, which is a shame.
Anyway, with the help of these shards, Asher was able to train his body to get used to being the medium. Normally, Soul Practitioners will not be able to achieve this without conflict between their Nascent Energy and the Elemental Energy. However, Asher has no such barriers.
As he absorbed the pure elemental energy within these shards, he could feel himself expand. It was not a good feeling at all.
Asher was familiar with this. It felt like he could explode at any moment. That is why absolute focus and control are needed to achieve the best result. He needed enough energy to expand his body, but not to the point it would pop his blood vessels.
Just like that, Asher stayed cross-legged on the carpet until the candle was at the end of its wick.
Opening his eyes, Asher felt discomfort all over his body. Even though it was supposed to be winter cold, he was profusely sweating that it drenched his clothes.
He had just gone through seven shards and he already felt like dying.
Asher dropped to the ground from exhaustion. If he didn't stop, he might risk his life.
At this point, he should rest to recover from his mental and physical fatigue. His body would adjust to the expansion and tomorrow, he would be able to store more than twelve strands of World Energy.
His increase of strength was tremendous as this was the first time he used Elemental Crystals for increasing his strength.
When he was just starting, Asher would slowly absorb the environment and slowly get used to it.
However, after taking a short breather, Asher went back to the lotus position. He couldn't recover his body's health using soul skill or it will all be for nothing. His body need to adjust slowly.
Striking while the iron's hot, he absorbed World Energy from the surroundings.
Because his body was just stretched by the Elemental Cystrals, his rate of absorption is monstrous compared to before.
"Ah...!"
His eyes snapped back. Blood dripped from his nose.
"Tsk."
Asher trembled. If not for his body's survival instinct, he would continue absorbing and explode unmajesticaly.
"Hooo, that was dangerous..."
Usually, he had the spirit's voice guiding him even when he was deep in a trance. But right now, Asher has no guide and has to rely on himself.
Speaking of the spirit, hmm?
Asher's consciousness went near to his Inner Lair and felt the spirit had more energy than before.
He snapped back to reality, forgetting about the pain, he smiled excitedly.
"Haha-! The spirit is taking some of the energy that flows through my body!" his fist clenched as he found a way.
After taking another breather, he consumed another shard. He then rested again and absorbed one strand of World Energy.
This cycle repeats for hours until it's past midnight.
Asher looked around and felt his vision sharper. At the same time, fatigue made the world wobbly as if it was about to collapse. No, he was about to collapse.
I still need sleep, Asher thought so he stopped for now. He slowly crawled to the bathroom. He really pushed himself this time.
Fortunately, he reached it before throwing up as if he was heavily intoxicated.
"Haaa..." Asher felt he had the worst hangover of his life. The desire to take a quick shower and sleep pushed him to move.
However, he was unable to and fell asleep in the bathroom.
Moments later.
"Oy!"
A voice woke Asher up. Slowly, his eyes opened to see something vermillion. He was still half-asleep when he felt a complicated emotion seeing this vermillion as if it reminded him of something unpleasant.
"Why are you sleeping there?"
"... urgh." Asher held his head as he sat up. He looked around and found himself in the exact spot.
"Nothing," he groaned in reply, "just slightly pushed myself."
"..."
"Wait, here. I'll cook breakfast."
Before Asher stood up, Madesol corrected him.
"No, it's not morning yet."
Huh, then, why are you here?
Seeing the inquisitive expression from Asher, Madesol made a weird expression.
After some silence and reluctance, she replied.
"I-... sl.. here..." but her voice was so low, Asher didn't understand it.
"?"
Madesol showed a frustrated look when Asher didn't hear her.
"I said..." she continued slowly as she found the most proper words to use, "I need to sleep here."