Emperor of the Source

Chapter 286: The First Artifact

Adrian moved toward a wide table inside his suite and retrieved the three ring bases from his spatial ring, setting them down carefully on the surface. After arranging them in front of him, he reached again into his spatial ring and brought out a small glass container that contained pure mana ink. This particular supply of mana ink had been brought from the Milky Way Galaxy itself.

Adrian exerted gentle control over the box. The lid lifted silently, and the mana ink flowed outward in a smooth stream. Under his guidance, the liquid rose into the air and spread around him like a carefully controlled mist. Every droplet remained suspended under his command, waiting to be directed.

He first guided a portion of the mana ink toward the pure void alloy ring base and began inscribing the structure of the low-level willforce recovery spell.

Inscribing a divine spell onto a ring was far from simple. The ring itself was extremely small, yet the structure of a divine spell was vast and complex. Every rune symbol representing the rules of the spell needed to be etched into the material in miniature form, compressed with extreme precision.

Adrian's eyes narrowed as he focused. The first layer of symbols formed along the inner band, each symbol smaller than even a grain of sand.

This process demanded immense control. An inscriber had to guide the mana with perfect accuracy while carving microscopic rule symbols into the artifact base. Even maintaining that level of focus required significant mental effort, and the act of inscribing itself consumed willforce.

He could feel the drain already. Not severe, but present. Each completed rune pulled a fragment of his consciousness.

Even for Adrian, whose connection to the Source allowed him to perceive and structure rule patterns far more easily than ordinary inscribers, the process still required several minutes of careful concentration. The floating mana ink moved like threads of light as he guided it into the ring's surface, forming layered rune structures deep within the alloy.

Finally, the final rune, which was the spell symbol in the language of mana that allowed one to activate the spell, was sealed into place. Adrian lifted the ring and placed it on one of his fingers.

At the moment, the ring contained no divine crystal to power it, meaning he could only activate the artifact by supplying divine essence directly.

Adrian willed the activation. Instantly, mana surged from his mana sea and flowed toward his Source Seed. Within the chamber that held the divine concept required for the willforce recovery spell, the pure mana was refined into the appropriate conceptual divine essence. That golden essence flowed down through his arm and into the ring.

The artifact activated immediately. The runes etched into the ring glowed faintly with golden light, and Adrian felt the spell structure awaken. The ring recognized his will and allowed him to select a target for the spell.

Adrian directed it toward himself. Golden essence flowed outward from the ring and entered his body. The energy circulated through his blood and slowly gathered in his brain, where it rotated gently in a controlled pattern.

Adrian immediately felt the effect. The willforce he had consumed during the inscription process began recovering faster than the natural speed.

His fragmented consciousness pulled itself together more rapidly than usual. The scattered pieces aligned, drawn by the spell's influence.

However, after observing the process for a few moments, Adrian frowned slightly. Something was wrong.

The first problem appeared immediately. The mana cost of activating the spell was far higher than it should have been. When Adrian cast the spell directly, the activation cost was roughly five thousand mana units. Yet the artifact version had just consumed nearly twenty thousand mana units.

Four times the cost.

The second issue became apparent as he waited some time and noticed the recovery rate. The passive recovery effect was noticeably weaker. Adrian focused more carefully on measuring the speed of his fragmented consciousness mending. Based on the current rate, it would require approximately eighteen hours to fully recover, in case of full depletion.

When Adrian cast the spell directly, the recovery process only required ten hours.

Under normal circumstances, natural willforce recovery required nearly twenty-four hours for Adrian. His original spell reduced that duration by fourteen hours.

The artifact version, however, only reduced the recovery time by roughly five hours. The inefficiency was obvious. The ring consumed four times the energy to produce less than half the effect.

Adrian understood the reason immediately. The ring base material was not properly compatible with the rule structure used in the spell. From his earlier research within the UNI-Hub, he had learned that when an inscriber used a material that was not compatible with the spell being inscribed, the artifact would suffer from poor efficiency and weakened effects. Now he was witnessing the effect firsthand.

Adrian removed the ring and set it aside. Next, he picked up the pure graviton steel ring base. The material felt heavier despite being identical in size.

Once again, he guided the floating mana ink and began inscribing the same spell structure onto the new material. The process repeated itself carefully, rune after rune forming inside the dense metallic structure.

Once the inscription was complete, Adrian wore the second ring and activated the spell again.

Golden light flared, brighter this time. The essence flowed into his body, circulating through the same pathways.

The results were slightly different but still disappointing. The spell activation consumed nearly eighteen thousand mana units, and the recovery rate was still reduced compared to direct casting. The effect seemed marginally better than the Void Alloy version, perhaps reducing the total recovery time by six hours instead of five.

Adrian removed that ring as well and placed it beside the first.

Finally, he picked up the hybrid ring base made from void alloy and graviton steel composite. This was the material he had suspected would perform the best.

The process began again. Adrian guided the liquid with meticulous care, carving microscopic rule symbols into the composite material.

Several minutes passed before the final symbol locked into place.

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Adrian lifted the ring and slipped it onto his finger and then he activated the spell.

The artifact awakened. The runes etched into the composite base flared with soft golden light, brighter and steadier than the previous two attempts.

This time, the effect was noticeably different.

Adrian closed his eyes briefly, measuring the mana expenditure. Roughly fifteen thousand mana units. Still higher than direct casting, but significantly better than the eighteen to twenty thousand consumed by the previous rings.

He focused on the recovery rate next. The golden essence worked steadily, pulling fragmented consciousness together at a pace that felt almost acceptable. Based on the current speed, full willforce recovery would require approximately fifteen hours instead of the natural twenty-four.

Nine hours saved. Not the fourteen hours his direct casting provided, but far closer than the disappointing five or six hours the other materials had managed.

Adrian opened his eyes and removed the ring, setting it beside the other two.

He stared at the three artifacts lined up before him. Each one represented the same spell structure, yet their performance varied wildly based purely on material compatibility.

"If I wanted the artifact to perform exactly the same as my personal casting, I would need to find a material that is truly compatible with the rule structure used by the spell."

He spoke the words aloud, though no one else was present to hear them.

Adrian had already explored most blacksmith centers within the UNI-Hub of the Andromeda Galaxy without finding such a material. But that didn't mean the search was over. He could eventually discover a suitable material himself through exploration, travel to UNI-Hubs in other galaxies where different materials might be available, or subscribe to premium commercial networks that catalogued rare materials and facilitated trade across the universe.

For now, however, the composite ring would serve as a workable prototype.

"This will be the first product to sell," Adrian murmured, picking up the hybrid ring again.

The artifact wasn't perfect, but it was functional. More importantly, it represented something no artifact could currently do, a reusable willforce recovery artifact that required no active maintenance from the wearer.

For the moment, Adrian set those thoughts aside. He placed the ring back down and turned his attention to the next step.

Storage runes.

The willforce recovery spell itself was complete, but the artifact still needed a way to store divine essence crystals internally.

Adrian raised his hand, guiding the remaining mana ink floating around him toward the ring once more. This time, he focused on inscribing storage runes into a separate section of the ring's internal structure, careful not to interfere with the recovery spell's pathways.

The storage runes were simpler than divine spell structures, but they still required precision. Adrian carved them, which would create a sub-dimensional space within the ring's framework. He deliberately kept the storage space small, one hundred cubic meters. Expanding it further would place unnecessary strain on the ring's material structure and potentially interfere with the willforce recovery spell's efficiency.

One hundred cubic meters was sufficient. It could easily hold numerous divine essence crystals.

Once the storage rune structure was complete, Adrian stepped back and examined his work. The ring now contained two distinct inscribed systems: the willforce recovery spell and the internal storage space, just like the spatial rings.

He reached into his spatial ring and retrieved a small mana crystal.

At first glance, the crystal appeared small. It looked as though it might contain only a single unit of mana. In reality, it held far more.

Earlier during his exploration of the UNI-Hub, Adrian had converted two hundred thousand UNI-Coins at the UNI-Bank into mana crystals. The bank had offered two options: standard high-tier mana crystals containing one mana unit each, which would have resulted in two hundred thousand individual crystals, or a second option of a highly compressed mana crystal capable of storing enormous amounts of mana in a single compressed crystal.

Adrian had chosen the second option without hesitation. Carrying two hundred thousand individual crystals would have been absurd.

The tiny crystal in his hand, therefore, contained two hundred thousand mana units compressed into a single form.

Adrian raised his hand. Golden essence flowed from his palm and surrounded the crystal, forming a delicate cocoon of energy. He began the conversion process, transforming the pure mana stored within the crystal into conceptual divine essence aligned with the divine concept used in his willforce recovery spell.

The transformation was slow and delicate. Even with Adrian's control and understanding of conceptual essence, the sheer volume of mana within the crystal meant the process required extreme care. He couldn't rush it. Forcing the conversion too quickly would destabilize the crystal's internal structure and cause it to shatter.

Hours passed.

The golden cocoon surrounding the crystal grew brighter as more of the internal mana converted. Adrian's willforce drained steadily, though the passive recovery spell he had cast on himself earlier helped offset the depletion.

Finally, after nearly six hours of continuous work, the transformation completed.

The crystal in Adrian's hand had changed. Where it once held pure mana, it now contained divine essence aligned perfectly with the willforce recovery spell's conceptual structure. The crystal itself had taken on a faint golden hue, glowing softly with internal light. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to the ring.

He activated the storage runes embedded within the artifact by injecting a small amount of pure mana into the designated activation symbol.

The internal storage space opened, creating a sub-dimensional pocket accessible only through the ring itself. Adrian placed the newly created divine essence crystal inside, and the storage runes sealed it within.

The artifact was complete.

Adrian slipped the ring onto his finger once more and activated the willforce recovery spell again. This time, instead of drawing mana directly from his own reserves, the artifact pulled essence from the stored divine crystal.

Adrian nodded slightly. The artifact functioned exactly as intended.

While observing the spell's operation, Adrian found himself reflecting on something he had always found fascinating.

The storage runes.

The internal storage mechanism was technically derived from a sub-concept of the Arcane Space concept. Someone without proper knowledge would normally assume that such runes required space essence to function, just like any other space-related technique.

Yet in reality, they could be activated purely with mana.

Even back on Earth, these were rune symbols classified as simple or universal runes because they could operate using pure mana. Runes such as light, barrier, and storage belonged to that category.

This peculiar phenomenon had been one of the primary inspirations behind Adrian's creation of Origin Ink. He had once observed how pure mana was somehow converted automatically into the appropriate conceptual essence for certain universal runes, allowing anyone to use them regardless of their natural affinity.

Yet that same phenomenon did not occur with other rune symbols. Advanced runes required specific essence types to function. They refused to activate with pure mana alone.

It was as though someone had deliberately defined specific runes to function universally while restricting others.

Now that Adrian could perceive the rules governing arcane concepts, he had expected to find an explanation within the rule structures themselves. Some hidden directive embedded in the language of mana that dictated which runes could operate with pure mana and which could not.

But there was nothing. He could see no rule stating that storage runes should function with pure mana. There was no underlying rule forcing that behavior. The space concept's rules made no distinction between universal runes and other runes. They were all constructed from the same fundamental building blocks.

It was as if another layer existed beyond the visible rules of the universe, an unseen structure determining how certain things were allowed to function.

That realization pointed toward a deeper truth. Something or someone had defined these laws.

"Heavenly Order…" Adrian muttered quietly.

That was the name most cultivators used when referring to the governing structure of the universe, although no one truly knew whether it existed as a real entity or simply a concept representing the natural laws of reality.

However, Adrian possessed knowledge that most cultivators did not. He knew about the Source. And that knowledge only raised an even more troubling question within his mind.

Is Source the true foundation of existence? Or did the Source originate from the Heavenly Order?

If the Source was the origin of all concepts, then what created the Source itself?

Or is the Heavenly Order merely something or someone extremely powerful that shaped the universe?

Adrian stared at the ring on his finger, watching the golden light pulse steadily as the willforce recovery spell continued its work.

The answer remained unknown.