The absolute silence of the white vastness pulsed like a living heart, and soon I realized I wasn't merely immersed in energy I was part of the energy itself.
The first change came gently, almost imperceptibly, like a warm wind flowing through my veins. The space around me began to contract and expand in a hypnotic rhythm, and with it, my two cores the mana core and the prana core started to vibrate in perfect sync.
Streams of light flowed between them like rivers between two suns, one red and wild, the other blue and ethereal. The cosmic energy that filled the place began to seep into my cores, not to replenish them since my prana core was already completely saturated but to purify my essence.
From my cores, which were made of pure energy, dark energies began to leak and be expelled. Ancient impurities, residues I hadn't even known existed, started to detach from the inside of my energy channels, evaporating like black smoke.
It was as if every particle in that space was distilling my existence, refining everything I was. I had no idea how long the process lasted, but the sensation wasn't pleasant. It felt like thousands of needles piercing me from the inside out.
When the process finally ended, another began.
The refinement of the body.
A deep crack echoed within me a sound that came not from my ears, but from my bones. I felt the muscle fibers twisting, the veins pulsing, the ligaments trembling like overstretched cords.
"AGHHH…"
The pain was unbearable and yet divine.
A white heat burned from within, and wherever it passed, it freed my body from long-trapped residue. A dark, viscous liquid began to seep through my skin, dense and metallic-smelling. Each drop that fell vanished into the white expanse, purified by the energy of that realm. My body became lighter, purer, more efficient as though my very flesh was being rebuilt to withstand new limits, new airs.
When the bones finally stopped grinding and the veins pulsed in harmony, the last process the most shocking of all began.
My mana core, once incomplete still missing about seventy percent of the spatial affinity needed for saturation began to react.
Currents of silver energy danced around it, drawn by a silent call. The spatial affinity responded like a beast awakening from a deep slumber. The core expanded, spinning violently, a tornado at the peak of its savagery, greedily absorbing energy like a starving child until it reached its limit.
Space was no longer just an extension of my will now, I felt it as part of my instinct. Each breath emitted waves that rippled through the dimensional flow around me; each motion of energy bent the boundaries of the white world.
But the process didn't stop there.
The mana and prana cores, already saturated with the energies of gravity, space, and electricity, began to react to one another.
Trails of red and blue energy intertwined in my chest, forming a complex, almost living pattern.
Gravity pulsed subtly, compressing and expanding the surrounding space like a heartbeat; space itself folded, creating distortions that crackled with raw lightning.
The white light of the void began to swirl around me slow at first, then rising into a colossal vortex. The sound was that of a cosmic heart beating deep and resonant, like the muffled roar of a universe being born.
At the center of my chest, the two cores began to deform. Their once smooth, translucent surfaces grew cloudy, encircled by rings of energy that clashed, tore apart, and fused again in endless succession.
It was the same process stars endured before igniting the violent compression of matter and energy until collapse. Each particle of mana condensed around the core like stardust, and the more it absorbed, the denser it became, until the very space around it began to warp.
When the pressure reached its peak, the cores reacted.
Unable to contain the gravitational, spatial, and electrical energy surging through my body, they imploded — collapsing inward in utter silence. It felt as though my soul were being ripped apart, my life leaking out into the endless white.
I bit my lip hard and, with every ounce of willpower, forced everything to compact within me again.
It worked.
Rebirth.
From the implosion, two new spheres emerged smaller, denser, and alive. One shone with golden-blue light, the other with golden-red twin stars born within me.
They orbited my body, drawn together like celestial bodies, forming a dual system of interlinked energy. Each core fed my channels in perfect harmony.
I could feel space bending at my command and the flow of energy streaming like plasma within me. Most astounding of all, I had crossed the boundary of the Awakened level.
I had gone from an initial Awakened to a full Awakened and was already ascending toward the Champion rank.
Then came the true challenge: the transformation into a Lower Champion.
My flesh began to pulse.
Muscles contracted in waves, veins expanded, and energy began infiltrating paths that had been inaccessible before carving new energy channels throughout my body.
With every heartbeat, circuits of light emerged beneath my skin, etching themselves in arcane patterns that resembled constellations.
It was the beginning of the formation of arcane circuits a process reserved for mages. It would amplify my energy, enhance my control, and increase my absorption of natural energy.
But within me, an Overlord, those circuits were not limited to the flow of prana and mana.
They extended into the physical body itself.
The circuits wove through muscles and bones, stitching them together with living energy. My skin became as resilient as a mystical armor, while my veins gleamed like strands of light, conducting power in rhythm with my breath.
My bones began to hum softly, like metal being forged.
The energy of the circuits fused and inscribed itself upon my frame, spreading like roots and forming a unified hybrid system of power.
I felt mana coursing through my body bones, muscles, veins, and skin nourishing both mind and flesh. It was as though I were becoming an entirely new being, one whose very structure was a catalyst for magic and destruction.
Internal runes blazed within me like embers, tracing an invisible map that connected every cell, every particle of mana, every fragment of prana.
At the peak of the transformation, the two cores began to vibrate faster.
Their orbits synchronized, and for an instant, a pillar of white light pierced through me from ground to infinity.
I no longer breathed it was the energy itself that sustained me.
The foundation was complete.
The circuits stabilized within my energy channels, while the physical circuits fortified and then relaxed within the body.
The rank advancement of an Overlord manifested in its purest form: body, energy channels, and soul fused into a single current.
When the light faded, I hovered there in the endless white.
The beats of my heart thundered quietly, and each movement made the space tremble.
I could feel the echo of the universe pulsing within me.
The Awakened had died and in his place, the Champion was born.
And when it all ended, silence returned.
The white light dissolved around me like mist, and for an instant, I felt as though the very concept of limitation had been rewritten.
My bones vibrated, my skin took on a pearly hue stronger, more refined and every cell breathed as if it possessed life of its own.
Space recognized me.
Gravity bowed.
And electricity danced within my veins.
**
My body floated in the endless white when suddenly, an invisible force began to pull me into the void. It was as if space itself had split open into currents, dragging my essence through a funnel of living energy.
The white horizon shattered, and from nothingness, a colossal eye emerged before me. The ring on my finger burned like molten metal the moment I faced that fae-like eye, vast enough to fill the entire field of existence.
It was so immense that the mere sight of it made me feel small almost nonexistent. Its sclera shimmered like liquid gold, the iris swirled in pulsating red spirals, and the vertical pupil contracted like the breath of the cosmos.
When it opened fully, it was as though the world itself had been split in two as though the sun itself were watching me.
Then came the voice.
It wasn't heard — it was felt.
A deep, unending wave of sound tore through my being, shaking every cell in my body.
It was like hearing a thousand oceans roaring at once, the sound of rivers colliding with mountains and skies.
"First trial: performance… excellent.
Second trial: performance… extraordinary.
Third trial: performance… impossible to measure."
My brows furrowed at the last part especially at "impossible to measure."
The words weren't mere vibrations; they were decrees, imprinted into the fabric of reality, echoing through space in endless reverberations.
The voice returned, even more commanding, now coming from every direction at once.
"Origin: Planet Earth. Representative of Atlas.
Reward: Bone Key a fragment of forgotten eras, sealed under ancient judgment."
'It knows I'm from Earth… but what does it mean by "Representative of Atlas"?'
Before me, the air folded in on itself, and a key appeared crafted entirely from ancient bone, cracked and etched with the weight of millennia.
Nearly half a meter long, it radiated an ancient and unsettling energy, something caught between the sacred and the profane. The carvings along its surface resembled runes of a lost civilization, and just by holding it, I felt as though I carried the weight of entire worlds.
"Your trial has come to an end."
The words echoed one final time and before I could speak, before I could ask anything, the ground beneath me or whatever was supporting my consciousness vanished.
I fell.
I fell through stars, through tunnels of light, through twisting universes. Each blink hurled me into another fragment of reality until everything went black. No sound, no air, no thought. Only the void.
And then… weight returned.
I was standing.
My feet pressed against cold stone.
I lifted my head and recognized the place instantly. The coliseum.
The same one from the start of the Tournament of Protection. The same charged air, the same towering stands though now completely empty. It was night, and around me, every competitor looked lost, glancing about as if waking from an impossible dream — just like I had.
No one spoke, but the expressions on their faces said enough: each of them had faced their own trials.
And I… I carried proof of mine, clenched tightly in my hand — the Bone Key, still warm, as if pulsing with the will of something far older than Atlas itself. I quickly hid it inside my nexus, in a small dimensional pocket, before it drew unwanted attention.
I glanced around and spotted familiar faces Norwenna, Eva, Waan, Weel, Von, Alden, and Thadeus. All of them looked deep in thought.
But then, a chill crept up my spine. My pulse spiked, an irregular rhythm thundering in my chest. My breath hitched suffocating, heavy.
"Something's wrong," I muttered.