CHAPTER 794: DEVELOPING A NEW TECHNIQUE

"Put your back into it! You can’t hope to get stronger if you don’t take an active role in battle!" Syrion shouted, slapping one of Gwen’s attacks away.

Gritting her teeth, Gwen lunged forward into Syrion’s guard with her flames wrapping around her weapon.

But before she could even attack, moonlight crashed down, extinguishing it.

"You’re getting too tunnel visioned. Expand your horizon. You have Vision, use that to your advantage. Don’t fall for the first gap you see." Syrion explained, pushing Gwen away and creating some distance between them.

"I haven’t even started to craft my seventh blade. What do you think would happen if I chose to go all out? Do you really think you can hunt me for your Seventh Sigil?!"

Biting her lip, Gwen summoned her spear and stabbed it into the ground.

Resonance!

A radiant golden glare burst outwards with Gwen in the centre.

The flames whipped the air around her as light began to distort. Black markings lit up around her body, cracks that manifested like broken porcelain.

Energy shaped itself into a set of armour as Gwen’s body underwent a transformation to that of obsidian.

Behind her, the icon of Solaris blazed into life as a blindfold wrapped around Gwen’s eyes.

Activating her Vision at full power, Gwen flickered behind Syrion.

Her spear burning with radiant fire and ready to attack!

*CLANG!!!

"Nice but not quite. Using Resonance as a crutch will only get you so far if your foundations are not up to par. Tell me young lady, are your foundations up to par?" Syrion asked, slamming his palms into Gwen’s stomach, sending her body tumbling backwards.

While Gwen was training with Syrion, Alice was sitting on a hill not far away with her legs crossed.

Above her was the Crimson Halo while Tiamat’s wings were flickering behind her.

In order to achieve her desired level of Vision, she needed a delicate balance of Inversion and Exile.

However, as her experience had proven, a two Sigil resonance was volatile and prone to falling apart.

Thus she decided to throw Tiamat’s power into the mix. A counterbalance of sorts. If she is on the verge of exiling herself, Tiamat’s power will anchor her down by absorbing more energy.

If she’s too close to harmonisation, or rather, death, Tiamat will expel as much energy as possible.

A constant back and forth.

While it did work, actually focusing on the Vision side of things was now proving to be difficult.

[We’re flying from one extreme to the other.] Cayla sighed.

They kept swinging from side to side like a pendulum when ideally, they want to cruise down the middle.

’I know. But the speed it’s trying to exile or harmonise is a bit faster than expected.’ Alice scratched her hair in frustration.

If she fully focused on the exile part of her skills, she’ll be forced out the realm in less than 2 minutes. If she focuses on harmonisation, she’ll be dead in the same amount of time.

Truly a case of swinging from one side to the other.

Alice had tried a few methods as well such as automating it with her Triggered Casts.

Unfortunately, this was more like an unruly animal that does whatever it wants.

The conditions that Alice would set wouldn’t work all the time.

And in the moments where it didn’t... Alice had to quickly wrangle back control otherwise she’ll reach a bad end.

’Maybe if I try have it constantly switch.’

Adjusting the model of her Triggered Casts, Alice activated her skill once more.

Sweat began to drip down her face. She could feel strands of energy simultaneously latching on and then breaking off from her.

The pressure building up in her body from the constant alteration of her skill.

In the end, she chose to deactivate this new skill.

Looking down, she could see her hands trembling from the aftereffects.

’Yeah, this one is a no go as well. Each alteration is a cast and firing that many casts at the same time stops me from doing other stuff.’

Because she was flipping between the two sides, trying to gather energy for literally anything else proved difficult.

If she had to attach numbers to it, her casting efficiency would be down by around 20% while the cost of casting increased by 30%.

This method was the opposite of optimal.

Taking a deep breath, Alice fell backwards to recover some of her stamina.

"What am I even missing..." She muttered, feeling stumped.

She thought that she would be able to reach a breakthrough after thinking about this idea.

But instead of a breakthrough, she found more problems creeping up one by one.

Was the foundation of her thinking incorrect?

To achieve Vision, Alice wanted to harmonise with her surroundings and become a receptacle of information.

And in order to harmonise beyond the natural limit, she would invert her skill.

There were two benefits that came with this.

First, she’ll be able to establish another resonance using the three Sigils.

Second, by using the inverted Exile, she was still benefiting from the first part of the skill.

The forceful level up.

If she can maintain the state of balance, she’ll be able to keep her skills upgraded during combat.

However...

[If you can’t maintain the state while also making sure casting is simple, it’ll be a detriment instead of a benefit.] Cayla was also stumped.

This was unknown territory that Alice was walking down.

A complete override of the preestablished rules of casting and Abyssal Abilities.

Which was to be expected considering the fact that Alice could overlay several different abilities over herself.

’What if you add another ability into the mix?’ Alyss suggested, confusing both Alice and Cayla.

’Wouldn’t a four Sigil resonance completely fuck me up and collapse the structure?’ Alice raised an eyebrow.

There was a reason why their abilities work in threes rather than anything else.

It was to establish a foundation of balance so that no ability overpowered the other.

By throwing a fourth and turning that triangle into a square, one wrong move and it’ll collapse.

’I’m not talking about a four Sigil resonance. But rather two Three Sigil resonances with two abilities that are shared across them.’ Alyss corrected herself.

Snapping her finger, she created a diagram.

Four nodes that represented Sigils appeared with lines appearing between the nodes.

First, three of them linked to one another.

A standard resonance.

But then the fourth entered the picture.

Rather than breaking the preestablished three Sigil resonance, it augmented it.

Despite having four nodes, two triangles were formed.

’If you add a fourth into the mix like this, the two resonances are activating side by side while maintaining their shape.’

Alice and Cayla blinked their eyes.

[Aren’t you supposed to be the one who thinks with your fist?] Cayla asked as a vein bulged on Alyss’s neck.

’Hah?! The f*ck is that supposed to mean? Just because I like martial arts more doesn’t mean I don’t have a brain up here!’

’Even if I add in a fourth, I don’t see how it’ll help with the stabilisation issue.’ Alice cut in before the two of them started to fight.

[And even so, is it possible? The two Sigils that are already being used can’t have a link established to it. It’s like the second Resonance. Even though six Sigils are working in harmony, it’s still just two Three Sigil Resonances working separately from each other.] Cayla added.

Hearing this, Alyss fell silent.

It was just an idea she had in mind. Actually putting it to work was... different.

’Actually... I think I can make it work.’ Alice’s eyes began to dart between the nodes.

’[It can???]’ Both Alyss and Cayla looked at her with a mix of confusion and disbelief.

’Well... Saying that it can is stretching it a bit. Rather, it’s entirely based on a single Sigil that can make it happen.’ Alice smiled, snapping her finger.

Next to her, the Sigil of Duality appeared.

’Inversion. If I invert a Sigil, it becomes something new. However, technically, it’s still the same Sigil just with a different power. So if we were to follow the standard three Sigil resonance and then...’ She trailed off.

Creating a triangle for the Resonance, Alice cut the third node in half and opened the structure like a butterfly.

’Two three Sigil Resonances while using the same two as base. It’s only the third that changes.’

A new theory.

A fresh idea.

She could feel her mind injecting ideas to make this a possibility.

Different from Yvael’s inspirations.

There was no blueprint for her to work from.

There was no preestablished technique.

No, this was a new path.

An augmentation of the already established rules of Resonances. A path that’s only open to Alice due to her body.

[It’ll be tough. Just because you use Inversion on the Sigil, it’s still one power.] Cayla frowned.

This was nice in theory but plenty of holes exist.

’But that’s where you come in. We’ll use the eyes of the Abyss to isolate what exactly changes with the Sigil when Inversion occurs. If we can do that, we might be able to limit what gets changed and what doesn’t.

’That way, the Sigil is in both states at the same time.’

[Thus striking a balance...] Cayla muttered.

’Bingo.’

[Argh!! Do you even know how difficult this looks even though you make it sound easy???] Cayla scratched her hair.

She was already struggling with completely undoing Kaden’s seal and now they have to develop a new form of Resonance.

If she was an employee, she would file for abuse!

Alas, she was the Eye of the Abyss and Alice her master.

’It’ll be fine~ Just think about the rewards.’ Alice grinned.

Taking a deep breath, Cayla sighed.

[F*ck it. Let’s make this a reality.]