God Crafter

He sat back down in the basement once Mei's lunch summons had run its course, the house quiet again, his mother having apparently decided that whatever was happening down there was his business to manage as long as the walls stayed intact.

He stretched his intent to his system once again

[Ding]

[Creation authority used]

[Creating item....]

[Item created: comprehension booster]

[Function: boost comprehension of any element, technique, or ability X10, it is stackable by 5 times]

[Mana required to create: 890,000]

[Proceed Y/N]

He was astonished, this was incredible as his absolute comprehension ability already gave him ten thousand times comprehension stacked with this comprehension booster it goes up to a hundred thousand times

"I'm pretty sure with this much comprehension boost it would take maybe a half hour to comprehend the shadow element and enter the first stage"

He was a bit excited now so he pressed the yes button on his system panel mana gushed out from him coalescing in front of him.

The vial that formed was pale silver, thin as water, carrying almost no weight at all appropriate, he thought, for something designed to be a conduit rather than a substance.

Now that he had the comprehension booster the final ingredient needed to start his comprehension and that was something that actually had shadow element essence,

he reached for his creation authority again pushing his intent once more and it responded.

[Ding]

[Creation authority used]

[Creating item....]

[Item created: shadow core essence]

[Function: used to comprehend the shadow element till the authority stage]

[Mana required to create: 5,000,000]

[Proceed Y/N]

He almost choked "five million! What kind of robbery was this"

but his eyes landed on what the function said it would help me comprehend up till authority stage and he finally understood why it costs so much this was a one time purchase.

He quickly tapped on the yes button again and his mana drained again making his heart ache even though his mana recovery was now monstrous it still pricked him that such a large amount of mana was leaving him.

But he shook the thought away as the mana grew darker and darker spinning in front of him before taking the shape of an orb the size of a tennis ball.

It floated in the air in front of him the pressure it emmited was on another level not enough to crush him but enough to put a bit of strain on his body it's profound essence was pressing on his consciousness he could feel that if he let down his mental barrier he would be overwhelmed before he knew what happened.

He quickly checked his remaining mana

[Mana: 4,110,000/10,000,000]

Damn he was running a bit low on mana if any A rankers heard what he just said they would surely beat him to death as almost none of them had even half the mana he had and he said he was low?.

But he had to activate his absolute comprehension ability and the mana cost was two million he absolutely did not want spend that amount of mana at least for now as he did not know what would happen when started his comprehension.

Then he remembered something a devilish smile crossed his lips as he found a way to cheat, his domain.

Normally to cast his domain it took half his mana to cast and after that he could sustain it indefinitely and all abilities used within his domain was basically free.

But now that he had evolved the mana cost for casting his domain was cut dramatically from half his mana to just five hundred thousand saving him way more mana.

He extended the Domain first — not the full three hundred meters, no reason to claim more of the house than the basement itself, just enough shadow-claimed space to work inside. Five hundred thousand Mana left his reservoir in a single controlled pull, and the familiar pressure settled over the room, the shadows in the corners deepening the way they always did, the space quietly becoming his.

He activated Absolute Comprehension inside it.

The cost that should have been two million simply didn't register against his reservoir at all.

The moment he activated the ability it felt like his was consciousness was expanded by millions of times his intelligence stat holding the strain comfortably

He looked around in this state Kai felt like if he focused even a sliver of his consciousness towards anything its entire underlying principle would immediately be absorbed by him.

The he turned towards the comprehension booster vial in his hands uncorked it and swallowed it took effect almost immediately his consciousness instead of expanding deepened considerably.

His intelligence stat was starting to feel a bit of strain now it felt like a very mild headache.

He opened his eyes now and it felt like his thoughts had been operating in a single narrow channel his entire life without ever noticing the channel was narrow, and now the banks had simply dissolved.

He sat with it for a while, testing the edges, cataloguing how his own mind felt from the inside at a scale he'd never occupied before.

Then he finally turned his attention to the shadow essence orb in front of him he felt the comprehension tugging at his consciousness inviting him to learn, to understand to comprehend what it means to walk the path of shadow.

He let down his mental barrier not fully but enough for the connection to take hold as he focused his consciousness on the orb trying to gleam its secrets

Then it happened slowly at first then faster and faster comprehension poured into his mind his consciousness, his soul, his very existence laser focused as his ability did most of the work.

The orb glowed as if acknowledging his dedication it pulsed releasing a wave of comprehension towards Kai his absolute comprehension ability absorbed everything like a sponge

[Ding]

[Host is comprehending the element shadow]

[Preliminary stage -> elemental aura stage]

[Progress: 0.5%....1%....5%....10%.....]

The bar kept climbing but Kai didn't even acknowledge what the system was saying as his whole focus was comprehending his shadow element this went on for exactly half an hour.

Kai opened his eyes after a while He felt like entire world view about the elements had changed but something was missing he could feel that he had reached the threshold but had not crossed it something was needed to push his comprehension to the first stage then the system notification chimed in his head.

[Ding]

[Shadow comprehension]

[Preliminary stage]

[Progress 100%]

[Elemental trial commencing]

"What!" He could not even get a word out before everything went dark he felt his consciousness being pulled he tried to resist

But it was futile it felt like trying to fight a massive wave, his resistance did absolutely nothing.

**[Ding]**

**[Elemental Will Detected — Shadow]**

**[Host comprehension threshold reached]**

**[Trial Initiating]**

He opened his eyes into darkness that had nothing to do with his Domain.

Not absence of light. Presence of something else entirely — a darkness with texture, with weight, with a quality of attention that made the difference between his own claimed shadow-space and this immediately, viscerally clear. This wasn't his territory.

He was standing in someone else's.

looking around at a space that had no visible boundary, no floor he could confirm with his eyes even though something solid held his weight. *Not a tool. Not a medium I claim and populate. Something that existed long before I ever thought to reach for it.*

Something in the darkness noticed him thinking that.

The pressure around him deepened, and a voice arrived that wasn't sound so much as the absence of everything sound usually needed to travel through — a voice made of the same substance as the space it occupied.

**" An ant had come to take the trial"** it paused Kai felt like he was being assessed by something far more powerful and existed on a different kind of power scale than him and he could almost feel the disappointment

"You have worn my name for six ranks, pathetic. Your trial starts now" it said.

The darkness around him shifted, gathering, and he understood, with the particular clarity that came just before something significant began, that whatever came next was going to cost him considerably more than five hundred thousand Mana.

**To Be Continued…**