Rivers of the Night

Theron had been waiting to learn about this for a long while, but he had no one to explain things to him. In truth, he still didn't even really know what a Resonance was. All he somewhat felt was that it made his Mana more powerful, but he had no idea exactly how.

Now he felt like that door was more clear than it ever was before.

According to the [Entangling Blood Vein] technique's introduction, there were four main pillars that decided the power of your Mana and the strength of its quality.

Those pillars were Resonance, your soul, your Laws, and finally your Mana Control.

Resonance was as Theron knew it to be. Back on the continent, it was usually tied to one's bloodline and talent, and here it was much the same.

The ability to resonate with Mana was almost like a measure of how "beast-like" a person was. This was because an individual with a Resonance was closer to nature, allowing Mana to obey their commands with much greater ease.

Compared to humans, beasts had a much greater advantage when it came to this matter. Even unranked feral beasts unionized with Mana with far greater ease, and there was good reason why even the lowest-ranked Mana Beasts, Imbued Beasts, were so difficult to handle.

Theron wasn't sure how true this remained in this world because he had yet to come across a beast he had to battle—and now that he thought about it, the fact he had managed to run through the forest without encountering any beasts was likely related to the same reason he had been attacked in the river as well.

Even so, he bet that it wasn't too different here either. In fact, the beasts here were probably even stronger, relatively speaking, than they were back on the continent precisely because this world was so much more powerful.

The second pillar, Laws, spoke for themselves. The deeper your understanding of Mana, the stronger your Mana would be. If you not just wielded Mana, but the underlying Laws that dictated them, you would—just by virtue of that alone—be lessening the burden on all the other pillars at the same time.

And then came the soul. This was, of course, represented by one's Third Eye.

It turned out that one's Third Eye was measured by the same metrics as one's Mancy Cultivation. When it awoke, it began not at Silver, but instead at Bronze.

According to the jade, the vast majority would continue on like this, their Soul Cultivation trailing behind their Mana Cultivation into perpetuity.

Geniuses of Soul Cultivation would be able to close this gap a little bit, having a Third Eye Grade that was maybe only a tier or two beneath.

Those that were the true cream of the crop could have their Soul Cultivation remain in lockstep with their Mana Cultivation.

And then there was Theron.

Unlike Mana Cultivation, which had ten tiers to every level—from First Resonance to Ninth Resonance, and then a Quasi tier above that—Soul Cultivation had just four:

Lower, Middle, Peak, and Half-step.

Theron, though, was an inconceivable monster in this regard. In fact, he felt the need to double and triple-check whether he was wrong or not, not quite understanding how this could be possible.

He had broken through in his Third Eye four times. He thought that by that metric, he would have a Lower Silver Third Eye right now. But he was wrong.

Remembering back, his first breakthrough was from Lower Bronze to Lower Silver in a single bound. And then he went from Lower Silver to Half-step Gold. And then he went from Half-step Gold to Middle Gold, before finally going from Middle Gold to Half-step Treading Cloud.

Theron didn't even believe his own deductions when he went back through his memories and cross-referenced the various explanations and thresholds with his understanding of his own Third Eye.

But even after a second and third check, it remained true.

He had a Third Eye that was an entire Realm above his current Mana Cultivation. And if this jade was correct, it was hard to describe just how much of an advantage that was.

The jade didn't even describe the sort of genius that would have a Third Eye that far above their cultivation realm to begin with. The most it went on to explain was how shocking it would be to have one at your equivalent Mana Cultivation level.

Finally, there was the Mana Control pillar.

This one was apparently the most ethereal and hard to grasp. The divisions weren't clear, and there didn't seem to be any stringent Realms you were either in or out of, either.

Instead, the jade seemed to suggest that depending on one's Mancy Path, it was necessary to follow the protocol of one's Ancestors. How good one was at Mana Control was dictated by which feats they could perform and how easily they could do them.

But there were some feats that could overlap with other tiers, or some Mancers that might exist who might be far more capable of completing an unanimously harder feat, but struggle in completing a weaker one.

Mana Control was simply too fleeting.

Even so, as Theron read, he could pick up on certain tidbits here and there. There were definitely certain checkpoints one had to reach for every realm… that was where the division lay.

In that case…

Theron spent some time cross-referencing some things, and even popped into the library a handful of times to pick out a few books he didn't even read to the end before popping out again.

Then he reached a conclusion.

'Bronze Resonance is represented by an initial level of control. The Spells are straightforward and only require internal circulation before expulsion, all in just a small region of your body.

'Silver Resonance is an external level of control; the Spells prime atmospheric Mana to do your bidding as well and require a touch from a distance.

'Gold Mancy…'