CHAPTER 201: AURALIS III - SOUL CRUCIBLE

Standing out from the virtual pod, Nash walked out of the room and descended the stairs of the Dark Beast Tower.

As he stepped outside, some familiar faces greeted him.

"It’s you? You passed so quickly?" Natasha muttered in surprise upon seeing him.

"You’re not bad yourself," Nash said lightly, noting that seven others had already cleared the level before him.

Besides Natasha were Hobis, Skylar, and four other veterans of the seeded talent program.

As expected from the top talents of the Nova Sector, their combat ability was not weak.

"Do you want to join our team?" Skylar approached and asked.

"No, I won’t consider it for now."

"Then think it through carefully. The dark plane isn’t a simple place," Skylar said, undeterred by Nash’s rejection.

Even for him, a dedicated team was necessary. How could Nash, a mere Void Warrior, go solo in the dark plane?

"Tsk, as expected of you. You reject everyone!" Natasha smiled, admiring his decisiveness.

"It’s all the same..."

If Nash needed a team, he would form one himself. Why join others and follow someone else’s order?

Furthermore, he still wasn’t clear on how the trial in the dark plane would be conducted.

Only when he had enough information could he decide on such an important matter.

"By the way, can I leave this place and return later?" Nash asked, noticing they were still waiting outside.

Instead of wasting time here, he’d better go to Aurilis III and train his soul, reaching 10,000% soul saturation as quickly as possible.

"You can, but don’t be late."

"I see, thanks."

With that answer, Nash sent a quick notification to Camilla and headed to the docking station.

---

Upon arriving, Nash suddenly remembered his battleship.

"Still not here?" Frowning, he checked his virtual emails.

Sure enough, alongside the regular updates from Julius and his friends, there was a notification from the Nova Arsenal.

About a month ago, the battleship, along with the personalized Tier 4 runic weapon he had commissioned, had been delivered to Auralis I.

"I’ll pick it up later..."

In no rush to see his ship and runic weapon, Nash headed to Camilla’s ship.

With permission second only to Camilla’s, he easily accessed the ship and flew toward Auralis III, the Soul Crucible.

---

Upon arriving at Auralis III, Nash immediately noticed its difference from Auralis II.

Here, instead of a deep pit, the ground was littered with obelisks emitting varying magnitudes of soul pressure.

The taller the obelisk, the greater the soul pressure it emitted.

Gazing at the tallest tower, which seemed to pierce the sky, Nash felt the pressure on his soul increase tenfold.

"This is indeed a prime spot for soul training."

The more pressure his soul endured, the faster it absorbed and purified energy from the elemental crystal.

Spotting a relatively uncrowded area, Nash quickly found an empty obelisk.

As he approached, the pressure on his soul began to intensify.

From 10 times to 100 times, then 300 times, 1,000 times, and finally 5,000 times.

Halfway there, he felt the pressure on his soul reach its limit.

Any more would damage it, hindering its ability to absorb elemental crystals efficiently.

Sitting down, he opened the training module panel to check his current efficiency.

[Training Module System: Infinite Soul Absorption Manual

Current Soul Saturation: 4,941%

Efficiency: 10,000 Attributeless Elemental Crystals/Percentage

Absorption Speed: 60 Attributeless Elemental Crystals/second]

"Double the efficiency?!"

From 30 elemental crystals per second to 60!

With such efficiency, he could reach 10,000% soul saturation in just 10 days!

"This place is truly a paradise for training..."

From his residence on Auralis I, which calmed his body and soul, to the body training on Auralis II, the Dark Beast Tower on Auralis X, and now this soul-training environment on Auralis III.

When he had time in the future, he would like to see what each Auralis planet could offer.

Though Camilla had already explained their functions, seeing them with his own eyes was another experience.

Calming himself, he let the [Training Module System] regulate his soul as his consciousness entered the Nova Library.

---

Inside the library, Nash activated the [Control Module System] to automatically read books as he entered the runic space.

But unlike before, looking at his body reading efficiency, he couldn’t help but frown.

"No, this is too inefficient."

Initially, he thought his reading speed was fast enough, uploading 10,000 books to the [Memory Module System] every day.

But after facing the challenge in the Dark Beast Tower, he no longer thought so.

Ten thousand books were nothing compared to the trillions in the Nova Library, let alone those in the Spirit Pavilion.

At first, he had no solution beyond optimizing the [Memory Module System] with runic commands.

However, the creation of the [Parallel Module System] sparked an idea.

Instead of reading one book at a time, why not read ten? Or a hundred?

Initially, this wasn’t possible with the [Memory Module System], as it could only process one line at a time. But what if he integrated the [Parallel Module System]?

With enough computational power, he could read as many books as he wanted simultaneously.

Testing the idea, he reassigned the tasks of Parallel No. 2 and No. 3 and tried to connect them to the [Memory Module System].

----

Soon, after tinkering for a few hours, he successfully linked the two.

With the built-in reading system from the [Memory Module System], Parallel No. 2, and Parallel No. 3, Nash tried reading three books at once.

Converting the virtual books into digital versions, projecting them onto a screen, and setting them to scroll automatically, he read three books in less than ten minutes.

Checking the [Memory Module System]’s library, he found clear, distinct copies of the books his body just read.

"It worked!"

Usually, reading multiple books simultaneously would overwhelm his [Memory Module System].

Though his eyes could still record everything, the books wouldn’t be saved as virtual copies but as video files.

His current runic programming foundation wasn’t advanced enough for such automated and delicate work.

To extract the information from the video files, he had to do it manually, requiring more extensive effort than just reading 1 book at a time.

However, with the [Parallel Module System], he could read multiple books simultaneously or use the system to extract the information from video files.

What he had to consider now was which was more efficient: a direct connection or decrypting books from videos.

Eager to find out, he began conducting various experiments and trials.