Legacy of the Dark Sage

After restoring the tower, Kyran made his way inside without asking Olivia's consent. Although, even if he did ask her, she would have agreed with a gaping look. Because as of the moment, she had not recovered from the shock of seeing the tower getting restored in thin air.

As Kyran went up the tower, Olivia followed him still wearing an expression of disbelief and wonderment. What she had witnessed was something she had never seen before. The closest she had seen something like this was a Transmuter she knew trying to create a weapon. But creating a weapon using one's magic and adding more components into it was different from a tower that had been destroyed, getting restored from nothing.

'Did I get it wrong? Could his magic be Time and not Void?' She wondered suddenly doubting her initial assessment of him. Now that she thought of it, he could also appear and disappear from one place to another if he used Time magic.

'But how did he get past the sentries and enter the tower's area without triggering its mechanism? If he did use Time magic, he would have to make his way here... Or could his Time magic also stop everything including the sentries and mechanism's functions?'

The thought was possible, which made Olivia even confused.

'Let's stop thinking. I'll know the truth eventually,' she finally decided after a few minutes of pondering.

The top level of the tower was a small square room at least ten by ten meters in size, with nothing inside. However, the walls, which looked solid outside, had an array calculation that transformed it into a panoramic projection of the outside. Kyran was able to see all the sentries scattered around the platform and even sense the core of the array formation inside.

Without wasting any more time, he went to the center of the room and immediately sat cross-legged. His eyes glowed reddish-purple as he began to spread his magic sense, filling the whole platform.

Olivia stood at the back watching Kyran expectantly. Remembering how he arrogantly declared only needing ten minutes to improve her platform's arrangement, she initially did not think too much about it. However, if his magic was really Time, then it made more sense. He probably wanted to cover the truth of his magic by declaring that when in fact he could simply stop time while he improved the platform.

This thought was running inside Olivia's head when Kyran's magic sense swept through her.

Different from how Kyran concealed his magic sense earlier, this time he did not bother to hide it.

When his magic sense swept through Olivia, she could not help but gasp at the enormity she had felt. It was as if she had been pulled into a deep abyss. Even the energies in the surroundings felt as if they were being absorbed and renewed at the same time forming a vortex with Kyran at the center.

After a few seconds, the whole platform glowed light gold, as the Array Formation hidden on the floor was revealed.

The moment the formation was revealed, Kyran lifted his arms and a miniature version of the formation appeared around him. When he started to move his hands, the surrounding energies which were usually invisible became visible and moved along his every move. Runes in different colors formed at the tip of his fingers which sometimes blended with the rest of the formulas within the formation, or changed it completely. What was more, when the formulas in the miniature formation changed, it also occurred in the huge formation on the platform.

Olivia's eyes widened as she saw the scene before her. Seeing the surrounding energies was not something new, but seeing them in different colors not to mention turning into runes that integrated themselves in a formula was something she had not seen before.

'Is this something Time magic could do?' She thought, feeling enlightened by what she was seeing.

Of course, if Kyran or even True Void realized what she was thinking, they would probably roll their eyes at her. What part of this utilized Time magic?

Olivia squinted her eyes, focusing her magic on her eyes. She observed Kyran's every move and noticed how the tip of his fingers was covered by a semi-transparent purple coat.

Five minutes later, the whole platform rumbled as the sentries moved and changed positions. It seemed as if Kyran was not only changing the Array's formula but also the whole formation.

A few minutes later, a new miniature formation appeared hovering vertically before Kyran. At the same time, this very formation had appeared outside the tower.

Olivia noticed at once that the new formation before him was the coding of the tower's defense mechanism. Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he unhesitatingly removed almost half of the coding.

"Hey! What are you—?"

Her sentence was cut short when distortions in the surroundings formed and the whole tower trembled. A huge magic fluctuation covered the tower as the air crackled around them.

Olivia felt her scalp go numb feeling the distortions trying to consume everything around it. These distortions only appeared when a perfectly working formation was destroyed. Once the surroundings could no longer contain the distortions, it would converge and the whole formation would detonate, destroying everything within a thousand kilometers in its vicinity.

"Are you insane why did you—?"

Even as Olivia started to voice her complaints, Kyran did not stop moving his hands. In a blink of an eye, almost half of the coding that he removed was replaced by a new set of codes.

When Olivia saw the codes, her eyes widened once again. Since the codes were written in human language, she understood every detail. Previously, the defense mechanism of the tower would trigger when someone entered within the marked area. Now, the code detailed that any magic energy that entered the mark would not only trigger the defense mechanism but would also activate the improved formation of the sentries.

It should be noted that mechanism coding and array formation was not easy to assimilate into one system. After all, both had different core elements. Not to mention, the mechanism used human language, while the array formation used runes.

Olivia was just about to tell Kyran this when the distortions in the surroundings began to stabilize and in a few seconds, it even started to disappear.

"How...?"

This was something she had not expected. She looked at Kyran, who was still busy completing the codes, in great astonishment.

As far as she knew, Chairman Noir of the Blacksmith Order and his only disciple, Tyr could successfully assimilate mechanism coding, and array formation. But even then, Olivia believed they would need some time to complete everything. Kyran, however, managed it in just a few seconds!

'Is this still something Time magic can do?' Olivia thought as doubts surfaced in her mind.

After almost ten minutes from the time Kyran went to the tower and performed the platform's improvements, he finally stopped and lowered his hands. The miniature formations around him slowly faded as their huge counterparts also disappeared.

"Done," he said, turning his head to look at Olivia. "Now admit defeat and let me go to the next platform."

Olivia's brow twitched at Kyran's bossiness. If she had not been marked, she would have shown him whose boss. Her essence might look young, but she was his senior. His disrespectful attitude was getting on her nerves.

Reigning in her annoyance, Olivia decided to let it slide. She decided to let her original self deal with him instead once they met. As an essence, she might be incapable of overpowering Kyran, but her original self was different.

"Fine," Olivia replied begrudgingly. She thought of something and added, "By the way, you can contact me or my original self through the medallion. At the same time, we'll contact you through that."

Kyran only answered with a nod as he stood up.

Olivia snorted at Kyran's attitude and finally said, "You've passed. I admit defeat, you may now go to the next platform."

As soon as she was done speaking, the tower's ceiling seemed to have vanished as a beam of light fell down on Kyran.

Before he was lifted off by the beam to the next platform, Kyran asked, "The business trip your original self went to. Is it in Meliora?"

Olivia raised her brows. She was surprised that he knew about it. But she did not question him and answered with a nod, "That's right."

Kyran nodded, "Alright."

In a blink of an eye, he and True Void were lifted off by the beam of light to the next platform.

Olivia watched as Kyran ascended. She still had mixed emotions at what just happened. But she kept telling herself that maybe this encounter was fated and would also be beneficial to the Aureole.

Meanwhile, outside the tower, Nolan and Gustaff watched Kyran's progress in complete silence. It was something unexpected, especially with the latter who loved to ask questions when he was in doubt.

However, their silence was understandable.

The two were surprised at Kyran's strength. This was especially true with Nolan.

Nolan still remembered how Kyran tend to move around, relying on the Regis Techniques and molded Void weapons when dealing with the enemy. Kyran still used the Void weapons, but Nolan sensed that there was something different with his molded weapons. To be precise, the weapons looked more solid.

A smile tugged at the corner of Nolan's lips at the possibility that Kyran had grasped the idea of creation magic. He could not wait to see how Kyran would fare when he challenged the Champion.