Weeks rolled by as Keynes trained his skills in conjunction with [Spirit Form] using the giants as benchmark. The idea was simple—make each skill invisible while using [Spirit Form]. Of course it was easier said than done, not only was the process a significant time sink, it also pushed Keynes to a breaking point.

  The time-consuming nature wasn’t entirely without a silver lining as Keynes had come to realise.

  There were a few training angles to consider like control and understanding of spiritual energy, core functions of each spell and trajectories of their improvements, how all of these variables meshed up together and last but not least, how did the giants utilise [Spiritual Mastery] as this particular skill shard hadn’t dropped even after weeks of clearing the rift—Alice told Keynes it was one of those spells that was very rare because of their fundamental nature as it affected a Spiritual Stage—so Keynes had no choice but to learn from the giants. He knew from Shaper that he could more than just perceive skills of other ascenders, but the feat like that required insane comprehension of spiritual energy that likely no one else besides Shaper possessed. Keynes didn’t even want to imagine how many decades Shaper had spent learning it.

  Keynes didn’t have decades but he refused himself to entertain a possibility of failure. Not just the life of his brother was on the line but the fate of Earth. The System and Lem Solaris might not care about his planet but he did.

  Still, he took things slow, adjusting his tactics accordingly. This wasn’t just about training, but also resource management—mana—and time constraints as the rift’s recharge time was 24 hours without applying the Rift Orb of Recharge, which Keynes didn’t have for Level 7 right now. He’d floated an idea to find and clear other Level 7 rifts, for an increased chance of finding a particular Rift Orb, but given how difficult was the rift with the lowest rarity, he eventually discarded it.

  It didn’t mean the idea wasn’t doable, just not practical right now. Because apart from him who realistically could clear a rift like that without risking their lives? Kora, Natalia and Persephone. That wasn’t good. They lacked dedicated heavy hitters.

  Keynes had sent a message to Natalia explaining their predicament and she acknowledged the issue but the resolution wasn’t simple. And the problem wasn’t entirely about resources either. Natalia was yet to pick a group she could trust with her life.

  Having a group of powerful ascenders who were incredibly efficient at killing powerful opponents and worked as one unit was a recipe for disaster. Keynes understood her point, despite assuring her that he could stop them if they turned hostile. Suspiciously, Natalia replied nothing to that and instead it was Alice who called him an overconfident moron who had no idea what he was talking about.

  She was also eager to remind him about his defeat at Vivena’s hand. Which soured his mood.

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  On the bright side, Keynes channelled negative emotions toward his training. And perhaps for the best. While being at Superior Spiritual Stage had clear benefits, Keynes still needed to spend his entire mental energy and stamina on the task.

  [Flight] was naturally the first skill Keynes trained. His plans for the skill extended beyond invisibility during [Spirit Form], he wanted [Flight] to be spiritually invisible by itself. A laughable notion considering he couldn’t hide it using [Spirit Form] at the moment.

  And yet, just a few weeks later, Keynes had an epiphany while cultivating an essence from killed giants. Each skill he’d absorbed formed a core inside his spiritual space. Of course these cores weren’t anything as attribute or spiritual cores, but there were some similarities.

  For example, essence could be used to manipulate them. The problem was that the complexity of the process resembled a sophisticated surgery and demanded an unholy amount of concentration, spiritual energy and knowledge.

  However, upgrading skills wasn’t something Keynes hadn’t done before—albeit to a far lesser extent. Some time after acquiring [Flight] on his way to the World Reserve, Keynes pushed the skill to perform better and consume less mana. Looking now at these improvements through Superior Stage’s lens, Keynes saw how close he’d been to break the future potential of [Flight]. Luckily for him, skill cores appeared somewhat resilient and—according to Alice—healed some damage inflicted by hasty and improper improvements.

  That was another reason why going slow was the only way forward. Even with a hundred available Level 7 rifts, Keynes wouldn’t be able to utilise all available essence, a skill core would get damaged by oversaturation and overstrain. The best analogy was that a skill core was like a muscle. Too much training without rest would lead to failure.

  Why not do multiple cores? Mental stamina and spiritual energy limitation. And no matter how attractive the idea of mastering Will or Mind appeared, this wasn’t a safe playground for it.

  So what changed after weeks of snail-pace cultivation, fighting giants and training? For one, Keynes started paying attention to interaction between [Spirit Form] and [Flight] but on a spiritual level. He wouldn’t claim that he understood everything because that would be a dangerous lie, but he had something only a few ascenders possessed—the Perfect Recall buff.

  A case could be made that this buff was as much a blessing as it was a curse; there were days Keynes considered getting rid of it. Being able to remember everything in perfect sensory details, including emotions, wasn't easy on his mental health. Perhaps at a higher Level his mind would be able to cope with it.

  Nonetheless, there were days when the buff paid dividends. All Keynes needed to do was to observe how [Spirit Form] acted during [Flight]. It seemed that each manoeuvre required [Spirit Form] to apply minute adjustment to spiritual concealment.

  Keynes wasn’t sure yet how exactly to use this as spiritual signatures of each skill were different but he ran some theories through Alice and asked Kora for feedback regarding essence cultivation. She had [Essence Sight], a skill that granted her ability to see essence. This extended to essence absorbed by ascenders but not yet consolidated within a core. What made this particular skill a standout in this case was the fact that it stacked with Kora’s Talent, letting Kora see details normally not available at her Level.