There was a faint hum across the skin of my palm, and the hum was familiar. I had felt this hum at the end of every Arc Lightning cast I had ever produced; it was the faint vibration left in the staff after the discharge had passed.

The Elemental Fuchsia tree was a great material for making staffs for elemental mages because it could channel nearly all elements with no restriction, and since I was primarily using my lightning discipline, the signature of the discipline lingered in the wood, and I could sense this discipline slowly permeating my flesh.

The discipline knew me now. It had been making spells out of my Anima for two years; somewhere in the process of being asked to make a spell out of me, it had learned the difference and had stayed.

The journey in front of me was long, but lightning had bonded to me the way it had been bonding to the staff.

Adepts were powerful, not just because of the depths of their Anima, but because their bodies enhanced the power they wielded, and so if an Adept with a high Lightning Resonance cast Arc Lightning, he would only need a fraction of the Anima I spent in casting, and the spell would be ten times more powerful than what I could ever do.

Resonance not only helps with attacks, but also with defense as well. An Adept who had pushed their resonance skill beyond the Acolyte level was nearly immune to all elemental spells of that resonance at the Acolyte level.

For instance, if Commander Rel was an Adept who had Lightning Resonance and had pushed it beyond the Acolyte level, then my attacks would simply wash over her or be absorbed.

Looking back at our fight, I was sure that Commander Rel may have a Force Resonance or something similar to that, as she had easily absorbed and dismissed the spells of Dara and Bari.

I closed my fingers, and the hum settled into the center of my palm, like a sleeping storm.

In the last two loops, I had identified a problem, and that was my Staff Resonance was not growing the way it should, just for the sheer fact that every time I reset from the loop, my staff had to be reforged.

At this time, this would not be a problem as I could slowly forge my staff, but if my Staff Resonance kept growing, then I would not be surprised if I woke up in my next loop and my staff would explode when I touch it.

My staff could grow with me, but that growth had to be gradual, with new changes layering above the old. My staff would be able to adjust to a Staff Resonance of forty, maybe fifty... but what would happen when I reached a higher Staff Resonance, say sixty, that was firmly at the Adept level? How could the new staff that had barely absorbed a fraction of the Tier 1 Focus Crystal withstand something like that?

Lightning Resonance was an Attunement skill built into my body, and as I kept growing this skill, there would be less need for me to be dependent on my staff to release powerful lightning spells, and so my Staff could be used to develop my other disciplines.

I paused and wondered if I should focus on other disciplines. I was a Mage and not a Warlock, and that meant that technically, there was no field of magic that I could not delve into.

All it would require was talent, time, and determination. In my head were already the foundational skills for Fire and Ice Disciplines. However, thinking about the time I had to survive in this loop and how short it was, there was no time to begin practicing a new spell from scratch and mastering how to move my Anima inside my channels using a different pattern.

If this loop gave me hours or days before the horror began, then this would be a viable option, but for now, I had to make do with what I had and push the Lightning Discipline to a point where I would be able to survive for long enough, and then perhaps I would begin to look into new Disciplines to master.

Only Adepts with their long life had the foundation and time to master new disciplines, and although the loop technically may give me infinite time, the nature of that time was not meant for learning new disciplines.

Settling on that thought, I read the rest of the screen.

[Name: Elric Voss]

[Age: 16]

[Title: Death-Touched]

[Available Titles: Demon Slayer, Acolyte]

[Anima Depth: 50 (Acolyte)]

A small smile touched the side of my mouth. I had hit the mid-point of the Acolyte tier. The last loop had truly brought me to the limit, and my Anima Depth had grown as a result.

I had no doubt that my body was now stronger than it had ever been. Although my Lightning Resonance had distracted me, it was easy thing to feel the new strength of my body.

The next ten ranks would be slower than the rate of growth I had become used to. Skill growth slows after fifty, since each subsequent point produces larger qualitative changes.

I was on the slower curve now, but that may not be necessarily the case for me, because Anima Depth grew faster with the higher-tier skills that you had, and I had many skills that were growing very quickly, and all of that would contribute to the growth of my Anima Depth.

[Disciplines:]

Threadwork 45 (Acolyte)

Surge 47 (Acolyte)

Arc Lightning 49 (Acolyte)

[Attunement Skills:]

Staff Resonance 25 (Initiate — Rare)

Lightning Resonance 1 (Initiate — Rare)

[Auxiliary Skills:]

Concentration 44 (Acolyte)

Observation 39 (Acolyte)

Anima Sensitivity 28 (Initiate)

Meditation 27 (Initiate)

Endurance 35 (Acolyte)

Marksman 38 (Acolyte) — Uncommon

Cooking 16 (Initiate)

Inscription 19 (Initiate)

First Aid 14 (Initiate)

Cartography 6 (Initiate)

Demonology 39 (Acolyte) — Rare — Unregistered

[Celestial-tier skills:] Mortal Shell 30 (Acolyte) — Broken-Celestial

[Stored Essence: One Hundred and Five Demons] [Demon Slayer — First Earth Gate: Threshold reached, evolution pending]

[Blessings: —]

[Soul Condition: Stable]

The screen sat in front of me, and I sat with it, as the numbers told their own stories.