"This is...freezing."

Emperal muttered as a chilling Verth entered his system, which made him shiver ever so slightly. Looking ahead, there was a door attached to the end of the room. Which was...of course protected by a formation.

"Alright, no point staying here and getting frozen to death."

He didn’t even want to know how the hell an ice element was generated in the room. Approaching the formation on the door, he observed it was different from the concealment array outside, which was obvious. He was not talking about the properties, but the formulas and methods used to construct this formation. Aka, the arrays.

Emperal bent down and started studying the formation. He ignored the chilling cold that was seeping inside his body and making some parts of him go numb.

The arrays were layered in a construct, three different arrays stacked on top of each other, and each one served a different function.

The outermost was a lock, the middle one a small system of triggers that would activate if the lock was forced, and the third...Emperal frowned when he saw the last one. He didn’t recognize this one.

"It’s a self-destructive array."

The Infernal Dragon’s voice echoed in his mind, causing Emperal to frown.

"And a potent one at that, I assure you, if the first two arrays are bypassed incorrectly and this activates...whatever is behind that door will definitely be destroyed."

Emperal’s eyes flickered when he heard this, "This strong?"

"Yes, better be careful."

"Alright, how do I open these?"

"With precision"

The Infernal Dragon spoke...just two words. But to Emperal, that clue was more than enough.

There was a red herring built into the formation’s surface reading to make anyone who tried to force it use the wrong approach.

"Hmm, the actual mechanism is simple and...harder."

His eyes shifted to the eight input points distributed across the door frame. Four on each side, and they were positioned at such specific intervals that they definitely didn’t seem decorative.

Each one was a Verth receiver, designed to take input and channel it inward...towards the lock’s core.

Once done, the lock’s core would then be released once all eight receivers reached the same Verth saturation equally.

The keyword here was equally. Emperal frowned and gritted his teeth when the frost crept up his toes. Freezing them.

And the worst thing was, the ice element Verth filling the room was actively draining the receivers on a continuous cycle. The formation had obviously been designed for neutral ambient conditions in Verth. The drainage rate worked against every input attempt, which was the reason why many hadn’t opened it...yet.

"You got the problem right? Lucky for you, you have the required talent in this field."

"...I hope so."

Saying that, he positioned himself equidistant from all eight receivers and flexed his fingers twice.

With a single thought, he extended his Verth outward into eight threads simultaneously, one for each receiver. Each thread began supplying Verth at a rate precise enough to match the drain before gradually exceeding it.

"Fuck! T-This mental pressure is too much!" Emperal cursed out loud, his entire body shivering. In the next second, the Verth flowing towards the third receiver suddenly fell a percent short! 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

CLUNK!!

In an instant, all his Verth was reversed and blasted back at him. Emperal was forced a few steps back, his eyes widened when he saw his hands and legs.

A dark blue colour had started coating them; it was like he had frostbite.

"Damn, this cold is messing with my control."

Emperal muttered, now even his voice was starting to turn hoarse.

"The first attempt failed..."

But nonetheless, he still stood up and stepped towards the door.

This time, he focused all his attention on his body. If it were just pure Verth, he could’ve absorbed that, but if he dares absorb the Verth, which is filled with the Ice element. Not even the Infernal Dragon could save him.

Once again, he positioned himself equidistant from all eight receivers. Stretching his hand out, he extended his Verth outward in eight threads.

But this time, he divided his concentration and focused on all eight threads simultaneously. But, he still had some remaining Verth left.

His dry lips parted ever so slightly.

"Kraeth’sol"

The moment he muttered that, intense heat coursed through his body. Destroying whatever the Ice element had done to his body.

His body temperature soon returned to normal as he shifted his focus to the eight receivers.

He slowly began to pour his Verth out after a second of observation. He saw that the lower receivers drained faster when the cold air sank in. Adjusting in real time, he redistributed his Verth without losing the saturation momentum in the upper four receivers.

Twenty seconds...that was what it took for him to get to that point. To get them all equal.

"Shit, my Verth is almost running out."

Gritting his teeth, he held them there. He didn’t push but kept maintaining. Suddenly, the ice element drain spiked! A final resistance to his push and pulled his Verth hard for three whole seconds more than it had the entire time.

Veins popped on his neck as he forced his body to absorb more and more Verth. The earlier fire, which had almost destroyed any residual ice...suddenly began reforming.

But his eight threads didn’t waver. And finally, after a few seconds, the drain subsided, and the lock was released.

"Huff...cough! Huff...huffff"

Emperal’s leg gave out as he struggled to stand properly; he almost fell down, but through sheer will, he held himself up.

The door finally opened, the stone and the arrays inside the door shifting smoothly inward on the mechanisms that had waited a long time for this exact sequence.

"No wonder the blood of !@#$# resonated with this kid. This...I’m sure nobody of his level could even come close to achieving what he had just done."

Pouring his Verth in threads outside while using Kraeth’sol at the same time? It was basically asking the Verth veins to snap.

"Good job, now go and take the Verth Spring. You have earned it, kid."

Emperal exhaled lightly when he heard this, "More like I was being overworked."