I was stunned for a second by Long's explanation, after all, during my fight with the assassin and my quick assessment of him, I could tell that he was only an upper layer 2nd stage practitioner and he wasn't that close to the peak of the 2nd stage just yet.

[Thanks to his use of that unknown forced corruption ability, his actual elemental grade was barely elevated to the 3rd stage, along with his agility increase that you noticed as well.]

"It still doesn't make sense, if he had obtained 3rd stage powers, he would probably have stood a chance against me in a fight, why would he flee then?"

It was quite unbelievable to take the assassin being a coward as a reason, after all the chasm between the 2nd stage and the 3rd stage was still somewhat wide.

[That's why you are lucky, your fate is great, or whatever you name it. Normally, corrupted humans grow to low-Tier demons once they successfully accumulate enough corruption power steadily, allowing them to rise to the standard of a middle 3rd stage elemental practitioner. when compared to people who are corrupted forcefully against their will or people who get corrupted from using corrupted elemental crystals, they would only degrade into an inferior demon, the growth to their power would be minimal and they are usually treated as cannon fodder, unless they were already powerful enough before getting corrupted.]

This reminded me of the Thunder lion's case, after all, he was corrupted beyond his own will, thus only lost his ability to control himself and became an inferior minion, while his elemental power which was already at the 3rd stage only displayed a somewhat weakened version due to the lack of control.

[On the other hand, due to him forcibly activating his full corruption because of you, his evolution into a low-Tier demon was incomplete, and the result was him barely accessing the 3rd stage before it was even solidified, which was even worse as his 2nd stage abilities were slightly weakened in the process as well.]

"That's quite fortunate then, but why was he practicing two elemental arts at the same time? He couldn't be a prodigy who has dual-elements attribute from birth, right?!"

[Of course not, they aren't that common you know, that's the second reason you could be considered lucky for. To put it simply, in order for one to become a full-fledged corruption demon, he would have to practice two elements, with the primary one being darkness and the other is not limited to a certain element. The secondary element would naturally be the birth attribute of the one aspiring to reach true corruption, while their corruptor would provide him or her with a demon seed and a darkness elemental art…]

[The demon seed is considered the root of corruption, which would eventually evolve into a demon core, as such swallowing the demon seed and nurturing it as the main conductor of the element is the first step in the process, naturally one wouldn't be able to achieve anything without the seed if he practiced a different element, but the seed was capable of self providing for itself until one completed the elemental strengthening stage, after that it would enter hibernation, and thus the second step would be completed. The last step would be practicing the actual attribute until it reached at least the peak of the 2nd stage, only then would one be able to enter the corruption altar and sink into corruption while converting his actual element to darkness element and thus ascending to a 3rd stage darkness elemental demon.]

"Ah…"

I had finally got the big picture of the situation, this was truly a unique opportunity which couldn't be sought for but chanced upon…

[And as you have already deduced, the assassin's incomplete corruption had caused both his elemental art imprint to exist at the same time causing more havoc and weakening his power than what he should have actually received, leading you to finally profit and gain two elemental arts as a bonus!]

"At this point, even I believe that I was a bit too lucky for this to happen…"

"But does that mean I would be able to get all of the elemental arts of the human and corrupted enemies in the future?"

[No! Sorry to tell you that, but 'Elemental Resonance' is restricted by the stage, if you want to achieve it again, you would need the blood essence of a 4th stage elemental master!]

"Ah well, I kind of expected this as well…"

It would be too easy to gain elemental arts this way anyway, everything was bound by certain strains after all.

Even though I did gain two incredibly precious elemental arts, I wasn't really that excited about, the process of getting them was somewhat miraculous, but that wasn't the right way to gauge the gain's value.

While 'Omni-Mastery' and 'Cell Mastery' have opened the door of mastering other elements to me, it wasn't possible for me to just learn every type of elements without tact or rythm. Every element needed to be connected to my other elements in a certain way before I would be able to learn it.

One's elemental path was something that one couldn't change, one would be bound by his wrong choice, even if he had my current abilities which broke through countless limitations.

As such, since my current strength was still sufficient, I planned to think thoroughly and craft my own perfect elemental path so as to leave no room for regret, even if I had to throw one of these elemental arts that I just gained to achieve my goal!

"Time to check my other loot then!"

I started checking my other gains as I held the assassin's longsword...