'Not bad…'

As I channeled my spear essence into the spear I had in my hand, I was able to understand the improvement brought to it more deeply as it interacted with the weapon itself.

Furthermore, in my other hand I held a mini-version of the ethereal spear which was obviously condensed from spear essence.

Using it naturally as a form of energy was another quality of a weapon dominator, something that only became possible with the opening of the body's weapon energy channels!

Only now could I fully understand the interpretation of weapon practice which seemed to have made little sense till now…

Starting from the first stage, and unlike elements which could be perceived and absorbed naturally, weapon energy could only be absorbed through the weapon of choice according to the corresponding weapon art, then moving onto the next stage, one could form his energy core which produces its own Ki, and finally reaching this ambiguous essence stage…

My hypothesized deduction regarding this was that all sorts of weapon energies had the same source!

Unlike the elements which had different forms and capabilities and could only be absorbed by humans with suitable attributes, the different weapon energies were likely to be a refinement of the same sort of energy.

Similar hypotheses were mentioned in the books I read, but it was frowned upon due to the distinctive nature of each type of weapon energy, however, now I could say for sure that it's true!

It only made sense to me that no regular type of energy could coexist with the elements in the surrounding atmosphere, let alone more than a dozen of different weapon energy types… I only had 5 types of them and they would already fight whenever there was a chance for that!

Thus, the only logical explanation was that 'Weapon Energy' was the source of all branches, which is only absorbable by certain forms of metal weapons according to certain arts, possessing these distinctive natures only after the refinement inside the body of the weapon before being absorbed into the body of the practitioner.

This was further proven to me after witnessing how 'Harmony' acted, and how it was so simply capable of blending the 5 types of energy together like they were the same thing.

Finally, once the practitioner was able to breakthrough the last bottleneck and reach the essence stage, he could finally break that rule, as his body not only became capable of absorbing the general weapon energy, but also being capable of refining it into the type of essence that transformed his body, which in reverse allows him to wield the essence itself as a lethal weapon!

This was exactly why essence stage practitioners were considered the true powerhouses of the weapon path, finally being capable of contending with elemental masters on a common stage, no longer being useless without a weapon by their side!

Of course, the weapon that they relied on for the refinement till this stage would become their essence weapon which would be capable of boosting the power of their essence by a few notches.

In my case, I had no need for such an energy processor as my practice was completely different, as such, I had no 'Essence Weapon' but I certainly didn't have a need for such a thing anyway...

[ 'Spear Mastery' Lv.7

Skill type: Passive

*The strength and damage you deal increases by 70% while wielding a Spear.

*You acquire an affinity 'Spear-Affinity (A)'

*You acquire an energy ability 'Spear Energy (A)'

*You acquire a body ability 'Spear Body' ]

Just relying on the effects of Spear Mastery's first option, wielding any kind of spear would give me a 70% boost, so even while disregarding its other options, it was incomparably superior to the 'Essence Weapon' which was known to give a boost of 50% for most essence stage users.

'It counted as an ability…'

Unlike how the breaking of the body's elemental barrier and obtaining ability to use elements freely away from the body within the elemental domain didn't count as an ability by the system, it seemed like the breaking of the weapon energy barrier did so.

[ 'Spear Body'

Description: your body has obtained the capability to fool the world into believing it's nothing but a spear.

*Allows you to absorb 'Spear Energy (A)' from the surrounding atmosphere ]

'As for this…'

[ 'Spearmanship' Lv.7 (Unique****)

Description: the culmination of your Spear Art, a unique style of your own!

Concept & Skill accumulation:

'Critical Aim' Intermediate lv.9, 81.31%

'Lightning' Intermediate lv.9, 99.99%

'Thunder' Intermediate lv.9, 69.13%

'Wind' Intermediate lv.6, 96.73%

'Earth' Intermediate lv.2, 56.22%

'Ice' Intermediate lv.2, 21.12% ]

[ Strength: 35.61 ]

[ Constitution: 35.34 ]

Even though I did manage to achieve the essence stage, 'Spearmanship' was still a mini grade away from the Epic rank, but that didn't seem to have limited its abilities so I didn't care much about it as I checked the long list of elements added and their progress which seemed to have slowed down terribly at lv.9 for some reason, even lightning was stuck at exactly 99.99%...

Hypothesizing that it likely has to do with the grade as well, I couldn't do anything about it as I just decided to be satisfied with what I got for now, especially the stats increase which was quite a lot considering how high my stats were.

'Alright, no time to lose…'

`~~`~~`~~`

'Someone broke through to the essence stage?'

A white robed youth who was meditating in a cross-legged position as he suddenly opened his eyes as a surprised expression painted his face, which eventually turned into a smile…

"To think he achieved it that quickly! All the other candidates had been stuck at peak Tier-6 for a good amount of time yet he suddenly broke through as soon as he went into closed training… what a crazy genius."

Just as he said that in amusement, a small bird went through the wind as it threw something into the youth's hand before landing on his shoulder.

"Eh? He is leaving already? I knew he would get refused but he shouldn't be that sulky about it… haha..."

The youth's amusement only grew bigger as he soon broke out in laughter...