Max felt an energy coursing through his skins into the veins and then into his body. It wasn't as strong as the previous times. But Max could still clearly feel that it was the same Flow energy that he has been practicing with the help of the system so far.

Max kept circulating the energy and slowly absorbing it through his body. But in all this process, Max didn't feel any reaction even when he tried to bring the Flow energy around his hands trying to stimulate a response both from the beast core as well as his own crystallized core. It clearly meant that the Ancient Manual was not meant for refining the core like Mana Arts.

And from the way it worked, Max could feel that this Ancient Manual was meant for strengthening the body.

After 30 minutes, Max felt his mental energy being drained as sweat dripped down his face. This process really required a high level of concentration.

" This is tough! The system really helped me big time. But in all this process, I had become a bit too dependent on it."

Max lay down on the huge boulder drained. He looked up to the night sky wondering how the situation was in Arcane.

Slowly, Max closed his eyes and relaxed. But he still had kept his ears open. Even though for some reasons, the beast didn't seem to come towards this area. He still felt that it was good to be alert.

A moment later, Max realized that a cool sensation had started to emerge from his temples and started to circulate around his body. It had started to refresh his exhausted body as well as his mind.

Max suddenly felt his heart throb as he thought of a possibility. This cool sensation travelled through his entire body and it arose a reaction from his core too. May be…..

The energy which had been flowing through Max's body naturally was now starting to circulate faster as Max tried to control it consciously.

At this moment, the tattoo on Max's chest started giving a blue colored glow. Sera who has been sleeping jovially suddenly woke up. She could barely open her eyes. But it didn't stop her and somehow she managed to get towards Max before climbing onto his lap and making it a pillow.

The blue colored glow from Max's chest seemed to react to Sera's presence as it stretched out to Max's entire body and covered Sera in it too.

Max too noticed Sera's action. But before he could do anything, Max felt the thin cool energy in his body growing stronger and stronger. It seemed to be reacting to Sera's presence.

Max let Sera do as she pleased before picking up the Skull Spider's core.

' Let's see if it works this time…', Max thought in excitement.

Max carefully allowed his energy to travel through his hands and surround the beast core. And unlike the last time, the beast core started to melt into a stream of mana.

' Good! At least the first step is success….'

Max felt joy but it wasn't time to celebrate. His biggest worry was that he wasn't sure if his core was a mana core or not. If it wasn't a mana core, could he use mana to refine it?

If not, it was even more of a thing to worry about. What did he have to do to refine his core? And if you ask, how did he know that he needs to refine his core to get stronger? It's because he could clearly feel the energy within his core. He had always dreamed of awakening a strong element which led to his research and findings. He could tell that his one was a core too. The only thing he wanted to know now was whether it was a mana core or something else.

Slowly, the low level beast core melted entirely into a stream of mana. Max felt two different types of energy within his body.

One was the cool energy while the other one was a bit disgusting and abundant, the mana energy.

Yes, the beast core had flooded his body with mana which was almost ten times more than the cool energy.

Max felt that he had eaten shit as the mana entered his body. If Max had spoken this word out loud in public. He really would have made the entire world his enemy.

But you couldn't blame him, the cool energy and the Flow energy which he had experienced were clearly in a different league. The Flow was the highest grade energy in this dimension while the cool energy was something which had unknown origins.

Max holded the disgusting feeling and slowly, something extraordinary happened. The cool energy seemed to be eating away mana from his body. Within a few minutes, the mana within his body had disappeared while the amount of cool energy had increased a bit.

But what really made him excited was the buzzing from his core. He felt that it had expanded a bit and there was even a bit more shine to it.

Let's be more serious, there wasn't a shine. He was just too excited which had led him to imagining things.

Max didn't give it a second thought as he took another the beast core in his hands and repeated the process.

…

…

…

'It's the last one left! Let's do it….'

Max had already thought of feeding the cores to his body until there wasn't some major transformation.

The cool energy within Max's body has grown quite a lot too. He felt he was close to it. He was hitting a barrier and it needed one more push.

Max really felt an excitement coursing through his body. The feeling of being normal in his abnormality. This was supposed to have happened in normal circumstances.

Then maybe, he wouldn't have…..

" No...there is no worth in lamenting over the past. Besides, it doesn't change anything…."

Max said as the last core of Black Iron Beetle Melted away. And after a few minutes, a raging aura with a loud boom crumbled the boulder that Max was sitting on.