As the birds of this world traveled the sky singing their songs, two men, one in his teens and one in his twenties, were sitting under a gazebo situated in the middle of a courtyard with four houses at the corners.

Magus Xion was guiding the youth named Emery, who had his eyes closed, concentrating as best as he could, not minding the sweat dripping down his face.

The magus was teaching Emery how to cultivate the Spirit Core of Darkness, as well as how he should cast his spells from now on according to what Grand Magus Zenoia had said.

Of course, the first step had already been done. That was learning to control the flow of energy through mastering the infusion spell. Now that Emery had the foundation for it, he was ready for the second step, although Emery was a bit worried about what Magus Xion was about to teach him with his unique circumstances.

Magus Xion seemed to have noticed this and said, "I need you to understand that my master is one of the greatest magus of the darkness element. I know her way tends to be unorthodox… Actually unorthodox is still an euphemism, so keep in mind that this is very risky. Do you understand?"

Emery listened intently and made sure to understand and remember every word Magus Xion was telling him. This, after all, was about his spirit core, which was the source of his abilities in being able to do spells. Hence, he wouldn't dare take these warnings lightly. Based on what he was hearing more and more about his normal spirit core transformation into a spirit core of darkness, it really sounded that he had been taught the wrong way to cultivate. However, Killgragah was the one who taught him this. The thought of the black dragon fooling him still plagued his mind.

"Master, I have one question," Emery said to Magus Xion, sitting on the opposite side of him. "Is it possible for my spirit core to return to what it was before then?"

The magus shook his head with reluctance and answered, "No, Emery. With the way it has been tampered, it is impossible."

"I see," answered Emery. "I guess I have no other choice than to follow Grand Magus Zenoia's teaching. Please, master, I would like to give it a try."

Magus Xion sighed and continued, "I hope you'll be successful, Emery."

The magus then began explaining to Emery how he should cultivate. The unique way to cultivate the spirit core of darkness actually sounded simple. Currently, within his body Emery had three different elemental affinity that were attached to his spirit core of darkness core via a bridge. This happened due to his cultivation method. So, in contrast to the normal way of cultivating, Emery's current method made him able to cultivate faster than having four elements separated from each other. However, this was where the problem also started, in particular when he was channeling his spirit energy into a spell.

For example, if he wanted to cast a plant element spell, he needed to access his green plant spirit and send it to his core. The normal human spirit core would be natural and colorless, like the one that he had before. When the spirit core received the green element, the plant element spell could be successfully cast.

But now, his core had become a spirit core of darkness. The green energy would have to pass through his dark core and the core would then activate the spells. Due to having two elements, or rather the darkness spirit core intermingling with the green energy, the plant element would contradict with the core and only part of its energy would be casted. Therefore, it resulted with the weakening of the spell.

When Grand Magus Zenoia had 'assisted' him earlier, what she did was actually cleanse the residual energies from the other elements that were in his spirit core, after he had a breakthrough to the foundation level. With the cleansed dark core, Emery was able to perform darkness spells to the best of his spirit force.

But of course this was only a stop gap, a temporary solution for his spells, since the other elements were weakened. So, Grand Magus Zenoia, tasked Magus Xion to teach Emery a unique way of cultivating as well as casting spells in regards to his other elements.

Since he had mastered the concept of the infusion spell, Magus Xion then asked Emery to change the way he casted spells. Rather than sending the element's energy to the core to then cast a spell, Emery would start the other way around, the darkness core would infuse the spirit element he was planning to cast with the darkness spirit first before sending it back to the spirit core.

This sounded simple in theory, but it would be way harder if Emery didn't learn how to properly send his spirit energy. So, the good control he learned from earlier was a necessity for this.

"With your current condition, to be safe just use a simple tier 1 spell that you're most proficient with," advised Magus Xion.

Emery didn't have to think long and hard before he immediately thought of the earth spell [Stone Skin]. Emery felt the element he was most proficient with was his plant element, but he just learned the [entangled] spell yesterday, and between the water element [whip splash] or the earth element [stone skin]. He was much more familiar with the latter. And as for the other tier one spells: [water breathing], [softened earth] and [fragmentation], they were not suitable for the thing he was planning to do.

After remembering how normally he channeled the earth spell, Emery took a deep breath and as he sat in concentration. He then started channeling his darkness energy to infuse the yellow earth element spirit through the interconnected glowing bridge.

However, the process wasn't easy. It was in fact harder than infusing the long blade of grass with [Darkness Infusion]. When he first sent his darkness spirit energy, the bridge allowed him to do it, but when it arrived on the yellow light, both elements seemed to want to take the lead over each other. The moment he sent too much, Emery coughed blood, and for some reason he felt like his elements were back to square one, just like when he had first seen them.

Wiping off the blood dripping from his mouth, Emery relaxed himself and came to the conclusion that he needed to find the right balance, not too strong and not too weak. It was like sending a delegation of cooperation from one king to another king. If the delegation came with too much power, the king on the other side felt threatened and was like he was willing to fight. If he sent too little of his darkness spirit energy though, the king on the other would just dismiss the proposal.

Emery knew he couldn't give up, he continued and started the whole process again and again. It took half a day for him to find the right balance of power. The yellow spirit didn't resist and the darkness element finally managed to cover the yellow earth spirit completely, Emery then channeled the yellow-dark-infused energy back to his spirit core and cast the spell.

A burst of pain and power was brought forth from Emery's core, he could feel his skin tingling with a rocky feeling. Opening his eyes, he smiled for he had successfully casted the spell. He felt like his skin was slowly turning and growing more powerful than before.

Examining his skin, he saw that it had become hard as usual, but, then, he was startled to see his stone not yet stop changing. The stone turned darkish and the pattern turned more grainy, blurry and definitely much harder. Once his whole body had been covered, he looked like a walking piece of dark stone. And instead of feeling just one energy, which had been his experience all this time, there were two elements flowing through his skin this time. They were both the dark element and earth element.

Then, an information came to his head from the symbol on his hand.

[You have learned new spell]

[Granite Skin]

[Spell categorized - Tier 3]

Emery was startled in surprise seeing the new spell he just learned.