Edward returned to the blue room he was meditating in. After sitting down, he began the process of increasing his mana. The room he was in was designed to contain mana in the environment, so he could absorb that mana to fill his magic core.

Additionally, as a wizard, his bloodline could naturally produce mana over time. So, Edward drank a new potion to speed up the process. Because he had abused the previous potion, he had grown immune to it, so he had to develop a new one with different magic plants and materials.

Every time he absorbed mana inside his core, it will be processed and turned into liquid by the magic circle. Slowly, the number of mana inside his core gradually increased.

'The process is too slow," muttered Edward who did not want to wait.

"Morgana, directly inject mana inside my body from the core."

Tubes came from the ground and began to inject mana from the Philosopher's Stone at the core of the gate. Edward quickly realized the difference between this mana and the previous one.

The mana he absorbed from the air had to compress into liquid by the circle, but the one from the stone was already liquid. This was not the first time that Edward had injected mana inside his body from the stone, but those times, it was not liquid.

This change must be the result of his recent development.

Three days later, he felt a sense of fullness inside his core; it was similar to when he broke through the Third Limiter and his mand reached 100 times that of an adult wizard. This meant that Edward had reached the limit of Tier 4.

Without pause, he began to engrave a new 3D spell model inside his mind. In the past 20 years he spent inside the virtual space, he accomplish three things: optimized the enchantment for his World Gate, and create a way to liquefy and solidify/crystalize his mana.

Once the 3D model was engraved inside his Soul Dimension with his spiritual power, he controlled it to enter his magic core. After activating it, to his surprise, nothing happened.

He quickly checked the spell model to see if something was wrong, but all his calculations were correct. Nevertheless, he still failed. He tried a few times again with no success.

After frowning for a while, he muttered: "It's time for plan B."

He apparated away and reappeared in a room with a very complex transmutation circle in the middle. At the center of the circle was a blue Philosopher's Stone.

Edward first checked the stone to make sure that nothing was wrong. This stone can be considered the perfect Philosopher's Stone; it is made of both magic and Gate Alchemy. It contained the perfect ratio of mana, soul, and life energy.

After checking the stone, he checked the transmutation circle. It's been a while since he designed this circle as a way to fuse his magic core with the Philosopher's Stone.

Now that his knowledge had increased, he could see a few flaws in the design, so he optimized it.

Once he was done, he prepared to go through the process himself. Morgana suddenly appeared next to him and said: "Master, do you want to do a few more experiments before trying it on yourself?"

"Didn't we already have enough data?"

"We, but it's better to be more cautious."

Edward pondered for a moment before nodding his head. He first did a few hundred of thousands of simulations in the virtual space, then used a few prisoners as experiments.

Once everything was done, he laid down in the middle of the circle and activate it. Lights came off from the circle followed by lightning-like noses. A blue cube suddenly came from Edward's heart and floated next to the stone, then two of them seemed to decompose into tiny particles and began to mix together.

Edward's plan was to use the core ideas of alchemy: decomposition and reconstruction. He decomposed both his magic core and the Philosopher's Sone into their basic material and reconstruct them into something new with the advantage of both.

It's the same process of making chimera by combining human DNA with animal DNA.

Once everything was over, a blue hexagon core appeared in the air before entering Edward's heart. Immediately afterward, a powerful force started ravaging his body.

The mana and lifeforce of the stone would destroy every part of his body, then reconstruct it. Whether it was his hearts, organs, skins, muscles, bones, etc. It did not matter; it would be destroyed and rebuilt.

On top of that, powerful soul energy was also rapidly increasing the power of his soul, and the process was not peaceful.

With all the pain he was experienced, he still had to steel his mind and retain a certain level of consciousness, otherwise, the violent mana and life force would be more destructive.

The strengthened process lasted for an entire day before Edward absorbed all the life force in the stone and the mana returned to his core. However, everything was not finished.

Once his soul was finished strengthened, he had to face another test: the Resentment left from the souls that the Philosopher's Stone was made.

Although Edward used the souls of clones, and even purify the resentment left in them, he could not completely get rid of them. In fact, he wanted to summon demons and use their souls to make Greater Philosopher's Stones.

Unfortunately, he could not summon a large number of them at times. On top of that, although the soul of demons was more powerful than a regular wizard, it was filthy and full of madness and chaos.

It was extremely difficult to purify the soul of demons. The Empire has been trying to invent Light Magic to purify them, but the result has been mediocre before Edward left.

In his Soul Dimension, Edward's soul watched as more than a hundred thousand people looked at him with hatred and madness. He could hear their constant madness and complaints.

Immediately, he began to chant in Sanskrit, and a golden light came out of his body. As soon as the light touched these souls, their faces constantly changed from peaceful to anger; it was like they were two people fighting over one body.

Edward was currently using a Buddist Magic from India. According to a study previously done by the Empire, this magic had some effect on soothing souls or ghosts full of resentments.

For the next week, Edward continued to chant and the light quickly expanded in size. Then, all the resentments vanished from his Soul Dimension.

Edward opened his eyes with a frown on his face before looking at his hand. He could see a tiny black spot in the middle. He knew that although he managed to remove the resentment of these souls, his own soul was still contaminated.

Albeit this level of contamination was nothing to him, he did not want any blemish on his soul. His first thought was to cut off that contamination, then slowly heal his soul.

However, he decided to slowly remove it instead. Although this process would probably last decades, it was also a way for him to study the soul and contamination.

After making a decision, he left his soul dimension and returned to his body. He stood up from the ground in the middle of the transmutation circle.

Edward could feel the strong mana floating through his veins. He immediately inspected his magic core, then muttered: "So, that's how it is."

He finally understood why his method of Crystalizing Mana did not work. What he was doing was essentially turning the magic core into a pseudo-Philosopher's Stone.

Although this kind of stone is even less powerful than the Less Stone that used emotions, it still requires a large amount of soul energy to be bound or contain. Otherwise, the process will not succeed.

After realizing the problem, he knew how to allow the wizards in the Empire to reach Tier 5; a certain amount of soul energy is required in the process.

At the same time, he also has a plan that will further divide the strength of Tier 5 Wizards.

There will be ordinary Tier 5, followed by people who can use the Lesser Stone to fuse their magic core, then people who use a Greater Stone, and finally, only members of the royal family and specific individuals in the Ghost Squad will be allowed to use the Perfect Stone that he himself used.

He can foresee that the better the stone use, the more powerful a Tier 5 Wizard will be.

After nodding his head in satisfaction, Edward then reviewed the information that just popped up in his mind. One of them was the fact that he reached Tier 5.

To be precise, Tier 5 Continent Level.

As for the second…