Cronix's body was all beat up, with burns all over his body, and blood seeping out of his mouth, but unlike his opponent, he was still alive.

However he wasn't going to wake up for a while, his consciousness wasn't fully present inside his body, it was in a mysterious place inside his mind.

In a dark space, Cronix's 'body' was sleeping; here Cronix didn't have his cloak, so his wings, tail, and horns were all completely visible.

There was a strange colorless, formless energy occupying the space, similar to how the magic elements were in the physical world, but unlike the magic elements, this energy wasn't boundless.

This strange energy slowly started to enter into Cronix's sleeping 'body', with this energy his originally still 'body' began to twitch.

More energy began moving into Cronix's 'body' as well, and Cronix's twitching became more violent, after a few minutes of this Cronix's eyelids slowly part revealing his cat-like eyes.

Cronix was forced awake by the energy, and once his eyes fully opened, the energy went crazy like they were witnessing the rise of their ruler.

The movement of the energy instantly brought the semi-awake Cronix into full consciousness, his eyes narrowed and he immediately started analyzing the energy.

"This... This is mental energy!" Cronix's voice resounded in the darkness.

But there was something weird about this mental energy though, it wasn't unfamiliar to Cronix, in fact there was a deep connection that he felt with this mental energy

Cronix tried circulating his mental energy throughout his 'body' but the movement he tried to make his mental energy move inside his 'body', the mental energy outside reacted.

Cronix frowned, a small theory started to form inside his mind.

Cronix started to try and draw out all his mental energy out of his 'body', but all that did was make the external mental energy go crazy.

That's when Cronix stopped trying to draw energy from his 'body', but tried controlling the mental energy around him, and he succeeded in his first attempt.

"I was right, this is my mental energy!" A smile appeared on his face, but his eyebrows scrunched up, "Then why is it all here... where is here?"

Cronix looked around and only saw darkness, except for two areas. The first was an area filled with a moving blue fog emitting an icy sensation.

"That's the water elements! But why is it here?" Cronix looked at the water elements, and suddenly it dawned on him where he was.

"I'm an idiot! Why didn't I realize it before? All my mental energy is here, and when I was practicing the ice wraith method, I was able to transport the water elements into my mental expanse!

"This is my mental expanse!"

Cronix was filled with joy, he was finally able to enter the mysterious place known as the mental expanse.

Cronix looked around further, and using his mental energy he was able to explore the space around him, "This place is quite small, but the stronger my mental energy gets, the bigger this place will become!"

The sudden movement of his mental energy brought Cronix's attention back to the water elements.

Cronix first settled his heart, then started to focus again, looking closer at the water elements than before, he realized something strange was happening between his mental energy and the water elements.

His mental energy and the water elements were actually fighting each other, with the water elements on the losing side.

Cronix tried to walk closer for a better look, but he quickly found that he was floating.

But that somehow didn't stop him from moving, Cronix felt like floating around was natural in the mental expanse, he was easily able to control his movements here.

When Cronix got closer to the icy water element mist, a peculiar light shined in his eyes, and he stopped his mental energy from attacking the water elements.

There was something he wanted to try. After seeing Tornic integrate the magic elements and his mental energy, he had an idea.

Cronix forced the mental energy to enter the water elements, but unlike before with the candle, he wasn't forceful but gentle, yet the water elements still ended up rejecting his mental energy.

Cronix frowned, "They're both rejecting each other! How was Tornic able to do it?"

He replayed the moments when Tornic infused both energies together, "He was controlling both mental energy and magical elements, so I need to control the water elements."

Cronix floated closer to the water elements, he extended his hand and touched the blue mist, somehow the water elements were easier to control inside his mental expanse than the outside world.

He manipulated the water elements and his mental energy to grow closer together, as the two got closer, the harder it got to control the both of them.

But Cronix didn't give up, he stubbornly brought two of them into one single space. The moment this happened, things started to get crazy. Both energies went insane, and a huge force mercilessly tore the two energies apart.

The surrounding mental energy became chaotic, and rushed towards the water elements, Cronix focused all his attention to keeping all the energies away from each other.

Sweat dripped down his physical body in the forest.

It took a while, but eventually the mental energy calmed down, but the force pulling the mental energy apart didn't lessen in the slightest.

During the whole process, Cronix somehow didn't panic, and instead of letting the two energies be torn apart, he forced them back together with all his strength.

The energies were like the same pole of a magnet, stubbornly refusing to be in the same space, but Cronix didn't give them a choice.

Regardless of the force pulling the two energies, they were in Cronix's mental expanse, this was where he was king, and the energies had no choice but to comply.

Cronix was eventually able to get them in the same space, but they still didn't integrate. Cronix frowned, but he couldn't think, he had to focus all his attention to force them together and the mysterious force was only getting stronger.

Cronix couldn't hold back anymore, he needed to force these energies into the same space, and while he couldn't control the elements perfectly, the same couldn't be said about his mental energy.

He forced his mental energy closer to the water elements, but with the increased strength of the force, he had to push further than before.

The strength Cronix used to push the mental energy made it go beyond the water elements, but that's when another mysterious force appeared.

This new force was also pushing the mental energy away from the water elements, except the first force didn't disappear nor did it change directions of where it was pushing, and this new force was pushing the other direction opposite of the first.

This created an equilibrium of the two forces. Using this chance, Cronix manipulated the elements and the mental energy to combine, manipulating every strand of both energies to combine together.

A huge sigh of relief escaped Cronix, this was the result he wanted, but he wasn't done with his plan.

"To extract energy first you need to integrate your mental energy inside the target, second you have to create a vortex using the target at its center."

Cronix followed the second step in the extraction technique, creating a vortex with his mental energy using the water elements at its center.

"The third step is the destruction of the object at the center of the vortex using the mental energy to separate every atom which would leave the core energy to absorb for yourself."

Controlling the infused mental energy inside the water elements, he separated every single individual water element and used the mental energy creating the vortex to launch inside the water elements and ravage its internals.

Although the water elements weren't physical and didn't have atoms, they still had a mysterious energy inside them.

Cronix's mental energy ravaged the insides of the water elements so much so they showed signs of collapsing.

Eventually the mental energy torment was too much for the water elements to handle and they finally split leaving the energy that originally formed them behind.

Cronix's breathing was heavy, but his eyes were bright, "The creator of this technique is a genius!"

Normally splitting an element wasn't possible, but since it happened in the mental expanse and Cronix was controlling the water elements to not resist, it was possible.

There wasn't much of the mysterious energy inside the water elements he destroyed and the whole process was exhausting even inside the mental expanse

But it was worth it as his mental expanse absorbed the energy.

There wasn't any immediate change to Cronix's mental energy but that was to be expected.

Cronix stopped thinking about his mental energy and the energy of existence, but started focusing on the other area emitting light.

The other area contains a red line mess, like a messed up ball of yarn.

Cronix floated closer towards the red lines, its size reminded him of a small bird cage. Cronix looked at the red lines closely, "What the heck is this thing?"

That's when he noticed the flakes inside, and the moment he saw them, for some unknown reason his heart shook.

There was something about these flakes that made Cronix instantly placed a huge amount of importance on them.

He grabbed the red mess of lines wanting to get a closer look, but the moment he touched the cage, he yelped, his 'hands' felt like they were touching fire.

The flakes inside the red mess seemed to sense Cronix's presence, and they unexpectedly went crazy, trying to leave the red lines.

All the flakes were smashing themselves against the red lines hoping anything would happen to it, one of the smaller flakes hit the lines so hard, it crumbled and collapsed on itself.

Cronix frowned, "These lines are definitely a type of cage."

Cronix saw some of the flakes crumbling and for unknown reason, he felt sorrow in his heart. Cronix could no longer stand watching some of the flakes destroy themselves, he gathered his mental energy, and began attacking the cage as well.

However the moment Cronix's mental energy touched the cage, Cronix's 'body' flickered and both his real body's and mental body's face scrunched up and breathing became heavier as he felt like he'd just been stabbed.

The reason Cronix felt this way was because his mental energy was shredded like paper before the cage, and there was a rebound force.

This was the first time Cronix felt a proper mental attack.

It took awhile for Cronix to recover, and when he did, his face became red with anger, "Isn't this my mental expanse!? What right does this cage have being here!"

Cronix was about to use more of his mental energy out of anger, but another energy entered his mental expanse, this energy was gentle and didn't cause any problems, which was probably how it was able to enter.

This energy gathered towards Cronix's 'body' and entered him, his emotions were quickly settled. Cronix frowned, "What was that?"

It was very weird for there to suddenly be another energy inside Cronix's mental expanse, "Does that normally happen in the mental expanse, why would there suddenly be a calming... My pendent."

That realization brought out a soft smile.

But there was something else that happened because of the arrival of the calming energy, a certain flake suddenly became even crazier than the rest.

It banged itself so hard against the lines that it scattered into different pieces, but the flake wasn't destroyed.

One of the pieces found itself in a certain area of the cage, here the lines were incomplete, and there was a small opening to the outside, this flake left the cage through this area.

The moment the flake escaped it fused with the mental expanse itself, and Cronix's vision was immediately shown an image.

The image was in first person, and took place on a bed, he couldn't see his surroundings, all he could see was a hand holding a very familiar pendant.

The pendant was the same pendant he had around his neck, but the only difference was that there were no cracks anywhere on the green jewel.

And although Cronix couldn't see the owner of the hand, going by the hand itself, he could tell it was female.

When Cronix became aware again, he felt gravity against his body, and something picking on his eyelids. Cronix opened his eyes, and saw the midnight sky, as well as the crow on his head.

...

(Klavor city)

"This is the broken jade of young master Tornic." An old man gave a broken jade to a middle aged man, with dark hair and eyes, who had a naturally stern expression.

On his shirt there was an emblem of a fire consuming the world with an A in the middle of the flames, a sword on the left and an axe on the right. Behind him were two youths, both about 15 years old.

"That trash? I'm surprised he's even been able to live for so long, finally our Ayuna family would be free from that embarrassment!" said the young man on the right who looked similar to the middle aged man, only lacking the stern expression.

"Even if he was trash, he's still Ayuna, we should collect his body." The other young man who was on the middle aged man's left said, this young man unlike the other two had purple eyes, but still had dark hair.

The middle aged man, who was silent during the two youths' exchange, finally spoke, "Riley, you are correct, Tornic is still an Ayuna, even if his performance in the magic path is more than disappointing."

Riley nodded his head, while the other young man glared at him with eyes full of envy, the middle aged man shifted his head to the other young man,

"Onyx, go tell Topaz to collect Tornic's body, and if there was any foul play resulting in his death, find the person responsible, and bring them here."

Onyx nodded his head and left the room, following his father's command.