92 The Silver Essence is...?

With one last thing to test, Oli was determined.

Though he had low expectations for any success, Oli at least wanted to learn what his silver essence was. He thought that he should at least try and figure out that much, otherwise, how could he search for cultivation techniques or try and create one?

Before he did anything, Oli took out another two boulders. Then he sat down and started cultivating.

Like before, it took him an hour just to get a grasp of the essence.

Now that Oli had a faint amount of the essence around him, he opened his eye. He stared at the two boulders in front of him.

Slowly, Oli reached out and touched one of the boulders. He thought that by seeing how the essence interacted with the boulders, the essence type might become more obvious.

When he touched it, Oli was surprised to see that nothing was happening.

Determined to discover more about the essence, Oli took another hour to gather more. This time, he covered the boulder in it. Yet, still, Oli could see no changes in the boulder.

In anger and impatience, Oli shoved the boulder aside. Or, at least he tried to.

The boulder didn't budge, even with Oli's natural strength. It made no sense to Oli so he tried again, and again he failed to push the boulder aside.

Baffled, Oli pulled his hands back and pulled the essence on the boulder back to himself.

He tried to push the boulder again, but that time it moved like it normally would. In comparison, the boulder suddenly felt much lighter to Oli. He wasn't sure why, but the boulder was definitely lighter after bringing that extra essence back to himself and not covering the boulder.

To test this, Oli put some essence back around the boulder. Like before, the boulder wouldn't budge by any means.

Oli did this over and over, testing it with different amounts of essence. Sometimes he put more essence around the boulder than himself, which resulted in the boulder being even harder to move. Other times, Oli put a bit more essence around himself and found that he could move the boulder, albeit difficultly.

One time, Oli covered the boulder in all of the essence. When he tried that, there was no hope of pushing the boulder aside. With his full natural strength pushing against it, Oli could move it at a snail's pace.

It strange and unlike anything that Oli had expected.

Oli retracted the silver essence from the boulder and stared at it deeply. He let out a sigh as he pondered what to try next.

After a few minutes, Oli gathered some extra essence into his fist. Then, he lashed out toward the boulder, curious what effect the silver essence would have in an attack.

As he made contact, Oli went wide-eyed. His fist didn't slow down at all. When his fist connected with the boulder, it's momentum continued more than halfway through the boulder. The punch only stopped because Oli's arm was now fully extended and couldn't reach any further. It had gone through the boulder like a hot knife through butter.

This left Oli ver further perplexed. Without a clue what was going on, he relaxed and took a few minutes to think things over again.

Soon, he gave the boulder a weird look before he tried his next experiment.

Oli squatted down and picked up the boulder, which wasn't too difficult with his large Iron-body Gorilla frame.

Once it was held up against his chest, Oli poured his silver essence back over the boulder. Suddenly, Oli let out a strained grunt and dropped the boulder in surprise.

As the boulder hit the floor, shaking the entire room on impact, Oli smiled. That smile quickly turned to a chuckle. And that chuckle quickly turned into hysterical laughter.

He picked up the boulder again and found that this time it was more difficult. Oli had dropped the boulder due to its sudden weight gain, but as he thought, he could still carry it without too much struggle.

It took a few moments for Oli to regather himself and test his new hypothesis.

Walking to the still untouched boulder, Oli took some deep breaths to calm himself and refocus. He placed his hands on the boulder and started to put all of his silver essence around it.

But that wasn't enough. Oli took another hour to gather essence and cover the boulder in it all. But again, that still wasn't enough for Oli.

In the end, Oli spent another three hours gathering essence around the boulder. That meant that five hours' worth of essence was now surrounding the boulder. The silver essence was now a bit thicker than Oli's dark and earth essences normally were.

Soon, Oli heard some small cracks around him. He looked down and smiled. Suddenly, a large crack was heard, and the entire room rumbled.

Unable to handle the pressure, the floor started to give out under the boulder. It forced itself into the concrete, disrupting the formation while it did so.

As the formation vanished, Oli could feel that his connection with the silver essence weakened.

With that, Oli pulled back his essence and again laughed hysterically while staring at the boulder now lodged in the concrete floor.

The formation was no longer active, meaning that Oli would struggle even more to keep testing the silver essence.

But before Oli could think about it, more crackling sounds appeared. Then, Oli felt the ground under him start to give.

He quickly dispersed the silver essence he had spent hours gathering, but it wasn't soon enough to keep the floor from breaking under his feet.

Oli stepped back and saw that there were now footprints inside of the concrete. It was startling, but the evidence was right in front of Oli's face.

Still laughing, Oli shouted, "Gravity! It's gravity!"

His laughter continued for quite some time, but he he eventually had enough of that and continued to ponder the about the silver essence.

"It's gravity… No wonder the earth essence crumbled under it," thought Oli. "So, whatever I cover in this essence becomes heavier. And if I use it in attacks, the effect stays the same and greatly increases the attack's destructive power. If only my affinity wasn't so weak…"

"Well, there's not much point in staying here since the formation is broken. I should probably talk to Vloz about that. I'm sure he'd be blown away to see this!"

As fast as he could, Oli undid the seal and hurried out of the library, closing the door behind him.

It was already evening so Oli couldn't find Vloz in the library. He searched the school grounds, but only saw his mother and the other teachers cultivating in the classrooms.

Not wanting to disturb them, Oli hurried to Vloz's house, hoping to find him.

Luckily, Oli caught Vloz having dinner. So, struggling to contain himself, Oli convinced Vloz to quickly finish his meal and accompany him back to Oli's cultivation room.

Along the way, Oli didn't say too much, wanting to save it as a surprise. All he told Vloz was that Oli needed his help for something and it was too important to explain outside of the sealed space.

Once they got there, Oli immediately sealed the room and let Vloz stare in wonder at the boulder embedded in the concrete and the gorilla footprints Oli had made, as well as the nonfunctional formation.

"H-how did you do this…?" asked Vloz.

"Well, today I spent all my time experimenting with my different essence natures." Oli pointed to the shattered pieces of the boulder he broke with his earth and dark essences. "After I discovered how hard it was to blend essences, I couldn't help myself from testing that weird silver essence."

"I wanted to at least learn what it was, that way searching for a cultivation technique would be easier in the future. But I didn't expect for this to happen… My affinity is super weak, but I finally figured out what type of essence it is. And, I'm certain that it's a unique type!"

"What kind is it?"

"Gravity!"

"Gravity?!" Mixed emotions hit Vloz all at once, making his facial expressions fluctuate. "Gravity… Really?... You have both earth and dark essence already, but now you have something like gravity… I've never heard of such an essence…"

Vloz was struggling to speak and think. It was way too difficult for him to believe such an essence type existed, but the evidence was right in front of him. He didn't want to believe that Oli had such an essence, but he had no choice.

"Oli… Never tell anyone about this. And never show anyone that silver essence again."

"Well duh, I'm not gonna go around and--"

"I'm serious, Oli!" shouted Vloz, shutting Oli up. "You've already a dual essence user, and that's enough to bring our territory to ruin before we become a major territory. But if someone learned you that you had this… there's no telling what would happen."

"... Okay, I'll be extra careful."

"And don't tell Rathe about this, or even your mother," added Vloz. "I will agree that you should find some way to cultivate this, but no one should know you have this until no one is strong enough to stop you from growing. Is that understood?"

"Yeah, crystal-clear," sighed Oli. He was overwhelmed by Vloz's seriousness. It was clear to him that Vloz was genuinely terrified of Oli's silver essence being gravity.

"Come on, let's head back. In the next couple of days, we'll get your cultivation room fixed so you'll have to train elsewhere in the meantime. But no silver essence for now, okay?" stated Vloz.

"Alright," agreed Oli. "I could use a good meal after all that."

The two left the room and carefully closed the door behind them, letting their discovery sink deeper into their minds and allowing them to focus on other things.

In the now dark cultivation room, a light chuckle sounded out, followed by a long sigh.

A silhouette appeared on the outer edge of the room. It walked toward the center and examined the boulder and the footprints.

As a human hand reached out of the dark cloak, the figure laughed again. "It's been a long time since I've seen that essence… A long time indeed… I guess he was right after all."