Chapter 446: The Refinement of The First Floor

'Interesting…'

Holding out my hand to catch the telekinesis floating crystal card, I couldn't help but stare at it for a few seconds as various thoughts circulated in my head.

The current crystal card that was no longer bound to the mental imprint seemed like it would completely blend with the absolute darkness of this space if the small fireball that I used for illumination was to be extinguished, almost losing the meaning of calling a 'crystal' card. However, upon staring well enough into it, one could make out a fascinating mix of stardust-like glimmers.

Naturally, this wasn't the time nor the place to be enchanted by something like this, but the main reason behind my attention was caused by the fact that what the card showed reminded me of a slightly familiar object, spatial crystals.

'I wonder…'

The crystals that existed within the various gates which required certain conditions before they could be crushed to teleport its owner outside or create a 'portal' out of the gate all showed the same 'stardust' phenomena regardless of their actual color.

Originally, I believed that this mysterious factor was something special about the Space elements' nature, but I wasn't so sure of that anymore as I contemplated the possibility of the 'Laws' being involved…

Perhaps all of those spatial crystals were semi-Law tools? Was that really the common factor? Or maybe it's just that Space elements are also involved in the card's creation…?

'That's for another time I guess…'

Though the topic intrigued my curiosity, I was more interested in the card's main ability itself rather than its visual effect, testing it obviously took priority over getting lost in thought without much to confirm my assumptions with.

"Here goes…"

Still feeling doubtful about the possibility of a whole tower appearing from a minuscule card like this, I walked out of the low ceiling cave and only started pushing my mental energy and newly acquired Darkness elements into the card when I reached a spot which had relatively enough upward space.

It didn't seem like empty space would be a problem since the mental imprint hinted towards the tower part being more of a concept, but I wanted the empty space to be able to observe the result more smoothly.

Whizzz!

As soon as enough mental energy was supplied to form a connection, the brightness of the 'stardust' within the crystal card rose before it started to spin omnidirectionally at a speed that made it seem like a shining black ball!

The ball simply kept on expanding till its diameter reached about five meters before…

Thumb!

It simply shot upward at a speed which even my eyes couldn't catch! The only thing left was a tall cylindrical structure that did really resemble an actual tower, the whole process took less than 5 seconds!

'And the card…'

Just as I was wondering where the card would be or what the condition to retrieve it would be, a perfect cube opening simply appeared at the very bottom of the 'tower' facing me as something shined inside of it.

Following that, the shape of the tower that seemed to be made of metallic matter slightly faded to look more ethereal, making it look like an actual tower made of crystals…

Feeling the connection with the card, I took two steps forward through the opening before finding myself standing in front of the now dim card, which was suspended in the air as if it was frozen in place.

[ Would you like to proceed with the refinement of the First Floor? ]

Speaking with the same voice that the mental imprint used, the card transmitted a question to me through the mental link, though it didn't accept any answer other than acceptance or denial. It felt like a slightly backward version of the 'Yes/No' buttons used in most games.

The ability of the card to act as a terminal using transmitted words was greatly similar to other 'Towers' I have entered back on the two earlier domains. It also somewhat explained why it was an item that would work well with mental imprints.

'Yes.'

Not being a fan of suspense, and since I had to test it anyway, I immediately chose to answer with acceptance, only to realize that the option of denial was still open, becoming the method to stop the 'Refining' that had already proceeded.

'Oh…'

With the supposed 'Refining' in action, I quickly felt something minuscule seeping away from me as it started to form some sort of a shadow about a meter to my front. It was a strangely relieving feeling, but I couldn't feel much of it as it ended in too little time while the shadow quickly consolidated.

'This is…'

The figure that condensed was that of a demon, but it didn't immediately attack as its shape started to change to that of a human…

'It's related to my mental image of it?'

Considering the demon form was actually the form that I most expected, I couldn't resist changing my mental image, which seemed to successfully cause a change of form.

'This keeps getting interesting…'

Trying several more forms, I quickly caught up to the fact that no matter what the form was, its size and height were very specific, they were almost identical to mine, allowing me to come up with a few hypotheses.

'I guess the only thing left is to…'

Keeping my thoughts aside for now, I quickly held the longsword form of 'Lightning Cloud' and slashed towards the shadowy form, relying only on my sword essence. I was naturally confirming the fact that the mental imprint had mentioned.

'Seems to be true so far.'

Starting from weapon energy to the use of various elements such as Fire, Lightning, and so on, nothing seemed to even phase the shadowy form, not to mention causing it any damage, everything simply passed through it as if it was an actual shadow. 

However, as soon as I started to call out the Darkness elements to coat my sword using 'Elemental Armament'...

The shadowy form's eyes sprang open!