"Wow, I didn't know we could get an Astra-path Spark here." Adyr pitched his voice in a thoughtful and surprised tone, loud enough for everyone to hear.

The intent was clear. Because this Spark was unknown—and judging by their faces, not even Thalira or Brakhtar recognized it—he chose to mislead them into thinking it wasn't Ignis at all but a gift from the tower on the Astra path.

"That's Astra? I thought it would be Ignis. Too bad." Thalira reacted first, disappointment touching her face. For a moment, she had considered buying it off Adyr to use herself.

She had no reason to think he was lying. Astra was a versatile path that aligned with anything physical, and a cloud, being a tangible phenomenon, could plausibly fall under it.

"Well, this tower is a treasure. Sparks from other paths aren't strange." Maruun gave a small nod, finding nothing odd about it.

Only Brakhtar fixed him with an odd look but offered no comment.

Adyr, wasted no time and decided to subdue the Spark, since carrying a cloud in a cloth bag was questionable at best. He would rather secure it properly than risk an awkward, unreliable method of transport.

His Spark slots were full, so to do that, he first had to remove one Spark from his Sanctuary. There was no way around it; a slot had to be freed.

He focused on his Earth body and had it summon one of the Cragfin Sentinels, one of the 3 fish-shaped Sparks swimming in his Sanctuary's mineral pool.

The reason for using his Earth body to do it was simple. If he summoned a Nether-path Spark in front of everyone, his Astra cover would blow immediately. Having 2 different bodies in 2 different worlds once again showed its advantage, letting him make changes in one realm without exposing himself in the other.

After the fishlike Spark was summoned, Adyr used his transparent energy to remove his authority from it. He did not receive any system message for this procedure; he simply felt the connection with the Spark sever instantly, like a small thought disappearing from his mind, a quiet thread pulled free from his focus.

[Sparks]: 9/10

His character panel also changed in the Spark slot section, reflecting the freed space that he needed.

Then, with his body in the Legacy Domain again, he extended his hand toward the cloud-shaped Spark, let his transparent energy spread, spent 200 energy, initiated the procedure, subdued the White Shroud without any resistance, and sent it to his Sanctuary. The cloud folded into his control as smoothly as mist drawn into a bottle.

He wanted to evolve with it, but he did not begin right away. Since every evolution takes time and brings pain, and this moment required full focus, he postponed the transformation for a safer time when he could bear the cost without distraction.

Seeing Adyr truly subdue the Spark, everyone apart from the mixed-race group lost a shade of confidence, realizing that their rival, with a Spark that strong, had grown into a greater threat.

[The Fourth Trial is called.]

"How much longer will this go on?" With the new trial announcement, the Practitioners grew tense again.

With each trial, survival seemed to grow harder, and the absence of rewards for such high risk made it worse, especially for the mixed-race group.

Of course, for Adyr and the other 2 top races, the longer the trials continued, the better—especially after seeing the last reward, the unique Rank 3 Spark. They were just too expectant, wondering what else this tower could still offer that might surpass it.

Goal: Break out of the Cage

Reward: Synergy Essence

Payout: Awarded to the first 3 escapees.

And when they saw the reward, everyone fell into confusion.

"What is Synergy Essence?" Adyr, equally lost.

It was the first time he had heard of anything like that, not in any book he had read so far nor in anything he had heard in the market area. Still, given that it was the reward for the 4th trial, it shouldn't be something bad, right?

When he looked at the faces of the other Practitioners, he saw the same confusion there; apparently, they were not knowledgeable about it either.

Except for 2… Thalira and Brakhtar looked genuinely shocked, disbelief carved across their faces.

They know what it is. Adyr thought to himself, wondering if there was a way to make them reveal it, but there was no need, as an excited voice reached him from behind in a whisper.

"Brother, do whatever you have to do, but you have to win this reward."

Adyr turned and met Maruun's astonished face. "You know what it is?"

Thalira Luna and Brakhtar Gorat were both important figures of the top races, so it was reasonable for them to know.

Maruun was not from a top race, but he was considered a prince of the Aqualeth Kingdom and involved in trade, so it was not surprising that he knew something as well.

Maruun leaned in even closer, his voice dropping below a whisper. "I do not know exactly what it is, but I have heard enough to know it is a resource. A resource not for Sparks, but for Practitioners."

He paused, gathering his thoughts. "As the name suggests, it is related to synergy and to Practitioners' evolutions. If a Rank 4 or lower Practitioners use it, it is said to awaken the latent potential of the body that had already been improved by the evolution steps taken so far."

Adyr fell quiet, weighing his words. "So you mean it simply makes me stronger?"

Maruun nodded and tried to be precise. "Not only does it make you stronger, but it also helps every Spark you have used in your evolution steps adapt to your body more completely, and it reinforces every innate talent and physical trait you have gained."

So it is like a mutation? Adyr lifted an eyebrow.

On Earth, "mutation" was a genetic-engineering approach that altered a person's DNA and cells to push human limits and produce superhuman traits. It was designed for humans. Adyr had already completed his 2nd evolution step and had moved beyond the human genetic baseline.

When he asked the Researchers whether he could undergo those human-targeted mutations, their answer had been clear: the procedure would either fail or cause harm, because everything developed up to that point had been calibrated for human genetics.

By that logic, Synergy Essence seemed similar in goal but broader in scope. It was not a human-only serum. It was likely a cross-species resource that acted on whatever evolutionary groundwork already existed in the user, aligning body and Sparks and drawing out the unused potential created by prior evolution steps.

When Adyr summed up his thoughts, the conclusion satisfied him.

On Earth, 2nd-generation mutants were already dozens of times stronger than ordinary humans. Adyr, as an evolved human who had progressed beyond baseline, already surpassed even those mutants by a wide margin.

If Synergy Essence truly harmonized prior evolutions and deepened the fit between body and Sparks, then taking it would not contradict his expectations. It would, at minimum, meet them and most likely exceed them.

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