I needed a thousand Essence points to activate it, an absurd amount considering how slow it built up passively.
It would take time. Time I didn't have.
So I chose the faster route.
I turned and began walking downhill. My heart knew where I was headed.
The place that had humbled me. The place where I got slammed into the ground again and again without being able to resist.
The Space-Time zone.
The gravity zone.
A smile tugged at the corner of my lips.
It was time to settle that score.
****
Soon, I stood at the edge of the zone. A faint, invisible line stretched across the ground beyond it, the gravity field began.
The area was quiet. Calm. No ripples, no distortions.
Just like last time, it wouldn't react unless disturbed.
This place wasn't like the others. It wasn't driven by raw elements. Here, the Essence had shifted, taking on traits of space and time.
They weren't fire, wind, or water, things I could see, touch, or manipulate directly. These were concepts. Fundamental forces. Laws.
My Psynapse had grown much sharper since the first time I came here. I was counting on that, hoping I could now see things I'd missed before.
I replayed everything that happened last time.
How I stepped inside. How the gravity changed. How the distortions pulled me into the ground again and again. How the space and time anomalies triggered with every movement I made.
There were no physical cues. No smoke, no cracks, no elemental surges. Only the invisible hand of laws at play.
Space and time couldn't be seen, not directly. Only their effects can be seen. A distortion here. A warping there. A slowing of motion. A shift in direction.
These weren't elements. They were the pillars that held everything else together.
Destroy either one, and everything falls apart.
Which meant only one thing, whoever fought here…wasn't ordinary. They weren't just powerful.
They had touched something most could never even perceive.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward.
My bare feet touched the edge of the zone.
I walked in slowly, carefully, my senses stretched wide. Every nerve in my body was on alert, waiting for the first sign of disturbance. I activated [Psynapse Boost], and the world immediately slowed down around me.
Essence came alive. It pulsed in the air, as if the entire zone had turned into a beating heart. Through my perception, I felt like a god standing above it all, watching.
A full minute passed. Nothing happened.
Then, I sensed it.
From far off on my left, a wave of Essence began to flow. It moved toward the right, cutting across the zone in a gentle current.
But as I walked, I noticed something strange. Each step I took interfered with the flow. Pieces of the wave struck me and bounced back, while the rest kept going forward. The more I walked, the more interference I caused.
Suddenly, the entire flow paused.
Then it shuddered.
A second wave came, stronger this time. No longer calm, it was violent.
I narrowed my eyes. The Essence wave was changing. I watched it carefully as it shifted form. Its color began to turn silver.
Space.
The attribute of space had activated.
The moment I saw it, I knew what was coming. The anomaly was about to begin.
But I didn't move. I remained exactly where I was, Psynapse fully engaged, tracking the subtle changes in the flow of time around me. The wave grew closer. Now, it shimmered with both silver and teal.
Space and time—together.
I prepared myself.
I activated [Essence Engine].
Essence surged through my channels like wildfire, feeding every fiber of my body. I focused on my legs. My muscles coiled, compressed, and thickened to steady my stance.
This time, I wasn't going to get smashed into the ground like before.
The wave was nearly on me.
The air trembled. Dust and debris on the ground began to shiver, reacting to what was coming like nervous prey sensing an approaching predator.
Just before the wave hit, I released Essence outward. It burst from my skin and formed a shimmering violet cloak around me.
Then....impact.
Boom.
There was no sound, but I felt it in my bones.
Gravity spiked instantly. My body lurched. Despite my preparations, one knee slammed into the ground with a heavy thud.
I clenched my jaw and pushed more Essence out, thickening the cloak around me, trying to bend the pressure away.
I didn't move.
I stayed there, frozen, eyes closed now, sensing everything.
I wanted to understand.
The Essence around me twisted, layered with space and time. It was like watching invisible threads of reality bend and knot. I let it happen, studied it with every part of my mind.
After some time, the pressure lifted.
The gravity dropped.
I opened my eyes and saw debris around me starting to float upward, like the entire world had been flipped upside down.
I reached inward, grabbed the Essence flowing through me, and shifted it into the Earth attribute.
My muscles hardened. My body grew heavier. I still wasn't grounded enough.
So I went further.
I expanded my will and sent Essence pouring into the soil beneath me. The earth responded. It rose slowly, forming a layer around my feet, then my ankles, then my knees, locking me in place.
I hardened it all, packed it tight, like armor made from the ground itself. It would hold me still against the pull of reversed gravity.
Then I just watched.
I studied how space and time mixed, how they created the anomaly. I didn't fight it, I tried to learn from it.
And then, again, the process reversed.
A third wave rushed in, stronger than the first two.
The Silver-Teal Essence surged toward me. I braced myself and pushed my will harder, commanding the violet Essence around me to push back.
This time, I didn't fall to one knee. I held my ground, resisting the crushing weight of the gravity field even better than before.
But I wanted more than just survival, I wanted control.
So I activated my core.
"Power up."
The Generator roared to life within me, humming with raw force. I focused on the channels, directing them to absorb every trace of energy pressing down on my body.
The distortion of space, the compression of time, the sheer weight, every bit of pressure trying to break me, I turned it into fuel.
And instantly, I saw new Essence forming within the core.
I remained still, letting the pressure wash over me, absorbing the energy pressing down on my body.
At the same time, I watched, carefully, trying to understand how it all worked. How space twisted. How time bent. How both wove together to disturb reality in this place.
The force pressing down on me vanished as the wave of Essence finally retreated.
I let out a long breath, my muscles slowly relaxing.
A quick glance at my Essence storage: 55/55 (+30).
Eighty-five units in total.
Without hesitation, I transferred 50 units straight into the Null Heart charge.
50/1000.
As soon as I did, the compressed Essence in my core shifted, drawn toward the white core suspended at its center which was called Null Heart by the system.
It sensed the incoming energy and slowly began to spin.
Very slowly.
I paused, eyes narrowing.
It was faint, barely moving, but the motion was there.
That surprised me more than I expected.
I didn't think such a small amount would even register.
But it did.
And that meant one thing:
The Null Heart had accepted the charge.
I straightened up slowly, adjusting my stance as the pressure eased.
The Essence flowing through my channels began to settle, no longer surging wildly. The violet cloak that had formed around my body faded away, and the hardened layer of earth wrapped around my legs crumbled and scattered into loose soil.
I rolled my shoulders, feeling the tension ease out of my muscles. They ached a little, but not in a bad way. It was the kind of soreness that told me I'd learned something.
"That was intense," I said with a small chuckle, letting out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
But deep down, I felt satisfied.
This time, I hadn't been completely overpowered.
I had stood my ground.
More importantly, I had found a way to resist it and more than that, to study it.
I could feel it in my bones, in the air, in the patterns of the Essence around me.
Space and Time weren't just ideas here. They were moving forces, in this zone.
And now, I had a foothold.
I knew another wave would hit soon, probably stronger than before.
So I started preparing.
I sat down cross-legged, closed my eyes, and reached out. My Psynapse flared as I began drawing in energy from the atmosphere, slowly refilling my Essence storage.
With every pulse, fresh Essence trickled into my core, steady and sure.
I kept my focus sharp, tracking the subtle changes in the Essence around me. The patterns. The flow. The rhythm.
And then, just like before, it surged.
A smirk tugged at the corner of my lips.
This time, I wasn't just going to survive it. I was going to learn from it.