Though Difficult, the Road Ahead Was Bright

Merlin was very surprised that Yinsen had made his decision so quickly. At the same time, he found it strange that Yinsen had chosen such a difficult path so readily.

"You said that as long as I can keep walking this path, I'll at least attain strength no less than yours, right?"

Merlin nodded. "That's right. As long as you keep at it resolutely and don't die in some accident... this path may be difficult, but there are no particularly severe bottlenecks."

Yinsen had noticed that as well, but that was not his only reason for making this decision.

"Then if I follow the path of an ordinary mage, how far can you guarantee I'll get?"

"This..." Merlin immediately understood what Yinsen meant and smiled knowingly. "Young man, you have a clear head. That will help you advance faster on the path of a mage. I hope you can always maintain that clarity."

Yinsen's reason for making this decision was simple: one path was a great road that would certainly lead him to the level of a top-tier Great Sorcerer like Merlin. It might be filled with thorns, but the finish line was faintly visible.

The other path was filled with unknowns. He did not even know where the finish line was or what it looked like. There was no need for him to risk all kinds of accidents and dangers by choosing such a path.

The ordinary path of a mage might allow him to develop Combat Power more quickly, but Yinsen had never been a pure mage to begin with. His means of dealing with sudden situations were not limited to the magic system.

As for protecting himself, at worst, he could prepare some technological equipment in the future. That would be enough to help him through the difficult early stages of this path.

"If I can control Space-Time Energy, I'll have a greater chance of returning to the Marvel Universe... Maybe I can talk Tony Stark into getting me some equipment then?"

But Tony Stark was not the helpful sort, at least from what Yinsen remembered. If he wanted to get anything out of him, he would definitely have to offer sufficient Bargaining Chips.

At the very least, he could obtain some firearms from certain Movie Worlds. That would be enough to handle plenty of dangers.

So Yinsen did not care at all how difficult this path would be in its early stages. Training Mental Power was something he had always persisted in anyway. All he had to do next was keep at it.

"Actually, you don't need to worry too much. It may be dull and monotonous at the beginning, but once you can nurture magical power from within yourself, the stronger your Mental Power becomes, the more Magic Energy you'll produce. At that point, it's not as though you can't draw energy from the outside world to increase your magical power. You just need to be careful not to draw too much and contaminate your own magical power instead."

It was like the ocean. If Yinsen possessed enough magical power, absorbing external energy and converting it into magical power would be like pouring a little ink into the sea. It would not affect the ocean at all.

But if it were the other way around—if there were only a small basin of water and half a bottle of ink were poured into it...

Those were matters for the distant future. Merlin then explained the cultivation method he had proposed in detail. Although he only introduced the major stages of the method, it still took quite a while.

Simply put, this method was divided into several stages:

Continue strengthening Mental Power resolutely, while also attaining sufficient control over it. Yinsen naturally had an advantage in this regard. His control over his own Mental Power already surpassed that of many Sorcerer's Apprentices who had just started out.

During this stage, he could not draw Magic Energy from the outside world—not even the slightest bit. Doing so would contaminate his Mental Power.

At the same time, he needed to constantly study all kinds of knowledge to broaden his horizons. According to Merlin's theory, the magical power nurtured by one's own Mental Power did not contain every attribute. It would possess certain inclinations based on the mage's understanding of different energies.

For example, if a mage was extremely knowledgeable about Fire Element energy, then even without drawing Fire Element energy from the outside world, the magical power he nurtured would still have considerable affinity for the Fire Element, allowing him to better wield fire-element magic. Many mages used this method to increase their magical attributes—using their self-nurtured magical power to in turn "contaminate" magical power whose attributes had originally been fixed.

If Yinsen wanted more well-rounded magical power, he would need to continue studying all kinds of Magic Knowledge. Not only could he not cast magic like a normal mage, he also had to keep diligently studying all kinds of magic-related knowledge. The feeling was truly... Yinsen simply could not find a suitable word to describe it. Just thinking about it was enough to tell him that it would feel especially awful.

"Then can I use Magic Arrays or Magic Items?"

"Oh, that's no problem."

Yinsen nodded. It seemed he would have to firmly continue down the Item-Based Style path. Combined with his diligently trained close-combat abilities, Yinsen was less like a mage now than some strange hybrid—he knew a little of everything, but had mastered nothing.

Once he persevered through this stage, things would improve somewhat.

With sufficiently powerful Mental Power, enough Magic Knowledge, and a special Meditation Method, his Mental Power would undergo a unique transformation.

This transformation was like digging a spring in soil made of Mental Power. Then, magical power nurtured from Mental Power would slowly well up like spring water.

At that stage, Yinsen would be able to cast magic using the magical power generated by his own body, rather than relying entirely on external objects.

Of course, the spring would be very small at first, and the amount of water it could produce would also be limited. His magical power would still be fragile then and easily contaminated by external forces, so he still could not absorb energy from the outside world.

After that, the spring would become a stream, the stream would gather into a small lake, then become rivers and great lakes, until finally becoming an ocean.

At that point, Yinsen's magical power could be described as vast and profound. Not only would he be able to cast magic through his own power like a normal mage, he would no longer need to worry about external energy contaminating his magical power. He could absorb energy to increase his total magical power or simply recover his expended power.

From Merlin's words, Yinsen realized that if he wanted his magical power to become an ocean capable of containing all things, he would not only need to accumulate it over time. He would also need an immense store of Magic Knowledge, and even needed to encounter, study, and understand all kinds of Energy Properties. Otherwise, it would be highly unlikely for him to develop an "attribute" capable of embracing everything.

Unfortunately, Merlin did not provide a definite answer.

"Regrettably, I don't know the specifics either. After all, no one has ever truly attempted this cultivation method."

Yinsen suddenly became curious. How had Merlin started out? Had he chosen an energy he was most familiar with, like ordinary mages did?

"Oh! That..." Merlin suddenly revealed a smug smile. "I'm not entirely human. I was born with immense magical power."

"Damn, it was all talent!"

Only then did Yinsen remember that Merlin of legend possessed fairy blood and had been born with absurd magical talent. An Ordinary Person like him, someone who could not even become an apprentice, was not comparable to this man in the slightest.

Yinsen, who had inexplicably been shown up, became completely depressed. He once again realized that being a mage was a profession that heavily depended on talent. From this perspective, the path Merlin had proposed might be the only one that could possibly allow him to achieve anything.

If he truly cultivated like most mages, there was a good chance he would reach a certain point and be unable to progress any further. In the best-case scenario, perhaps after mastering the Water Element, his Mental Power would be contaminated, leaving him stuck with a single attribute and unable to break through. And because his talent was insufficient and he had started too late, even his total magical power would be inferior to that of mages at the same level.

Of course, with the Space-Time Pointer, Yinsen might find other methods to break through the bottleneck of talent. But what level he would ultimately reach was filled with far too much uncertainty.

He did not like that. So when an opportunity that could allow him to achieve something substantial appeared before him, he grabbed onto it and refused to let go.

Although this cultivation method had only been explained up to the level of an "ocean," Yinsen's imagination had already run wild, roughly "deducing" what came after.

An ocean already seemed boundless and unfathomable, but it was not the most "vast" thing.

No matter how large an ocean was, it was at most a planet. What if he could nurture a galaxy containing countless planets? Leaving aside quality, the sheer depth of magical power alone would crush many beings. And there were directions for improving quality as well—for example, stars that served as the cores of several planets?

Going even further, countless stellar systems like those could form larger galaxies... Yinsen even imagined using magical power to create a universe that existed within his own body.

"Uh... shouldn't this thing be called a Cosmo?"

Yinsen, who had accidentally multiclassed into a Saint Seiya again, reined in his wild imagination. There was no point thinking that far ahead right now. What he needed to do next was study this knowledge step by step, commit it all to memory, and then persevere in his training.

Because time was limited, he could only stay in this world for ten days. After confirming Yinsen's direction of study, Merlin focused first and foremost on teaching him how to control Space-Time Energy. As for that Mental Power cultivation method, Merlin planned to organize all the materials before letting Yinsen take them back to practice on his own.

That meant Yinsen was about to receive another huge stack of textbooks.

"Speaking of books, I have an idea. I wonder if it's something you can do, sir?"

Yinsen suddenly thought of the enormous piles of books on his ship. Seeing Merlin preparing to give him another massive collection, he immediately felt on the verge of collapse.

It was easy to foresee that, in order to learn more Magic Knowledge and understand more energy attributes, he would have even more books to read in the future. Did he really need to prepare a separate ship just to carry books?

Therefore, creating a Magic Item capable of storing study materials became the most important matter at hand.