William didn't have enough time to fix the problem, given that just creating an improved Perfect Array would take about a minute.
Instead, he removed the entire dial all at once, opting to wipe all of the Arrays contained within it at the same time. The Mana was released and prevented the Starmetal from being damaged, but William would need to spend a few hours to recover the Arrays that he had just lost.
Thankfully, he still had the blueprints he had drawn out and wouldn't take too long restoring his lost work.
He added the Arrays back to the item, this time making sure each Rune was strong enough to hold one specific Element.
He added a Filter and a Rejection Array, which would first scan the Mana that was trying to enter the storage, then reject it if it didn't match the type that was supposed to be contained.
He tested the belt a few more times, failing in one way or another but achieving some success each time.
On the twelfth attempt, William felt the belt was working as intended and he could move on to the next Element.
William notified his Master that he would have to cancel their next meeting, then spent the next six days adding as many Elements as possible to his Artifact Belt. He would have taken less than two days if he hadn't almost completely destroyed the Artifact on the second day when he added the Lightning Element.
For some reason, the Lightning Element did not cooperate well with the Water and the Earth Elemental Mana, even though they followed different paths on the Artifact to reach the storage area. This caused all three Elemental Spheres to burst and cause slight damage to the Starmetal.
He had to wait a few hours for the self-repair Arrays to fix the damage, then erase most of his Arrays and start over. That was the day Atticus didn't get any omelettes, which made the snake quite sad.
On the fifth day, William had returned to his previous point and added the remainder of the Basic Elements to the Artifact Belt.
By the end of the sixth day, the Life Elemental Sphere was added after a few mishaps. One would think that the Life Element wouldn't cause any major issues with the Arrays, which was why William had underestimated it.
It turned out that when one added the Life Element to the mix, the vitality of all the other Elemental Spheres increased, causing the Wind, Fire, Water, and Lightning Elemental Spheres to all burst since their natural form wasn't as a solid.
None of the Arrays were damaged this time, since William had added a few more fail safes between the 19th and 23rd test that would prevent this from happening.
With the Life Element's vitality effect, William had to add another series of Arrays that would hopefully prevent the Elements from interfering with each other.
I have added all the S-Rank Elements now, but what about the rest? William thought to himself as he looked through the System Panel.
William wasn't confident that he could create an Elemental Sphere using any of the Elements that were any less than S-Rank, considering how much trouble he had already gone through.
I'm just going to have to upgrade them one-by-one.
William was planning to reach S-Rank with all his Elements eventually, so this was a good excuse to focus his Talent upgrades on Magic.
Other than the Life Element, all of his Rare Elements were currently B-Rank and would cost 3750 Potential Points to reach S-Rank. Since he had 7770 Potential Points, he had the perfect amount to upgrade two Elements at once.
I'll spend the next few weeks on something else while I wait for my stockpile to grow.
For now, upgrade my Darkness and Light Elements to S-Rank.
William chose these two Elements specifically because they had opposite effects. Either they would cancel each other out, or they would cause even more problems. This would be the best way for William to identify whether his Artifact was complete or not.
Effects: Light-related Mana Control, Magic Power, and Mana Efficiency +75% >> +150%
Effects: Light-related Mana Control, Magic Power, and Mana Efficiency +150% >> +250%
S-Rank Bonus Effect: Instant comprehension of the Domain of Light
William's various defensive Talents and his Cultivation completely offset the damage caused by the Light Element, making him feel incredibly powerful compared to before. Even an S-Rank upgrade of a Rare Element couldn't damage him!
The pain was minimal compared to what he had experienced before, and William stayed awake during the whole process while beams of light tried to pierce through his skin from the outside and shred him apart.
Once the upgrade was completed, the next one started immediately. William expected both upgrades to take place at the same time as before, but it seems that the System had chosen to perform them one at a time.
Maybe I've become more handsome without realizing it?
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I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!
Effects: Darkness-related Mana Control, Magic Power, and Mana Efficiency +75% >> +150%
Effects: Darkness-related Mana Control, Magic Power, and Mana Efficiency +150% >> +250%
S-Rank Bonus Effect: Instant comprehension of the Domain of Darkness
The Darkness Element was a bit more brutal than the Light Element, corroding his skin and organs while threatening to melt him from the inside out, but his Regeneration Talent handled most of the work. Before his Regeneration Talent caused William to lose more lifespan, he used the Life Element to keep his body healthy.
Both processes lasted a few hours, so William opted to make Atticus breakfast while the Darkness Element was doing its thing. He had no need to think up an excuse for Riyald, since he had told his Master that he had awakened many Elements at D-Rank.
This way, he could attribute the S-Rank Elements to the natural process of upgrading his Affinity, while also not needing to reveal the System.
While William wished he didn't have to do either, he knew that revealing incredible luck and talent was better than revealing a System that was a literal cheat.
With the former, his Master would likely only take advantage of him. With the latter, however, Riyald might take William apart and try to retrieve the System from his body. Who knew if Riyald would succeed, but William's life mattered the most.
When the Darkness Element finished upgrading, William returned to his work on the Artifact Belt.
He spent a few hours adding the two Elemental Spheres to the belt with extreme care, pleasantly surprised to find no issues when he activated the Artifact.
With that incredibly long task completed, William created a hundred Portal Stones to bring to his Master, then laid down for a long rest. He hadn't slept in a few weeks and had even neglected his Cultivation on two separate days.
I'll Cultivate all day tomorrow to make up for it.