Liam continued to descend into the depths of the mysterious icy pond. The water grew darker as he sank further down, but his vision wasn't hindered, courtesy of [Dark Sight]. However, the cold became worse.
After a certain point, Liam could not hold on any longer. He circulated mana in his body and tried to mitigate the biting cold, but it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave with a stick. It was a different level of cold, one that seemed to seep into his very soul.
Just what was this place?
Liam could feel the ice elemental essence getting richer and more pure as he headed further down. At a certain point, it was almost impossible for him to hold on.
However, he still had one more trick.
Liam closed his eyes as he continued heading down, focusing inward. More specifically, he focussed on something that resembled a small shard of ice, one that was present inside his body but at the same time was not present.
It was his dao seed of ice elemental. It was neither present in his soul nor present in his physical body like the mana core and the nether core. Instead, it was present inside a different space, probably a mental space. At least this was Liam's best guess.
Ever since he had been getting these system notifications that informed him about the Daos he had gained, Liam was uncomfortable because he felt completely out of his depth.
It was as if he was staring at something like a child without any knowledge about it whatsoever but at the same time, he could tell that the very thing was about knowledge and understanding.
Daos, the understanding of the world he was in or rather the myriad worlds that existed.
Gaining a Dao seed was taking a first step toward this understanding. However, this was not merely the knowledge of it. There was also the physical manifestation of this understanding.
Liam learned more about what he was dealing with thanks to the fairy's mana theory 101. The knowledge the fairy had given him was still far from sufficient.
In fact, it barely scratched the surface. When compared to the other things the fairy had provided him, this felt incomplete. But Liam did not hold this against the fairy because he had a feeling that he knew the reason why.
It should be the same reason the elven ancestor stopped the inheritance trial mid-way for his sake. It should be because the fairy did not want to harm his growth, thereby creating a future enemy for himself.
Sometimes when something was shoved inside a person's mind, it was more harmful than useful. If knowledge could be passed this way, then every single elf of the royal family should be atrociously powerful.
There should definitely be some side-effects if everything was learned from someone else's experience or worse simple words.
Though experiencing everything on one's own was also impossible, even gaining a little bit of insight on one's own should be the right way to go.
Liam had already stepped on this path. He had received several hints from the first inheritance and he mediated on the Dao of the ice elemental repeatedly.
He combined this meditation with repeated training of the arcane frost slash and every other ice elemental skill that he knew. It took him several days but he finally managed to grasp a bit about the manifestation aspect.
And right now, the situation he was currently in was no doubt an opportunity for him to gain more foothold on this Dao and develop his Dao seed.
He was currently hunting for opportunities to improve himself in this world and he was smackdab in the middle of one such opportunity. Liam understood this, and it was why he ventured into its icy depths in the first place.
He stopped descending further down into the depths and concentrated on the small shard of ice, his dao seed of ice elemental.
A profound sense of connection washed over him. The Dao was a conceptual understanding, a foundational essence that could connect the practitioner to the very laws of the world.
Though he was only at the initial stages of comprehending it, the shard-like seed within him resonated strongly with the icy aura of the pond.
Drawing upon that resonance, Liam tried to will the dao seed to absorb the purer, richer elemental essence surrounding him.
However, this was easier said than done. While he had succeeded before in taking a part of the dao seed's power and combining it with the execution of attacks, this was kind of the opposite.
He was going to absorb something in or rather use it for defense. He couldn't help but become confused. He did not really know what to do. The cold was also not helping it. It was a lot more than he could take on.
At this point, Liam had two options. Leave it or go all in. These kinds of places were difficult to come by and at least on earth nothing pretty much existed. So he had to go all in.
He took out a Verdant Heartroot from the spatial artifact. He only had a few more of these herbs but he had a feeling that this circumstance warranted using one.
Liam quickly munched on the wondrous cheat drug that essentially made the Dao examination easier. If only he had the limit breaker description and details.
But how could he complain? It was already good that he somehow managed to get his hands on a supreme herb .
As the juices of the cheat drug filled his insides, Liam hurriedly focused on his dao seed of ice elemental and once again tried to absorb the biting cold inside or at least interact with the biting cold using the small shard of ice in his mental space.
It was a risky maneuver; he was, in essence, inviting the overpowering cold to flood into his very being but this was what his intuition told him to do.