Chapter 435: Will ignition...

Seth’s brow creased as he reread the strings of text over and over again, to be sure that his waning intelligence wasn’t the problem here.

"I-I thought this was impossible..." he muttered with an uncertain frown.

He could recall asking the oracle if changing races was possible, and the answer had been a straight, blunt no!

If the answer hadn’t been within his tier of privilege, the oracle would have flagged the question and notified him.

But it had replied with a definite No, meaning this shouldn’t be possible...

Seth decided to pause his plan of consuming the pill for a bit and summoned the oracle crystal right away...

The green orb popped right out of the void, bobbing in the air right before him, pulsing with a bright emerald glow.

He stared at the glowing orb and repeated the question he had posed a few months back. "Is it possible for a lifeform to change their race..."

The oracle orb flickered brilliantly, processing the question before relating a response...

[No. That is not possible...]

Seth remained silent, now certain he hadn’t hallucinated such a response...

He stared at the orb, and its response brought him to the realization that this archive he had been taking as gospel for so long wasn’t all-knowing.

After all, it was the same when he asked it about divine items; this thing never told him he needed to bind one to use it.

It merely stated one of the requirements: that one needed divine energy to activate it.

’It seems that though the oracle is indeed a treasure trove of information, it still isn’t as all-knowing as I initially assumed...’ Seth realized.

But thinking about it, it made sense; the system itself never described it as all-knowing, and in fact it stated the civilization that created it was now extinct...

He let out a soft sigh, waving his hands and dismissing the oracle crystal back into his inventory.

"Whatever, let’s leave this problem to the monarchs... I have enough problems of my own," Seth muttered, dismissing the broadcast of notifications and shelving all further thoughts on the matter.

The dull ache at the back of his skull was getting worse by the second.

He climbed upon the bed and sat down, crossing his legs into a lotus position; he examined the golden pill between his fingers for a moment, the intense, flavourful medicinal aroma filling the room.

Seth took a deep breath, feeling his will spark to life for the slightest of moments, only to dissipate into nothing...

Closing his eyes, he inserted the pill directly into his mouth...

The instant it touched his tongue, Seth could feel the hardened surface liquify, the medicinal extract surging down his throat like a flood, faster than he could gulp.

He was suddenly overwhelmed by an extremely alien feeling: the extract surging down his throat somehow didn’t land in his stomach, but flooded right into his mental space.

It was a strange yet pleasant, fulfilling sensation, his mind growing sharper and clearer as the medicinal force flowed through all its corners.

Revitalizing his already fogged consciousness—

"Arrgh!" Seth let out a pained yelp, a sudden pounding pain hammering from the back of his skull.

His eyes were closed, but his vision went white, his ears suddenly popping and ringing with white noise, as nausea sat heavy on his chest.

It was the cancerous cells... they could feel something acting upon the essence stems, and as the stems grew more robust and wide, the vile mass decided to expand along with them.

Seth’s head pounded so badly he instantly lost all muscle function, his consciousness isolating itself to prevent him from losing his sanity.

His mind trapped within his skull, unable to feel what was happening to the rest of his body, he lost connection to all his sensory organs, yet the pain still persisted.

The medicinal force seemed to only flood in faster, expanding his mind and elevating all his mental capabilities.

His will instantly surged back to life; it was only a sliver of the ethereal force, but it was will regardless.

But as soon as it appeared, it began to unravel and dissipate...

’Oh no you don’t!’ Seth’s inner voice growled, the blinding pain failing to suppress his awareness any further.

His determination still strong, he suppressed the influence of the pain, his pure mental power surging like a tsunami in the sea of his mental space, his focus cutting through the blinding pain.

As he poured his all into holding onto the faint connection of will returned to him, mental waves converged forcefully round the strand of will, forming a hand that clenched it tight and kept the sliver of force from dissipating.

The cancer resisted the essence stem connected to the essence of will, the stem bulging hard as both forces raged, Seth’s mental waves rising unlike ever before, using the boost granted by the Will Forge Elixir.

Seth utilized his mental power in a way he never had before, his mind entering a state of flow where pain didn’t matter, time didn’t matter, his body didn’t matter.

All Seth knew at that moment was that he wanted his will back, the ethereal force of will responding to the upsurge of emotions. Brain stem bulging so tight one might fear it would rupture.

Any other time, Seth would have surrendered to the fear that he might lose this attribute entirely, but at the moment he didn’t seem to care at all.

He didn’t mind that the essence stem was slowly shredding into nothing; he didn’t care that the attribute might be lost.

A surge of boldness overtook his mind, a feral grin tugging at his lips, as he intentionally began to overflood the essence stem, the ethereal tissue riddled with cracks and leaking essence into the surrounding brain matter.

Normally he would follow the principle of not burning bridges so that he could have a later chance, but today the cautious side of his personality was smothered; he got more proactive, and following his instincts, he overloaded the essence stem!

[Warning! Warning! Attribute "Will" is being destroyed!]

The system’s voice raged in his skull, but Seth turned a deaf ear, his whole focus on seeing this through...

[Error! Error! User attribute "Will" has been dissolved...]