Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

[Status]

Name: Uhtred

Level: 24 (Peak) → 25 (Early)

Race: Human

Class Grade: Primordial

Class Title: Formless

Core Attunement: Limitless (Compatible with all affinities)

Core Rank: Nascent (Next rank evolution at Level 75)

[Attributes]

Strength: 109

Agility: 103

Endurance: 107

Vitality: 101

Intelligence: 114

Perception: 121

Willpower: 111

Luck: 21

Sitting cross-legged in the Grotto Heaven as he brought up his status panel, Uhtred didn’t just see the changes as numbers. He could already feel them clearly.

He knew there would be a difference between the Mortal Realm and the Nascent Realm, but he hadn’t expected it to be this pronounced.

His main core, along with his sub-cores, felt as though they had unlocked a completely new threshold of capacity. The cosmic essence cycling through his internal pathways was no longer just denser, it possessed a distinctly higher qualitative purity.

If the essence flow from his core to the rest of his body in the Mortal Realm could be described as forcing water through narrow pipes, the Nascent Realm felt like that flow had turned into a wide, unrestricted river.

And that wasn’t the only change.

On his status panel, his perception attribute had seen the highest increase, and he could feel it very clearly. His senses had expanded further, allowing him to feel the subtle shifts in the ambient essence around him with sharp clarity.

Yet, despite all of these improvements and changes, Uhtred found he wasn’t focused on any of that. His mind was still on the Insight Legacy he had just left behind.

He refused to let a single detail fade. The terrifying presence that had descended from behind him, locking him into a state of utter fear like he had never felt before... The sheer scale of power present on that cosmic battlefield.

All of it made his current strength feel completely insignificant. He had a long, long way to go.

The Sovereign of Chaos... Drakgon.

Uhtred remembered that ghost of a smirk on the Sovereign’s face right before the memory cut out. He briefly considered whether the ancient being had actually perceived him across time, but he quickly dismissed the thought.

It was logically impossible for someone from an ancient recording to notice a viewer from the future. It had to have been a trick of his mind, or perhaps a gesture directed at whatever entity was descending from above.

Instead of wasting focus on unanswerable mysteries, Uhtred redirected his thoughts toward the core mechanics of what he had observed.

However, before he could ponder too deeply, the System notifications for his breakthrough finally came flooding in:

[Congratulations! You have successfully broken through to the Nascent Realm!]

[Your level has increased: Level 24 → Level 25]

[Titles Gained]

Nascent Forerunner : 1st in world to reach the Nascent realm. (+1000 Merits)

First Among Lineages : 1st in continental trial grounds to reach the Nascent realm. (+500 Merits)

Total Merits: 95,300

Uhtred only spared the merit increase a brief glance. Reaching the Nascent Realm before even the ancient variant generals, who had remained at Level 24 far longer than he had, was a direct result of his Primordial Grade class and the incredible efficiency of his formless core.

He immediately opened the trial rankings to see how the landscape had changed.

His feat of breaking through to the Nascent Realm first had shot him up straight to the number 1 spot from his previous rank of number 7.

He looked down the rankings and noticed that Zara had also made a huge leap. Before he began breaking through to the Nascent Realm, she had reached Level 23. That alone had pushed her into the top five.

She now sat comfortably at Number 4, just below the female ancient variant general at Number 3, and the Neanderthal general Krijn at Number 2.

Below the top five, the next human on the list was Diya. Surprisingly, she hadn’t moved up at all. Instead, she had dropped a few places, falling from her previous rank of 11 to Number 14.

Uhtred stared at her name.

He was certain she wasn’t slacking off. The ancient variants who had overtaken her were simply leveling up faster than she was. After all, they had the advantage of an Inheritance Shard.

However, that trend came to an abrupt stop as Uhtred continued looking further down the rankings.

The benefits of the Inheritance Shard seemed to be much more noticeable among the higher-ranked ancient variants than the rest of their population.

From Rank 20 onward, humanity’s momentum was becoming clear. Ever since cultivation techniques had started spreading among the human population, more and more humans had begun climbing the rankings. The effects were becoming increasingly obvious.

King Alexei, Black Sun, and Perfection had climbed up to Ranks 21, 27, and 29 respectively. Antoine Blanc sat at Rank 38. Daofarer, who held the sixth spot on the main human leaderboard back on the main continent but hadn’t even featured in the trial top hundred previously, had suddenly surged up to Rank 79.

Even more surprising was a name Uhtred didn’t recognize at all, a girl named Isolde Castiglione, who had shot up from complete obscurity to Rank 64.

He didn’t know who she was or what class she held, but seeing another human push deep into the top hundred was a good sign for their collective standing.

Several other humans had also made the list. In total, nearly thirty-five names now sat within the top 100, with the majority spanning between ranks 80 to 100.

Uhtred nodded and closed the panel. Setting aside all distractions, he immediately began attempting to replicate the unified casting structure he had witnessed.

He started with a small, low-level iteration. Rather than casting one element and immediately following it with several others using his sub-cores, he tried to force the thermal, wind, and earth aspects into a single, simultaneous release.

It seemed straightforward in theory, however, the moment he actually attempted it in practice, his internal essence violently recoiled.

A sharp, biting jolt ran up his right arm, forcing him to kill the flow instantly. The energy output was horribly jagged. The elements were fighting each other inside his pathways, draining essence from his core at an absurd rate while producing a weak, disunified flicker of power.

He tried again.

And again.

.

.

Hours bled into the night as Uhtred repeatedly attempted to weave the aspects together. His sub-cores made multi-casting simple, but what the Sovereign of Chaos had executed wasn’t that at all.

Multi-casting was still separating the elements into individual, parallel streams. What the Sovereign had achieved was an absolute state where the strike was not fire, nor earth, nor metal, nor air, yet contained all of them simultaneously, with each element feeding off the other to multiply the final destruction.

I’m forcing it, Uhtred realized, his jaw clenched as another attempt fizzled out, draining a massive chunk of his reserves. I’m treating them as separate ingredients that need to be shoved together, rather than a single intent expressed through different channels.

He needed harmony. He had to stop consciously dividing his elements when initiating the cast. But breaking a habit that was deeply ingrained in his mind was frustratingly difficult.

Even with his high talent grade, his progress was moving at a snail’s pace.

For a moment, he wished he could enter into that weird resonance state where he hadn’t been thinking at all. He could already see lots of correlation between that state and what the Sovereign had used as unified magic. However, getting into that state was an even more difficult task. There was no shortcut. He simply had to keep trying.

Beside him, Zara remained locked in her own quiet cultivation cycle, grinding continuously to break past the ceiling of Level 23.

By the time the fifth day arrived, Uhtred had barely rested a single minute. His eyes were focused, his mind completely consumed by the trial-and-error of refining the unified spell.

He had managed to stabilize a crude, low-level version that no longer recoiled into his own body, but it was still far from true unity. It was an inefficient, essence-heavy prototype.

Pulling up his ranking panel to gauge the changes that had happened within the trial grounds overnight, Uhtred’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The female ancient variant had broken through to the Nascent Realm. Her rank had surged right behind his, claiming the Number 2 spot from Krijn.

Uhtred didn’t let it disrupt his practice, though. He knew both generals had been sitting at Level 24 before him, so her breakthrough was expected. He went back to cycling his essence, refining the low-level unified strike throughout the rest of the day.

However, that evening another change appeared on the leaderboards.

The Neanderthal general, Krijn, officially broke through to the Nascent Realm, claiming Rank 2 and pushing the female general back to third place.

Seeing both variant generals reach the Nascent Realm, Uhtred immediately stopped his practice. He turned toward Zara and called her out of her deep meditation.

”Zara. We’re moving.”

Zara opened her eyes, letting out a quiet breath. She had broken through to Level 24 during the day, but there was still a significant distance to cover before she could reach the peak and push through to the Nascent Realm.

”Now?” she asked, her voice flat but laced with underlying fatigue.

”Now,” Uhtred said, standing up and slinging his star-metal battle-axe onto his shoulder. ”Both variant generals have reached the Nascent Realm. Now that they have the strength to push past the mid-tier beasts, they’re going to march straight for the inner Grotto Heavens near the border. We can’t stay here and wait.”

Zara offered no argument. She stood up and immediately fell into stride beside him.

They abandoned their current Grotto Heaven and charged deeper into the zone, aiming directly for the smallest, most dangerous spots along the inner boundary.