Alnea had no doubt that the Oren cloud in front of him was a Prototype of a Mystery. It was just that… why was it so small? He could ignore its strange shape, and the hues it carried, but its size… It was so small, that it was probably not even half the size of the smallest Oren cloud he had created. And that was counting the Prototypes he had created in the Mystery Trials. Its integrity…

  The Mystery that he had to interpret was already flawed as it was. With its Prototype also being so deformed, what was there left for him to interpret? Just the bare expression of the Mystery? Probably. No wonder the conditions for Perfect Clearance of the Trial was to create a Perfect Grade Arcana. If one could not even do such a simple task, then they truly did not deserve the extra reward. It was just that, was the Perfect Grade really the end of the Trial?

  Whether it was in the Trials of the Warrior Hall, or in the Trials of the Scholar Hall, the conditions of achieving Perfect Clearance had always been set apart from their three records, so he had never given them a second thought. But things were a little different in the Arcanist Hall. In all three Stages of the Mystery Trials, the perfect clearance conditions had coincided with the parameters of one of the records. Yet, the records were all higher than the standard set by the Perfect Clearance conditions. Why then, should the Arcana Trials be different?

  Becoming even more sure in his guess, Alnea quickly thought about the feasibility of his plan. With the Prototype being deformed to such an extent, even a little improvement to its expression should allow him to create a Transcendent Grade Arcana. The premise was, he did not exceed the scope of the Mystery that the Prototype was based on. If possible, it would be even better if he could call upon the Mystery. If not, then just amplifying the expression of the Prototype should be enough.

  Double summoning? Self resonance? Or Self Support? Which of the three methods should be best? No, why should he choose between the three? Why not use all three methods? Maybe, he could even add in a few more methods, like Heaven and Earth Resonance, Natural Resonance, or even Human Resonance…

  Alnea paused, and took a deep breath, subduing the storm surging in his Heart. At the same time, rather than letting his Heart take the lead, he let his mind win, allowing him to think more rationally. Using more strengthening methods? Why? It was not as if the more methods used, the better his Arcana would be. On the contrary, the more methods he used, the more complicated his Arcana would have to be in order to address the conflicts between the different methods.

  That was one of the most basic rules of creating Arcanas. To never create an Arcana that interferes with itself. Conflicts between Mysteries was fine. It was inherent in their nature. Soothing out their conflicting nature, and making them cooperate with each other was the essence of Arcanas, and one of the three criteria for judging their Grade. If the Arcana itself had conflicting parts though, which sane Wanderer would dare to use it?

  It did not matter if he was going to interpret only one Mystery in his Arcana. An Arcana that conflicts with itself would still be doomed to earn a Failed Grade. Of course, that did not mean that he should not use multiple methods to strengthen his Arcana. He just had use them in way that they did not conflict with each other. Still, he could not use too many of them. Three would be enough. Any more, and the Arcana would become too cumbersome to create.

  That reminded Alnea of another basic rule of creating Arcanas. The simpler an Arcana, the better it was. Unfortunately, he could not follow that rule. The deformed and flawed state of the Prototype had already destined his Arcana to be a complicated one. Using three methods for strengthening the Arcana would make it even more complicated. At this point, he just hoped that the Arcana would not become too convoluted. As for deciding which methods to use…

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  Alnea stepped towards the Prototype, stopping right in front of it, before placing his right hand just half an inch away from its surface, letting it bathe in the cloud’s golden and silverish glow. Taking deep breaths, bringing his Heart to Serenity, he then proceeded to let the senses of his Spirit to diffuse into the cloud in front of him, observing it in the greatest detail possible, trying to understand its nature and powers, even as the cloud kept flickering with a white light every few seconds, as if taking quick breaths.

  No, not breaths. The flickering of lights was like the beats of his heart, while the light itself was like his blood, being pushed out of his heart every few seconds. Mystery of Life? No. The temperament was not right. The feeling that the Oren cloud was giving him was too ethereal for the Mystery to be from lineage of Life. Especially one related to flesh and blood. Such Mysteries tended to be more vigorous and domineering. The Oren cloud in front of him though…

  It was too ethereal. Whether it was the glow of the Oren cloud, or the beats of the white light, they felt light like feathers, emanating absolutely no pressure. If not for the rhythmic beats of the white light, it would not feel any different from the endless sea of Oren fog around him. It was almost as if the Mystery did not even exist. Or rather, it existed in an entirely different dimension…

  Mystery of Space? Or Time? More like Time. Mysteries of Space had a certain way of leaving their traces behind. Like the Mystery he had faced in the first level of the Initial Stage Mystery Trials. The destruction it left behind in its wake, or even the way it healed after itself, was too inconspicuous to not be noticed. In contrast, Mysteries of time hardly left behind any traces. Except, on the objects they were acting on. So, it was not Time either.

  Was it Fate then? No, it was not Fate. As someone who had had a few brushes with Fate, and had once even felt the presence of the Goddess of Fate descend on him, he knew what Fate felt like. Incomprehensible. Irrevocable. And inevitable. The Oren cloud… It was nothing like it. So, what was it? Lies and Trickeries? Or Justic and Honesty?

  Alnea did not know. Apparently, just observing the Oren cloud was not enough to tell what kind of Mysteries it was carrying. So, he decided to go a step further, and disturb the equilibrium of the Oren cloud. Pushing his hand against the surface of the Oren cloud, he reached out with his Spirit, and pushed a fist sized part of the Oren fog deeper into the cloud, before quickly retracting his hands, taking a few steps back, just in case the Oren cloud became too violent.

  He did not withdraw the senses of his Spirit though, keeping them trained on the cloud in front of him, observing everything about it, while also observing the world from its perspective. A trick he had learned from one of his Lowest Grade Martial Styles, A Thousand Thoughts in a Moment. At the moment, he could use only three thoughts at once, but for his purpose, just two thoughts were enough.

  From his perspective, the cloud seemed to swell to twice its size in just a fraction of a moment, shining in brilliant golden hue, while the white light erupting from withs core kept beating wildly, rising into the sky like an infinitely large pillar, as if to declare its presence to everyone in the world. Or maybe to just the cloud, Alnea noticed, as he shifted his focus to the perspective from within the cloud.

  With the disruption of equilibrium, chaos erupted within the cloud, as countless blobs of Oren, of all sizes and shapes, kept darting around, searching for their place and purpose in the mayhem. Unbeknownst to them, the more they searched, the more they clashed, breaking into even more smaller blobs, creating even more chaos, while making the cloud swell even more than before, bringing it to a point where it could not keep all the Oren bound—

  A gentle, soothing white light spread in the cloud, slowing down the blobs of Oren, guiding them to their right paths. No, it did not guide them. It just blessed them. And somehow, those little blobs of Oren stumbled onto their right paths on their own. Some of them even managed to merge together to become larger blobs, reversing the swelling of the Oren cloud, effectively preventing it from disintegrating.

  And just like that, the Oren cloud was soon back to its original form. There were no complicated reactions, no dramatic display of fantastical effects. The cloud did not even make any rumbling, or threatening sounds. Just a simple blessing, and all troubles were solved. A simple, yet elegant solution, befitting the Mysteries of Luck and Good Fortune.