"Alright, I will drink the potion." - I said to the mistress.

The mistress smiled and said, "Good. Now, let us strap you to the table, shall we?"

I nodded and laid down on the table face up. Then, the mistress and Erno both tied my limbs with the leather straps, making sure I wasn't tied loosely.

"Now, Mog. After I feed you the potion, I am going to gag your mouth to protect you from breaking your teeth and biting off your tongue, alright?" - The mistress said as she took out a clean linen rag and showed it to me.

"Alright." - At this point, I already accepted that there are risks, so I agreed. It is my decision.

The mistress nodded and opened the potion flask with a pop. She then cupped my head upwards and said, "Swallow up."

She then put the lid of the potion bottle to my lips and tilted it, allowing the dark sanguine ichor within to flow into my mouth. Although the liquid looked like blood mixed with coal, it tasted nothing like that coppery taste. Instead, it tasted like honey mixed with all kinds of citrus fruit, adding a slightly acidic taste to it. It was the best drink I'd ever had, so I let go of whatever reservations I had and drank.

Sip* Gulp*Sip*Gulp*

I sipped and gulped the liquid into my stomach. The potion had a total of half of a liter inside of it, and soon enough, I managed to finish the entire bottle, not even leaving a single drop behind. I even smacked my lips for more with my tongue.

"Was it that delicious?" - The mistress asked in surprise.

"Yes." - I answered.

"Alright. The potion will take effect soon, so I shall gag your mouth now."

I nodded and allowed her to wrap the rag around my head and gag my mouth as I stared at the dimly lit crystal on the ceiling, the only source of light in this room.

"Good luck, Mog. May Veona and Ximjun watch over you." - She said with clasped hands.

I took a deep breath through my nose and also prayed.

"My goddess Veona, please watch over me." - I prayed.

As I prayed, I felt heavy in my head as the ceiling's light blurred, and I lost my consciousness.

 

 

 

 

 

Inside a large pure-white space were three balls.

The first and largest ball had a white color and had an even whiter core inside. Surrounding it were 29 semi-transparent white runes of various sizes and shapes, orbiting its form. It radiated pure and disciplined power, solid and imposing.

The second-largest ball was a dark-colored ball only a third the size of the first, surrounded by dark mist shrouding it, and its core was not visible. Same as the large ball, semi-transparent black runes surrounded it, but they were smaller, there were only 17 of them, and they were more transparent. The ball had a more shifty feel to it than the large ball, but it still had a strong power in its own, unique way.

The smallest ball, a tenth of the size of the second, was even smaller than the core of the first ball and had a completely transparent body. Despite its small size, it was surrounded by an enormous number of runes, a whole 99 of them. Only a single one of the runes, however, was slightly tinted in golden color, with the rest being nearly transparent. It appeared dormant and silent as it lay in the center of the white space.

However, despite it being the smallest ball, the other two balls orbited it, as if planets orbiting a sun or a black hole, showing their respect and attitude.

The inside of the space was tranquil and silent as the status queue continued until an incident happened.

From the surroundings of the white space, blackness crept in, tainting the white space, as if black paint was poured into water. As time went on, more and more of this blackness crept inside, and in time, it formed tendrils and tentacles of blackness.

When the darkness finally gathered enough, it formed countless circular maws of jagged teeth and mumbled things in a weird voice. Sometimes it was high-pitched, and sometimes low-pitched. Sometimes it echoed softly, and sometimes it boomed like hammers on iron. Its alien and incomprehensible language was without any mortal logic, order, or reason. If any weak-minded mortal being were to hear its horrid voice and words, his mind would be broken immediately and he would be driven into insanity. However, the white space seemed to be able to bear with it as it only shook from the voice, but relatively remained unaffected.

If its words were translated into a mortal's orderly and defined language, it would roughly mean this, "Hahaha! After eons of slumber, I have awoken once more! I managed to trick those two weak and ignorant backwater babies into thinking that I am a measly drained god's spark and use that cheap knock-off potion for some nourishment. Now, my resurrection is nigh! First, I shall take over this little vessel. Now... Assimilate!"

After it stopped its gibberish, the dark tendrils and tentacles began corrupting the space, approaching the center from all directions. Soon, a few thin dark tendrils reached the large white ball.

VROOOOM*

As it sensed imminent danger, the ball vibrated and roared in defiance and its runes emitted light that repelled the dark tendrils, even shredding them to fine pieces, turning them into smoke.

However, its struggles were in vain, as the smoke regrouped and reassimilated again into the mass of encroaching darkness. The white ball kept shredding black tendrils a few more times. However, its defiance came to an end as one of the large tentacles smashed the white ball's light and grabbed it. The white ball screeched in pain as its mass and runes were absorbed into the black tide, leaving only a dim grey shell behind.

The black ball also attempted to put up a desperate resistance, however, it was inferior to the white ball, as even the smaller tendrils of the encroaching darkness were only repelled for a few seconds before digging into it, absorbing its power like straws with big gulps. All that was left behind was a black-colored shell of its former self.

The darkness kept approaching the center of the white space, tainting everything in its path with its corruption.

The darkness then noticed the transparent ball in the center.

"Ah, this vessel has a unique talent, I see. And it is unawakened, too! What a perfect vessel. Now, assimilate!" - The darkness roared, eager to devour the transparent ball.

The speed of the darkness's spread increased, quickly approaching the ball.

Soon, one of the darkness's tendrils approached the dormant transparent ball, wanting to assimilate it as well.

However, just as it touched the transparent ball, the ball seemed to have been jolted into life as an incomparably strong suction force emerged from the translucent ball, drawing in the tendril inside it, consuming it. Not only did it just consume the tendril, but it started rotating as it sucked in the surrounding darkness like a bottomless black hole.

As the ball sucked in more and more of the darkness, it wasn't tainted by it at all. Instead, it purified it and sent the energy into the dimly lit golden rune on it, making it more solid.

The darkness seemed to be frightened by this turn of events as it screeched.

"A willpower-based chaos-grade talent?! NOOO!!! Must run! This is not a suitable vessel, it is a trap!" - It screamed in horror with its countless mouths.

The darkness quickly tried to take as much of its mass as possible away from the gravitational pull of the transparent ball and escape the now-corrupted white space. However, to its dismay, it discovered that a transparent film blocked the outside, trapping it within.

As more and more of its mass was absorbed into the transparent ball, the Darkness now understood. The soul it wanted to take over was not stuck with him inside. It was stuck in the soul, and it became its nutrients for its ascension!

While it understood the gist of it, already a third of its mass was absorbed into the transparent ball, and its rate of absorption was steadily increasing. At this rate, it will be eaten completely!

"No! Mercy, your excellency! I beg for mercy, please!" - It begged the transparent ball in the soul-humming language as it lowered its pride to a minimum, hoping it possessed the necessary intelligence to understand it.

If the darkness was at its prime, it could devour gods like Veona as a snack food, much less this puny mortal soul. However, right now, it was just a shell of its former self, a tiny fragment of eons past, possessing less than an iota of its former glory. What's more, it was inside of the soul of another, in another's home grounds, trapped inside, and could only await being turned into food. It could now only throw its ambitions at resurrection away in exchange for a way for continued existence, no matter how pathetic it may be, as its greatest fear of all is to cease existing.

Luckily for it, however, the transparent ball seemed to understand what it just said. By this point, its first golden rune was already solid.

The ball seemed to be contemplating for a bit, increasing the nervousness of the darkness.

Oom*

It hummed, conveying a message. However, the darkness did not like its suggestion.

"You want I, lord Aiuc'thougrith, great lord of adaptation, a primal chaos lord, and a direct descendent of the origin of chaos itself, to be lowered to the mere status of a talent seed?! Who are you trying to fool!" - The darkness screamed in anger.

Its anger was not unfounded. If it became a talent seed for this weak little being it had entered, its life and death will be tied to it. What's worse is that it shall never be able to take over this body again. The only thing it can do is to sometimes communicate with the host and subtly influence the psyche of the host with its personality and desires. Although it was better than ceasing to exist, it was a bleak existence.

The transparent ball didn't reply. Instead, and started to rotate again, sucking the darkness in once more.

"Ok, ok! I yield! You win! I will turn into a talent seed! Just don't eat me!" - The darkness, lord Aiuc'thougrith, screamed in a panic again.

The transparent ball once again stopped and hummed.

It was as if it was saying, "I am waiting."

Lord Aiuc'thougrith didn't wish to test the ball's patience, so it decisively condensed its entire mass into a singularity, removing all the corruption it did the white space with it, forming a small black ball the size of the transparent ball. The black ball then spat out 99 runes, 98 of which were transparent and one of which was solid and glowed purple.

Oom*

The transparent ball hummed, and the black ball replied with a hum of its own. The black ball then went to the center of the white space and orbited the transparent ball closely like a moon.

The white space then returned to its usual tranquility.