Chapter 2238: Realm of Lightning
Ever since Kane had seen Rui's elemental domains in the Mellow Manifold, he couldn't help but wonder whether or not it was possible for him to create such a domain himself.
Specifically, an elemental domain of lightning.
After all, he had always wished he could retain the power he had in the Thundering Valley. That place... that environment, he was the strongest he could ever be when he was there.
Of course, much to his dismay he had needed to leave the valley, for he couldn't possibly live there forever even if he wanted to.
Yet, he had never forgotten how overwhelmingly powerful he had felt within the Thundering Valley.
That was the closest he had ever come to defeating Rui in a battle.
He yearned to be able to achieve such immense power at will.
And when he saw Rui developing the Muspelheim and Niflheim domains successfully, he realized that it was indeed possible.
Upon return from the Beast Domain, he began working on two things.
The first were his systems of thought.
And the second, of course, was working his way towards developing a domain that functioned like the Thundering Valley.
It was the most difficult thing he had ever worked on.
Unbeknownst to him, in pursuit of creating such a domain, he had come into touch with high principles a lot sooner than he otherwise would have.
It had taken him more than seven years to achieve a result that he was satisfied with. Nearly half of the time he spent grinding in the manifold was dedicated to his desired domain.
A domain of lightning.
One that would do for him what the Thundering Valley had done for him. It would hyper augment his reflexes and would do so for a much greater period of time than just Fulminata Godspeed could by itself.
He didn't think he would be putting it to use in an actual battle of course.
But since the opportunity and necessity had presented itself, he obliged.
WHOOSH!
In the blink of an eye, he crossed the distance between himself and his opponent.
"Heavenly Punishment," he whispered as his knife surged forward before it ran into Master Inyen's katana.
Alas, that was hardly enough to defend against the kind of attack that Kane sought to inflict on her.
BOOOM!!!
An instant, an immense amount of electric current surged from his body through his daggers, through the esoteric alloy her sword and blade were comprised of, and through her body.
"ARRRMHHH!!!" she screamed in pain as her body heated up internally and her flesh burned.
Her Martial Body could not conduct electricity.
No, it resisted.
It resisted even as her blood boiled.
It resisted even as her heart shook.
It resisted even as her nervous system was fried.
And it resisted even as she died.
It was over.
It was over in an instant.
THUD
Her corpse fell.
For a moment, there was silence.
"Tsk, that's it? I was kinda hoping for more," Kane muttered with displeasure.
Rui gazed at his thunder-clad form with an expression of delight and excitement. It was because he understood how the principles of the domain functioned that he was extremely impressed with how powerful and difficult it was.
Kane had created a potential difference across the domain by relying on friction and induction, charging up heated and dehydrated air to then charge both the atmosphere by relying on friction to cause a differential of charge.
He would serve as the negative charge while the entire domain was positively charged.
"Not just that," Rui realized. "He must have found a way to insulate the land from conducting current or serving as sink for current using earth bending."
This way all current would flow to or from his body in the forming of converging or diverging lightning bolts.
Regardless, his body would experience current, which greatly improved his reflexes to an otherworldly degree of speed and quickness. Rui still recalled how Kane was able to match his hyper-refined predictive model with just his sheer reflexes in the Thundering Valley.
Kane had a high affinity for lightning and electricity for reasons unknown to Rui. Kane thought that it was because of the Lightning Sect, but Rui knew that it most certainly wasn't for any silly reason like that.
"That's not all. He's conditioned himself to be able to tolerate greater strain on his heart," Rui observed as a smile appeared on his face. "He saw me train with Muspelheim and Niflheim the same way and realized he could employ the same strategy to complete two different tactics at once."
To say Rui was impressed was an understatement.
"The domain in isolation is easily on par with my Muspelheim and Niflheim. However, it's exponentially more compatible with him than either of the latter two are with me," Rui realized.
It was to Kane what hypnosis might be to Rui.
The reason that Rui was certain in his judgment was because of his enlightenment in the Tree of Life. The system of thought that had burrowed itself in his Martial Mind showed him the most optimal and, by extension, the most antithetical domains to his opponents on the basis of biology.
And he could clearly, compared to before, see that the most optimal domain for Kane was one of lightning.
It was one he would flourish most.
In other words, the impact that his new domain would have on his combat power far exceeded that of any domain that Rui had ever developed.
In addition, Kane had also developed a system of thought that focused on optimizing how much current he ought to charge himself up with to attain victory with the least amount of energy.
After all, domains were highly intensive, and Rui could sense with his mind sense that Kane was deeply in intense thought when generating and maintaining the domain.
"He's arrived."
Rui didn't understand why, but he could sense it.
Kane had arrived at the cusp of the Master Realm.
This was not the first time this had happened either.
After all, he had sensed that his own nascent Martial Mind was also completed after he attained the Tree of Life in the Garden of Salvation.
And now, once more, he could clearly sense a completed Martial Mind etched into his neurons, waiting to be discovered.