Asher lowered himself into a sitting lotus position as usual, just like he did before every training session he had ever undertaken. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled just as slowly, letting the air leave his lungs in a controlled stream as he consciously discarded every distracting thought, every stray concern, and every wandering impulse. One by one, they slipped away into silence as he focused solely on the matter at hand; Light elemental training.

His mind began to shift between various light applications he could train, countless possibilities flickering through his thoughts like refracted rays, yet he didn't take much time to think or hesitate. Overthinking had never suited him.

Asher had already decided to focus on two or three different applications for this training session, refining quality over quantity, depth over reckless expansion. Mastery, after all, was born from precision, not chaos.

When it came to the Light affinity, Asher always had a lingering question that returned to him time and time again no matter how much he tried to dismiss it. The Sun itself was light, a colossal sphere of radiance burning endlessly in the sky, so did that mean he indirectly possessed the Sun affinity as well?

Could he manipulate and bend the Sun the same way his brother Malrik could? Besides, the Sun was a type of star, and he literally possessed the Star Energy and its affinity within him. By logic alone, the connection seemed obvious, almost inevitable.

His mind couldn't help but snap to another related thought. Flames. Fire. They also produced light as a byproduct of combustion, a glowing emission born from heat and reaction, so could he manipulate them too? Could light control grant him subtle control over fire itself?

Although these questions swirled endlessly within his head like a vortex of theories and possibilities, he didn't allow them to drown him or derail his focus. He simply sighed and chose to forget about them for now. He would simply do what he could in the present and leave what he couldn't for the future.

As for the answers to his earlier questions, his conclusion was a tentative maybe, and only in a very limited and indirect way. With Perfect Elemental Control, definitely, perhaps even effortlessly. After all, most people with a light affinity probably never thought as far or as deeply as he just had, their imagination confined to the obvious rather than the abstract.

His mind snapped back through time, almost two months ago, when he had called his big brother to the Star Academy after being pressured by Cindralis. At the time, when Malrik had appeared, the first thing he did was heal him by infusing his body with Solar energy. Asher had healed within a second back then, the wounds knitting together as though time itself had reversed.

He was taking inspiration from that memory now, but obviously, he didn't possess Solar energy. Instead, he possessed something inarguably better, Star Energy, something purer and more fundamental. Still, he wasn't here to experiment with that. He was here for the Light affinity, and through it, Asher planned to achieve regeneration and healing capabilities through his own means.

Obviously, with Virelass, his ever-loyal rapier, always with him, he would barely need such an ability for himself. The blade alone could mend his injuries the moment blood was drawn. But Asher wasn't thinking of himself at this moment; he was thinking about others, about the chaos of battlefields and the fragile mortality of allies if he ever found himself fighting alongside people again. Without those with healing abilities, everyone would simply die from various injuries, sometimes from wounds that weren't even fatal at first glance.

Of course, he wasn't some hero learning this so he could go around healing random injuries across the world or volunteering on battlefields for free. He wasn't into unpaid labor, and he certainly wasn't driven by blind altruism. He still had friends and people he cared about; he wasn't some emotionless machine or cold lone wolf pretending detachment.

Thinking back to his second mission with Finch and William, the injuries they had sustained surfaced vividly in his memory. The broken bones, torn flesh, and blood that had soaked into the ground. If it wasn't for their supernatural physiques, they might as well have died right there. If he could heal injuries at the time, he would have simply healed them and wouldn't have needed to rush toward the frontier that served as their mission location.

Besides, with this Light application, he could save the blood it cost to heal himself. Although he had a large quantity of blood and an absurd regeneration rate, it didn't mean he enjoyed using it or watching it spill unnecessarily.

With that, Asher closed his eyes. Because of Jennifer, his knowledge about biology was utterly ridiculous, bordering on unnatural. Combined with his mind, which made even photographic and eidetic memory seem like cheap knockoffs, he could read through entire volumes of Jennifer's biology textbooks simply by flipping through them out of boredom, page by page, as though they were no different from a newspaper.

Now, he would be calling upon that knowledge to swiftly build a foundation for his regeneration ability.

'Even while I'm here, her knowledge is still helping me,' he thought to himself as his thoughts briefly drifted to Jennifer, and the self-acquired knowledge began to rise to the surface of his mind like neatly organized files. 'Funny how some elemental applications are mastered faster through this biological knowledge… maybe I should have studied biology myself.' He quietly laughed at the thought, then shook his head and forced himself back into focus.

With that, his mind snapped into absolute clarity. What he planned to do was simple. He remembered exactly how Solar energy had coursed through his body when Malrik had healed him, every sensation burned into his memory with impossible precision. His ridiculous mind made such recollection possible. Now, he would combine that memory with his biological knowledge and achieve his own form of regeneration.

With that ridiculous, almost demonic genius of a thought in mind, Astra energy began to flow through his body. His Light affinity bent obediently to his will as though it were merely an extension of himself. He sent the current through his body, carefully attempting to mirror what Malrik had done. Of course, just because Malrik could do it didn't mean he could replicate it with the exact same ease. After all, who knew how long it had taken Malrik to achieve such flawless control? A month? A year? A decade?

It didn't matter. What mattered was that this involved his internal organs, and if he messed up, he would injure himself, maybe even rupture an organ completely. But he wasn't worried. The moment he bled, no matter how severe or light, Virelass would immediately heal him.

'Another masochist type of training… I really need a practice target, even if it's a chicken or rat,' he sighed to himself as his mind wandered briefly, though he didn't let his control slip. Just because he could heal didn't mean he enjoyed the pain or the damage.

And with that, time blurred forward as Asher spent the next seven hours training solely the Light elemental affinity, and it quickly became apparent that it wasn't as easy as he had initially thought it would be. The control required was delicate, microscopic, demanding absurd precision.

But as always, he pulled through and created the skills he wanted. Although it was difficult, it didn't mean he couldn't create them. For him, it was always a matter of when, never a matter of if.

With that, he left the Training Facility Building with a huge smile on his face. He would spend a couple of days building proficiency for these newly created and established applications, refining them until they became second nature. And after that, in about two or three days at most, he would begin to create his rapier technique.

If Asher could fast forward time, he would do it without hesitation and dive straight into it.

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