Boom.

The essence mix could not hold and it exploded.

A violent gust of chaotic energy passed through Azrael.

For a moment he simply stood in it, watching the colors tear past him.

"No wonder scientists become obsessed with discovery," he whispered to himself.

"Let us go again."

The essence rolled out once more, but this time he did not mix it all at once.

He let each stream converge slowly toward a single point.

The strategy seemed to be working at first.

No chaos.

Then it exploded again anyway.

Before the explosion could fully develop, Azrael had already begun pouring his essence back out.

"What if I contain everything inside a jar of regeneration essence?" He muttered, stroking his chin.

He did not overthink it. He shaped a jar from regeneration essence first, then began feeding the three streams into it.

Cracks formed along the jar’s surface almost immediately, but the regeneration essence sealed them before they could spread.

Azrael’s logic was straightforward. Force the three essences to mix since there was no way out of a self repairing container.

He had gotten it entirely wrong.

It worked for a moment, then the regeneration essence joined the reaction itself, blending into the already volatile mixture of three.

This experiment was the shortest one yet.

It did not last a minute before it detonated.

The explosion was louder than the previous ones.

"Come on," Azrael said, shaking his head.

He looked around the white space, genuinely stuck.

"What am I getting wrong?" He wondered, staring up at the blank sky above him.

[You know you can simply learn essence fusion for one thousand SP, right?]

"You mentioned that earlier," Azrael replied with a scoff.

The system sighed.

[Do not blame me.]

"Alright. How does it work?"

[I will take that as a purchase.]

Azrael nodded reluctantly.

[A pure essence jar. Pure essence is the only type that can blend with any other form without corrupting or destabilizing it.]

Azrael went still.

"A pure essence jar. It was right in front of me the entire time."

A blue jar formed before him, built entirely of pure essence.

He guided the three streams into it.

Then came the soft mix.

He watched as they blended together, each one slowly losing its individual resistance.

Less than three minutes.

That was how long it took before the jar held a unified essence carrying the properties of all three base types.

"Maybe I should reconsider refusing to buy from the system," he muttered. "It genuinely does make things easier."

A satisfied grin appeared on the system’s screen.

Azrael looked away before it could get too smug.

His eyes returned to the mixture.

The reason he had gone through all of this was simple. A board that could phase through anything, move at the speed he chose, and generate singularity on command. It was the closest thing to an absolute weapon he could imagine.

The essence mix drifted out of the jar on his command and began to take shape.

A sleek, dark gold board.

It settled beside the completed body, floating at the same height.

Azrael looked at both pieces with quiet pride.

"Now let us bring it to life."

The soul core, encased in its shell of phase essence, drifted toward the construct’s chest and pierced through.

It stopped.

Nothing happened.

At first.

Then a burst of blue energy tore through the construct’s body, sending beams of light shooting from its eyes.

"If I had done this outside, would that have been dangerous?" Azrael asked.

[The light is harmless. It cannot affect anything.]

"Oh," Azrael said, deflating slightly.

The light began to fade.

Clang.

The sound of something heavy meeting the white floor broke through the emptiness of the space.

Azrael looked at the Golden Surfer.

It had planted one knee into the tiles beneath it.

Azrael smiled.

"Rise."

It obeyed immediately, standing in a single motion.

"Can you speak?" Azrael asked.

"I can, my Lord."

"Ah," Azrael startled at the words.

Not because the Golden Surfer had spoken, but because of where the voice had come from.

"How are you speaking to me mentally?" He asked.

[You did not give it a mouth. How else did you expect it to communicate?]

The system replied with a facepalm emoji.

"I assumed it would just generate sound from its body somehow," Azrael said.

He began constructing a proper face using gold essence, adding features gradually until it held a defined appearance.

After a few minutes the Golden Surfer was complete.

[You are fortunate there was residual energy left in the soul core, otherwise adding these features afterward would not have been possible.]

Azrael nodded.

"For now, you will stay inside my core. I have things to attend to."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Also, your name is Surfer."

With those words, Azrael sent the construct into his core.

He felt its presence settle there, quiet and ready.

"Next, Aura."

He shuddered slightly at the thought.

He could not feel pain in this space, but thinking about his eyes exploding repeatedly still gave him an uncomfortable chill.

"System, how long have I spent?"

[Twenty minutes.]

"That is more than I expected to save," he muttered.

"Maybe I can finish the aura training quickly and still have time to work on some combat techniques."

His thoughts drifted to the novels he used to read in his previous life, the elaborate named techniques the characters would develop.

"I could create something interesting with Singularity Generation," he mused.

His mind moved to Coin Sovereignty next.

"This one too, but I already have a solid feel for it."

He shook his head.

His use of Singularity Generation was still too unrefined. Too reliant on raw force rather than precision.

"Focus on the main thing first," he muttered.

He reached for his essence.

A wave of nausea hit him immediately.

"I am out of essence already?" He said.

[One thousand SP for a tier two essence potion.]

The system said before the sentence had even fully formed in his mind.

"You never miss an opening, do you?" Azrael asked with a tired smile.

[How do you expect the system to sustain itself if I let every opportunity pass? You think we run on goodwill?]

Azrael paused at that.

Then he laughed, genuinely.

"What am I even hearing right now?" He said, still smiling.

[A man just cannot be honest anymore.]

The system replied.