The Place Where Everything Begins

4 hours later...

Inside the basement of Jeremy's house.

After finished eating dinner, also dealing with a phone call from Charlotte and chat messages from his 'subordinates' in a group chat.

Jeremy came down into his basement and started to inscribe the planned diagram right away.

The diagram's name was 'Enchantment 2-633' of which number 2 was derived from stage 2, and number 633 was the number of series of the diagram which had a total of more than 3,000 diagrams for the stage 2 alone.

Right now, it was around 9 p.m., and Jeremy was almost done with the diagram inscription that spanned almost the entire doormat.

It was filled with strange lines here and there circling around the 'staff' at the center of the doormat. At the same time, it also left many interior areas empty.

Those empty areas would be filled later on with the 900 or so runes that he had recalled from his sea of consciousness.

In a simple explanation, the diagram would act akin to a layout of a house which was consisted of countless empty rooms inside. Meanwhile, the runes would act as furnishings that would be filled inside those rooms later on.

Soon...

Instantly, right after Jeremy had connected one end to another end of the last line of the diagram. The whole diagram that looked like a mess yet orderly at the same time with countless weird curves and sharp angles, suddenly lighted up in a glowing white light.

The whole basement got brightened up with the white light constantly.

After Jeremy had completed the diagram on the doormat. He took a look at the now white lines with complex patterns altogether with different sizes that were composed of by using various diagram inscription techniques.

When Jeremy saw that nothing went awry, he nodded his head in satisfaction of his own accomplishment.

Now, he had just finished setting up the layout, and the next step to be done was to fill in the corresponding runes from his memory into the empty areas inside the diagram according to the process and sequence of the Enchantment 2-633 for it to work up and combine the materials of the staff together.

Not wanting to waste anymore time for fear that he might have to go to bed late tonight, he went on to inscribe the runes right away.

Still, the process of runes inscription from now on would really pose a real challenge for him for he couldn't use his own mana to inscribe those runes.

Because...

His mana was insufficient to inscribe even 50 runes, not to mention that he had to inscribe more than 900 runes within a time span of around 4 hours before the diagram went out of energy and changed itself back into wandering mana particles in the air.

Then where the required mana used to inscribe the runes came from?

The answer was simple...

Jeremy brought out a small glass bottle from his backpack. It was actually a bottle of leftover mana fluid collected from the ancient trees around the world.

That's right...

He would use the mana from those trees to create a 'staff' of which its materials were derived from those same ancient trees.

To be truth, this was quite a common yet ingenious method to enchant an item.

Reasons?

Because Jeremy didn't have enough mana to enchant a staff. So, he decided to collect the external mana to enchant it instead. However, he was currently inside a 'supposed' mana-less world, the problems about materials arose after that.

That caused him to think more about the materials used to create the staff. He had to think about many things, and one of the most important factors of them all was 'synchronization rates' of materials, mana, and runes.

Consequently, he decided to use one of the most orthodox ways of mages on Ortus.

That was... using both materials and mana from the ancient trees. At the same time, he would also use the rune sets that gave out the highest synchronization rates with the materials and mana.

As a result, Jeremy had finally come up with this strategy...

The mana was extracted from the trees...

The materials were also bits and pieces of the trees...

The elemental-less runescripts were also closely related to the trees...

Currently, the bottle contained around 45 mL of mana fluid as a result of him combining the 2 bottles of which one bottle was from when he used it to create the 'gloves' for his subordinates, and another one was the main storage of mana fluid that was kept carefully to create this 'staff' especially.

'Even with this 45 mL of mana fluid. Still... a total of 933 low-tier runes and 4 middle-tier runes. This is gonna shake my sea of consciousness so badly. If I slipped up for even a single moment, my house is gone for real...'

*Sigh*

Jeremy sighed tiredly at his fate...

After bringing out the bottle, Jeremy sat cross-legged nearby the doormat at the same place as when he had tried to enter his sea of consciousness.

Then he opened the lit of the glass bottle. Unsurprisingly, the mana fluid that should have evaporated instantaneously into the atmosphere after it met with the the air, stayed at its place with only some movements left and right from Jeremy's jerking.

That was actually a result from Enchantment...

In fact, the bottle was enchanted with a simple stage 1 Enchantment method, 'Enhance'. In this case, it enhanced the property of 'containment' of the glass, causing it to be able to hold the mana fluid within.

Also, if the stage 1 was called 'Enhance', then the upgraded stage 2 that Jeremy was going to implement on to create the staff would be called 'Render'. As for what it could do or what it was, that was a topic for later discussions...

After Jeremy had opened the lit, he raised his left and right index fingers and pointed them in front of him. Then he started to write some strange characters in the air, or it should be called, he started to inscribe the low-tier runes in the air of which in each hand, they were inscribing different runes.

That's the case... Jeremy was actually drawing 2 different runes at the same time!

Meanwhile, he was using his mana techniques together with a mild help of mind power from his sea of consciousness to draw out the mana from the bottle as a fuel for his rune inscription process that was commencing at both of his hands' index fingers.

Not even more than 15 seconds later, Jeremy finished his first 2 runes at 'almost' the same time. Then with some manipulations of his mana and mind, the glowing white light runes that were floating in the air started to float onto an empty area of the doormat.

Right after it had stuck on the doormat, its light was suddenly getting slightly dimmer but still shining the light out signifying that those 2 runes were working properly.

Concurrently, Jeremy who was focusing on drawing the runes in the air, didn't even glance at the doormat, but he started to inscribe another 2 low-tier runes right away.

The above procedures kept on repeating and repeating.

Simultaneously, the time was also ticking by slowly.

Second by second...

Minute by minute...

Hour by hour...

Still, the runes kept increasing more and more with the passing time. Also, the mana fluid within the bottle was also being depleted bit by bit with the increasing number of runes.

...

Until 2 hours later...

Jeremy was now sweating profusely, and presently, he was using only his right index finger to draw the rune in the air.

The rune he was drawing was currently shining brighter than those low-tier runes that he had written before. Its light was slightly brighter with a more complex shape and higher amount of angles of its character.

This was the last rune...

And it was actually a middle-tier rune at that...

Jeremy had spent a hell-like 2 hours to inscribe 933 low-tier runes and 3 middle-tier runes successfully.

The leather doormat right now was depicting and portraying various shining runes in different shapes and sizes of which some were connected with one another by the diagram, meanwhile, some were only being contained within the 'rooms'.

At the moment, the Enchantment layout was looking more beautiful than ever with all those lines and runes acting as a solid core.

Right now, Jeremy's body was shaking nonstop like a leaf being pushed away left and right by a gust wind.

He was feeling very tired mentally...

Still...

Jeremy was already at the last stroke of rune inscription process. Suddenly, he raised his index finger upward by a tiny margin. Then the rune simultaneously came to life with its shining bright light.

*Fwuuu...*

'Finally, done!' Jeremy thought to himself, after exhaling a long breath of cold air.

Afterwards, he carefully observed the last rune that was now floating onto the topmost center of the doormat that was now being the only place left empty until now.

Right after the rune had stuck on the place, a super bright white light suddenly being produced causing the entire basement to be lightened up like a flashbang grenade being exploded there.

A moment later, the white light had started to dim down, and was changing its color into a light blue color, the color of mana when it was releasing its latent energy.

Meanwhile, the bits and pieces of materials that had been situated silently at the center of the doormat until now, abruptly floated up into the air, and they began to piece themselves with one another, piece by piece.

The sight was so spectacular and mesmerizing that it would be able to captivate anyone seeing it.

On the air, a piece of random wood suddenly attached itself with another piece. Then another piece, and another piece, and so on...

It kept going on like this for awhile...

Soon, the shape of the combined materials started to be formed with a clearer picture of a staff, a wooden staff to be exact.

Not long after, the wooden staff was becoming almost complete, with only the exception of the golden orb.

Soon after, the golden orb that was silently floating still in the air, swiftly moved to the 'staff' and attached itself at the top center of the 'staff'.

Then the wooden opening that had let the golden orb went inside a moment ago, began to close in by itself like a safety lock that would keep the golden orb attached to the staff permanently.

And...

The glowing blue light started to fade away into nothingness until only a floating staff and the now empty leather doormat underneath it remained.

'My staff is done!' Jeremy thought ecstatically.

Even a legendary sage of magic would feel excited at this moment.

He had created a rare magical staff within a supposed mana-less world after all...

Concurrently, Jeremy was looking fascinatingly at the great and awesome staff that he had been spending more than 10 days of hard work into creating it, the Forsaken Branch.

That's the name that Jeremy had prepared for it...

A 'Forsaken Branch' from a forsaken world...