Born In Ashes: The Enigma

"Can make me the strongest wind power user...?"

Azrael's breath hitched when he heard Ashara's words and he looked at her eagerly, waiting for her to explain.

Ashara thought for a moment before opening her mouth.

"You know that there are many items you can use to activate your powers, right? For example, to activate your Power of Wind, you can use crystallized Tears of the Wind Spirit, Essence of Wind, Windfall Rock Powder, the Heart of Wind you received, and many others."

She paused briefly before continuing.

"All of the items I just mentioned contain the source power of wind within them. Once your source core absorbs that source power, it will finally gain the ability to utilize the said element. But even among these source power items, some contain ordinary source power, while higher-level ones possess special source power that grants additional benefits."

Ashara looked at Azrael, and upon seeing that he was listening attentively, she went on.

"If you use the crystallized Tears of the Wind Spirit I mentioned to activate your wind power, aside from simply activating it, your affinity with the wind element will also increase tremendously, making it much easier for you to control and utilize wind-based abilities."

She glanced at the Heart of Wind in her hand, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"This Heart of Wind contains an incredibly high amount of wind source power. Not only can it raise your affinity with the wind element to an exceptional level, but it can also grant something else..." She turned to look at Azrael, her voice growing more serious.

"Resistance," She said with emphasis. "If you use the Heart of Wind to activate your power, you will also gain resistance against the wind element. And not just a minor resistance..."

She paused, and after taking a deep breath, her voice trembled slightly as she spoke.

"It's 100% resistance against wind. Once you use the Heart of Wind to activate your powers, you will become completely immune to wind element attacks. Even if a Cosmic Monarch tried to attack you using wind power, it wouldn't be able to harm you."

Azrael couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air when he heard that the Heart of Wind could grant him 100% resistance against wind.

"Are you serious?" He asked, baffled, still struggling to believe what he'd just heard.

Gaining resistance against anything was incredibly difficult. Some special species—like dragons, elite monsters, and a few rare beings—were born with natural resistances to certain elements or forces.

But even among these high-end species, it was extremely rare—almost impossible—to find someone who possessed full, 100% resistance to anything.

Azrael suddenly recalled what Ashara had said earlier about even Cosmic Emperors and Monarchs desiring the Heart of Wind, and he immediately understood why.

Even if those high-level beings didn't need it to activate their powers, they could still use the source power within it to gain complete resistance to the wind element.

'Damn, to think this simple-looking heart has such an effect...' Azrael thought to himself, feeling a rush of excitement at the prospect of using it to activate his powers.

Ashara noticed Azrael's excited expression and smiled as well. After all, even she and Silas didn't possess full resistance against any element. Knowing her son would gain something so extraordinary made her genuinely happy.

Suddenly, Azrael seemed to recall something and asked curiously.

"Mom, has anyone else ever received something similar to the Heart of Wind after completing their trial?"

He asked this because if no one had ever obtained an item like this before, Ashara wouldn't have such deep knowledge about it.

Ashara rolled her eyes at his question.

"Do you think it's easy to get an item of this level?" She said with a sigh. "The reason I know about this is because, once, someone found the Heart of Water in an ancient ruin. I was there, exploring the same ruin and I saw it with my own eyes. That thing looked exactly like your Heart of Wind, except it contained the source power of water and granted 100% resistance to the water element."

"Ancient ruins... Heart of Water?" Azrael's expression turned strange upon hearing her words.

"Are there really places other than Eonrift where you can find items to activate your powers?"

"Hmm..." Ashara nodded. "Ancient ruins are places left behind from eras so distant that even their history is barely known. These ruins are extremely dangerous, but they often contain powerful treasures, including items with source power that can be used to activate your powers. But don't even think about stepping into one right now— with your current strength, you wouldn't last a second if you go there. The moment a ruin is discovered, it gets flooded with high-level individuals hoping to find ancient relics and rare power sources."

She paused for a moment, then added.

"In fact, we could have tried to find you some source power items related to wind. Even though they're extremely rare, a few have been recovered from ancient ruins over the past thousands of years. However, high-level source items are almost never found, and as you know, using low-level items to activate your power would only decrease your future potential. That's why I didn't even mention them as I knew you'd be able to complete the Hell-level trial and obtain a high-grade source item."

"I see..." Azrael nodded thoughtfully, his mind drifting back to the name the status window had used for Eonrift.

'Fragment of Ancient Genesis...'

'Is this somehow related to the Ancient Ruins Mom just spoke of?' He wondered.

"By the way..." Ashara suddenly remembered something and spoke in an unnatural tone.

"I don't know if it's true or not, but it's said that long ago, source items used to be born in Genesis like any normal treasure. However, after a catastrophic event that shook the entire Genesis, source items stopped appearing here. Now, you can only find them in Eonrift... or in the Ancient Ruins."