A Villainess Should Be Strong

A way to manipulate her mana so that it could perform as a unifier between her elements.

She could now wield the element of nothingness, but only in its purest form. It was the most basic form, where she literally took it from her being's essence itself.

She hadn't gotten to the stage where she could freely manifest the element from her surroundings. Estelle's brows creased back and forth as she made her way into the intricate parts of her supposed plan.

It was to create a type of mana- a variant form. The basis would obviously still be her own mana, but the characteristic and type would be slightly altered. To be one that could hold both the element of nothingness and her Creation Magic.

First, she had to create the medium for the exchange.

Her mana was potent, but Estelle purposely made it airy for this experiment, because she couldn't have an overly dominant element within any side. Everything had to be perfectly balanced in order for her to be able to combine it all.

She controlled her mana, making it intertwine with the element of nothingness first. She was familiar with her Creation Magic, but the process of mixing together with nothingness was harder and much more complicated. Thus, she had to accommodate for this difficulty by averting most of her attention to said element.

She didn't know whether it was because she hadn't had much experience with the element, but her connection with is was always unsteady. Primarily, her goal was to chase the binding point between the two, then slowly create a link with her Creation Magic at the same time.

Estelle's sweat accumulated on her entire body as she focused herself on honing this process down to a state stable enough for her to even try to mix in another element.

She created her desired medium- a form of her mana that was specifically made to associate with nothingness. She then started to fuse it with her understanding of the nothingness, drawing in the element from her surroundings with difficulty.

Estelle was patient, she endured everything from the very start to the end. The process was very long and filled with boredom as there weren't much movements or action in it.

Patience was key in such a situation.

Estelle sat in the middle of the realm, her eyes closed and her expression sour.

Thankfully, the concept of temperature didn't exist in the Eterna. Her perspiration was the result of too much concentration and stress being piled up.

If there were wind, or other distractions like that, she would've had a much harder time. In a sense, Eterna was a perfect place to cultivate this experiment with nothingness.

Estelle held on to her hope.

Seconds turned into minutes, and soon minutes turned into an hour. For over an hour, Estelle made minimal movements apart from the ones where she had to adjust to her experiment.

However, the experiment wasn't all that bad. In the end, a result had came out of it. Estelle reached a point where she could separate her attention from the mixture of her mana and the nothingness.

This mixture was still hard to maintain, but she was now able to try and bring in another element.

And that was what she did. Estelle didn't rush, but she didn't take things easily as well.

After she had created a stable mixture, she then tried to blend in her Creation Magic's presence. As she had first expected, the element of Creation had the tendency to be dominant over the other elements.

She slowly added in the magic, but she still couldn't help but experience certain sparks from time to time. Moments where her Creation Magic would be close to ruining the entire process, which meant that she had to restart everything from point zero repeatedly occurred, making her internally heave a huge sigh of relief every time the spike passed.

Using Creation Magic was like breathing to her. If put up as a parable, her current challenge was like trying to dispel a blockage in her respiration system that prevented her from breathing normally.

The blockage was of course, this hard to blend mixture of her own mana and nothingness.

Her element of Creation leaned more towards an aggressive stance. However, this aggressiveness brought nothing but harm to her as she had to proceed with extreme carefulness.

Her previous tests were that of trying to directly mix in Creation Magic and nothingness. Oil and water, without a single connector between them that would allow a chance of being combined.

This time, her own mana would act as the bridge that connected the two parts.

Estelle's concentration was shaky. Her attention was being separated into so many difficult parts that she struggled to maintain every single one.

It was akin to balancing stones, even. The fragile state of her mixture of nothingness was the stones, whereas her mana would be the wind blowing the object and possibly ruining the sculpture if the stones weren't placed in the perfect position.

[How do I make this work?] Afraid of rupturing her progress by simply talking, she did not even dare to spout a single word out of her mouth. All of her thinking was done internally.

Each side was persistent. Whenever she tried to assimilate them, one would dominate over the other and disrupt the balance that is needed.

Estelle worried that the longer she continued to try and maintain this unstable dilemma, the higher the chance of her failing would be.

She prodded the matter from different ways and techniques. However, none succeeded. As time passed, her fear of the elements' collapse increased.

It got harder to handle. Indeed, the power wasn't meant to be maintained for a long time, too. It should be a short and concise process.

Then, when it reached the third hour mark, something ruptured. The mixture she created, which was between her mana and nothingness broke apart.

Estelle was also forcibly woken up from her concentration because her target was now gone.

She blinked repeatedly, her eyes in pain after shutting them for so long. After a few cycles of blinking, her vision gradually recovered. Her sights cleared up and she was now fully aware of her surroundings.

Well, it was still pure white nonetheless.

"..Well, there's that," Estelle slumped down, her chest moving up and down as she caught her breath that was in disarray.

[...Around three hours in total.] Estelle lamented.

Three hours. Her time was incredibly precious, and this experiment just had to result in a failure. What a shame.

Her first major failure.

Before, she was just testing things out and weren't completely sure on what she was doing, but this time was different.

This method she concocted was one that she was quite confident in, and yet she still failed.

One thing was for sure. Estelle was sure that she got close. At least close enough that she was willing to give this method another chance.

Estelle waited until she had enough rest for a few minutes before sitting straight once more. She slapped herself in the face two times, waking her drowsy self up before continuing to set up for the next try.

"Come on," Estelle reminded herself of her goal. As powerful as she was, not everything was within her arm's reach.

Estelle wouldn't credit everything that befell her upon her power and status alone. Yes, she was privileged, yes she was blessed, but that shouldn't discredit her hard work and dedication upon her progress.

She recalled the time where she continuously failed on experiments such as creating a mana potion and was once again motivated. Only, those times were harmless failures- nothing was put at stake.

This time, something much more precious was being risked. Her soul power and the time she would waste.

However, she truly believed that achieving this enlightenment on how to properly mix the elements would grant her with a power that was comparable to none of her previous experiences with said magic.

She usually used a variety of elements, some of them sourcing from different base magics or even Unique Magics she procured through her means.

Her Creation Magic was never fully explored, but it was truly convenient. It was just that her knowledge was not sufficient for proper exploitation of said magic.

Estelle recalled the Ruler's words, about how the Eterna was suited for her and her magic. She began to wonder what did the being mean by that, but it must be something profitable.

After getting her mind back to shape, she began closing her eyes one more time and focusing on her experiment.

In her failure, it wasn't like she didn't gain anything. She knew what things to avoid or do to a certain point. It wasn't a complete waste of time.

She coiled her mana, and the process began once again. She expected it to be much faster this time, because of her experience of maintaining the mixture of mana and nothingness that would increase her familiarity with the subject.