There were a few that remained without a sufficient passing rating, and one of them decided that it was worthless to stay once the option to leave was once more presented by Ru Shi.
The others remained, and continued to participate in the trials, with the third one being explained to them the moment that the one leaver got out of sight and too far away to hear anything that would be said. Whether this was meant to prevent the one that left from listening in, or to give a message to those that remained, was uncertain, but given the way in which some had suffered terrible defeats after only a few exchanges using some of their techniques, most were unwilling to risk stepping out of line.
“Deduction is exactly what it sounds like. You will be provided with a piece of information, whether it is physical or purely a set of words, and you will need to comprehend the rest of the information that is omitted so that you-” he suddenly turned and frowned, “You don’t need to say a thing.”
“… I hadn’t even begun.”
“Wei Yi, was it? Are you certain that you will not be satisfied with becoming an honorary member of the Preservers after two whole perfect passes?”
“I see no reason to not fully display what it is that I am able to do. Just because I have already understood half of what you’re planning to bring out is no reason for me to stop doing this kind of thing,” she replied, “Really, of all the districts and organisations to have an issue with comprehension and intelligence, the Ru District’s Preservers are the last that I would have expected to react like this.”
“There is a limit to reasonable knowledge and ability, and I am sure that the majority here would agree with that particular statement.”
“Not to begin a completely unnecessary argument, but common agreement and consensus does not indicate the correctness of a belief, statement, or anything else, for that matter. There are a lot of mistaken beliefs, a lot of history that was not kept the way that it should have been, and plenty of entities that exist beyond common understanding. Unfortunately for us, just because the majority are unaware of these things doesn’t mean that they will never appear before us,” the Ascendant said, “I’m sure the south has heard of certain northern things by now, right?”
“The Great Families, you mean? We have, and while only the Patriarch and the Preserver Commander are likely to know the truth about them, we have all made the effort to speak of them casually,” the Preserver Captain admitted, “However, this is not relevant to the ceremony.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll just write down everything and pass it to you later.”
She quickly conjured a killing will book and held it in her lone hand while the pages were filled with the knowledge that she had managed to obtain from the many things that the Preservers were intending to bring out for this test. Given that this was made of her mental energy, it was really easy to prevent anyone from being able to observe the contents if she didn’t want them to, so she made sure to prevent the other participants from peeking in.
When she had gone to hold the killing will book, she did notice that her hand had tensed and shut into a fist, which took some mental effort to open to grab the floating book instead.
Other than the odd fear of her mental capabilities, she had no particular reason so far to dislike the Preservers, and so she was going to do her best to display her abilities to them.
Whether that earned the attention of the Patriarch, the Preserver Commander, or some other figure entirely, she would still benefit from it so long as the Preservers were a group that they looked to be. Their knowledge might well be irreplaceable, and the general attitude of the Ru District was also a rather fortunate one, since simply accepting the existence of the Greats and not being afraid to mention them was a step up from some of the northern districts. Then again, since the last time she had travelled through the districts and spoke about the Greats, she had won against them a few times, and had even earned the ire of the first generation with her actions, managing to ward off one of their attacks.
So long as news of this were indeed spreading to the world, and were in any part the cause of the calm response of the Ru District, she could expect to see more such reactions in the future, which would be incredibly pleasant to see.
While the rest of the group properly participated in the ceremony, she sorted through the information that she had been able to acquire from the various pieces of damages documents, statues and strange slates with knowledge encrypted into them. Most of them were easy enough to decipher, mostly due to the knowledge that she already had, but a few required her to almost randomly guess at the possible conclusions that could be drawn from it.
Most were related to techniques, and so she managed to obtain a few more skills as a result of studying their materials, and those that weren’t instead detailed something about an event or physique, with the first being far more difficult to decipher than the second. Her mind held information about nearly every technique that existed in the minds of the people of the Yi District, as well as the Ning District, Luo District, Ping District, Chao District, Bai District, Jiang District and Lan District, and most recently, the Qiang District and Ru District. In other words, more than half of the districts had provided her with knowledge, and she didn’t struggle to put it to use.
On the other hand, things that happened long ago and didn’t catch the attention of the rest of the world, or her own back when she was scanning the local libraries, were more difficult to guess about. Oddly enough, it was one such sculpture, depicting an almost-cubical shape composed of several figures in strange poses, which gave her the most immediate benefits.
It seemed like it would be completely unrelated to her, instead portraying something that had occurred in the year 53,104, when the Ru District attempted to take back some territory that they had begun to lose to the wild, but it had a surprising relation to the Invader’s Roar. The poses depicted were oddly suitable for making use of a certain path that she had come up with for the technique, and what was even better was that she wouldn’t need to stick closely to them after understanding them. As the primary benefit was in the direction of energy and expulsion of it, so long as she understood what to do and why it worked, she could replicate it without moving whatsoever.
That was one of the many methods that she had accumulated during her life, benefitted to a certain extent by the techniques of Chu Ling, and so she might not even have to demonstrate the strange postures to anyone.
However, it was very likely that she would need to make use of this ability during the last step of the ceremony – the trials of the ceremony, at least – as it was focused on extrapolation. With the themes of the challenges so far, she would likely be required to use the knowledge from one of the other rounds in order to extrapolate something greater and either create a new technique outright, or simply combine them in an effective manner.
So long as she could be allowed to use her own methods, she could get to use the Invader’s Roar.
There would be a certain risk to the usage of a potentially powerful technique without any proper testing to verify its effects and strength, but she had enough confidence in her own abilities to risk such a thing. In the worst-case scenario, if she is unable to properly hold back her power like when the black sun grows too much, she should be able to prevent her target from suffering any long-term damage. Her healing abilities were inferior to her offensive power, but she was still able to allow for people to recover from all kinds of terrible wounds and types of damage.
If things still went poorly even with her own strength being used to the fullest, creating a quick five or six-star pill to enhance with her own cosmic energy was always an option, and one that she could complete rather quickly even if she was observed at all times. Her Antithesis method doesn’t require the use of a second hand, either, so the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow wouldn’t need to be used too much.
Returning onto the topic of the Invader’s Roar, her current idea for using as many of the principles contained within the book that she had obtained was rather simple. With a mass of her mental energy, killing will to be more specific, she would attack an enemy’s mind and soul – if that was even possible – with something akin to hitting a person with a hammer. Her intention was less to cause permanent damage, at least against foes that she did not want dead or suffering, but more to stun and confuse the enemy, preventing anything that they were currently planning from succeeding and scattering any planar constructs that they may have manifested.
There should be more to the technique, considering both the name and all of the concepts within it that she hadn’t yet explored and used, but finding any way to use it was good enough for now. From there, she could even break free of the technique and develop something greater.
That being said, it was hard to say whether the possible peak of the Invader’s Roar could be beaten easily. If it was capable of actively invading someone’s self, whether through the mind or the soul, not only could a great deal of information be obtained, but it could also permit the control of a person that is unable to defeat the technique. By using something like this against one of the first generation of the Greats, she might be able to obtain so much information that would otherwise require her to break into their Testament and investigate what it was that they had truly been getting up to.
Even if that was out of her reach, she could easily make use of their strength to greatly damage the plans of the Greats without expending any of her own hidden reserves. Just forcing one of them to use a cosmic method could cause an enormous explosion due to their inability to endure the cosmic energy and maintain it in a stable state.
“So, Wei Yi, you wished to display your abilities?” the Preserver Captain asked.
“Yes, so here is a book containing everything that I could gather from the things that you had intended to bring out. You still have five items that you haven’t brought out, so I mentioned them as well, but if I wasn’t meant to look at those, then… well, I won’t pretend to be able or willing to remove that stuff from my memory, so I’ll just promise not to share it if I can,” she replied to him, handing over the killing will tome, “You can read it with spiritual perception or sight, depending on your preference and the time you have.”
He did not reply immediately, instead opening the book and sending his spiritual perception into it at the same time. The latter was used to probe the latter portions of the book so that he could get through it a little more quickly.
“… You are mad, indeed. There appear to be no issues with that information at all, so we will move on. You receive a perfect passing grade yet again,” the Preserver said, passing the book along to one of the other Preservers, “If you do not object, we will keep this for informing those that have already joined the Preservers, as there is an enormous amount of information here that has not been… easily accessible to most of us.”
“Does that mean that you didn’t know about it?”
“I meant what I said. Everything appears to be in order here, so we shall proceed onto the fourth and final part of the entrance ceremony with the final step, extrapolation. The core is to make use of what we have provided to you so far, combined with any knowledge that you might already possess, to create a new or significantly modified method based on those factors.”
He took one of the scraps from a page that had been presented during the third trial and held it in one hand while the other partly closed. The next moment, just as some could see being described on the remaining portion of the page in his right hand, the left flooded with a green glow that looked perfectly ordinary, yet incredibly unnatural and odd to behold. It was almost horrifying, for some reason, and many averted their eyes whereas a few, the Ascendant included, paid attention to the green light even more and carefully considered how it related to the text present on the scrap of paper.
Given the information that Wei Yi had already pulled out of the scrap, she didn’t need to spend much effort to understand the nature of the green light – the Lamp of Decay. It was something that likely had otherworldly roots, as it was partially based on the nature of the radiation that was prevalent within their world. Most of the true danger of it was worn away, and what remained was a very curious ability that couldn’t be blocked by anything, giving it the ability to eat any barrier and any defence. The only problem was that the speed of decay would slow down the stronger the foe’s defence was, and so it could take decades to consume something that was at the peak of the ninth realm, for example.
This didn’t usually come up as a problem, and was still better than being entirely unable to breach such a barrier, but it did mean that it wasn’t a technique she needed to bother with practising personally.
Instead, taking out the Laws that allowed it to act in such a fashion and shifting it to another technique of greater offensive potential would be of far greater benefit to her. Something like Obliteration would benefit greatly from it, and she could always merge the base principles far more easily into that amalgamation so long as she could utilise the technique itself. Fortunately, this display was more than enough to fill in anything that she might have misunderstood.
“You don’t need to create anything exceptional in nature. The key of this challenge is not to overcome limits, but to utilise principles in the most effective manner, just as with the second trial. For this reason, the fourth part of the ceremony is a battle between the competitors. These will be selected for you, and will be decided based on what you have been provided with so far. Wei Yi will fight the odd one out,” Ru Shi decided, ignoring the uncaring shrug from her, “It would be unreasonable to ask most of you to go beyond that, but, of course, you may attempt to study something else and use that in combat. You must, however, make it very clear that this is what you intend to do, or else the battle will not proceed as necessary.”
The reasoning behind this arrangement was rather obvious. In order to have a proper contest with so many different skills in play, they would need to match those with similar abilities against one another, so that their knowledge and usage of those techniques alone would decide the fight, just as with the duel of Starry Torrents. Only by a proper competition could talent be assessed.
Thus, the skills and pieces of information that would be pitted against one another will be ones that can properly compete with one another, then the abilities of those competing will be tested in the most proper manner. The one that is able to make full use of a unique property that they have, or perhaps a unique property that their opponent is unable to utilise due to their differences, will be the victor, and if they somehow turn around a situation where their skill has certain weaknesses in comparison to that of their opponent and still win easily, it will be clear that they have an excellent understanding of what they are doing.
Fortunately, these kinds of tests weren’t too biased in favour of those with stronger energy, or else she might be instantly disqualified from this one as well. When it came to using a new technique, trying to apply too much force was likely to be more damaging than deliberately weakening one’s energy. The first to attempt to use a realm difference to win would likely suffer a far greater defeat than if they went against a more informed opponent.
If this kind of thing had been used back in the Yi District to distinguish the talented from the less-so, Wei Yi may never have come to be, and a Yi Wei might have been actively training in the Yi District at this very moment.
Perhaps the Greats wouldn’t have bothered had she been progressing down a more normal route, given that they had avoided killing her when they had killed her parents. She couldn’t be sure why they had acted the way they had at the time, but there must have been something that dissuaded them from attacking at the time. This was not something that would ever make her reconsider her perspective on them, as no matter what reason they might have had for leaving her alone at first, they did attack her and everyone close to her in the end.
She couldn’t help but think about this while the Preservers were going about explaining the last quarter of the trials. There wasn’t much that she needed to learn, as she already had her technique prepared and ready to be tested against whoever was put against her, so all that she bothered to actively pay attention to was that announcement.
“Wei Yi shall compete against Chao Jin, since they are the last ones left.”
“Our techniques don’t match up whatsoever, you do know that, right?” she asked right away, “Are you just trying to give me a hard time by forcing me to combat someone that I have helped, thinking that I’d hold back? I am very capable of inflicting harm on anyone, especially when I can also heal them with incredible ease. Actually, I would probably do more harm than someone without that knowledge or ability.”
“What would you do instead, then? Oppose someone at my realm, someone that has had the time to practise all of these methods a dozen times over, while forcing her to do the same?”
“Yes, I would. Your realm is insignificant, your knowledge is not necessarily that which matters most, and there is nothing to say that a woman who has recently entered the fourth realm couldn’t best someone who had been there for decades.”
Chao Jin’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything for fear of interrupting two powerful experts.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I don’t know what your techniques are, Preserver Ru Shi. I have not studied them, and I have been unable to find any mention of their full abilities beside rumours. Perhaps you are able to take every single scrap of information that you have learned and convert it directly into power, but none of these pieces of information contain even a bit of that technique. You won’t be able to make use of it to flip the battle in your favour regardless of your own ability,” she said, gesturing with her lone hand, “Thus, it becomes a fight of quality, not quantity. I may have gotten to read this stuff only a little while ago, but I believe I excel in quality.”
He looked at her with his usual still face for several moments that seemed to stretch out further with each one that passed, until he suddenly raised his head in a laugh that shifted his gaze to the skies. For a whole minute, he laughed loudly and with such a display of emotion that it made one question whether his previous calm stance was even real. It was hard to match those two extremes of emotion – and lack thereof – but once his head lowered with an audible crack, it was clear his face was the same.
“I have a great deal of pride in my faction, and for you to say that a twenty-year-old woman-”
“I’m forty.”
“- could know more than someone who has dedicated a whole fifty years to study, so let’s test that, shall we?”
Unlike last time, he did not decide to wait and see things play out with the other candidates, instead heading straight into the barrier and reinforcing it the moment that she had gone in as well. He did not explain what he would use, nor did he attempt to instruct her in what she was permitted to use, although that hardly needed mentioning.
If there was to be any point to this test, it would require her to only use what she obtained from the ceremony, and for the Preserver to do the same, although the things they spoke about implied that he might not limit himself to just that. Something like the usage of fifty years of study at once would instantly prompt her to change her approach as well, and it wouldn’t be very reasonable for him to attempt this. Whatever knowledge-based methods he had would be difficult to use against the absolute nature of Obliteration and the like, and she would only need a brief passing thought to understand his actions before he could even commit to them.
They looked at one another for a little while in silence, as they had nobody to declare the beginning of the fight. It wasn’t necessary, in their case, as either one could begin and either one would finish, at least in their minds. Ru Shi thought he would win, Wei Yi knew that she would.
Ultimately, the Preserver acted first, and he began with a technique that resembled the flowing words on a page, scribbled by a steady and poetic hand. He attempted to weave those words around her, with a few other planar constructs manifesting all around him, clearly using as much of the knowledge contained within the texts provided to them as possible, possibly drawing a little too much of his own understanding into the mixture.
Since he wasn’t holding back, the Ascendant saw no reason to hold back either, and simply took a powerful step forward as she opened her mouth and drew upon the power of the Lion’s Roar.
From her mouth, a strange sound burst out, shacking the ground and forcing the people outside the barrier to step back, as the force managed to penetrate it while being contained inside. The sound took form before them, a huge, chained form surging out of the air and reaching out a hand to the Preserver Captain, who couldn’t respond in time as his body was frozen by the sheer power of the roar. It touched his head, as lightly as one would touch a relic that was a million years old and looked like it could crumble to dust at any moment. It seemed like an insignificant touch, one that nearly seemed false in the minds of some. After all, she had merely roared. Where had the chained figure come from? How would it occur from such a free and outspoken person?
What could not be denied was the fact that the Preserver suddenly froze, his eyes widened to their absolute limit, and a look of indescribable shock appeared on his face. It was the third expression to finally appear, so it stood out even for the other Preservers.
However, none of them could know what he was seeing within his mind, what it was that had caused such a response, what it was that shook him to his very core and stopped his every thought. They couldn’t possibly imagine the vague chained figure suddenly appearing in its full splendour and vibrance, flooding one’s mind with a shock of every chain that bound it suddenly appearing in a state that went beyond the simple visual of countless connected metal links of an uncertain metal.
No, whatever name Wei Yi used for the chains didn’t change the fact that Law was not something that was as simple as a physical object in the world. Each chains did exist, and she could touch it, but it was merely a conceptual manifestation of a far more complex force that she could barely utilise to her benefit via the power of the Dao of Law. Without that, her vision of chains wouldn’t have been of any use, as she would not have had the ability to interact with the Laws that she imagined forming them, nor would they have been anything more than the symptom of an overactive mind with nothing better to do.
In that regard, all Dao were incredible in power. So long as one’s conclusions were sound, anything could be possible. Fire could be treated as water, Law could be Chaos, or Chaos could be the most straightforward form of Law. This didn’t make any portrayal any more true than another, of course, so even her perception of chains was merely one perspective, possibly a little more accurate than some.
Even then, when against a person that had not grasped Dao, that had not seen and conceptualised the chains, against someone that had not prepared their mind, her bound form was more than enough to allow the Invader’s Roar to display an effect that satisfied her fully. Simply showing some of the truth that she understood was enough to completely overwhelm a mind, and the best thing was that she didn’t actually reveal a single thing in the process. It all acted as a hard strike to the Preserver’s head, and the exact nature of the implement would be lost in his mind.
She was able to simply come forward, step by slow step, right up to him. With her index finger, she calmly tapped his forehead with very little force.
Had that been intended as a proper attack, it would have been less effective than tickling her foe, but all she needed to do now that Ru Shi couldn’t move or respond was do something to prove that she still could. In this situation, she couldn’t think of anything simpler than coming up to him, and pushing him over with a weak tap.
That’s all it took, for he had balanced himself poorly while using his abilities. A single tap was sufficient to displace the centre of gravity just far enough to cause him to slowly but surely lean back before dropping onto the ground like a sack of potatoes, his expression still unchanged.
“I’ll write up an exact explanation of what I had involved in that technique, so if any of you have any complaints, feel free to tell me after you’ve read through it,” she spoke to those that could still listen, stepping away and then out of the barrier while brushing back a stray strand of crimson hair, “I’d hate to needlessly repeat myself, after all. I’m sure the Captain wouldn’t like me to do so, either, although I can demonstrate it to any of you as well, if you’d like.”
There were no volunteers.
There were a few that remained without a sufficient passing rating, and one of them decided that it was worthless to stay once the option to leave was once more presented by Ru Shi.
The others remained, and continued to participate in the trials, with the third one being explained to them the moment that the one leaver got out of sight and too far away to hear anything that would be said. Whether this was meant to prevent the one that left from listening in, or to give a message to those that remained, was uncertain, but given the way in which some had suffered terrible defeats after only a few exchanges using some of their techniques, most were unwilling to risk stepping out of line.
“Deduction is exactly what it sounds like. You will be provided with a piece of information, whether it is physical or purely a set of words, and you will need to comprehend the rest of the information that is omitted so that you-” he suddenly turned and frowned, “You don’t need to say a thing.”
“… I hadn’t even begun.”
“Wei Yi, was it? Are you certain that you will not be satisfied with becoming an honorary member of the Preservers after two whole perfect passes?”
“I see no reason to not fully display what it is that I am able to do. Just because I have already understood half of what you’re planning to bring out is no reason for me to stop doing this kind of thing,” she replied, “Really, of all the districts and organisations to have an issue with comprehension and intelligence, the Ru District’s Preservers are the last that I would have expected to react like this.”
“There is a limit to reasonable knowledge and ability, and I am sure that the majority here would agree with that particular statement.”
“Not to begin a completely unnecessary argument, but common agreement and consensus does not indicate the correctness of a belief, statement, or anything else, for that matter. There are a lot of mistaken beliefs, a lot of history that was not kept the way that it should have been, and plenty of entities that exist beyond common understanding. Unfortunately for us, just because the majority are unaware of these things doesn’t mean that they will never appear before us,” the Ascendant said, “I’m sure the south has heard of certain northern things by now, right?”
“The Great Families, you mean? We have, and while only the Patriarch and the Preserver Commander are likely to know the truth about them, we have all made the effort to speak of them casually,” the Preserver Captain admitted, “However, this is not relevant to the ceremony.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll just write down everything and pass it to you later.”
She quickly conjured a killing will book and held it in her lone hand while the pages were filled with the knowledge that she had managed to obtain from the many things that the Preservers were intending to bring out for this test. Given that this was made of her mental energy, it was really easy to prevent anyone from being able to observe the contents if she didn’t want them to, so she made sure to prevent the other participants from peeking in.
When she had gone to hold the killing will book, she did notice that her hand had tensed and shut into a fist, which took some mental effort to open to grab the floating book instead.
Other than the odd fear of her mental capabilities, she had no particular reason so far to dislike the Preservers, and so she was going to do her best to display her abilities to them.
Whether that earned the attention of the Patriarch, the Preserver Commander, or some other figure entirely, she would still benefit from it so long as the Preservers were a group that they looked to be. Their knowledge might well be irreplaceable, and the general attitude of the Ru District was also a rather fortunate one, since simply accepting the existence of the Greats and not being afraid to mention them was a step up from some of the northern districts. Then again, since the last time she had travelled through the districts and spoke about the Greats, she had won against them a few times, and had even earned the ire of the first generation with her actions, managing to ward off one of their attacks.
So long as news of this were indeed spreading to the world, and were in any part the cause of the calm response of the Ru District, she could expect to see more such reactions in the future, which would be incredibly pleasant to see.
While the rest of the group properly participated in the ceremony, she sorted through the information that she had been able to acquire from the various pieces of damages documents, statues and strange slates with knowledge encrypted into them. Most of them were easy enough to decipher, mostly due to the knowledge that she already had, but a few required her to almost randomly guess at the possible conclusions that could be drawn from it.
Most were related to techniques, and so she managed to obtain a few more skills as a result of studying their materials, and those that weren’t instead detailed something about an event or physique, with the first being far more difficult to decipher than the second. Her mind held information about nearly every technique that existed in the minds of the people of the Yi District, as well as the Ning District, Luo District, Ping District, Chao District, Bai District, Jiang District and Lan District, and most recently, the Qiang District and Ru District. In other words, more than half of the districts had provided her with knowledge, and she didn’t struggle to put it to use.
On the other hand, things that happened long ago and didn’t catch the attention of the rest of the world, or her own back when she was scanning the local libraries, were more difficult to guess about. Oddly enough, it was one such sculpture, depicting an almost-cubical shape composed of several figures in strange poses, which gave her the most immediate benefits.
It seemed like it would be completely unrelated to her, instead portraying something that had occurred in the year 53,104, when the Ru District attempted to take back some territory that they had begun to lose to the wild, but it had a surprising relation to the Invader’s Roar. The poses depicted were oddly suitable for making use of a certain path that she had come up with for the technique, and what was even better was that she wouldn’t need to stick closely to them after understanding them. As the primary benefit was in the direction of energy and expulsion of it, so long as she understood what to do and why it worked, she could replicate it without moving whatsoever.
That was one of the many methods that she had accumulated during her life, benefitted to a certain extent by the techniques of Chu Ling, and so she might not even have to demonstrate the strange postures to anyone.
However, it was very likely that she would need to make use of this ability during the last step of the ceremony – the trials of the ceremony, at least – as it was focused on extrapolation. With the themes of the challenges so far, she would likely be required to use the knowledge from one of the other rounds in order to extrapolate something greater and either create a new technique outright, or simply combine them in an effective manner.
So long as she could be allowed to use her own methods, she could get to use the Invader’s Roar.
There would be a certain risk to the usage of a potentially powerful technique without any proper testing to verify its effects and strength, but she had enough confidence in her own abilities to risk such a thing. In the worst-case scenario, if she is unable to properly hold back her power like when the black sun grows too much, she should be able to prevent her target from suffering any long-term damage. Her healing abilities were inferior to her offensive power, but she was still able to allow for people to recover from all kinds of terrible wounds and types of damage.
If things still went poorly even with her own strength being used to the fullest, creating a quick five or six-star pill to enhance with her own cosmic energy was always an option, and one that she could complete rather quickly even if she was observed at all times. Her Antithesis method doesn’t require the use of a second hand, either, so the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow wouldn’t need to be used too much.
Returning onto the topic of the Invader’s Roar, her current idea for using as many of the principles contained within the book that she had obtained was rather simple. With a mass of her mental energy, killing will to be more specific, she would attack an enemy’s mind and soul – if that was even possible – with something akin to hitting a person with a hammer. Her intention was less to cause permanent damage, at least against foes that she did not want dead or suffering, but more to stun and confuse the enemy, preventing anything that they were currently planning from succeeding and scattering any planar constructs that they may have manifested.
There should be more to the technique, considering both the name and all of the concepts within it that she hadn’t yet explored and used, but finding any way to use it was good enough for now. From there, she could even break free of the technique and develop something greater.
That being said, it was hard to say whether the possible peak of the Invader’s Roar could be beaten easily. If it was capable of actively invading someone’s self, whether through the mind or the soul, not only could a great deal of information be obtained, but it could also permit the control of a person that is unable to defeat the technique. By using something like this against one of the first generation of the Greats, she might be able to obtain so much information that would otherwise require her to break into their Testament and investigate what it was that they had truly been getting up to.
Even if that was out of her reach, she could easily make use of their strength to greatly damage the plans of the Greats without expending any of her own hidden reserves. Just forcing one of them to use a cosmic method could cause an enormous explosion due to their inability to endure the cosmic energy and maintain it in a stable state.
“So, Wei Yi, you wished to display your abilities?” the Preserver Captain asked.
“Yes, so here is a book containing everything that I could gather from the things that you had intended to bring out. You still have five items that you haven’t brought out, so I mentioned them as well, but if I wasn’t meant to look at those, then… well, I won’t pretend to be able or willing to remove that stuff from my memory, so I’ll just promise not to share it if I can,” she replied to him, handing over the killing will tome, “You can read it with spiritual perception or sight, depending on your preference and the time you have.”
He did not reply immediately, instead opening the book and sending his spiritual perception into it at the same time. The latter was used to probe the latter portions of the book so that he could get through it a little more quickly.
“… You are mad, indeed. There appear to be no issues with that information at all, so we will move on. You receive a perfect passing grade yet again,” the Preserver said, passing the book along to one of the other Preservers, “If you do not object, we will keep this for informing those that have already joined the Preservers, as there is an enormous amount of information here that has not been… easily accessible to most of us.”
“Does that mean that you didn’t know about it?”
“I meant what I said. Everything appears to be in order here, so we shall proceed onto the fourth and final part of the entrance ceremony with the final step, extrapolation. The core is to make use of what we have provided to you so far, combined with any knowledge that you might already possess, to create a new or significantly modified method based on those factors.”
He took one of the scraps from a page that had been presented during the third trial and held it in one hand while the other partly closed. The next moment, just as some could see being described on the remaining portion of the page in his right hand, the left flooded with a green glow that looked perfectly ordinary, yet incredibly unnatural and odd to behold. It was almost horrifying, for some reason, and many averted their eyes whereas a few, the Ascendant included, paid attention to the green light even more and carefully considered how it related to the text present on the scrap of paper.
Given the information that Wei Yi had already pulled out of the scrap, she didn’t need to spend much effort to understand the nature of the green light – the Lamp of Decay. It was something that likely had otherworldly roots, as it was partially based on the nature of the radiation that was prevalent within their world. Most of the true danger of it was worn away, and what remained was a very curious ability that couldn’t be blocked by anything, giving it the ability to eat any barrier and any defence. The only problem was that the speed of decay would slow down the stronger the foe’s defence was, and so it could take decades to consume something that was at the peak of the ninth realm, for example.
This didn’t usually come up as a problem, and was still better than being entirely unable to breach such a barrier, but it did mean that it wasn’t a technique she needed to bother with practising personally.
Instead, taking out the Laws that allowed it to act in such a fashion and shifting it to another technique of greater offensive potential would be of far greater benefit to her. Something like Obliteration would benefit greatly from it, and she could always merge the base principles far more easily into that amalgamation so long as she could utilise the technique itself. Fortunately, this display was more than enough to fill in anything that she might have misunderstood.
“You don’t need to create anything exceptional in nature. The key of this challenge is not to overcome limits, but to utilise principles in the most effective manner, just as with the second trial. For this reason, the fourth part of the ceremony is a battle between the competitors. These will be selected for you, and will be decided based on what you have been provided with so far. Wei Yi will fight the odd one out,” Ru Shi decided, ignoring the uncaring shrug from her, “It would be unreasonable to ask most of you to go beyond that, but, of course, you may attempt to study something else and use that in combat. You must, however, make it very clear that this is what you intend to do, or else the battle will not proceed as necessary.”
The reasoning behind this arrangement was rather obvious. In order to have a proper contest with so many different skills in play, they would need to match those with similar abilities against one another, so that their knowledge and usage of those techniques alone would decide the fight, just as with the duel of Starry Torrents. Only by a proper competition could talent be assessed.
Thus, the skills and pieces of information that would be pitted against one another will be ones that can properly compete with one another, then the abilities of those competing will be tested in the most proper manner. The one that is able to make full use of a unique property that they have, or perhaps a unique property that their opponent is unable to utilise due to their differences, will be the victor, and if they somehow turn around a situation where their skill has certain weaknesses in comparison to that of their opponent and still win easily, it will be clear that they have an excellent understanding of what they are doing.
Fortunately, these kinds of tests weren’t too biased in favour of those with stronger energy, or else she might be instantly disqualified from this one as well. When it came to using a new technique, trying to apply too much force was likely to be more damaging than deliberately weakening one’s energy. The first to attempt to use a realm difference to win would likely suffer a far greater defeat than if they went against a more informed opponent.
If this kind of thing had been used back in the Yi District to distinguish the talented from the less-so, Wei Yi may never have come to be, and a Yi Wei might have been actively training in the Yi District at this very moment.
Perhaps the Greats wouldn’t have bothered had she been progressing down a more normal route, given that they had avoided killing her when they had killed her parents. She couldn’t be sure why they had acted the way they had at the time, but there must have been something that dissuaded them from attacking at the time. This was not something that would ever make her reconsider her perspective on them, as no matter what reason they might have had for leaving her alone at first, they did attack her and everyone close to her in the end.
She couldn’t help but think about this while the Preservers were going about explaining the last quarter of the trials. There wasn’t much that she needed to learn, as she already had her technique prepared and ready to be tested against whoever was put against her, so all that she bothered to actively pay attention to was that announcement.
“Wei Yi shall compete against Chao Jin, since they are the last ones left.”
“Our techniques don’t match up whatsoever, you do know that, right?” she asked right away, “Are you just trying to give me a hard time by forcing me to combat someone that I have helped, thinking that I’d hold back? I am very capable of inflicting harm on anyone, especially when I can also heal them with incredible ease. Actually, I would probably do more harm than someone without that knowledge or ability.”
“What would you do instead, then? Oppose someone at my realm, someone that has had the time to practise all of these methods a dozen times over, while forcing her to do the same?”
“Yes, I would. Your realm is insignificant, your knowledge is not necessarily that which matters most, and there is nothing to say that a woman who has recently entered the fourth realm couldn’t best someone who had been there for decades.”
Chao Jin’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything for fear of interrupting two powerful experts.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I don’t know what your techniques are, Preserver Ru Shi. I have not studied them, and I have been unable to find any mention of their full abilities beside rumours. Perhaps you are able to take every single scrap of information that you have learned and convert it directly into power, but none of these pieces of information contain even a bit of that technique. You won’t be able to make use of it to flip the battle in your favour regardless of your own ability,” she said, gesturing with her lone hand, “Thus, it becomes a fight of quality, not quantity. I may have gotten to read this stuff only a little while ago, but I believe I excel in quality.”
He looked at her with his usual still face for several moments that seemed to stretch out further with each one that passed, until he suddenly raised his head in a laugh that shifted his gaze to the skies. For a whole minute, he laughed loudly and with such a display of emotion that it made one question whether his previous calm stance was even real. It was hard to match those two extremes of emotion – and lack thereof – but once his head lowered with an audible crack, it was clear his face was the same.
“I have a great deal of pride in my faction, and for you to say that a twenty-year-old woman-”
“I’m forty.”
“- could know more than someone who has dedicated a whole fifty years to study, so let’s test that, shall we?”
Unlike last time, he did not decide to wait and see things play out with the other candidates, instead heading straight into the barrier and reinforcing it the moment that she had gone in as well. He did not explain what he would use, nor did he attempt to instruct her in what she was permitted to use, although that hardly needed mentioning.
If there was to be any point to this test, it would require her to only use what she obtained from the ceremony, and for the Preserver to do the same, although the things they spoke about implied that he might not limit himself to just that. Something like the usage of fifty years of study at once would instantly prompt her to change her approach as well, and it wouldn’t be very reasonable for him to attempt this. Whatever knowledge-based methods he had would be difficult to use against the absolute nature of Obliteration and the like, and she would only need a brief passing thought to understand his actions before he could even commit to them.
They looked at one another for a little while in silence, as they had nobody to declare the beginning of the fight. It wasn’t necessary, in their case, as either one could begin and either one would finish, at least in their minds. Ru Shi thought he would win, Wei Yi knew that she would.
Ultimately, the Preserver acted first, and he began with a technique that resembled the flowing words on a page, scribbled by a steady and poetic hand. He attempted to weave those words around her, with a few other planar constructs manifesting all around him, clearly using as much of the knowledge contained within the texts provided to them as possible, possibly drawing a little too much of his own understanding into the mixture.
Since he wasn’t holding back, the Ascendant saw no reason to hold back either, and simply took a powerful step forward as she opened her mouth and drew upon the power of the Lion’s Roar.
From her mouth, a strange sound burst out, shacking the ground and forcing the people outside the barrier to step back, as the force managed to penetrate it while being contained inside. The sound took form before them, a huge, chained form surging out of the air and reaching out a hand to the Preserver Captain, who couldn’t respond in time as his body was frozen by the sheer power of the roar. It touched his head, as lightly as one would touch a relic that was a million years old and looked like it could crumble to dust at any moment. It seemed like an insignificant touch, one that nearly seemed false in the minds of some. After all, she had merely roared. Where had the chained figure come from? How would it occur from such a free and outspoken person?
What could not be denied was the fact that the Preserver suddenly froze, his eyes widened to their absolute limit, and a look of indescribable shock appeared on his face. It was the third expression to finally appear, so it stood out even for the other Preservers.
However, none of them could know what he was seeing within his mind, what it was that had caused such a response, what it was that shook him to his very core and stopped his every thought. They couldn’t possibly imagine the vague chained figure suddenly appearing in its full splendour and vibrance, flooding one’s mind with a shock of every chain that bound it suddenly appearing in a state that went beyond the simple visual of countless connected metal links of an uncertain metal.
No, whatever name Wei Yi used for the chains didn’t change the fact that Law was not something that was as simple as a physical object in the world. Each chains did exist, and she could touch it, but it was merely a conceptual manifestation of a far more complex force that she could barely utilise to her benefit via the power of the Dao of Law. Without that, her vision of chains wouldn’t have been of any use, as she would not have had the ability to interact with the Laws that she imagined forming them, nor would they have been anything more than the symptom of an overactive mind with nothing better to do.
In that regard, all Dao were incredible in power. So long as one’s conclusions were sound, anything could be possible. Fire could be treated as water, Law could be Chaos, or Chaos could be the most straightforward form of Law. This didn’t make any portrayal any more true than another, of course, so even her perception of chains was merely one perspective, possibly a little more accurate than some.
Even then, when against a person that had not grasped Dao, that had not seen and conceptualised the chains, against someone that had not prepared their mind, her bound form was more than enough to allow the Invader’s Roar to display an effect that satisfied her fully. Simply showing some of the truth that she understood was enough to completely overwhelm a mind, and the best thing was that she didn’t actually reveal a single thing in the process. It all acted as a hard strike to the Preserver’s head, and the exact nature of the implement would be lost in his mind.
She was able to simply come forward, step by slow step, right up to him. With her index finger, she calmly tapped his forehead with very little force.
Had that been intended as a proper attack, it would have been less effective than tickling her foe, but all she needed to do now that Ru Shi couldn’t move or respond was do something to prove that she still could. In this situation, she couldn’t think of anything simpler than coming up to him, and pushing him over with a weak tap.
That’s all it took, for he had balanced himself poorly while using his abilities. A single tap was sufficient to displace the centre of gravity just far enough to cause him to slowly but surely lean back before dropping onto the ground like a sack of potatoes, his expression still unchanged.
“I’ll write up an exact explanation of what I had involved in that technique, so if any of you have any complaints, feel free to tell me after you’ve read through it,” she spoke to those that could still listen, stepping away and then out of the barrier while brushing back a stray strand of crimson hair, “I’d hate to needlessly repeat myself, after all. I’m sure the Captain wouldn’t like me to do so, either, although I can demonstrate it to any of you as well, if you’d like.”
There were no volunteers.
