Deep in one of Mordred’s underground rooms, flashes of purple lights condensed, split, and collided with each other, producing smaller specks of multicolored lights in greater numbers. Each purple light is a telepathic thought formed from a wisdom-path soul art, [Surging Thoughts of Limitless Soul] which is separated into seven ranks, from the lowest rank 0 soul art, into its most powerful version rank 6.
Its main use was to replenish thoughts during intense battles, but its uses were not limited to combat. Unfortunately, despite having a good soul essence-to-telepathic thought conversion rate, Mordred could not rely on it in exchange for thought processes supported by a true physical body. The recovery rate of soul essence simply could not keep up with his intense thought expenditure.
The activation of [Surging Thoughts of Limitless Soul] was only possible due to his slightly better soul foundation. Previously, his foundation was too weak to perform this particular soul art, despite being limited to activating it once or twice.
According to Mordred’s wisdom-path attainment, these purple telepathic thoughts are called soul thought. Its function was like a thought-clone of the creator’s soul; it has no specialized function other than imitating the thought process of the origin. After each soul thoughts collide, they could produce other types of thoughts such as malicious thoughts, deduction thoughts, combat thoughts, refinement thoughts, and many others.
As of now, the most numerous types of thoughts after soul thoughts collided were orange telepathic thoughts called refinement thoughts. Refinement thoughts are specialized for refinement activities; it has a bad expenditure rate if it wasn’t used in refinement.
With more and more orange telepathic thoughts being accumulated, Mordred gauged whether it was ready or not. After a few moments, the telepathic thought accumulated sufficiently, and he began his preparation.
His boney palm grasps a small and rusty iron sword made for Kobold, weighing around two kilograms.
Mordred’s orange telepathic thoughts condensed into spiritual runes. The runes were small, but it was connected through lines of spiritual force.
Originally, Mordred’s spiritual force quality wasn’t that powerful to form a refinement spell formation since his mind runes were less than 40. His spiritual force has yet to reach a qualitative change to interact with material objects, but the orange spiritual runes were supported by purple lines of soulforce. Through the combination of both spiritual force and soulforce, it no longer becomes a spell formation, but a [Killer Move] combined from soul art and magic spell.
“Rank 0 sound-path killer move, [Micro-Soundfield Forge].”
It is a sound-path method that produces the effect of refinement-path.
The runes were two-layered, the first one produced an invisible force field that envelopes the rusty iron sword while the second one turned into a heavy bass soundwave. The soundwave was enclosed within the soundfield; it was unable to spread into the environment. The soundfield acts as an amplifier, each time the soundwaves saturated the soundfield, it received an amplification effect.
Once, twice, twelve times, hundreds of times, the reflected soundwave began powerful enough to oscillate the sword, shaving off some rusts from the main body. Boom! Boom! Boom! The soundwave was slowly becoming so powerful that it sounded like a giant’s stomping the ground multiple times in succession, but it was contained within the enclosed soundfield.
The sheer frequency grinds impurity such as rusts to fine clouds of dust while separating the somewhat pure iron of the sword from other constituents. As the resonance of the enclosed soundfield accumulates sufficiently, the vibration inside ignites the air. Amplifying the vibration to provide heat, it was now possible to start working on the metal. Manipulating the soundfield, Mordred punctured a set of holes, one above and one below which allows compressed airflow to enter and exit the soundfield.
With a newfound source of fuel to burn, the flame becomes something akin to Jet stream, heating the metal iron sword to a high degree. As the refinement continued, the rust and other impurities were exhausted from the soundfield. The sword no longer looks like a sword, but a small piece of hot metal. The sheer frequency of the vibration plus the heat up softens the metal until it becomes something akin to wet clay.
“That’s the first… now the second…” Mordred inserted another rusty iron sword into the mix, repeating the same procedure.
Once, twice, twelve times, and Mordred eventually stopped after melting 69 iron swords.
Mordred’s mana aperture at this point has been completely exhausted since his mana capacity had never increased even after his intense spiritual cultivation since it requires different resources. He switched to purely relying on soul arts at this point.
“The main ingredient is common rank 0 metal-path resource: mortal iron. Thankfully, the kobold’s inventory had enough iron swords to refine mortal steel.”
In the center of the soundfield, a human head-sized molten steel floats as a stream of compressed air cools it down rapidly. His thoughts gathered, collided, and formed another set of orange telepathic thoughts for another round.
“Shatter!” Mordred focused on the steel as the soundfield oscillated crazily, removing any impurity to turn it into perfect-purity mortal steel, cooling it down rapidly and slowly turning the molten steel into mortal steel dust!
In his previous life, despite being known as Sovereign of Magic, his core objective was to pursue lightning-path and refinement-path attainment! That being the case, his refinement-path attainment was quasi-transcendental!
Melt mortal iron from swords through vibration and heat, then refine mortal steel was merely a process to refine perfect-purity steel dust! It was his goal all along!
Seeing the white metal powder, Mordred sighed inwardly as half of his objective had been achieved. “Kasumi, it's time!” The moment he finished muttering, a brown slime came out of his lower abdomen, slithering rapidly towards the soundfield.
Kasumi has been prepared for evolution, Mordred has used more than a week of deductions for this occasion. Within her core, Mordred’s magus will consume itself to produce refinement thoughts to support the refinement process.
Like Mordred, Kasumi had been cultivating in Magus Mind Runes while condensing mana pool on her own during free time, despite the slow progress. It was only possible due to Mordred injecting his magus will into Kasumi’s sea of consciousness periodically, otherwise, even the smartest slime could not cultivate in magus mind runes by itself.
Kasumi was an entity Mordred had prepared to become his weapon. Since slime is a magical creature, every slime possessed an innate ability to condense mana pools, despite being extremely slow.
His focus laid in her core as a slime’s core could be referred to as its brain, but it was a complex organ of both brain and mana pool combined. Without a core, slime could not have thoughts nor move like a single-celled organism. Its soul was bound on the core as the center, while its acidic body has less connection with the soul.
The moment Kasumi entered a new soundfield different from the first, she was exposed to the heavy hum of soundwave as it reflected against the invisible soundfield, whose frequency received amplification every iteration. With each passing moment, Kasumi’s core receives saturation damage.
To protect from the intense damage, Kasumi condenses her body to the fullest, turning her liquid body into a dense fluid. Mordred’s understanding of hydrodynamics played a significant role in this process.
Or following the terms of cultivation, his water-path attainment made this possible.
The dense liquid that made up Kasumi’s body turned into something like a jelly that could handle vibration damage very well. The heavy vibration that could vaporize water and refine iron into steel merely shook the jelly.
Kasumi seems to be immune from vibration damage, but Mordred attunes the oscillation frequency so that the jelly-like substance was condensing further, like being put inside a pressure cooking pot that becomes heavier and denser every second.
Up to this point, Kasumi’s acid body had condensed to one-tenth of its original size, fractures are starting to appear on her core.
At this time, a white soul formation manifests on her core. “Rank 0 sound-path killer move, [Metallic Instrument Body Transformation]!” The chanting came out from Kasumi’s core, but it sounded like Mordred’s voice. His will inside Kasumi’s sea of consciousness activates a sound-path method that replicates the profundity of transformation-path!
At the same time, Mordred’s skeletal arm that maintained the enclosed soundfields claps together, joining the two separate soundfields into one. The moment the oscillating mortal steel powder made contact with Kasumi’s jelly-like body, she began evaporating most of her water content. The vapor of Kasumi’s impurity was so dense that it began filling up the sound field.
Mordred manipulates the sound field to exhaust the brown vapor, while he coordinates with his will inside Kasumi’s sea of consciousness to integrate the metallic powder into her being. The process was difficult as he needed to ensure Kasumi’s acidic body maintained its fluidity but was enriched with perfect-purity steel powder to increase her toughness.
As the steel powder started to be integrated by Kasumi, she lost her brown color while slowly turning into a white metallic jelly of steel.
“Successful!” He muttered exhaustedly.
The process took most of his energy resources, but it was worth it. There was a high chance of Kasumi’s core being destroyed in the process, which he has to replace with his soul phylactery, but that would lead to complications in the short run. Mordred was not ready to split his soul yet, since it would weaken his barely recovered soul.
Turning Kasumi into liquid steel slime has more benefits than loss. Despite the loss of her ability to consume most biological matter like a typical slime, her innate metal devouring capability heightened significantly. Furthermore, slimes are a natural transformation-path lifeform, capable of using transformation methods as an innate ability like breathing to a human.
With Kasumi evolved into steel slime, Mordred’s options would be greatly expanded such as turning her into myriad weapons or supportive artifacts as he added more exotic metal-path resources in her body.
“Katana!” Mordred’s magus within Kasumi’s sea of consciousness churned, transforming her liquid steel body into a curved steel katana 1.69-meter long. The transformation from a slime into a weapon took less than two seconds. Her volume could change according to his needs while compromising her durability, but her weight stays 100 kilograms of steel, too heavy for the current Mordred to use her as light weapons, but it didn’t stop him to find his limits.
“Bow! Halberd! Buckler! Tower Shield!” He transformed Kasumi into eighteen different weapon types until he almost exhausted his magus will within Kasumi. “Return!” Kasumi slithered back into enveloping his mana aperture. Because it was too heavy for her to stay in one spot, Kasumi spread it all over his body like a layer of steel flesh to balance his center of gravity.
Through the synchronization of his body and magus' will within Kasumi’s sea of consciousness, it was possible to utilize her as a replacement of muscle made out of flesh and blood, increasing his physical ability greatly. The offset is, the thought expenditure was a little bit higher than usual during movement due to magus will that manipulate Kasumi’s movement is made up of numerous Mordred’s magus thoughts interweaving with each other.
After recovering until he’s capable of using [Interface System], Mordred examined her attributes.
Attribute Statistics
Name: Kasumi
Race: Mortal Steel Slime
Occupation: N/A
Rank: 0
Physical Attribute
Strength : 2.4
Endurance: 3.6
Agility: 1.3
Flexibility: 1.7
Perception: 0.4
Reaction: 0.6
Weight: 100 Kilograms
Energy Attribute
Spiritual Force Development Quotient: 2%
Magus Mind Runes: 21
Spiritual Force: 0.1/2.1
Mana Pool: 1/11
Extra
Current Effect: [Interface System], [Wisdom Amplification: Magus Will]
“The first stage of [Autonomous Satellite Armament] is complete.” Mordred muttered to himself. Every refiner worth their salt knows using one type of metal for their weapon is not a good idea, since alloys possess some properties that pure metal does not possess. Of course, he already had plans regarding Kasumi in the future.
“I need to recuperate, and then assimilate Seism Iron and several other precious materials into her for early-stage magitek transformation function.” Mordred rested briefly and went out of his chamber to manage his minions while recovering his exhausted mana aperture and soul essence naturally.
As Mordred exited his chamber, he could see hundreds of kobold scurrying about the underground hall, doing their tasks. After knowing the condition of Thunderpeak mountain, he revised his plans to develop on the surface world. Mordred was quite lucky because he had resurrected during the thunderstorm’s downtime, where no storms would occur for 1 to 2 weeks.
Four days after he subjugated the kobold, the rain started to fall on the mountain all day long. Today was the 7th day since the heavy downpour started and the storms never stopped even once. The thunderstorms were accompanied by relentless lightning strikes which could wound if not kill any kobold that wandered too close to the peak.
Mordred ensures he would never leave the safety of his cave since lightning strikes are extremely lethal to ghosts or souls like him. Lightning contains a type of energy that would annihilate any ghost and naked soul without a physical body.
To minimize the chances of a stray lightning strike ending his fate, he recalled all his minions and developed the abandoned mine. Of course, it only happens after the kobold has successfully constructed an underground pasture.
Although it was called a pasture, it was merely rooms of empty animal pens, designed to hold a large amount of animals. After the construction of the pasture was complete, Mordred tasked his minions to fill them in with animals. The kobolds were mobilized for this due to their nimble feet and their relative intelligence higher than the goblins.
Be it rabbit, deer, birds, chicken, anything that lives on the surface was captured while slimes, bats, rats, and other insects native to the cave are also gathered and stored in their specific cage or fenced area.
Some of the kobolds and goblins foolishly thought the living animal was captured so they could enjoy a fresh meal. When Mordred saw them failing the specific task that he had told them, that group of goblins and kobolds were turned into a fresh meal for the others. The next day, nobody kills the animal captured in the pens without his permission.
Grem saw Mordred exited his chamber to appreciate the animal pens. He decided to approach him for a report. “Lord Nyx! I have great news to report.” His small hurried steps were agile. In no time, he had reached Mordred.
“Proceed.”
Grem was given the responsibility of managing the overall operation of every job due to his experience in managing his kin is higher than Ymir, therefore he has to report their progress once in a while.
“Affirmative!” After Grem pledged his loyalty to Mordred, he had arranged his minions into various jobs ranging from forager, farmers, scouts, miners, builders, soldiers, and hunters. Due to his position, Grem received specialized training from Mordred, thus military discipline has started to be branded on his character.
“Last night, the two forager teams returned with many berries and, according to my lord’s descriptions, orange-colored ‘root vegetables’?” he questioned himself, “One forager returned wounded due to his lack of vigilance, but after recovering for a day, he will be fine. This morning, two teams of forager also went out…” he continued his report.
Foragers are responsible for exploring the surface, gathering wild-grown foods, and if possible, bringing back animals. Newfound edibles would be examined by Mordred to be determined whether it can be farmed underground or not, while animals would be put inside pastures for breeding. There are no goblin foragers due to their lack of self-control the moment they saw meat in the absence of Mordred.
“You found carrots? Excellent. Store them in cold areas. After I find methods of farming them underground, I will give you further instructions.”
“Yes, my lord. The farmers have successfully dug an ‘irrigation channel’ according to your orders. I am not quite sure what to do with them, but water is flowing inside now.”
Farmers are tasked to take care of the farm and pastures. Underground farming is difficult due to the lack of light, but some plants like brown moss and cave mushrooms only needed moisture and fertilized soil to thrive. With so much manure from livestock, kobolds, goblins and the addition of small streams of water from the surface, Mordred started an experimental moss & mushroom farm.
Of course, since kobold’s and goblin’s diet mostly contain meat, their consumption of mushroom and moss is less than the rate he was comfortable with, but the plants can be used to feed the underground livestock.
“It’s alright, you just need to report and convey my orders. What about the animals in the pastures, any problem with them?
“Yes. Most of the livestock were under heavy stress and refused to eat. Only chicken, cave rats, and rabbits lived long after they were taken underground.”
“Hmm, Increase the priority of these three animals. Other animals the foragers gathered on the surface can be eaten the same day unless these three animals. Do not consume more than expected, follow the daily allocation that I have arranged previously.” Mordred ordered, then continued to hear Grem’s report.
“Roger!” He nodded vigorously. Food was always a good thing, and meat was Kobold’s main diet, so he has no complaints whatsoever to his arrangement.
“Next, the scouts have found out the wild beast’s arrangement in this area.”
Scouts were kobolds with relatively higher perception and agility attributes tasked to gather information. Mordred did not like putting precious kobolds in this dangerous job, but his options were limited to either kobold or goblin. Since goblins are… near useless except in the presence of Mordred, he chooses dozens of kobolds as scouts. The result was subpar at best, but it was absolutely better than nothing.
“We found Bluewing Spark Dragonfly in the southeast, then…” Grem reported the details while Mordred listened attentively. “That’s about all of them.”
“The scouts are too inefficient, but those are not your fault. Keep looking out for any wild beast intruding our area.”
“Yes, my lord!” He proceeds with the next part of his report. “The miners that you tasked to prospect the mine have found an underground river. They are happy after finding one of the three things you wanted to find.”
The miners were equipped with metallic tools re-forged by Mordred from iron swords. Mordred has little faith in them due to the lack of expertise, but Grem actually brought a team of miners out of Magnur city. He put them inside the miner teams and it produced results, to his surprise.
He had deduced that there must be an underwater lake, but he didn’t think the miners would find them this quickly. “Excellent work. Reward every miner with meat for their contributions. Spare no expense to motivate them further.”
Mordred was extremely pleased with their performance and wanted them to increase their efforts in finding the magnetic storm ore. The faster they found it, the faster Mordred could refine a magitek reactor for him and Kasumi’s transformation. Giving off meat despite its scarcity was a method to motivate them.
“Tell them, if they found the two other things, they can eat all the meat they fit in their belly for a week.”
“They would be pleased, my lord.” Grem expressed his emotion without holding back. He was skeptical about being Mordred’s underling at first, but now he experienced a sense of accomplishment even greater than his time in Magnur city combined. Grem’s uncaring nature to his kinsmen has started to fade away while a sense of belonging has started to bloom in his heart.
Grem had underestimated his clansmen. Seeing the things that they could do after leading them properly made him realize the power of many hands are greater than his own hands, and the impact was greater since he was stronger than all of them.
It might seem like Grem is a dim kobold, but that was to be expected from a clan that sold their kin as cannon fodders. Life of a kobold is cheap, especially those that did not possess bloodline talent, or any talent whatsoever. Mordred wanted Grem to develop a sense of belonging and appreciation towards his race, and he learned it step by step.
“I have yet to formulate arrangements on the underground river. Continue on my standing orders, keep them healthy.”
“Yes, my lord.” Nodded while inwardly smiling. Grem thought that, if the kobold generals of Magnur city were as half as smart and powerful as Nyx, the kobold race would’ve replaced the Duergar already. Unfortunately, hope and desire mean nothing if you’re weak.
“Next, about the soldiers. Since my lord took the same number of kobolds for training, the goblins started to act hostile with us. Last night, two kobold soldiers were injured due to a brawl. My lord, I beg you to address our grievance.”
The role of soldiers was to defend his cave systematically from other races. After incorporating the kobold, some of the goblins felt their superior position was invaded by the small reptiles. Therefore, the bullying did not lessen but escalated. They are just getting better at hiding it from Mordred’s ears.
Fortunately, Grem has started to put more attention to his kin, not letting them be bullied without a fight. He started asking questions towards the bullied kobold to report them to Mordred.
“It’s only natural.” Mordred muttered, “They felt that your kin has started to gain power in my eyes. They don’t like it and want to suppress you further. You don’t have to worry too much about them, just endure it. I’ll allow the kobold to fight back, as long as nobody dies. The goblins need competition to motivate them further. Kobold soldiers should never walk alone, it’s best if they stay with their squad mates to increase cooperation.”
Goblins were treated as pests due to their tendency towards chaos. However, they were a lifeform of order just like most if not all inhabitants of Morgen world. The reason why they act like this was due to their lack of civilization and low intellect. Still, as long as Mordred was stuck with the goblins, he had to handle them since every soul is a precious resource.
Instead of teaching the goblin how to behave, Mordred tweaked the rules to allow ‘competition’. Of course, the kobold would be defeated mercilessly, but through experience and cooperation, if they could overcome the goblins, then that would be the best result. No motivation beats the desire to protect someone they loved the most, Mordred will have to ensure the kobolds stay united under Grem.
“I… got it. Thank you, my lord.”
“It’s alright,” Mordred answered lightheartedly. Unlike his original motivation in harvesting negative telepathic emotion, he was more interested in building a city. As soon as the kobold found a sizable magnetic storm ore vein, he could start his preparation of refining some core magitek artifact that could aid in producing thoughts, so his treatment for the two races have started to change.
There was no need for mental oppression and grooming hate if treating them with justice and through orderly job allocation could bring more benefit in the long run. He had simply lost the need to farm negative emotion with the discovery of magnetic storm ore. The external pressure of being hunted by the kobold no longer exists, he can accumulate more thoughts through meditation, which is significantly slower than negative emotion conversion but does not concoct hatred from his minions.
Of course, more soul essence to feed his still-recovering soul was better, but in the long run, grooming them and letting them die naturally bring more benefit. Besides, the gods would notice if there was an unusually large area with 100% intellectual soul dissipation rates. The god of death in River Styx would notify the other divines about the anomaly, and sooner or later, waves of unending crusades followed. It’s in his best interest not to rush things related to souls.
“Then, for the last report, the hunters have trained according to your arrangement…” Grem reported.
Hunters, an occupation that imitates humanity’s beast hunter.
Morgen world was filled to the brim with life, and most of them are not friendly. Despite the existence of powerful cultivators, more than 80% continental surface was inhabitable due to beasts roaming freely. It wasn’t a choice for minor races like kobold or goblin to live mostly underground, or higher intellectual races living behind walled cities, it was a need to survive.
To cleanse these wild beasts from intruding the relatively small living space, there has to be a specialized group of people hunting these beasts. Soldiers are one of the myriad solutions for this particular problem, but some beasts become even more problematic when fought with too many numbers. Besides, wild beasts came in all sorts of shapes and sizes and bizarre abilities that identifying and learning how to hunt them efficiently had become a profound topic.
Therefore, humanity invented the occupation known as beast hunter. There are various disciplines of beast hunters such as the main combatant, research personnel, logistics personnel, and even dismantlers specialized in processing the beast's carcass to fulfill various needs.
Of course, the kobolds under Mordred’s rule were not trained sufficiently, so there were only two types of hunters employed, which is the combat personnel and the retrieving team specialized to bring back the beast’s carcass.
The absence of other roles was filled with Mordred temporarily until kobold hunters are knowledgeable enough to take care of things by themselves. That being the case, Mordred was prepared to hear one or two hunters die or be permanently crippled after every hunt, because hunters have the highest mortality rate of all occupations, but boast the most powerful combat ability and the most resource allocation.
“Are the hunters ready to hunt the Twin-Horned Mountain Goat?” Mordred asked in delight.
The Twin-Horned Mountain Goat lives relatively higher in altitude of his cave. Due to the special property of Thunderpeak mountain of unrelenting lightning storms, the beasts that live on high altitude have adapted to the environment.
Despite never seeing the beast in his previous life, it wasn’t hard for Mordred to deduct the useful materials that could be harvested from it. It wasn’t because Mordred wasn’t educated enough, but there are simply too many types of beasts that exist in Morgen world. Sometimes, a species of a beast that looks familiar with each other has different capabilities due to the path of evolution they took. Powerful beasts evolve to have a specialized method of survival, while weaker ones evolve to imitate strong beasts for intimidation or camouflage.
It was that simple and complicated at the same time.
That being the case, Mordred deduced that its fur has good resistance for lightning that allows them to survive a glancing hit after lightning struck them. Their penis could be refined into an alchemical product that increases one’s libido, though it was merely a wild deduction.
But of course, it’s most precious part wasn’t its fur nor its penis. The Twin-Horned Mountain Goat’s main method of survival on high altitude of Thunderpeak mountain is their horn’s ability to attract, store, and release high-voltage electricity. Due to the horn, they were difficult to capture or kill, but once a Twin-Horned Mountain Goat had been hunted, it was an accomplishment that was worth celebrating!
Mordred led Grem to hunter’s hall, which is just an underground room cleaned for hunters’ needs. Inside, he saw dozens of hunter-in-training appraising a real-life portrait of Twin-Horned Mountain Goat while discussing things in their reptilian tongue.
“Magnificent beast, isn’t it?” Mordred appraises his painting. The beast was huge when compared to kobolds. Standing 2-meter tall from the ground and having a length of almost 3 meters, it was a complete monster when a group of 1-meter tall kobolds appraised it closely. The most menacing part of the beast’ picture was the twin blade-like curved spiral horns on top of its head that gave off a menacing aura.
“Yes, my lord.” Grem agreed instantly. “We have trained with Vice-Captain Kor for the last few days according to your instruction, my kin are excited to fight with the beast.”
“Hahaha.” Mordred released a light chuckle, “You do realize that the picture I’ve drawn was… a young Twin-Horned Mountain Beast? The adult ones are equivalent to late-stage rank 0 martial cultivators, with its physical body equal, if not stronger than a rank 1 martial cultivator? If we found an old beast, it would be equal to a rank 1 martial cultivator that is even stronger than duergar cultivators…”
The fires of excitement within Grem’s amber eyes fade as if he was washed by a bucket of icy cold water.
“Of course, that way, it would be more interesting, right?” Mordred seems to smile, “Their resistance towards sound-path method is robust, it would be hard for me to support you with my spells… but I needed their horns!”
With a resolute tone, he ordered the hunters present, “We are hunting Twin-Horned Mountain Goat in a few days; it’ll be a good way to gauge how far you have trained and how much I have recovered. Rest sufficiently and prepare the equipment.”
The hunters-in-training was shocked by Mordred’s sudden announcement, but then it was replaced by excitement. Hunting beasts was something amazing even in Magnur city, every hunter was showered with respect and glory. “YES, MY LORD!!!” the hunters answered on top of their lungs, following the doctrine Mordred had drilled to them.
Deep in one of Mordred’s underground rooms, flashes of purple lights condensed, split, and collided with each other, producing smaller specks of multicolored lights in greater numbers. Each purple light is a telepathic thought formed from a wisdom-path soul art, [Surging Thoughts of Limitless Soul] which is separated into seven ranks, from the lowest rank 0 soul art, into its most powerful version rank 6.
Its main use was to replenish thoughts during intense battles, but its uses were not limited to combat. Unfortunately, despite having a good soul essence-to-telepathic thought conversion rate, Mordred could not rely on it in exchange for thought processes supported by a true physical body. The recovery rate of soul essence simply could not keep up with his intense thought expenditure.
The activation of [Surging Thoughts of Limitless Soul] was only possible due to his slightly better soul foundation. Previously, his foundation was too weak to perform this particular soul art, despite being limited to activating it once or twice.
According to Mordred’s wisdom-path attainment, these purple telepathic thoughts are called soul thought. Its function was like a thought-clone of the creator’s soul; it has no specialized function other than imitating the thought process of the origin. After each soul thoughts collide, they could produce other types of thoughts such as malicious thoughts, deduction thoughts, combat thoughts, refinement thoughts, and many others.
As of now, the most numerous types of thoughts after soul thoughts collided were orange telepathic thoughts called refinement thoughts. Refinement thoughts are specialized for refinement activities; it has a bad expenditure rate if it wasn’t used in refinement.
With more and more orange telepathic thoughts being accumulated, Mordred gauged whether it was ready or not. After a few moments, the telepathic thought accumulated sufficiently, and he began his preparation.
His boney palm grasps a small and rusty iron sword made for Kobold, weighing around two kilograms.
Mordred’s orange telepathic thoughts condensed into spiritual runes. The runes were small, but it was connected through lines of spiritual force.
Originally, Mordred’s spiritual force quality wasn’t that powerful to form a refinement spell formation since his mind runes were less than 40. His spiritual force has yet to reach a qualitative change to interact with material objects, but the orange spiritual runes were supported by purple lines of soulforce. Through the combination of both spiritual force and soulforce, it no longer becomes a spell formation, but a [Killer Move] combined from soul art and magic spell.
“Rank 0 sound-path killer move, [Micro-Soundfield Forge].”
It is a sound-path method that produces the effect of refinement-path.
The runes were two-layered, the first one produced an invisible force field that envelopes the rusty iron sword while the second one turned into a heavy bass soundwave. The soundwave was enclosed within the soundfield; it was unable to spread into the environment. The soundfield acts as an amplifier, each time the soundwaves saturated the soundfield, it received an amplification effect.
Once, twice, twelve times, hundreds of times, the reflected soundwave began powerful enough to oscillate the sword, shaving off some rusts from the main body. Boom! Boom! Boom! The soundwave was slowly becoming so powerful that it sounded like a giant’s stomping the ground multiple times in succession, but it was contained within the enclosed soundfield.
The sheer frequency grinds impurity such as rusts to fine clouds of dust while separating the somewhat pure iron of the sword from other constituents. As the resonance of the enclosed soundfield accumulates sufficiently, the vibration inside ignites the air. Amplifying the vibration to provide heat, it was now possible to start working on the metal. Manipulating the soundfield, Mordred punctured a set of holes, one above and one below which allows compressed airflow to enter and exit the soundfield.
With a newfound source of fuel to burn, the flame becomes something akin to Jet stream, heating the metal iron sword to a high degree. As the refinement continued, the rust and other impurities were exhausted from the soundfield. The sword no longer looks like a sword, but a small piece of hot metal. The sheer frequency of the vibration plus the heat up softens the metal until it becomes something akin to wet clay.
“That’s the first… now the second…” Mordred inserted another rusty iron sword into the mix, repeating the same procedure.
Once, twice, twelve times, and Mordred eventually stopped after melting 69 iron swords.
Mordred’s mana aperture at this point has been completely exhausted since his mana capacity had never increased even after his intense spiritual cultivation since it requires different resources. He switched to purely relying on soul arts at this point.
“The main ingredient is common rank 0 metal-path resource: mortal iron. Thankfully, the kobold’s inventory had enough iron swords to refine mortal steel.”
In the center of the soundfield, a human head-sized molten steel floats as a stream of compressed air cools it down rapidly. His thoughts gathered, collided, and formed another set of orange telepathic thoughts for another round.
“Shatter!” Mordred focused on the steel as the soundfield oscillated crazily, removing any impurity to turn it into perfect-purity mortal steel, cooling it down rapidly and slowly turning the molten steel into mortal steel dust!
In his previous life, despite being known as Sovereign of Magic, his core objective was to pursue lightning-path and refinement-path attainment! That being the case, his refinement-path attainment was quasi-transcendental!
Melt mortal iron from swords through vibration and heat, then refine mortal steel was merely a process to refine perfect-purity steel dust! It was his goal all along!
Seeing the white metal powder, Mordred sighed inwardly as half of his objective had been achieved. “Kasumi, it's time!” The moment he finished muttering, a brown slime came out of his lower abdomen, slithering rapidly towards the soundfield.
Kasumi has been prepared for evolution, Mordred has used more than a week of deductions for this occasion. Within her core, Mordred’s magus will consume itself to produce refinement thoughts to support the refinement process.
Like Mordred, Kasumi had been cultivating in Magus Mind Runes while condensing mana pool on her own during free time, despite the slow progress. It was only possible due to Mordred injecting his magus will into Kasumi’s sea of consciousness periodically, otherwise, even the smartest slime could not cultivate in magus mind runes by itself.
Kasumi was an entity Mordred had prepared to become his weapon. Since slime is a magical creature, every slime possessed an innate ability to condense mana pools, despite being extremely slow.
His focus laid in her core as a slime’s core could be referred to as its brain, but it was a complex organ of both brain and mana pool combined. Without a core, slime could not have thoughts nor move like a single-celled organism. Its soul was bound on the core as the center, while its acidic body has less connection with the soul.
The moment Kasumi entered a new soundfield different from the first, she was exposed to the heavy hum of soundwave as it reflected against the invisible soundfield, whose frequency received amplification every iteration. With each passing moment, Kasumi’s core receives saturation damage.
To protect from the intense damage, Kasumi condenses her body to the fullest, turning her liquid body into a dense fluid. Mordred’s understanding of hydrodynamics played a significant role in this process.
Or following the terms of cultivation, his water-path attainment made this possible.
The dense liquid that made up Kasumi’s body turned into something like a jelly that could handle vibration damage very well. The heavy vibration that could vaporize water and refine iron into steel merely shook the jelly.
Kasumi seems to be immune from vibration damage, but Mordred attunes the oscillation frequency so that the jelly-like substance was condensing further, like being put inside a pressure cooking pot that becomes heavier and denser every second.
Up to this point, Kasumi’s acid body had condensed to one-tenth of its original size, fractures are starting to appear on her core.
At this time, a white soul formation manifests on her core. “Rank 0 sound-path killer move, [Metallic Instrument Body Transformation]!” The chanting came out from Kasumi’s core, but it sounded like Mordred’s voice. His will inside Kasumi’s sea of consciousness activates a sound-path method that replicates the profundity of transformation-path!
At the same time, Mordred’s skeletal arm that maintained the enclosed soundfields claps together, joining the two separate soundfields into one. The moment the oscillating mortal steel powder made contact with Kasumi’s jelly-like body, she began evaporating most of her water content. The vapor of Kasumi’s impurity was so dense that it began filling up the sound field.
Mordred manipulates the sound field to exhaust the brown vapor, while he coordinates with his will inside Kasumi’s sea of consciousness to integrate the metallic powder into her being. The process was difficult as he needed to ensure Kasumi’s acidic body maintained its fluidity but was enriched with perfect-purity steel powder to increase her toughness.
As the steel powder started to be integrated by Kasumi, she lost her brown color while slowly turning into a white metallic jelly of steel.
“Successful!” He muttered exhaustedly.
The process took most of his energy resources, but it was worth it. There was a high chance of Kasumi’s core being destroyed in the process, which he has to replace with his soul phylactery, but that would lead to complications in the short run. Mordred was not ready to split his soul yet, since it would weaken his barely recovered soul.
Turning Kasumi into liquid steel slime has more benefits than loss. Despite the loss of her ability to consume most biological matter like a typical slime, her innate metal devouring capability heightened significantly. Furthermore, slimes are a natural transformation-path lifeform, capable of using transformation methods as an innate ability like breathing to a human.
With Kasumi evolved into steel slime, Mordred’s options would be greatly expanded such as turning her into myriad weapons or supportive artifacts as he added more exotic metal-path resources in her body.
“Katana!” Mordred’s magus within Kasumi’s sea of consciousness churned, transforming her liquid steel body into a curved steel katana 1.69-meter long. The transformation from a slime into a weapon took less than two seconds. Her volume could change according to his needs while compromising her durability, but her weight stays 100 kilograms of steel, too heavy for the current Mordred to use her as light weapons, but it didn’t stop him to find his limits.
“Bow! Halberd! Buckler! Tower Shield!” He transformed Kasumi into eighteen different weapon types until he almost exhausted his magus will within Kasumi. “Return!” Kasumi slithered back into enveloping his mana aperture. Because it was too heavy for her to stay in one spot, Kasumi spread it all over his body like a layer of steel flesh to balance his center of gravity.
Through the synchronization of his body and magus' will within Kasumi’s sea of consciousness, it was possible to utilize her as a replacement of muscle made out of flesh and blood, increasing his physical ability greatly. The offset is, the thought expenditure was a little bit higher than usual during movement due to magus will that manipulate Kasumi’s movement is made up of numerous Mordred’s magus thoughts interweaving with each other.
After recovering until he’s capable of using [Interface System], Mordred examined her attributes.
Attribute Statistics
Name: Kasumi
Race: Mortal Steel Slime
Occupation: N/A
Rank: 0
Physical Attribute
Strength : 2.4
Endurance: 3.6
Agility: 1.3
Flexibility: 1.7
Perception: 0.4
Reaction: 0.6
Weight: 100 Kilograms
Energy Attribute
Spiritual Force Development Quotient: 2%
Magus Mind Runes: 21
Spiritual Force: 0.1/2.1
Mana Pool: 1/11
Extra
Current Effect: [Interface System], [Wisdom Amplification: Magus Will]
“The first stage of [Autonomous Satellite Armament] is complete.” Mordred muttered to himself. Every refiner worth their salt knows using one type of metal for their weapon is not a good idea, since alloys possess some properties that pure metal does not possess. Of course, he already had plans regarding Kasumi in the future.
“I need to recuperate, and then assimilate Seism Iron and several other precious materials into her for early-stage magitek transformation function.” Mordred rested briefly and went out of his chamber to manage his minions while recovering his exhausted mana aperture and soul essence naturally.
As Mordred exited his chamber, he could see hundreds of kobold scurrying about the underground hall, doing their tasks. After knowing the condition of Thunderpeak mountain, he revised his plans to develop on the surface world. Mordred was quite lucky because he had resurrected during the thunderstorm’s downtime, where no storms would occur for 1 to 2 weeks.
Four days after he subjugated the kobold, the rain started to fall on the mountain all day long. Today was the 7th day since the heavy downpour started and the storms never stopped even once. The thunderstorms were accompanied by relentless lightning strikes which could wound if not kill any kobold that wandered too close to the peak.
Mordred ensures he would never leave the safety of his cave since lightning strikes are extremely lethal to ghosts or souls like him. Lightning contains a type of energy that would annihilate any ghost and naked soul without a physical body.
To minimize the chances of a stray lightning strike ending his fate, he recalled all his minions and developed the abandoned mine. Of course, it only happens after the kobold has successfully constructed an underground pasture.
Although it was called a pasture, it was merely rooms of empty animal pens, designed to hold a large amount of animals. After the construction of the pasture was complete, Mordred tasked his minions to fill them in with animals. The kobolds were mobilized for this due to their nimble feet and their relative intelligence higher than the goblins.
Be it rabbit, deer, birds, chicken, anything that lives on the surface was captured while slimes, bats, rats, and other insects native to the cave are also gathered and stored in their specific cage or fenced area.
Some of the kobolds and goblins foolishly thought the living animal was captured so they could enjoy a fresh meal. When Mordred saw them failing the specific task that he had told them, that group of goblins and kobolds were turned into a fresh meal for the others. The next day, nobody kills the animal captured in the pens without his permission.
Grem saw Mordred exited his chamber to appreciate the animal pens. He decided to approach him for a report. “Lord Nyx! I have great news to report.” His small hurried steps were agile. In no time, he had reached Mordred.
“Proceed.”
Grem was given the responsibility of managing the overall operation of every job due to his experience in managing his kin is higher than Ymir, therefore he has to report their progress once in a while.
“Affirmative!” After Grem pledged his loyalty to Mordred, he had arranged his minions into various jobs ranging from forager, farmers, scouts, miners, builders, soldiers, and hunters. Due to his position, Grem received specialized training from Mordred, thus military discipline has started to be branded on his character.
“Last night, the two forager teams returned with many berries and, according to my lord’s descriptions, orange-colored ‘root vegetables’?” he questioned himself, “One forager returned wounded due to his lack of vigilance, but after recovering for a day, he will be fine. This morning, two teams of forager also went out…” he continued his report.
Foragers are responsible for exploring the surface, gathering wild-grown foods, and if possible, bringing back animals. Newfound edibles would be examined by Mordred to be determined whether it can be farmed underground or not, while animals would be put inside pastures for breeding. There are no goblin foragers due to their lack of self-control the moment they saw meat in the absence of Mordred.
“You found carrots? Excellent. Store them in cold areas. After I find methods of farming them underground, I will give you further instructions.”
“Yes, my lord. The farmers have successfully dug an ‘irrigation channel’ according to your orders. I am not quite sure what to do with them, but water is flowing inside now.”
Farmers are tasked to take care of the farm and pastures. Underground farming is difficult due to the lack of light, but some plants like brown moss and cave mushrooms only needed moisture and fertilized soil to thrive. With so much manure from livestock, kobolds, goblins and the addition of small streams of water from the surface, Mordred started an experimental moss & mushroom farm.
Of course, since kobold’s and goblin’s diet mostly contain meat, their consumption of mushroom and moss is less than the rate he was comfortable with, but the plants can be used to feed the underground livestock.
“It’s alright, you just need to report and convey my orders. What about the animals in the pastures, any problem with them?
“Yes. Most of the livestock were under heavy stress and refused to eat. Only chicken, cave rats, and rabbits lived long after they were taken underground.”
“Hmm, Increase the priority of these three animals. Other animals the foragers gathered on the surface can be eaten the same day unless these three animals. Do not consume more than expected, follow the daily allocation that I have arranged previously.” Mordred ordered, then continued to hear Grem’s report.
“Roger!” He nodded vigorously. Food was always a good thing, and meat was Kobold’s main diet, so he has no complaints whatsoever to his arrangement.
“Next, the scouts have found out the wild beast’s arrangement in this area.”
Scouts were kobolds with relatively higher perception and agility attributes tasked to gather information. Mordred did not like putting precious kobolds in this dangerous job, but his options were limited to either kobold or goblin. Since goblins are… near useless except in the presence of Mordred, he chooses dozens of kobolds as scouts. The result was subpar at best, but it was absolutely better than nothing.
“We found Bluewing Spark Dragonfly in the southeast, then…” Grem reported the details while Mordred listened attentively. “That’s about all of them.”
“The scouts are too inefficient, but those are not your fault. Keep looking out for any wild beast intruding our area.”
“Yes, my lord!” He proceeds with the next part of his report. “The miners that you tasked to prospect the mine have found an underground river. They are happy after finding one of the three things you wanted to find.”
The miners were equipped with metallic tools re-forged by Mordred from iron swords. Mordred has little faith in them due to the lack of expertise, but Grem actually brought a team of miners out of Magnur city. He put them inside the miner teams and it produced results, to his surprise.
He had deduced that there must be an underwater lake, but he didn’t think the miners would find them this quickly. “Excellent work. Reward every miner with meat for their contributions. Spare no expense to motivate them further.”
Mordred was extremely pleased with their performance and wanted them to increase their efforts in finding the magnetic storm ore. The faster they found it, the faster Mordred could refine a magitek reactor for him and Kasumi’s transformation. Giving off meat despite its scarcity was a method to motivate them.
“Tell them, if they found the two other things, they can eat all the meat they fit in their belly for a week.”
“They would be pleased, my lord.” Grem expressed his emotion without holding back. He was skeptical about being Mordred’s underling at first, but now he experienced a sense of accomplishment even greater than his time in Magnur city combined. Grem’s uncaring nature to his kinsmen has started to fade away while a sense of belonging has started to bloom in his heart.
Grem had underestimated his clansmen. Seeing the things that they could do after leading them properly made him realize the power of many hands are greater than his own hands, and the impact was greater since he was stronger than all of them.
It might seem like Grem is a dim kobold, but that was to be expected from a clan that sold their kin as cannon fodders. Life of a kobold is cheap, especially those that did not possess bloodline talent, or any talent whatsoever. Mordred wanted Grem to develop a sense of belonging and appreciation towards his race, and he learned it step by step.
“I have yet to formulate arrangements on the underground river. Continue on my standing orders, keep them healthy.”
“Yes, my lord.” Nodded while inwardly smiling. Grem thought that, if the kobold generals of Magnur city were as half as smart and powerful as Nyx, the kobold race would’ve replaced the Duergar already. Unfortunately, hope and desire mean nothing if you’re weak.
“Next, about the soldiers. Since my lord took the same number of kobolds for training, the goblins started to act hostile with us. Last night, two kobold soldiers were injured due to a brawl. My lord, I beg you to address our grievance.”
The role of soldiers was to defend his cave systematically from other races. After incorporating the kobold, some of the goblins felt their superior position was invaded by the small reptiles. Therefore, the bullying did not lessen but escalated. They are just getting better at hiding it from Mordred’s ears.
Fortunately, Grem has started to put more attention to his kin, not letting them be bullied without a fight. He started asking questions towards the bullied kobold to report them to Mordred.
“It’s only natural.” Mordred muttered, “They felt that your kin has started to gain power in my eyes. They don’t like it and want to suppress you further. You don’t have to worry too much about them, just endure it. I’ll allow the kobold to fight back, as long as nobody dies. The goblins need competition to motivate them further. Kobold soldiers should never walk alone, it’s best if they stay with their squad mates to increase cooperation.”
Goblins were treated as pests due to their tendency towards chaos. However, they were a lifeform of order just like most if not all inhabitants of Morgen world. The reason why they act like this was due to their lack of civilization and low intellect. Still, as long as Mordred was stuck with the goblins, he had to handle them since every soul is a precious resource.
Instead of teaching the goblin how to behave, Mordred tweaked the rules to allow ‘competition’. Of course, the kobold would be defeated mercilessly, but through experience and cooperation, if they could overcome the goblins, then that would be the best result. No motivation beats the desire to protect someone they loved the most, Mordred will have to ensure the kobolds stay united under Grem.
“I… got it. Thank you, my lord.”
“It’s alright,” Mordred answered lightheartedly. Unlike his original motivation in harvesting negative telepathic emotion, he was more interested in building a city. As soon as the kobold found a sizable magnetic storm ore vein, he could start his preparation of refining some core magitek artifact that could aid in producing thoughts, so his treatment for the two races have started to change.
There was no need for mental oppression and grooming hate if treating them with justice and through orderly job allocation could bring more benefit in the long run. He had simply lost the need to farm negative emotion with the discovery of magnetic storm ore. The external pressure of being hunted by the kobold no longer exists, he can accumulate more thoughts through meditation, which is significantly slower than negative emotion conversion but does not concoct hatred from his minions.
Of course, more soul essence to feed his still-recovering soul was better, but in the long run, grooming them and letting them die naturally bring more benefit. Besides, the gods would notice if there was an unusually large area with 100% intellectual soul dissipation rates. The god of death in River Styx would notify the other divines about the anomaly, and sooner or later, waves of unending crusades followed. It’s in his best interest not to rush things related to souls.
“Then, for the last report, the hunters have trained according to your arrangement…” Grem reported.
Hunters, an occupation that imitates humanity’s beast hunter.
Morgen world was filled to the brim with life, and most of them are not friendly. Despite the existence of powerful cultivators, more than 80% continental surface was inhabitable due to beasts roaming freely. It wasn’t a choice for minor races like kobold or goblin to live mostly underground, or higher intellectual races living behind walled cities, it was a need to survive.
To cleanse these wild beasts from intruding the relatively small living space, there has to be a specialized group of people hunting these beasts. Soldiers are one of the myriad solutions for this particular problem, but some beasts become even more problematic when fought with too many numbers. Besides, wild beasts came in all sorts of shapes and sizes and bizarre abilities that identifying and learning how to hunt them efficiently had become a profound topic.
Therefore, humanity invented the occupation known as beast hunter. There are various disciplines of beast hunters such as the main combatant, research personnel, logistics personnel, and even dismantlers specialized in processing the beast's carcass to fulfill various needs.
Of course, the kobolds under Mordred’s rule were not trained sufficiently, so there were only two types of hunters employed, which is the combat personnel and the retrieving team specialized to bring back the beast’s carcass.
The absence of other roles was filled with Mordred temporarily until kobold hunters are knowledgeable enough to take care of things by themselves. That being the case, Mordred was prepared to hear one or two hunters die or be permanently crippled after every hunt, because hunters have the highest mortality rate of all occupations, but boast the most powerful combat ability and the most resource allocation.
“Are the hunters ready to hunt the Twin-Horned Mountain Goat?” Mordred asked in delight.
The Twin-Horned Mountain Goat lives relatively higher in altitude of his cave. Due to the special property of Thunderpeak mountain of unrelenting lightning storms, the beasts that live on high altitude have adapted to the environment.
Despite never seeing the beast in his previous life, it wasn’t hard for Mordred to deduct the useful materials that could be harvested from it. It wasn’t because Mordred wasn’t educated enough, but there are simply too many types of beasts that exist in Morgen world. Sometimes, a species of a beast that looks familiar with each other has different capabilities due to the path of evolution they took. Powerful beasts evolve to have a specialized method of survival, while weaker ones evolve to imitate strong beasts for intimidation or camouflage.
It was that simple and complicated at the same time.
That being the case, Mordred deduced that its fur has good resistance for lightning that allows them to survive a glancing hit after lightning struck them. Their penis could be refined into an alchemical product that increases one’s libido, though it was merely a wild deduction.
But of course, it’s most precious part wasn’t its fur nor its penis. The Twin-Horned Mountain Goat’s main method of survival on high altitude of Thunderpeak mountain is their horn’s ability to attract, store, and release high-voltage electricity. Due to the horn, they were difficult to capture or kill, but once a Twin-Horned Mountain Goat had been hunted, it was an accomplishment that was worth celebrating!
Mordred led Grem to hunter’s hall, which is just an underground room cleaned for hunters’ needs. Inside, he saw dozens of hunter-in-training appraising a real-life portrait of Twin-Horned Mountain Goat while discussing things in their reptilian tongue.
“Magnificent beast, isn’t it?” Mordred appraises his painting. The beast was huge when compared to kobolds. Standing 2-meter tall from the ground and having a length of almost 3 meters, it was a complete monster when a group of 1-meter tall kobolds appraised it closely. The most menacing part of the beast’ picture was the twin blade-like curved spiral horns on top of its head that gave off a menacing aura.
“Yes, my lord.” Grem agreed instantly. “We have trained with Vice-Captain Kor for the last few days according to your instruction, my kin are excited to fight with the beast.”
“Hahaha.” Mordred released a light chuckle, “You do realize that the picture I’ve drawn was… a young Twin-Horned Mountain Beast? The adult ones are equivalent to late-stage rank 0 martial cultivators, with its physical body equal, if not stronger than a rank 1 martial cultivator? If we found an old beast, it would be equal to a rank 1 martial cultivator that is even stronger than duergar cultivators…”
The fires of excitement within Grem’s amber eyes fade as if he was washed by a bucket of icy cold water.
“Of course, that way, it would be more interesting, right?” Mordred seems to smile, “Their resistance towards sound-path method is robust, it would be hard for me to support you with my spells… but I needed their horns!”
With a resolute tone, he ordered the hunters present, “We are hunting Twin-Horned Mountain Goat in a few days; it’ll be a good way to gauge how far you have trained and how much I have recovered. Rest sufficiently and prepare the equipment.”
The hunters-in-training was shocked by Mordred’s sudden announcement, but then it was replaced by excitement. Hunting beasts was something amazing even in Magnur city, every hunter was showered with respect and glory. “YES, MY LORD!!!” the hunters answered on top of their lungs, following the doctrine Mordred had drilled to them.
