Body, mind and soul.
Someone who tread the path of the body and temper their physique are often referred to as Body Cultivator or Martial Artists, while those that choose to cultivate the mind (or spirit) to understand the mysteries of the world and use their power are heralded as Mages.
Then, those that tread the path of the soul are revered to as Soul Cultivators.
Mordred has abandoned the aspect of body to pursue the absolute peak of ‘soul’ and ‘mind’ (primarily soul, mind second) so he didn’t care if his body was broken to the point of no return. As the greatest soul cultivator of Holy Terra, he cannot be measured by the standard metrics of lifeforms because in his perspective, the ‘body’ can be refined continuously as long as he is still alive. Like a shirt or a jacket, if the current body broke, he could just ‘wear’ another body.
Unlike the ‘mind’ or ‘body’ cultivation, the system of soul cultivation of this world has been butchered by the Divines. There’s simply not a single ‘true’ or ‘pure’ soul cultivation technique because the gods have blinded the masses and misleading them with faith. Their servants have burnt all those heretical materials that would distort the ‘truth’ of their faith, so most soul cultivation techniques are usually mixed with mind or the body.
According to his deduction, faith-path should be a path that has a deep relation to the soul cultivation system.
Unfortunately, Mordred could not experiment deeply on the path of faith because gods are extremely sensitive to their method of dominance. Also, his original comprehension of soul-path from Holy Terra did not work 100% in this world because Morgen World has different dimensional laws compared to his homeworld. In a sense, he was handicapped.
But after living for 600 years as the Great Archmage, although he could not decode the profundity of faith-path, he had refined his soul cultivation system so that it would work fine in Morgen World.
The first stage is to achieve ‘perfect’ advancement to rank 1 by breaking through after reaching the 20th superlative height of rank 0.
There are three facets of cultivating one’s soul: Soul Quality, Soul Strength, and Soul Pacification.
Unlike spiritual force development quotient or internal energy development quotient which was the metrics of rank 0 mage and martial artist, Mordred soul cultivation system did not use percentage, but the amount of soul runes. Each soul rune would represent one ‘Soul Strength’.
1 transparent star soul cultivation base means having 10-man soul foundation, then the peak-stage rank 0 which was 10 transparent stars definitely translates to 100-man soul foundation. But being in the superlative height of rank 0 does not mean having 101-man soul foundation because that's the stage of rank 1.
What Mordred did to achieve the superlative height of rank 0 is reinforce his original soul foundation by reforging the original 100 soul runes.
If Mordred’s truesoul is a building, then the first 100 soul runes would be the foundation and the quintessence template model for future soul runes. The superlative height of rank 0 is all about reinforcing them so that it would be far more superior as a preparation for the next stage, because advancing from rank 1 to rank 2 requires him to do a special action that wouldn’t be possible without a ‘durable’ foundation.
11 transparent stars meant 10 of the original 100 soul runes had been reinforced, 12 transparent stars meant 20, so on and so forth. Each superlative height is significantly harder than the previous because the process of reinforcing the soul runes has a chance for Mordred to break it.
Then, if he breaks it, he can just make a new one, right?
Wrong.
The number of soul runes must remain constant as each reinforced soul rune would fundamentally affect the other soul runes. At this step, the progress does not grant Mordred a linear 1+1 = 2 ‘growth’ but 1+1 could equal 2.1 instead. The additional 0.1 was the effect of the 100 soul runes growing together in tandem, and as the amount of soul runes are being reinforced, the effect would also increase. If a soul rune breaks during this process, the backlash would force him to waste a large amount of resources to repair, and it would greatly delay his progress.
Doing so while raising his guard against sudden attack from the Dragon’s Shadow was truly a monsterous feat, but it wasn't impossible for Mordred due to his experience of reaching rank 6 in his previous lifes.
That being said, the difference between peak-stage and the 20th superlative height is not too obvious for a layman because Mordred’s soul foundation is still 100-man souls. Soul Cultivation system’s metric usually measures one’s ‘Soul Strength’, but the superlative height of rank 0 is all about refining the ‘Soul Quality’.
Just like the soul of a beast and the soul of a human are completely different in terms of quality, the [Chaldean Soul] of Mordred and the soul of other lifeforms are fundamentally different.
Honestly, the superlative height of rank 0 is also referred to as the redundant-stage because Mordred doesn’t have to strive for these extra ‘steps’ to progress to rank 1. The peak-stage (10 transparent star) is sufficient for him to advance to the next rank.
However, doing so would definitely be more beneficial as it would allow his soul to be more durable. His ‘naked’ truesoul would have additional resistance against the saturation of sunlight or even divine blessings, and it would also reduce the chance of his truesoul crumbling when splitting his soul.
In other words, it would allow him to create more split souls like Kasumi.
When all of his 100 soul runes had been reinforced to the absolute limit and refined into the best template model, Mordred’s truesoul caused the whole micro-plane to tremble. The plane does not have the necessary dimensional laws to cater to Mordred. It was like the water inside a glass cup suddenly turned into a seething magma, the glass cup would break.
Just as there are three facets of soul cultivation, there are also three components of a soul: Truesoul, Soulforce and Soul Essence.
[Soulforce] is the internal energy of the souls, usually used to activate soul arts. One’s soulforce will automatically recover depending on the quality of one’s truesoul. If compared to mages, this would be their Spiritual Force.
[Soul Essence] is the external energy of the soul. One’s truesoul will automatically consume ‘soul nutrient’ in the environment to recover soul essence. Mage’s equivalent of soul essence is mana. Combined with soulforce, a Soul Cultivator can freely activate soul arts. A soul cultivator’s Soul Strength is usually tied to both [Soulforce] and [Soul Essence].
As for Truesoul, it is the core component of a soul. A cultivator’s [Soul Quality] usually refers to their truesoul. It is what holds the identity, personality, and memories of a person. Truesoul’s quality is directly tied to one’s experience, personality, cultivation technique or other factors. As one’s truesoul quality grew, the following aspect of soulforce and soul essence would experience a qualitative growth.
The ‘strength’ of Mordred’s truesoul is actually the same with other rank 1, at 100-man souls strong, but due to achieving the 20th superlative height of rank 0, it is unfair to group him with other rank 1s. At the very least, each soul rune that constructed his truesoul is three to four times stronger than others of the typical early-stage rank 1.
But, having an exemplary Soul Quality has its own drawback. To advance his Soul Strength, it would take roughly three to five times the resources for others to do the same. Meaning, if other soul cultivators require 2 units of soul resources to advance from 101-man to 102-man soul, then it would take him 6 to 10 units of soul resources. Though for him, this was an expected outcome.
Just as mages passively emit strong elemental radiation from their body due to their comprehension, accumulation, cultivation technique or various factors, souls too, radiate a certain type of energy. Most cultivators do not specifically cultivate their truesouls, so this radiation is relatively unknown, but for Mordred, it was his greatest asset.
As stated before, one’s truesoul is the core component of a soul. It is what holds the identity, personality and memories of a person. But, how?
The answer was this unknown radiation that emitted from the truesoul. This is one’s instinctive rejection towards the influence of the external world. It binds one’s ego and sense of self so that everyone can exist as an individual. When one’s soul foundation is strong, one is capable of rejecting the influence of others. Thus, it gave birth to the empirical evidence of enslavement-path or hypnotic methods are ineffective to others with strong spirit (mind) or soul foundation.
Mordred calls this… Absolute Territory Field, or AT-Field.
Every being with a soul possessed AT-Field.
The typical human has 1-man soul strength, their AT-Field is so weak that its existence could be completely ignored.
However, any rank 1 soul cultivator would experience a qualitative growth as their AT-Field could manifest in such a way that it could ‘reject’ attacks either material (physical), magical (elemental), or spectral (related to mind or soul). For special entities like Mordred, he could manipulate his AT-Field so that it can perform special actions.
For example, Mordred can use his AT-Field to resist some level of sunlight corrosion towards his ‘naked’ truesoul, thus allowing his naked truesoul achieving ‘immunity against sunlight’ as long as the AT-Field is constantly deployed.
“This is the light of my soul, the absolute territory that nobody can approach.” Mordred recited as his 3D holographic-like truesoul appeared behind Xi Ling. The AT-Field of his truesoul manifested in the form of light radiance shining in multiple spectrums of colors. Each color is actually the representation of his comprehension.
The most intense light has the color of profound gray. This color depth was due to his attainment of sound-path that reached [Transcendent].
The next ‘tier’ of light intensity are deep electric blue of lightning-path, mystic purple of soul-path, golden orange of refinement-path, misty purple of wisdom-path and prismatic pixels of information-path. Mordred’s attainment in these paths are quasi-transcendental.
Shining in silvery white color, the next layer of his attainment is sword-path which is [Apex].
Then, the next tier under [Apex], which was Quasi-Apex, is a pitch black light of dark-path.
The rest which are [Exemplary]-level contain the most variety of colors. Seven out of the nine elemental paths are at this level, accompanied by the golden color of time-path, the transparent space-path, dark red with black outline of dragon-path, brilliant crimson of blood-path and three mysterious colors of pastel pink, pale green, and semi translucent-white from paths that do not exist in this world, or even in the main world.
His other comprehension such as spear-path, strength-path, faith-path or others that do not reach Exemplary-level do not appear in his AT-Field.
Still, with the existence of the three colors of foreign paths that do not exist in this micro-plane or in Morgen world, the dimensional laws shuddered as it could not bear the burden. Unlike the main world who can compensate for the lack of dimensional laws with its sheer size, this plane could not. Mordred is merely advancing towards rank 1, but the whole plane is destabilizing!
He was prepared for the inevitable damage that he’ll cause upon the micro-plane, he suppressed his AT-Field to the point that only two colors are visible, which was profound gray and mystic purple of sound-path and soul-path.
Due to his quick action of suppression, the plane stopped breaking but the laws have already destabilized. It lacked deeper laws of space-path to self-heal from dimensional damage, so the micro-plane ruptured instead. The edge of this plane has already started being ‘pushed’ inward as it could not bear the spatial pressure of the void.
“With this, I have around… a week or so to take what’s left in this micro-plane before the core area is crushed by dimensional implosion.” Mordred made a quick calculation after feeling the spatial pressure through his AT-Field.
Then, he glanced at the Dragon’s Shadow who experienced absolute dread. “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME, HAVE MERCY!” There were no tricks in his plea as he had become truly afraid of Mordred. Its late-stage rank 1 cultivation could not damage the plane no matter what it did. Heck, the seal of this room did not allow its dragon breath to make a dent at the walls and floors but Mordred almost single-handedly broke the plane merely by advancing to rank 1. Even a retard would realize the difference of power.
However, Mordred wouldn't accept any of its pleas.
The 700 souls in his phylactery have been mostly consumed. To advance from the 10 transparent star to 20 transparent star and then 1 red star (rank 1), it cost him roughly half of his savings because of the difference in quality. To bind the Dragon’s Shadow, Mordred couldn't spare too much attention because he’s rushing for advancement, so he let the Dark Mist brute force the Dragon’s Shadow who slowly wrestled the corruption of Dark Mist away. The first day cost 50 souls so that the Dark Mist could completely suppress the Dragon’s Shadow, but the second day’s consumption rose to 70 and the last to 80 souls.
If the Dragon’s Shadow was truly pleading for its life, it wouldn’t struggle that hard. The best method of showing sincerity was letting the Dark Mist binding its body because it cannot corrupt the Dragon’s Shadow due to the difference of rank.
Therefore, Mordred did not believe a word this creature had said.
Normally, a truesoul’s ‘instinctive retaliation’ upon the external world can only be used as a defense mechanism. But, just as you can bash someone’s head with a metal shield and consider that as an attack, Mordred too, is capable of molding the AT-Field into whatever he desires as a form of attack. Through sheer will, he gathered his AT-Field on top of his palm.
The formless force field condensed as he suppressed the purple color of his soul-path attainment and replaced it with metallic white of metal-path and pitch-black of dark-path. Then, the black-and-white AT-Field condensed into the shape of a katana.
The colors of the AT-Field is the manifestation of his attainment, there’s a great significance behind it. Because AT-Field is primarily a defense mechanism, the color on his AT-Field’s also means it’s high resistance against methods of the said path.
In full power, his transcendent-level attainment in sound-path allowed Mordred’s AT-Field to be nearly immune (around 90%) to sound-path methods of the same rank. Methods of other paths which are at Apex have around three-fourth (70 to 75%) resistance, while those at exemplary-level have their effectiveness halved (45 to 50%) in the face of his AT-Field.
This was quite literally, beating someone else with knowledge and experience.
Of course, in the real world, that rule wouldn’t be 100% accurate because everyone has different experience and accumulation. But, the more difference of attainment someone had, the more Mordred had an edge against them, that was indisputable. And, due to his high attainment in almost all paths due to his past lives, it could be said that he had an advantage against almost everyone.
The katana-shaped force field is merely as powerful as his AT-Field could allow it. It wasn’t the best usage of AT-Field because it should be used as defense or structural fortification of a solid object, but without a weapon, this is the only ‘weapon’ he could wield.
“Heh. Swords are lame, but… sword-path truly has the best offensive power so far in terms of weapon paths.” His holographic-like truesoul left Xi Ling’s body as he made a quick cut through the air, a rank 1 [Truesilver Finger Whistle] augmented with [Quadruple Maximize: Overlapping Resonance].
Unlike the attack he made with his finger while he was rank 0, this attack is truly far more powerful as he turned his unreasonably high ‘defense’ rating against dark-path and metal-path into ‘attack’ rating. The Dragon’s Shadow’s dark barrier flared to life, but this one attack was sufficient in destroying it outright because Mordred had decoded the defense barrier’s mechanism.
The destruction of the dark barrier meant the dragon’s shadow mechanical body was laid bare. With another attack of the same level, the body which Mordred’s rank 0 self tried so hard to destroy literally split into two halves.
ROARRR!!! The Dragon’s Shadow's true body left the broken machine. It has been accumulating momentum for its physical body’s destruction. The ‘dragon heart’ of Dragon’s Shadow mechanical body was unharmed. The dark ‘heart’ suddenly expanded into another Dragon’s Shadow made of pure darkness. It screamed as its shadowy true body activated a method. “Rank 1 dark-path killer move, [Shadow Corridor]!”
Unleashing two rank 1 [Truesilver Finger Whistle] have expended a lot of Mordred’s telepathic thoughts and energy. While the Dragon’s Shadow could not deal effective damage to him, Mordred still raised up his guard. He wouldn’t let the shadow get a free hit on his soul. The concentrated katana-like AT-Field immediately returned back to its original form, which was a formless rejection forcefield that enveloped his truesoul.
“So you can pull me into a dark-path battlefield… this is your trump card?” Mordred’s truesoul in the physical world has the form of pure information current, formed by a hundred soul runes. It has no fixed shape, but due to Mordred’s habit of being a human, he took on the form of his former human physical body.
Right now, his vision is filled with endless darkness. The Dragon’s Shadow has home field advantage due to [Shadow Corridor], which allows it to not only gain amplification in all metrics but also the ability to switch position between shadow clones freely. And, there are currently eight Dragon’s Shadows, which means it’s trying to use seven shadow clones to fight against Mordred.
One of the Dragon’s Shadow’s clones instantly attacked Mordred with it’s dark claw.
Mordred used his AT-Field to form a hexagonal shield of pure blackness, but the shadow passed through it as if it was an illusion.
“Oh, ethereal form…” Mordred was caught off-guard. The attack went past his AT-Field and landed on his truesoul. Since it was ethereal, it shouldn’t be able to hit Mordred’s truesoul, but it can freely change from ethereal to material. Mordred’s soul would normally be nigh-invulnerable to physical attack as it has the form of pure information current, but the Dragon’s Shadow claw attack is imbued with pseudo-dragon particles.
Dragon Particles, even its fake derivation, are still lethal to other lifeforms. Furthermore, the level of pseudo-dragon particles in this attack is far more dangerous than what it has shown the entire time. This was truly a hidden card that the Dragon’s Shadow used at the correct moment so that it could gain an advantage.
Mordred wouldn’t allow the attack to land, but the attack came too fast for him to react.
Splat! Mordred’s truesoul splattered into fine particles like a crystal glass that broke into millions pieces. Pixels of Mordred’s soul runes are being splattered onto the room. He received significant damage in that exchange, but he still survived.
To defend against ethereal attack, a normal defense wouldn’t be sufficient. The real world isn’t that simple.
Being ‘ethereal’ means the Dragon’s Shadow is shifting its presence in a unique layer of existence, this method is very widely used by space-path cultivators. Unless one is prepared to deal against ethereal attack, it would be hard to defend it. Of course, since the attack itself is ethereal, it would normally deal infinitesimal damage to a physical entity, but Mordred’s truesoul is now laid bare, exposed to the elements.
Due to that simple-looking attack having the strength of late-stage rank 1, Mordred’s truesoul who just ascended to rank 1 have already started crumbling.
“Fuck… I miscalculated…” Mordred saw the remaining Dragon’s Shadow pounced on him but he had learnt his lesson. He altered the AT-Field to deal with ethereal attack, but he was overwhelmed by the shadow clones. If he was in his peak, he would probably be able to learn the ‘layer of existence’ that the shadow clones transverse into, it would be easy to deal with them.
The damage he received has significantly reduced Mordred’s capability. Even his AT-Field is not as strong as he claimed.
Still, he persisted. After enduring 4 hits, Mordred was able to decode the Dragon’s Shadow ethereal method, so he became able to defend against this type of attack with his AT-Field. However, his truesoul is lascerated with pseudo-dragon particles. The corrosion is so strong that he has to spare his attention so that his soul does not crumble at the pace that would be irreversible.
“It seems that… I underestimated a pseudo-dragon like yourself.” Mordred admits honestly.
For true experts, just one hit could mean the end of a battle.
Mordred did not only receive four life-threatening attacks, but it also had strong corrosion properties. His soul undulations are starting to become unstable, evidence of the difficulties in responding to the pseudo-dragon corrosion.
“You’ve lost…” the Dragon’s Shadow smiled. Its shadow clones are preparing to use a breath attack from a distance so that it doesn’t have to deal with the final retaliation of a dying ‘animal’.
“NO!” Mordred scream. His soul undulation became increasingly unstable. He would rather have the micro-plane imploded than dying to a resource that he captured hundreds of years ago.
“I will take care of that storage artifact you’re so fond of.” The dragon’s shadow unleashed dark breath towards Mordred who couldn’ properly defend himself. His AT-Field held strong under the attack, but it was like a sand castle being hit by countless waves. It eventually crumbled and the attack reached Mordred’s truesoul.
“I… am… a Soul Magus… of Holy Terra. I… won’t die… like… this…” Mordred muttered, before his truesoul was extinguished from this world.
Mordred is dead.
The Dragon’s Shadow was extremely vigilant. Even though Mordred has been killed, it still raised its guard. After ensuring no trace of Mordred is left with its investigative methods, it lowered the [Shadow Corridor] Killer Move and saw Xi Ling’s corpse holding a purple crystal.
According to its analysis, this was truly good stuff. The Dragon’s Shadow wouldn’t want to miss it.
Picking it up with its claws, the Dragon’s Shadow was shocked. This was truly good stuff. It contains almost 200-man worth of souls and a special demon soul of metal-path that could be used as a catalyst to break through to rank 2.
The Dragon’s Shadow did not dally. It immediately uses the demon’s soul to advance to rank 2 before the plane breaks. After three days, it truly advanced to rank 2 and with its power, it was able to break through the restriction of the hall to get out of this plane!
“FREEDOM!” The Dragon’s Shadow flew out of the underground fort, but it saw groups of humans. Since it has been a long time since it ate fresh food, it wanted to have them as snacks.
After killing and devouring them all, the Dragon’s Shadow’s strength advances so it can become an overlord of the Ruined Wood Palace.
…
“Pathetic… Truly an idiot until the last moment of the very end. You fell for the same trap twice… Touching my soul is a bad idea.” Mordred shook his head, his hand touched the head of the Dragon’s Shadow. His truesoul is currently shining in intense pastel pink light and mystical purple. He slowly reformed the AT-Field from radiance-type into black chains that completely binds the Dragon’s Shadow ‘true body’.
“As expected. The rank 1 killer move, [Spectral Touch: Yearning Daydream] can be activated if I don’t care about the expenditure and leaving out traces of foreign paths, but it would accelerate the destruction of this plane…” He could vaguely sense that the 7-day limit is now reduced by 3 days from the vibration of the whole dimension.
“I made my Schutzstaffel wear Power Armors and equipped them with Phase Shift Modules, allowing them to phase out to evade nuclear blasts. How can I be hit by your unpolished ethereal attack?” Mordred felt pity for the Dragon’s Shadow .
That’s right, his weakness was a farce. Mordred needs the Dragon’s Shadow to expose itself so that his killer move, which requires him to touch the enemy, can take effect. Since its first ‘successful’ attack, the Dragon’s Shadow has been defeated.
Battle between true experts typically ends with the other receiving one hit. The ‘one hit’ that Mordred activated pulls his foe into a dream with emotion as the foundation. As long as the Dragon’s Shadow indulges in its fantasy, it would be hard for it to break the killer move.
After the Dragon’s Shadow has been put into a dream, [Shadow Corridor] killer move could not continue to activate, so he’s no longer being enveloped by endless darkness. Mordred reconnects his telepathic link to the Dark Mist which has been idling on top of the wreckage of a mechanical dragon.
He gathered them up into liquid concentration and then made it enveloped the Dragon’s Shadow. Mordred’s truesoul returned back into Xi Ling’s corpse as he touched his chin. “So the Dragon’s Shadow is not an elemental lifeform, but still capable of using pseudo-dragon particles. Dragon-path is truly problematic…”
The Dark Mist was incapable of corrupting the Dragon’s Shadow true body despite being unable to retaliate because the Dragon’s Shadow isn’t an elemental or physical lifeform but something between the two. The concentrated pseudo-dragon particle that flowed in its exotic body would damage the nanomachines. The only reason why the Dragon’s Shadow did not use it’s true body from the start was because it got affected by Mordred’s wisdom-path method.
When he powers up the dragonoid puppets with 10 different AoE buffs, he secretly imbued several wisdom-path traps on the controlled puppet in the shape of telepathic fake wills.
At that time, Mordred used the dragonoid puppets to attack the Dragon’s Shadow to the best of their abilities, but his real intent was accumulating telepathic fake will on it. As long as the fake dragon touched Mordred’s puppets, the wisdom-path trap would activate and accumulate.
What he did with the telepathic fake will was making the Dragon’s Shadow selectively ignore Mordred’s blood, which was Dark Mist. After its mechanical body being infiltrated by Dark Mist, Mordred uses the remaining telepathic fake will to plant the idea that the Dark Mist could not be destroyed unless Mordred is dead. Thus, it does not even try to expel them with concentrated pseudo-dragon particles.
If the Dragon’s Shadow properly cycles the dragon particle within its body with the intention of cleansing its body, it could actually destroy most of the Dark Mist. Now that Dragon’s Shadow is dreaming, it would be extremely hard for it to wake up willingly, thus allowing Mordred to slowly analyze its nature.
“If I took too long, I wouldn’t be able to reforge a body.” Mordred took a decision quickly. Although the Dragon’s Shadow is a relatively weak exotic-lifeform unfit for combat, it has a highly specialized ability to create shadow clones or to shrink or enlarge its body. That ability overlaps with Ymir and his squad of spectral souls, so Mordred doesn't really need it. However, that is completely different for Dark Mist.
He slowly washed away the pseudo-dragon particles away from its body and used the Dragon’s Shadow part-elemental part-corporeal corpse as a material to upgrade Dark Mist into a rank 1 artifact. The advancement of Dark Mist allows it to create shadow-like energy clones of itself, which would be an extremely important ability for Mordred’s next identity.
“It took a day for Dark Mist to completely devour Dragon’s Shadow. I only have three days remaining in this plane, but Kasumi should’ve left me a present.” Mordred stood up. He glanced at the mechanical dragon corpse and after some pondering, he looted all the good materials from it. After all, the dragon’s shadow have refined it from exosuits materials.
…
The core area of the micro-plane is actually a large industrial 3D printing facility, befitting for an inheritance of the Great Archmage, who is a refinement-path expert.
To those who know the value of the 3D printing system like Klauss, the most valuable inheritance that can be gained in this micro-plane would be the industrial printing system. Taking precious Fabricator Units out of this place would be difficult because its myriad supporting systems are embedded to the whole facility, but it isn’t impossible.
Out of the 48 rank 0 Fabricator Units, which were 2 x 2 x 2 meter trapezoidal prism-shaped refinement-path machines, ten of them have been taken out. “That should be Kasumi’s handiwork. Ayame doesn't need them because she has far more advanced Fabricator Units compared to this place.” Mordred briefly analyzed.
Then, his sight soon is drawn to the other part of the area which should be the Furnace Unit. Just from the name alone, it really is just an industrial furnace found in most Galatreon factories (because these were their early model), and it has a relatively similar trapezoidal prism shape like the Fabricator Units. Some of them were also gone, most probably taken by Kasumi too.
These Industrial Fabricator and Furnace units are connected by conveyor belts, robotic hands, and other mechanisms typically found in a factory, but the scale isn’t that big. At most, this facility can ‘print’ a couple dozen of civilian-grade exosuits, or fewer military-grade ones each day.
The material storage of this place was non-existent because the ‘real’ warehouse was the hall that encases the core area. That’s right, they were all used by the Dragon’s Shadow to create puppets and the mechanical body that it used to fight them.
That being the case, due to the lack of materials, there’s a limit of what the system can print. The inheritors would have to either recycle the materials from the Dragon’s Shadow’s puppet, or take out their own materials.
“It seems like they’ve been maximizing the profit before the whole plane collapsed.” Mordred nodded as he saw traces of rushed movement all over the core area. Of course, not everything was taken because they should be under the urge of Kasumi to leave the truly good stuff for Mordred.
He approached the giant computer that governed the whole micro-plane. First, he looked for a note left by Kasumi as he read the activity logs. “Sumire lost 7 mutant kobolds… Ayame brought out the X-45 Hydra-pattern Mass Fabricator and Kenji is suffering the genetic backlash of using Ayame’s genetic condition… ” The note’s first part is a detailed combat report from multiple perspectives that Kasumi gathered.
He merely scanned them briefly and didn’t put too much thought on it. As his cultivation advances, the matters he needed to take care of would be in a different league. He put them all in the back of his mind for later deduction and trusted Kasumi would handle the rest.
Then, the next was the activity logs of the Fabricator and Furnace units. “117 civilian-grade kobold exosuits, 20 military-grade kobold exosuits, 20 civilian-grade human exosuits, and each custom-made military-grade human exosuits for the remaining hunters, made from recycling the resources that the Dragon’s Shadow used.” He scrolled down until he found what he was looking for.
“[Bio-Furnace], [Speaker], [Reactor Cooling System]… and few other essential parts for espionage such as the pseudo-womb and the supporting sexual organs…” This part was encrypted with a special language by Kasumi. “So, she has completed the necessary parts for Shion to enter Sumire’s harem and act like a real human...”
Then, on the bottom part of the log, there were notes regarding materials which were left for Mordred. “A chunk of rank 1 [Blazing Sun Ruby] and two petals of [Darkfrost Crystal Lotus], Xi Ling’s blood, and several other rare materials…”
The ruby was from Klauss and the crystal lotus petals are from Anastasia. Originally, there were three petals but it seems like Kasumi used one of them to refine an internal reactor cooling system while some part of the ruby is used to reinforce Shion’s reactor.
“Alright. All the necessary materials are collected. It’s time to refine a new body…” Mordred’s truesoul connected with the computer as he supplied the blueprint to the whole system. As Fabricator Units churned to life, it demanded pre-processed materials, so of course, Mordred put the Dragon’s Shadow mechanical wreckage to the Furnace Units for recycling. After some thought, he also put Xi Ling’s corpse into one of the Furnace units before updating the blueprint of his new body.
It seems strange to use biological material to refine a mechanical one, but it actually isn't. In Galatreon, some lubricant, adhesives, or wires widely used in refinement of combat puppets can only be gathered from beast corpse. Furthermore, when she was still alive, Xi Ling’s body had been nurtured by countless resources. Her skeleton, tendon, blood and viscera could be used.
“It will be finished in a day. After that, I can use the demon soul for a soul-path treatment and my new body will be ready. In the meantime…” He used the fabricator units to print weapons or necessary equipment that he needed in the future. He also gathered all the intel that he could get from the computer such as exosuit blueprints and a map.
There's actually a map of the Hartina Kingdom, complete with territory distribution and the necessary information for him to plan ahead. Of course, this was hundreds of years outdated as Murasaki Clan are still regarded as one of the Kingdom’s Ten Master clans, but having this map is absolutely better than not having one at all.
“Let’s see… According to the time, the identity that I’ll take this time is…” Mordred’s gaze traveled to a place not too far from Azaria Forest Hunter Base. “Lord Erebus…”
Soleil With this, I've finished volume 2 and will take a pause, probably a week or two, to edit and correct mistakes or inconsistencies in this volume (40 chapter, *sigh*). I'm truly sorry for this, but I am suffering from dyslexia. A considerable portion of my time writing is used to correct typos and grammatical errors. Though, there's a chance that I might be posting chapter 71 suddenly while editing, am not sure, cuz I also have college projects piled up.
Also, I need input from my dearest readers. Please leave an answer in the poll (It won't change the story much, I only wanted to see your acceptance level, but if it's no good, then I will take some time to rethink). Or, if you have something to say, don't hesitate to leave a comment, any constructive feedback would be extremely helpful. Danke schön.
Body, mind and soul.
Someone who tread the path of the body and temper their physique are often referred to as Body Cultivator or Martial Artists, while those that choose to cultivate the mind (or spirit) to understand the mysteries of the world and use their power are heralded as Mages.
Then, those that tread the path of the soul are revered to as Soul Cultivators.
Mordred has abandoned the aspect of body to pursue the absolute peak of ‘soul’ and ‘mind’ (primarily soul, mind second) so he didn’t care if his body was broken to the point of no return. As the greatest soul cultivator of Holy Terra, he cannot be measured by the standard metrics of lifeforms because in his perspective, the ‘body’ can be refined continuously as long as he is still alive. Like a shirt or a jacket, if the current body broke, he could just ‘wear’ another body.
Unlike the ‘mind’ or ‘body’ cultivation, the system of soul cultivation of this world has been butchered by the Divines. There’s simply not a single ‘true’ or ‘pure’ soul cultivation technique because the gods have blinded the masses and misleading them with faith. Their servants have burnt all those heretical materials that would distort the ‘truth’ of their faith, so most soul cultivation techniques are usually mixed with mind or the body.
According to his deduction, faith-path should be a path that has a deep relation to the soul cultivation system.
Unfortunately, Mordred could not experiment deeply on the path of faith because gods are extremely sensitive to their method of dominance. Also, his original comprehension of soul-path from Holy Terra did not work 100% in this world because Morgen World has different dimensional laws compared to his homeworld. In a sense, he was handicapped.
But after living for 600 years as the Great Archmage, although he could not decode the profundity of faith-path, he had refined his soul cultivation system so that it would work fine in Morgen World.
The first stage is to achieve ‘perfect’ advancement to rank 1 by breaking through after reaching the 20th superlative height of rank 0.
There are three facets of cultivating one’s soul: Soul Quality, Soul Strength, and Soul Pacification.
Unlike spiritual force development quotient or internal energy development quotient which was the metrics of rank 0 mage and martial artist, Mordred soul cultivation system did not use percentage, but the amount of soul runes. Each soul rune would represent one ‘Soul Strength’.
1 transparent star soul cultivation base means having 10-man soul foundation, then the peak-stage rank 0 which was 10 transparent stars definitely translates to 100-man soul foundation. But being in the superlative height of rank 0 does not mean having 101-man soul foundation because that's the stage of rank 1.
What Mordred did to achieve the superlative height of rank 0 is reinforce his original soul foundation by reforging the original 100 soul runes.
If Mordred’s truesoul is a building, then the first 100 soul runes would be the foundation and the quintessence template model for future soul runes. The superlative height of rank 0 is all about reinforcing them so that it would be far more superior as a preparation for the next stage, because advancing from rank 1 to rank 2 requires him to do a special action that wouldn’t be possible without a ‘durable’ foundation.
11 transparent stars meant 10 of the original 100 soul runes had been reinforced, 12 transparent stars meant 20, so on and so forth. Each superlative height is significantly harder than the previous because the process of reinforcing the soul runes has a chance for Mordred to break it.
Then, if he breaks it, he can just make a new one, right?
Wrong.
The number of soul runes must remain constant as each reinforced soul rune would fundamentally affect the other soul runes. At this step, the progress does not grant Mordred a linear 1+1 = 2 ‘growth’ but 1+1 could equal 2.1 instead. The additional 0.1 was the effect of the 100 soul runes growing together in tandem, and as the amount of soul runes are being reinforced, the effect would also increase. If a soul rune breaks during this process, the backlash would force him to waste a large amount of resources to repair, and it would greatly delay his progress.
Doing so while raising his guard against sudden attack from the Dragon’s Shadow was truly a monsterous feat, but it wasn't impossible for Mordred due to his experience of reaching rank 6 in his previous lifes.
That being said, the difference between peak-stage and the 20th superlative height is not too obvious for a layman because Mordred’s soul foundation is still 100-man souls. Soul Cultivation system’s metric usually measures one’s ‘Soul Strength’, but the superlative height of rank 0 is all about refining the ‘Soul Quality’.
Just like the soul of a beast and the soul of a human are completely different in terms of quality, the [Chaldean Soul] of Mordred and the soul of other lifeforms are fundamentally different.
Honestly, the superlative height of rank 0 is also referred to as the redundant-stage because Mordred doesn’t have to strive for these extra ‘steps’ to progress to rank 1. The peak-stage (10 transparent star) is sufficient for him to advance to the next rank.
However, doing so would definitely be more beneficial as it would allow his soul to be more durable. His ‘naked’ truesoul would have additional resistance against the saturation of sunlight or even divine blessings, and it would also reduce the chance of his truesoul crumbling when splitting his soul.
In other words, it would allow him to create more split souls like Kasumi.
When all of his 100 soul runes had been reinforced to the absolute limit and refined into the best template model, Mordred’s truesoul caused the whole micro-plane to tremble. The plane does not have the necessary dimensional laws to cater to Mordred. It was like the water inside a glass cup suddenly turned into a seething magma, the glass cup would break.
Just as there are three facets of soul cultivation, there are also three components of a soul: Truesoul, Soulforce and Soul Essence.
[Soulforce] is the internal energy of the souls, usually used to activate soul arts. One’s soulforce will automatically recover depending on the quality of one’s truesoul. If compared to mages, this would be their Spiritual Force.
[Soul Essence] is the external energy of the soul. One’s truesoul will automatically consume ‘soul nutrient’ in the environment to recover soul essence. Mage’s equivalent of soul essence is mana. Combined with soulforce, a Soul Cultivator can freely activate soul arts. A soul cultivator’s Soul Strength is usually tied to both [Soulforce] and [Soul Essence].
As for Truesoul, it is the core component of a soul. A cultivator’s [Soul Quality] usually refers to their truesoul. It is what holds the identity, personality, and memories of a person. Truesoul’s quality is directly tied to one’s experience, personality, cultivation technique or other factors. As one’s truesoul quality grew, the following aspect of soulforce and soul essence would experience a qualitative growth.
The ‘strength’ of Mordred’s truesoul is actually the same with other rank 1, at 100-man souls strong, but due to achieving the 20th superlative height of rank 0, it is unfair to group him with other rank 1s. At the very least, each soul rune that constructed his truesoul is three to four times stronger than others of the typical early-stage rank 1.
But, having an exemplary Soul Quality has its own drawback. To advance his Soul Strength, it would take roughly three to five times the resources for others to do the same. Meaning, if other soul cultivators require 2 units of soul resources to advance from 101-man to 102-man soul, then it would take him 6 to 10 units of soul resources. Though for him, this was an expected outcome.
Just as mages passively emit strong elemental radiation from their body due to their comprehension, accumulation, cultivation technique or various factors, souls too, radiate a certain type of energy. Most cultivators do not specifically cultivate their truesouls, so this radiation is relatively unknown, but for Mordred, it was his greatest asset.
As stated before, one’s truesoul is the core component of a soul. It is what holds the identity, personality and memories of a person. But, how?
The answer was this unknown radiation that emitted from the truesoul. This is one’s instinctive rejection towards the influence of the external world. It binds one’s ego and sense of self so that everyone can exist as an individual. When one’s soul foundation is strong, one is capable of rejecting the influence of others. Thus, it gave birth to the empirical evidence of enslavement-path or hypnotic methods are ineffective to others with strong spirit (mind) or soul foundation.
Mordred calls this… Absolute Territory Field, or AT-Field.
Every being with a soul possessed AT-Field.
The typical human has 1-man soul strength, their AT-Field is so weak that its existence could be completely ignored.
However, any rank 1 soul cultivator would experience a qualitative growth as their AT-Field could manifest in such a way that it could ‘reject’ attacks either material (physical), magical (elemental), or spectral (related to mind or soul). For special entities like Mordred, he could manipulate his AT-Field so that it can perform special actions.
For example, Mordred can use his AT-Field to resist some level of sunlight corrosion towards his ‘naked’ truesoul, thus allowing his naked truesoul achieving ‘immunity against sunlight’ as long as the AT-Field is constantly deployed.
“This is the light of my soul, the absolute territory that nobody can approach.” Mordred recited as his 3D holographic-like truesoul appeared behind Xi Ling. The AT-Field of his truesoul manifested in the form of light radiance shining in multiple spectrums of colors. Each color is actually the representation of his comprehension.
The most intense light has the color of profound gray. This color depth was due to his attainment of sound-path that reached [Transcendent].
The next ‘tier’ of light intensity are deep electric blue of lightning-path, mystic purple of soul-path, golden orange of refinement-path, misty purple of wisdom-path and prismatic pixels of information-path. Mordred’s attainment in these paths are quasi-transcendental.
Shining in silvery white color, the next layer of his attainment is sword-path which is [Apex].
Then, the next tier under [Apex], which was Quasi-Apex, is a pitch black light of dark-path.
The rest which are [Exemplary]-level contain the most variety of colors. Seven out of the nine elemental paths are at this level, accompanied by the golden color of time-path, the transparent space-path, dark red with black outline of dragon-path, brilliant crimson of blood-path and three mysterious colors of pastel pink, pale green, and semi translucent-white from paths that do not exist in this world, or even in the main world.
His other comprehension such as spear-path, strength-path, faith-path or others that do not reach Exemplary-level do not appear in his AT-Field.
Still, with the existence of the three colors of foreign paths that do not exist in this micro-plane or in Morgen world, the dimensional laws shuddered as it could not bear the burden. Unlike the main world who can compensate for the lack of dimensional laws with its sheer size, this plane could not. Mordred is merely advancing towards rank 1, but the whole plane is destabilizing!
He was prepared for the inevitable damage that he’ll cause upon the micro-plane, he suppressed his AT-Field to the point that only two colors are visible, which was profound gray and mystic purple of sound-path and soul-path.
Due to his quick action of suppression, the plane stopped breaking but the laws have already destabilized. It lacked deeper laws of space-path to self-heal from dimensional damage, so the micro-plane ruptured instead. The edge of this plane has already started being ‘pushed’ inward as it could not bear the spatial pressure of the void.
“With this, I have around… a week or so to take what’s left in this micro-plane before the core area is crushed by dimensional implosion.” Mordred made a quick calculation after feeling the spatial pressure through his AT-Field.
Then, he glanced at the Dragon’s Shadow who experienced absolute dread. “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME, HAVE MERCY!” There were no tricks in his plea as he had become truly afraid of Mordred. Its late-stage rank 1 cultivation could not damage the plane no matter what it did. Heck, the seal of this room did not allow its dragon breath to make a dent at the walls and floors but Mordred almost single-handedly broke the plane merely by advancing to rank 1. Even a retard would realize the difference of power.
However, Mordred wouldn't accept any of its pleas.
The 700 souls in his phylactery have been mostly consumed. To advance from the 10 transparent star to 20 transparent star and then 1 red star (rank 1), it cost him roughly half of his savings because of the difference in quality. To bind the Dragon’s Shadow, Mordred couldn't spare too much attention because he’s rushing for advancement, so he let the Dark Mist brute force the Dragon’s Shadow who slowly wrestled the corruption of Dark Mist away. The first day cost 50 souls so that the Dark Mist could completely suppress the Dragon’s Shadow, but the second day’s consumption rose to 70 and the last to 80 souls.
If the Dragon’s Shadow was truly pleading for its life, it wouldn’t struggle that hard. The best method of showing sincerity was letting the Dark Mist binding its body because it cannot corrupt the Dragon’s Shadow due to the difference of rank.
Therefore, Mordred did not believe a word this creature had said.
Normally, a truesoul’s ‘instinctive retaliation’ upon the external world can only be used as a defense mechanism. But, just as you can bash someone’s head with a metal shield and consider that as an attack, Mordred too, is capable of molding the AT-Field into whatever he desires as a form of attack. Through sheer will, he gathered his AT-Field on top of his palm.
The formless force field condensed as he suppressed the purple color of his soul-path attainment and replaced it with metallic white of metal-path and pitch-black of dark-path. Then, the black-and-white AT-Field condensed into the shape of a katana.
The colors of the AT-Field is the manifestation of his attainment, there’s a great significance behind it. Because AT-Field is primarily a defense mechanism, the color on his AT-Field’s also means it’s high resistance against methods of the said path.
In full power, his transcendent-level attainment in sound-path allowed Mordred’s AT-Field to be nearly immune (around 90%) to sound-path methods of the same rank. Methods of other paths which are at Apex have around three-fourth (70 to 75%) resistance, while those at exemplary-level have their effectiveness halved (45 to 50%) in the face of his AT-Field.
This was quite literally, beating someone else with knowledge and experience.
Of course, in the real world, that rule wouldn’t be 100% accurate because everyone has different experience and accumulation. But, the more difference of attainment someone had, the more Mordred had an edge against them, that was indisputable. And, due to his high attainment in almost all paths due to his past lives, it could be said that he had an advantage against almost everyone.
The katana-shaped force field is merely as powerful as his AT-Field could allow it. It wasn’t the best usage of AT-Field because it should be used as defense or structural fortification of a solid object, but without a weapon, this is the only ‘weapon’ he could wield.
“Heh. Swords are lame, but… sword-path truly has the best offensive power so far in terms of weapon paths.” His holographic-like truesoul left Xi Ling’s body as he made a quick cut through the air, a rank 1 [Truesilver Finger Whistle] augmented with [Quadruple Maximize: Overlapping Resonance].
Unlike the attack he made with his finger while he was rank 0, this attack is truly far more powerful as he turned his unreasonably high ‘defense’ rating against dark-path and metal-path into ‘attack’ rating. The Dragon’s Shadow’s dark barrier flared to life, but this one attack was sufficient in destroying it outright because Mordred had decoded the defense barrier’s mechanism.
The destruction of the dark barrier meant the dragon’s shadow mechanical body was laid bare. With another attack of the same level, the body which Mordred’s rank 0 self tried so hard to destroy literally split into two halves.
ROARRR!!! The Dragon’s Shadow's true body left the broken machine. It has been accumulating momentum for its physical body’s destruction. The ‘dragon heart’ of Dragon’s Shadow mechanical body was unharmed. The dark ‘heart’ suddenly expanded into another Dragon’s Shadow made of pure darkness. It screamed as its shadowy true body activated a method. “Rank 1 dark-path killer move, [Shadow Corridor]!”
Unleashing two rank 1 [Truesilver Finger Whistle] have expended a lot of Mordred’s telepathic thoughts and energy. While the Dragon’s Shadow could not deal effective damage to him, Mordred still raised up his guard. He wouldn’t let the shadow get a free hit on his soul. The concentrated katana-like AT-Field immediately returned back to its original form, which was a formless rejection forcefield that enveloped his truesoul.
“So you can pull me into a dark-path battlefield… this is your trump card?” Mordred’s truesoul in the physical world has the form of pure information current, formed by a hundred soul runes. It has no fixed shape, but due to Mordred’s habit of being a human, he took on the form of his former human physical body.
Right now, his vision is filled with endless darkness. The Dragon’s Shadow has home field advantage due to [Shadow Corridor], which allows it to not only gain amplification in all metrics but also the ability to switch position between shadow clones freely. And, there are currently eight Dragon’s Shadows, which means it’s trying to use seven shadow clones to fight against Mordred.
One of the Dragon’s Shadow’s clones instantly attacked Mordred with it’s dark claw.
Mordred used his AT-Field to form a hexagonal shield of pure blackness, but the shadow passed through it as if it was an illusion.
“Oh, ethereal form…” Mordred was caught off-guard. The attack went past his AT-Field and landed on his truesoul. Since it was ethereal, it shouldn’t be able to hit Mordred’s truesoul, but it can freely change from ethereal to material. Mordred’s soul would normally be nigh-invulnerable to physical attack as it has the form of pure information current, but the Dragon’s Shadow claw attack is imbued with pseudo-dragon particles.
Dragon Particles, even its fake derivation, are still lethal to other lifeforms. Furthermore, the level of pseudo-dragon particles in this attack is far more dangerous than what it has shown the entire time. This was truly a hidden card that the Dragon’s Shadow used at the correct moment so that it could gain an advantage.
Mordred wouldn’t allow the attack to land, but the attack came too fast for him to react.
Splat! Mordred’s truesoul splattered into fine particles like a crystal glass that broke into millions pieces. Pixels of Mordred’s soul runes are being splattered onto the room. He received significant damage in that exchange, but he still survived.
To defend against ethereal attack, a normal defense wouldn’t be sufficient. The real world isn’t that simple.
Being ‘ethereal’ means the Dragon’s Shadow is shifting its presence in a unique layer of existence, this method is very widely used by space-path cultivators. Unless one is prepared to deal against ethereal attack, it would be hard to defend it. Of course, since the attack itself is ethereal, it would normally deal infinitesimal damage to a physical entity, but Mordred’s truesoul is now laid bare, exposed to the elements.
Due to that simple-looking attack having the strength of late-stage rank 1, Mordred’s truesoul who just ascended to rank 1 have already started crumbling.
“Fuck… I miscalculated…” Mordred saw the remaining Dragon’s Shadow pounced on him but he had learnt his lesson. He altered the AT-Field to deal with ethereal attack, but he was overwhelmed by the shadow clones. If he was in his peak, he would probably be able to learn the ‘layer of existence’ that the shadow clones transverse into, it would be easy to deal with them.
The damage he received has significantly reduced Mordred’s capability. Even his AT-Field is not as strong as he claimed.
Still, he persisted. After enduring 4 hits, Mordred was able to decode the Dragon’s Shadow ethereal method, so he became able to defend against this type of attack with his AT-Field. However, his truesoul is lascerated with pseudo-dragon particles. The corrosion is so strong that he has to spare his attention so that his soul does not crumble at the pace that would be irreversible.
“It seems that… I underestimated a pseudo-dragon like yourself.” Mordred admits honestly.
For true experts, just one hit could mean the end of a battle.
Mordred did not only receive four life-threatening attacks, but it also had strong corrosion properties. His soul undulations are starting to become unstable, evidence of the difficulties in responding to the pseudo-dragon corrosion.
“You’ve lost…” the Dragon’s Shadow smiled. Its shadow clones are preparing to use a breath attack from a distance so that it doesn’t have to deal with the final retaliation of a dying ‘animal’.
“NO!” Mordred scream. His soul undulation became increasingly unstable. He would rather have the micro-plane imploded than dying to a resource that he captured hundreds of years ago.
“I will take care of that storage artifact you’re so fond of.” The dragon’s shadow unleashed dark breath towards Mordred who couldn’ properly defend himself. His AT-Field held strong under the attack, but it was like a sand castle being hit by countless waves. It eventually crumbled and the attack reached Mordred’s truesoul.
“I… am… a Soul Magus… of Holy Terra. I… won’t die… like… this…” Mordred muttered, before his truesoul was extinguished from this world.
Mordred is dead.
The Dragon’s Shadow was extremely vigilant. Even though Mordred has been killed, it still raised its guard. After ensuring no trace of Mordred is left with its investigative methods, it lowered the [Shadow Corridor] Killer Move and saw Xi Ling’s corpse holding a purple crystal.
According to its analysis, this was truly good stuff. The Dragon’s Shadow wouldn’t want to miss it.
Picking it up with its claws, the Dragon’s Shadow was shocked. This was truly good stuff. It contains almost 200-man worth of souls and a special demon soul of metal-path that could be used as a catalyst to break through to rank 2.
The Dragon’s Shadow did not dally. It immediately uses the demon’s soul to advance to rank 2 before the plane breaks. After three days, it truly advanced to rank 2 and with its power, it was able to break through the restriction of the hall to get out of this plane!
“FREEDOM!” The Dragon’s Shadow flew out of the underground fort, but it saw groups of humans. Since it has been a long time since it ate fresh food, it wanted to have them as snacks.
After killing and devouring them all, the Dragon’s Shadow’s strength advances so it can become an overlord of the Ruined Wood Palace.
…
“Pathetic… Truly an idiot until the last moment of the very end. You fell for the same trap twice… Touching my soul is a bad idea.” Mordred shook his head, his hand touched the head of the Dragon’s Shadow. His truesoul is currently shining in intense pastel pink light and mystical purple. He slowly reformed the AT-Field from radiance-type into black chains that completely binds the Dragon’s Shadow ‘true body’.
“As expected. The rank 1 killer move, [Spectral Touch: Yearning Daydream] can be activated if I don’t care about the expenditure and leaving out traces of foreign paths, but it would accelerate the destruction of this plane…” He could vaguely sense that the 7-day limit is now reduced by 3 days from the vibration of the whole dimension.
“I made my Schutzstaffel wear Power Armors and equipped them with Phase Shift Modules, allowing them to phase out to evade nuclear blasts. How can I be hit by your unpolished ethereal attack?” Mordred felt pity for the Dragon’s Shadow .
That’s right, his weakness was a farce. Mordred needs the Dragon’s Shadow to expose itself so that his killer move, which requires him to touch the enemy, can take effect. Since its first ‘successful’ attack, the Dragon’s Shadow has been defeated.
Battle between true experts typically ends with the other receiving one hit. The ‘one hit’ that Mordred activated pulls his foe into a dream with emotion as the foundation. As long as the Dragon’s Shadow indulges in its fantasy, it would be hard for it to break the killer move.
After the Dragon’s Shadow has been put into a dream, [Shadow Corridor] killer move could not continue to activate, so he’s no longer being enveloped by endless darkness. Mordred reconnects his telepathic link to the Dark Mist which has been idling on top of the wreckage of a mechanical dragon.
He gathered them up into liquid concentration and then made it enveloped the Dragon’s Shadow. Mordred’s truesoul returned back into Xi Ling’s corpse as he touched his chin. “So the Dragon’s Shadow is not an elemental lifeform, but still capable of using pseudo-dragon particles. Dragon-path is truly problematic…”
The Dark Mist was incapable of corrupting the Dragon’s Shadow true body despite being unable to retaliate because the Dragon’s Shadow isn’t an elemental or physical lifeform but something between the two. The concentrated pseudo-dragon particle that flowed in its exotic body would damage the nanomachines. The only reason why the Dragon’s Shadow did not use it’s true body from the start was because it got affected by Mordred’s wisdom-path method.
When he powers up the dragonoid puppets with 10 different AoE buffs, he secretly imbued several wisdom-path traps on the controlled puppet in the shape of telepathic fake wills.
At that time, Mordred used the dragonoid puppets to attack the Dragon’s Shadow to the best of their abilities, but his real intent was accumulating telepathic fake will on it. As long as the fake dragon touched Mordred’s puppets, the wisdom-path trap would activate and accumulate.
What he did with the telepathic fake will was making the Dragon’s Shadow selectively ignore Mordred’s blood, which was Dark Mist. After its mechanical body being infiltrated by Dark Mist, Mordred uses the remaining telepathic fake will to plant the idea that the Dark Mist could not be destroyed unless Mordred is dead. Thus, it does not even try to expel them with concentrated pseudo-dragon particles.
If the Dragon’s Shadow properly cycles the dragon particle within its body with the intention of cleansing its body, it could actually destroy most of the Dark Mist. Now that Dragon’s Shadow is dreaming, it would be extremely hard for it to wake up willingly, thus allowing Mordred to slowly analyze its nature.
“If I took too long, I wouldn’t be able to reforge a body.” Mordred took a decision quickly. Although the Dragon’s Shadow is a relatively weak exotic-lifeform unfit for combat, it has a highly specialized ability to create shadow clones or to shrink or enlarge its body. That ability overlaps with Ymir and his squad of spectral souls, so Mordred doesn't really need it. However, that is completely different for Dark Mist.
He slowly washed away the pseudo-dragon particles away from its body and used the Dragon’s Shadow part-elemental part-corporeal corpse as a material to upgrade Dark Mist into a rank 1 artifact. The advancement of Dark Mist allows it to create shadow-like energy clones of itself, which would be an extremely important ability for Mordred’s next identity.
“It took a day for Dark Mist to completely devour Dragon’s Shadow. I only have three days remaining in this plane, but Kasumi should’ve left me a present.” Mordred stood up. He glanced at the mechanical dragon corpse and after some pondering, he looted all the good materials from it. After all, the dragon’s shadow have refined it from exosuits materials.
…
The core area of the micro-plane is actually a large industrial 3D printing facility, befitting for an inheritance of the Great Archmage, who is a refinement-path expert.
To those who know the value of the 3D printing system like Klauss, the most valuable inheritance that can be gained in this micro-plane would be the industrial printing system. Taking precious Fabricator Units out of this place would be difficult because its myriad supporting systems are embedded to the whole facility, but it isn’t impossible.
Out of the 48 rank 0 Fabricator Units, which were 2 x 2 x 2 meter trapezoidal prism-shaped refinement-path machines, ten of them have been taken out. “That should be Kasumi’s handiwork. Ayame doesn't need them because she has far more advanced Fabricator Units compared to this place.” Mordred briefly analyzed.
Then, his sight soon is drawn to the other part of the area which should be the Furnace Unit. Just from the name alone, it really is just an industrial furnace found in most Galatreon factories (because these were their early model), and it has a relatively similar trapezoidal prism shape like the Fabricator Units. Some of them were also gone, most probably taken by Kasumi too.
These Industrial Fabricator and Furnace units are connected by conveyor belts, robotic hands, and other mechanisms typically found in a factory, but the scale isn’t that big. At most, this facility can ‘print’ a couple dozen of civilian-grade exosuits, or fewer military-grade ones each day.
The material storage of this place was non-existent because the ‘real’ warehouse was the hall that encases the core area. That’s right, they were all used by the Dragon’s Shadow to create puppets and the mechanical body that it used to fight them.
That being the case, due to the lack of materials, there’s a limit of what the system can print. The inheritors would have to either recycle the materials from the Dragon’s Shadow’s puppet, or take out their own materials.
“It seems like they’ve been maximizing the profit before the whole plane collapsed.” Mordred nodded as he saw traces of rushed movement all over the core area. Of course, not everything was taken because they should be under the urge of Kasumi to leave the truly good stuff for Mordred.
He approached the giant computer that governed the whole micro-plane. First, he looked for a note left by Kasumi as he read the activity logs. “Sumire lost 7 mutant kobolds… Ayame brought out the X-45 Hydra-pattern Mass Fabricator and Kenji is suffering the genetic backlash of using Ayame’s genetic condition… ” The note’s first part is a detailed combat report from multiple perspectives that Kasumi gathered.
He merely scanned them briefly and didn’t put too much thought on it. As his cultivation advances, the matters he needed to take care of would be in a different league. He put them all in the back of his mind for later deduction and trusted Kasumi would handle the rest.
Then, the next was the activity logs of the Fabricator and Furnace units. “117 civilian-grade kobold exosuits, 20 military-grade kobold exosuits, 20 civilian-grade human exosuits, and each custom-made military-grade human exosuits for the remaining hunters, made from recycling the resources that the Dragon’s Shadow used.” He scrolled down until he found what he was looking for.
“[Bio-Furnace], [Speaker], [Reactor Cooling System]… and few other essential parts for espionage such as the pseudo-womb and the supporting sexual organs…” This part was encrypted with a special language by Kasumi. “So, she has completed the necessary parts for Shion to enter Sumire’s harem and act like a real human...”
Then, on the bottom part of the log, there were notes regarding materials which were left for Mordred. “A chunk of rank 1 [Blazing Sun Ruby] and two petals of [Darkfrost Crystal Lotus], Xi Ling’s blood, and several other rare materials…”
The ruby was from Klauss and the crystal lotus petals are from Anastasia. Originally, there were three petals but it seems like Kasumi used one of them to refine an internal reactor cooling system while some part of the ruby is used to reinforce Shion’s reactor.
“Alright. All the necessary materials are collected. It’s time to refine a new body…” Mordred’s truesoul connected with the computer as he supplied the blueprint to the whole system. As Fabricator Units churned to life, it demanded pre-processed materials, so of course, Mordred put the Dragon’s Shadow mechanical wreckage to the Furnace Units for recycling. After some thought, he also put Xi Ling’s corpse into one of the Furnace units before updating the blueprint of his new body.
It seems strange to use biological material to refine a mechanical one, but it actually isn't. In Galatreon, some lubricant, adhesives, or wires widely used in refinement of combat puppets can only be gathered from beast corpse. Furthermore, when she was still alive, Xi Ling’s body had been nurtured by countless resources. Her skeleton, tendon, blood and viscera could be used.
“It will be finished in a day. After that, I can use the demon soul for a soul-path treatment and my new body will be ready. In the meantime…” He used the fabricator units to print weapons or necessary equipment that he needed in the future. He also gathered all the intel that he could get from the computer such as exosuit blueprints and a map.
There's actually a map of the Hartina Kingdom, complete with territory distribution and the necessary information for him to plan ahead. Of course, this was hundreds of years outdated as Murasaki Clan are still regarded as one of the Kingdom’s Ten Master clans, but having this map is absolutely better than not having one at all.
“Let’s see… According to the time, the identity that I’ll take this time is…” Mordred’s gaze traveled to a place not too far from Azaria Forest Hunter Base. “Lord Erebus…”
Soleil With this, I've finished volume 2 and will take a pause, probably a week or two, to edit and correct mistakes or inconsistencies in this volume (40 chapter, *sigh*). I'm truly sorry for this, but I am suffering from dyslexia. A considerable portion of my time writing is used to correct typos and grammatical errors. Though, there's a chance that I might be posting chapter 71 suddenly while editing, am not sure, cuz I also have college projects piled up.
Also, I need input from my dearest readers. Please leave an answer in the poll (It won't change the story much, I only wanted to see your acceptance level, but if it's no good, then I will take some time to rethink). Or, if you have something to say, don't hesitate to leave a comment, any constructive feedback would be extremely helpful. Danke schön.
