Soul Venerable (Re-written)

The next day.

Training rooms can be rented through the use of contribution points, but not every training room is the same. Those with better facilities use up more contribution points than the simple ones. The one Kenji and Shion rented previously was on the cheap side thanks to the lack of high-tech facilities and its small size.

As for the current training room where Shion and Kenji were brought into, it is actually on the expensive side. Not only the large size, there are various types of battle puppets provided for the purpose of testing special moves or measuring damage output, they could also serve as sparring partners with customizable difficulties. There are also various features such as video capture and combat analytic service included within the high-tech battle puppets.    

Violet Sword Blaze, now Twin Helix, was actually given copious amounts of free rent time of this high-grade rank 0 training room due to Akane Sakuya’s and Kubikiri Shirogane’s clans sponsoring the academy.

Indeed, the girls’ families are rich and are not afraid of donating resources to support their daughters. In fact, most team captains are like this. But, due to Violet Sword Blaze’s unique situation of being led by a non-nobility, Sakuya and Shirogane were the one who took the role of sugar mommies.

That being said, Kenji and Shion are now allowed to use the room freely as a member of Twin Helix.

“The rank 0 of martial cultivation is often revered as the ‘muscle training’ stage because we are training our physique as well as accustoming the physical body with internal energy. The progress is calculated by our internal energy development quotient percentage.

Every 10% of the development quotient is considered as one transparent star. When our physical body reaches ten transparent stars or 100% internal energy development quotient, we are eligible to take the next step, but my clan forbids this. Instead, we are responsible to train our physical body to the absolute limit of mortal flesh before we are allowed to take the next step.”

Shion was imparting her understanding of martial arts to Kenji while all of Twin Helix members were present.

“It is the same with mine, it would be best if we could accomplish ‘physical perfection’ stage to ease our progress towards the next step.” Sakuya confirmed Shion’s theory.

Her presence turned the lesson into a discussion.

Since they are now on the same side, there’s no need to keep the basics to themselves. As long as there are no secret techniques being shared, most martial clans wouldn’t hesitate to allow their clansmen to teach others as long as it is beneficial to them.

“Every clan has a different interpretation of ‘physical perfection’, but my clan define it as the absolute limit of which our physical body wouldn’t be able to grow further through mere physical training. Depending on our talents, rank 0 martial artists usually stopped growing when their six physical attributes reached around 10 to 15 units.” Sakuya added.

‘Depending on talent’ is a vague limit, but that’s the best way to describe it.

The existence of bloodline powers means human nobility ceased being pure human. Some clans incorporated the bloodline of powerful beasts or other extradimensional entities, which augment the ‘basic template’ of their clansmen to exceed pure humans. In fact, this was one of the reasons why Morgen World’s inhabitants are generally stronger than Holy Terra’s, but that’s for another time.

“An example of this is my Akane clan. At some point in my ancestry, we have incorporated the blood of a Four-tailed Deep Crimson Firefox into our bloodline, granting me great fire-path talent. Thanks to the physical prowess of the Firefox, my clan’s theoretical physical limit of rank 0 is 14th superlative height instead of merely 10 transparent stars.”

When the physical body is pushed to the limit, the internal energy development quotient can exceed 100%. In this case, the body’s foundational internal energy would be more condensed and pure, allowing easier breakthrough to rank 1. Of course, a normal human couldn’t achieve this, only those with powerful bloodlines and or physical mutation have this chance.

“I cannot reveal my clan’s theoretical physical limit, but there wouldn’t be a problem for me to reach the 13th superlative height.” Shion casually lied. She does not cultivate in martial arts, but it doesn’t mean she is unaware.

1 to 3 transparent stars is early-stage, 4 to 6 is mid-stage, 7 to 9 is late-stage, and 10 transparent stars is peak-stage. For 11 transparent stars and above, it is considered as the superlative height of rank 0.

Each superlative height is a bottleneck in itself, the difficulty of cultivating from peak-stage to 11th superlative height is significantly greater than from 7 stars to 10 stars combined while 11th to 12th is harder than all the previous levels combined.

The next ‘step’ of martial cultivation is rank 1 whose progress is measured in red stars. 1 red star equals 10 transparent stars in the amount of internal energy alone, but there’s a major qualitative difference in the concentration and purity in the energy itself. If one ascends from 11 transparent star into 1 red star, that would mean a higher purity of 1 red star. This advantage would stack as one progressed further, allowing easier progression and higher martial prowess.

Thus, ascending from peak-stage rank 0 to rank 1 is sometimes easier than from peak-stage to the 11th superlative height of rank 0.

Only those geniuses from ancient clans are usually allowed to pursue the ‘superlative height’ of rank 0. Others lack the necessary talent and resources to reach the stage.

That being said, Kenji’s physical body has an upper limit of 10 transparent stars due to his relatively pure human bloodline. His furthest rank 0 cultivation is 100% internal energy development quotient. In other words, the moment the fools he pushed around rose to rank 1, they would automatically be stronger than him as long as they reached the 11th or 12th superlative height of rank 0 before progressing.

This was the primary reason why he desperately wanted to obtain bloodline power from powerful beasts before reaching the peak of rank 0.

“But, thanks to the path pioneered by the Great Archmage, martial artists with weak bloodlines can seek alternatives. You still have another method to fill in the gap of talent: through the use of external tools.” Shion shared her wisdom. “It could be powerful body runes, artifacts, Soul Armament, or others. The quintessence of this example is Murasaki clan’s Power Armors and Mechas.”

Kenji shook his head. After personally meeting Murasaki Ayame personally, he enlightens himself regarding her clan.  “Murasaki clan’s mechas are their unique inheritance, nobody else can pilot one. They are not only talented; they can also use external tools to boost their combat prowess. I couldn’t maintain the resource expenditure even if I got Power Armor in my hands.”

Almost all Murasaki clansmen are mages, but thanks to their technologically advanced artifacts, they can ignore mage-martial artist classification.

“You are too inflexible in your way of thinking.” Shion dragged the coffin-shaped mobile furnace that she assembled a while back. “Sorry for the wait, this is heavy.”

Shion then interacts with the mobile furnace’s console. Soon, she pulled various types of munitions out of its dimensional storage.  

“These are [9 mm Rounds], [White Phosphorus Shell], [Cryonic Rounds], [Armor-piercing Rounds], [Flashbang], [Heavy Concussive Sonic Rounds], [HE Mortar Shell] and [Flammenwerfer-Treibstoff] …” Shion lined up her creations one after another. “There are some that I cannot share beforehand as trump cards, I hope you all understand.”

These munitions were each color coded while having various sizes. The Cryonic Rounds is a finger sized tube with a pale cyan marker on them, while the Armor-piercing Rounds have sharp edges and are marked with white color, et cetera.

Seeing this amount of preparation, everyone else was surprised while Sumire nodded as if she had expected it.

“So what if I can’t deal 10 or 100 damage with my physical body, I can use these munitions to gain an advantage. So what if I can’t beat my enemy with magic, there are always other ways to kill. As an antimage with no talent in elemental-paths, I lack the flashy techniques of martial artists and mages possessed. That’s why I compensate for my weakness with tools.

If you thought of ‘external tools are in the end, external, they are not your true strength’, then, you are an absolute idiot.”  

Shion disdained pure idealists who lacked flexibility in their thinking. The mages in Morgen world who consider ‘knowledge is power’ are too far lacking compared to the Magus of Holy Terra. Magus wouldn’t hesitate to use any means necessary to achieve their goals, they followed the doctrine of ‘knowledge is power’ to the truest sense.   

That being said, Kenji was always trying to find methods to cover up his lack of ranged attack, but he couldn’t refine consumables like Shion did. He doesn’t possess the mindset of an antimage who had to continuously find ways to best mages in their playing field. After all, Kenji is a Hunter, not a Hunter-Killer like Shion.

“Having Soul Armament like me might be too far-fetched, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a good weapon on your hands.” Shion interacts with the mobile furnace’s console once more to bring out a weapon. “This is for you…”

Kenji took the weapon with a heavy heart. His trusted warhammer was melted and its components are used to create this weapon. “I would never have thought of myself as an archer…”

That’s right, the weapon in his hand is a heavy compound bow. The bow was so large that it was as tall as Shion. There was some high-tech profundity in this multi-string compound bow that Kenji couldn’t understand, but he knew Shion was thinking what’s best for him when she designed the weapon. It may not be perfect since Shion is a ‘newbie’ in refining weapons, but it’s a thousand times better than paying contribution points to purchase them.

“Now you have a fitting weapon that goes with your absurd investigative capabilities.” Shion commented. “These are the arrows that I’ve refined for you, please inspect them.”

Kenji took one of the normal looking ones and was surprised at the weight. It was very heavy to others, yet it was convenient for him.

“These are too heavy and too long to be called an arrow. It should be called a spear instead.” Kurogane commented as he appraised a 1.25-meter-long metal arrow.

Shion shrugged. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sword, a spear, or a log. As long as it can be propelled with a bow, it is an arrow. In her homeworld, there’s a certain Archer donned in red overcoat who claimed to be an archer but shot swords and fought while wielding two swords instead.

“Give it.” Kenji snatched the spear-like arrow that Kurogane held. He became childish as it was a gift his captain made for him. “Thanks, boss.” his eyes are now gleaming, he had let go of his obsession with warhammer. “Excuse me, I want to try…” he brought some of the normal arrows to test with battle puppets.

Shion shrugged as she kept the better arrows for later. She wanted to see the effect of her special arrows shot by Kenji’s unreasonable strength but will always be next time. Now that her object of interest has busied himself, she diverted attention away towards Sumire’s faction. “Now then, let’s proceed with the next step of our preparations-”

Shion’s words were interrupted by a prompt from the training room’s console. There was someone requesting presence at the door. Alanis went to check, only to be surprised that it was Murasaki Ayame.

Sumire glanced at Shion who nodded at her questioning gaze. “Then, let her in.”

Ayame entered the room, donning her typical blue-camo pattern military uniform. “I’m here to discuss some matters with Absolute Duo’s Yukikaze Shion.” She stated her goal immediately when she saw Shion was surrounded by Violet Sword Blaze members.

“That’s alright, we can talk here. So what’s your answer?” Shion caught a glimpse of Ayame’s expectant expression when she glanced at the various munitions laid out in front of her mobile furnace.

Ayame shrugged her shoulders as she suppressed her emotion. Since Shion has said so herself, then it wouldn’t be a problem to leak possible intel to others. “I’ve thought this through and your invitation does not conflict with my purpose of gaining experience. I want to join your team…”

“Great! Welcome to our team, Murasaki Ayame. Let me introduce you, these people will be your future teammates.” Shion answered, smiling. There’s an upper limit of 12 members in a party, but Murasaki Ayame’s presence in the team does not exceed the academy’s rule.

Ayame frowned, this was out of her expectation. “Have you joined Violet Sword Blaze because you lack an enslavement-path master?” In her eyes, the only one worthy of her attention in Violet Sword Blaze was Sumire. The others… not so much.

Shion quickly denied as she explains the dual-captain system of Twin Helix. “I see… Then, you’ll still have to fulfil your promise of sharing your inheritance to me, that was the deal.”

Their conversation rouses the interest of Sakuya and Sumire who were interested in Shion to begin with. Sumire did not obstruct Ayame’s desire to join the team since Twin Helix exert non-interference policy between factions. In fact, she was happy that a Murasaki clansmen joined her team.  

“Absolutely, His Majesty’s inheritance is too precious for me alone. In fact, the goal of this mission is related to that very inheritance.” Shion put her fingers on her lips while telling a truthful lie.

Everyone present suddenly has a serious expression. They quickly understood who Shion referred to. There’s only one person who Ayame willingly praises to the point of calling him His Majesty. “Shion, is this true?” Sumire asked.

“Yes.”

“Then,” Sumire nudged Alanis. “Please.”

“Understood, captain.” The wolf beastman produces several scrolls and begins activating them one after another. Although the training room is protected by stealth formation to block prying eyes, Sumire wouldn’t want to risk information leak. Thus, she commanded her information specialist to use every means possible to prevent any leak of intel.

Anti-investigative information-path spells were activated, forming layers upon layers of protection.   

“I’ll activate a defensive spell against time-path investigation method.” Even Murasaki Ayame was serious.

Unlike Alanis who uses multiple scrolls to compensate for her lack of data resources, Ayame activates an information-path spell through the wrist watch-like small computer on her wrist. She quickly typed command lines on a holographic keyboard as a feminine mechanical voice resounded from it, “Activating rank 0 information-path magic spell, [Time Access Encryption]!”

As white-gold pixels spread across the room and enveloping all who present, everyone silently paid great attention to Shion’s every word. Any information regarding the Great Archmage’s inheritance is too precious that it can cause a war. The less that knew about it, the better. Thus, the protection against investigative methods are not redundant. It might be useless against rank 1 or rank 2s but at least it will buy them some time until the intel leak happens.

 

“Good, it seems that everyone understands the gravity of the situation. As you all might have guessed already, my first bloodline power grants me immunity to detection, therefore, unless it was a rank 2 or legendary time-path investigation method, nobody would be able to capture what I said.” Shion casually muttered a truthful lie.

Nobody can confirm her source of detection immunity, therefore it’s not a complete lie. After all, how can she have bloodline power if she does not possess blood?

“Please do not think you can plunder this inheritance from me, you lack the necessary skill to subdue me. Even if you think otherwise, none of you have the ability to extract that information from my sea of consciousness, therefore, it is best if we cooperate as stated in our team agreement. I am not an unreasonable person; you don’t have to worry about not fulfilling my part of the bargain.” Shion sternly warned everyone present. The best proof of her words was Kenji who was willing to be her underling.

“Then, let me elaborate. I have received intel on a rank 1 minor inheritance that the Great Archmage left behind when he was a Legendary. It was called Combat Exosuit Minor Inheritance, located somewhere within the ruined wood palace of Azaria forest. There is no more detailed information on the content of the inheritance, but I believe it contains exosuits: the starting prototype models of power armors and giant the mechas existing only in Galatreon…”

The three ace mages, Sumire, Sakuya and Ayame were concealing their truest desire but Shion could see through it. Without her further explanation, they had already known what exosuits are. It’s a full-body defensive artifact worn by the regular soldiers of Galatreon. Compared to power armors, they are weaker in every metric, but power armor operational cost is too heavy for rank 0s like them. Exosuits are far more attractive and practical for them at the moment.

Exosuits not only offer high defense capability, but also various augmentations. Even the low-grade ones used by the general soldiers of Galatreon were very modular, as long as you have the right parts, it can be the perfect life-saving artifact and a killing machine.

No, the low-grade ones might be too far-fetched, the energy expenditure is too heavy to be worn by rank 0s like them since most exosuits require special training to master. Without the necessary skills to wear one, it would be detrimental to equip exosuits. However, the civilian-grade exosuits are still acceptable. They were designed to augment mortal workers into as powerful as rank 0 martial artists, their worth can be seen from that alone.

If a martial artist wore them, the amplification and defensive power allows one to exhibit the strength of at least 3 transparent stars higher than their current level. However, if a mage were to wear one… then that would be like putting a howitzer onto an armored train.    

“Unfortunately, Azaria forest is not a free real estate. There are multiple unique rank 2 existences that’ll pose a threat even to Legendaries.” Shion added.    

Sumire nodded, “That’s right, the Troll Warlord, the Dire Wolf King, and the Ancient Dawn Ents… Thanks to their presence, even our academy’s chairman, a rank 3 Legendary, couldn’t freely travel in and out of Azaria forest.”

“Indeed.” Ayame added.

“The Troll Warlord is a powerful variant of greenskins excelling in endurance and battle of attrition: A mutated War Troll. The Dire Wolf King is a giant wolf mutant who leads multiple powerful wolf subspecies while the Ancient Dawn Ent is actually a race of intelligent trees. They would be in constant conflict with each other… but when there’s an external threat, they would band together.” Sumire shared her intel.

“We aren’t going to infiltrate the forest alone. The increase in greenskins activity in the forest’s borders indicate a possible greenskin uprising. To delay or even deny the invasion, the academy is increasing the rewards of Azaria forest-related missions, incentivizing greenskin and wolf hunts in the area. Our 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th year seniors who are desperate for contribution points would swarm there. As for the Ancient Dawn Ents, they are to be reasoned with. As long as we do not launch an assault, they wouldn’t attack.” Shion said.

“My kobolds can fight against goblins, but we cannot fight against a hobgoblin-level or above greenskins. At least not yet. Especially the orks…”

“That’s where my faction would contribute. An Ork army might be impossible to fight against, but there are various delaying tactics in my arsenal. And, according to my understanding on Murasaki clan’s railgun technology, hers can actually slay a rank 1 from afar.” Shion pointed at Ayame.

Ayame nodded, confirming her conjecture. “But I don’t have infinite ammunition.” She admitted, “It’s also difficult to replenish, so I expect equal reimbursement in return.”

“No worries, we’ll try not to engage in a direct war with an ork horde or a troll army. Even so, we have spare ranged attackers to support your kobolds,” Shion pointed at Kenji who still busied himself with his new toy, “it wouldn’t be too much of a problem to fight against a hobgoblin-level army of the same scale. Isn’t it a great chance to evolve your kobolds into variants?”

The others saw Kenji fail at hitting the humanoid cyborg (battle puppet) who evaded the arrows swiftly, yet they did not laugh. They all knew that soon, he’ll get the hang of his new weapon, then he would be a pain in the ass to deal with.

“Alright, I get it.” Sumire isn’t immune to temptation. Raising their units is one of the best ways for an enslaved-path cultivator to get stronger. “Then, I’m in. I want seventy percent of all resources in Combat Exosuits Minor Inheritance.”       

“Absolutely not.” Ayame quickly denied. “The information comes from my faction, we should get the majority of the resources.”

Shion stopped Ayame with a wave of hand, “We have yet to confirm whether the inheritance is still there or not. Even so, we also lack information regarding what’s inside. How about this, any sharable intangible inheritance we gain from there could be shared without holding back, but any physical resources will be split according to our previous agreement.

We will weigh any spoils of war we came across according to their value and exchange them 50:50. You can choose between high-quality spoils of war or lower-quality but in higher quantity. Of course, we can also decide on it when we cross that bridge.” Shion counter offered.

Sumire wanted to deny quickly since her kobolds would contribute the most in large scale battles, but she stopped herself. After a brief pondering, it couldn’t be helped. Raising an elite kobold army is difficult. She’ll have to trade the best spoils of war with lower-quality ones if she wants to raise her kobold army. That being said, as long as she received the refinement methods of those exosuits, she’ll eventually gather enough resources to arm her kobolds with exosuits.

The best parts about the Great Archmage’s magic machinery products are that despite the high-technical skills required to refine them, they have consistent performance across all metrics. As of now, she has Nyx as her refinement-path consultant.

Almost all full-fledged mages would have refinement-path attainment since it is one of the ways to procure resources to fuel their research; it isn’t strange for Nyx to be good at refining weapons. With his help, as long as she receives the inheritance and procure a secret base for building a factory, it is not impossible to mass produce exosuits and equip her kobolds with them. 

“Fine. We’ll go with that arrangement.” Sumire acquiesce.

“Perfect. Then, let’s set a date for our departure. We’ll depart in… one week. Use the remaining time to the fullest.” Shion added, “Don’t forget to ask your mentors for any life-saving methods, if you have any.”