Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

Awakening one’s own ‘element’ is expected for those who cultivate any of the nine elements.

The benefits it carries are so great that those who haven’t awakened their own element are too far behind to contend with those who have.

Naturally, one’s ‘element’ is dependent on their elemental path. A lightning-path mage would awaken a ‘lightning’, a light-path cultivator would awaken their ‘light’, whereas a fire-path mage would have their own ‘fire’.

The methods to achieve them are, of course, numerous. One could assimilate oneself with elemental lifeforms through genetic engineering, devour special materials such as the core of an elemental, establish a contract with elemental lifeform, or forcefully impregnate (or be impregnated by) elemental lifeforms… so on and so forth. 

Since there are so many ways for one to possess their own ‘element’, there are naturally many names for it. 

Some clans call them Flame ‘Essence’, others Lightning ‘Spirit’, Earth ‘Source’, Metal ‘Symbiont’, Dark ‘Servant’, ‘Contracted’ Light, et cetera, but to Mordred who have once reached the peak of the Archmage class, they were all the same. 

To them, he considers them simply as the Elemental Radix.

In essence, elemental radixes are a type of element-based power that is highly customized to the point of being nigh-individually unique. 

What kind of uniqueness does it mean? 

Back then, cultivators of Morgen World had a specific method to steal power from the world and use them from one’s fingertips.

Elemental Radix is the root element or source of the said element for a cultivator. It is extremely easy for a cultivator to combine their method with elemental radix so that their methods wouldn’t be easily disassembled and taken control by others while maintaining uniqueness.

If we used an example, then the easiest one would be Larissa Agatha. 

Her Ice Radix is the Chronophagous Hoarfrost, she would be able to endlessly produce ice that would directly affect time itself as long as she has the energy to do it. Using it as the foundation, she could produce countless variations of snow and ice-path methods. 

Of course, this is different compared to using her transcendent-attainment of ice and snow-path because it is, in the end, manipulating the dimensional laws to achieve a desired effect.

If the dimensional laws could not cater to her desire, then she’ll have to alter the dimensional laws so that it can produce chronophagous hoarfrost, which would take a lot of effort, time and in most cases, resources. Also, keep in mind that Chronophagous Hoarfrost is an ice from her demon world, it has yet to exist in Morgen World’s dimensional laws.

In other words, Chronophagous Hoarfrost is an otherworldly ice, just as Mordred being an otherworldly invader.

Naturally, Larissa Agatha not only has an Ice Radix, but also transcendent-attainment in ice and snow-path, making her exceedingly powerful and extremely adaptive.

And so, having an elemental radix is game changing for anyone involved.

“The easiest method for a cultivator to get their own elemental radix is to have  an established contract with an elemental lifeform…” Mordred glanced at Thazk who had contracted the rank 1 lightning elemental known as Thunderous Lightning Fairy.

The Thunderous Lightning Fairy would be Thazk’s symbiont, both are in a symbiosis mutualism relationship where if one got stronger, both would receive benefits. Using the ‘racial traits’ of the contracted elemental lifeform, one could mix their own comprehension to achieve greater power and flexibility. From a certain perspective, this could be considered as an elemental radix.

However, Mordred wouldn’t want that. 

The reason is rather simple, because contracted elementals that are available in his immediate location are extremely limited.

Just as there are countless species of dragons, there are also countless variants of lightning elementals. The tier levels are separated with the same categorization as attainments, from [Ordinary], to [Apex]. 

For comparison, the Blue Spark Fairy, who had the power to galvanize the electric current or magnetic field in the environment as if they were their own limbs, is an ordinary-grade elemental. As for the Thunderous Lightning Fairy who can produce thunderbolt and lightning, it is a master-grade elemental. 

Mordred obviously does not want to have any of them as they are too weak. In fact, he could manipulate the natural laws of the world with his sheer attainment alone to produce their abilities, having them as Mordred’s contract elementals would be detrimental to his growth because they would drag him down.

Enslaving them would bring benefits, but it’ll be a hassle in the long run. Rather than feeding them with lightning particles so that they wouldn’t decline both in power and vitality, it would be better for him to use it for combat resources, or better, cultivation.  

“The second method involved genetic engineering. By using the profundity of refinement-path, blood-path and one elemental path, I could perform a life-alteration surgery to gain elemental radix… but it would be impossible in my case because my body is a machine.” Mordred shook his head.

With the right material, the genetic engineering option would be an excellent choice as the elemental radix from this method would be highly tied to the ‘body’. Meaning, both the elemental radix and the body would gain an increase in power as one cultivates.

Yet, it is simply impossible for Mordred.

“The third method is devouring or refining special material such as an Elemental’s Core… the body will suffer genetic shock, but if I can survive, I’ll gain a powerful elemental radix.” Mordred also shook his head once more. “Elemental’s Cores aren’t something that can be found in the market. The price of getting one is too high… There's also a randomness factor if they are sold in the market. Unless I get a high-tier elemental core, I cannot nurture it to the quality that I desire. And even then, the real problem is to actually get one in the first place.”

Mordred, however, is not heartbroken. He has myriad methods to fill in the gap. 

“This brings me here…. If I cannot get back my transcendent-tier lightning radix which should be left behind in my Secret Plane post-mortem, then I’ll just have to refine one back from the start again.” Mordred waved his hand, sprinkling blue dusts towards a basin of thick blue liquid.

The blue dust is like starlight, glittering as electric sparks and magnetic fields are jumping amongst each other.

The thick blue liquid is extremely viscous. It was refined from countless precious materials that the lizardmen had collected over the course of a month under Mordred’s direction. Some of them were even taken from the village’s storage, such as the splintered scale of their ancestral beast, which turned out to contain a slight trace of extremely diluted dragon bloodline.

The only reason why he stayed for this long with them is simply because of this. No matter how many blood sacrifices Mordred performs, it simply is impossible for him to awaken the dormant dragon genes, but even then, it was enough as the base material for his lightning radix.

“Thazk, begin the amplification ritual.” Mordred ordered while he started ‘playing’ with the slime-like liquid, electric sparks crackled in his hand and the thick liquid now glittering with bright dust.

The lizardmen have been waiting for his order. As the ritual began, the clear blue sky quickly became filled with dark clouds. In this moment, to the lizard men, Mordred’s calculation was so frighteningly accurate that it was as if he could see the future. 

“Understood.” Thazk quickly ordered his clansmen. “Squads 1 through 4, ready the tesla coils. Squad 1, fire at my command… Fire!”

Every squad is filled with ten rank 1 lizardmen; each is manning a defensive structure that could shoot high-energy lightning projectiles towards a certain direction known as Tesla Coils. Naturally, the energy source is from the lake’s water. Since the platform they are built upon is near the lake’s core area, the electricity that can be harnessed is optimum. 

Boom! Boom! Boom! Ten tesla coils are shooting their purple lightning payload towards the dark sky. The minor elemental wave that would be arriving soon seemed to be successfully provoked. The attack isn’t simply just to waste energy. 

Since Mordred is the one who designed the Tesla Coils, he knew what he was doing. 

After traveling a certain range, the lightning projectile would be scattered, its damage potential would be reduced significantly. But in exchange, the lightning particles contained within the attack would spread. In other words, the tesla coils are injecting the minor elemental wave clouds with more fuel so that it can be far stronger than usual.

“Repeat the firing sequence according to alpha-5 pattern. After 15 beats, change it to theta-7, followed by omega-2.” Mordred ordered. 

“Understood!” Thazk once more commanded the lizardmen squads, they began shooting their tesla coils towards the sky in a rhythmic pattern, sequences in which has been drilled for weeks on end by Mordred. 

The platform has become a musical stage. The crackling sound of lightning breaking through the sound barrier has become an instrument. The lizardmen are the musicians and Mordred is the conductor of the symphony. Deafeningly loud, but not unpleasant. 

Just as the dark clouds in the sky were about to rage in retaliation, Mordred, whose hands were busy working on the liquid, began to sing. 

“Rank 2 sound-path killer move, [Heaven and Earth Song: Heavenly Provocation]!”

Mordred’s inheritance of sound-path is no weaker than his soul-path. Amongst the most powerful methods in his arsenal, there was a series of songs that could be used to ‘communicate’ with the world. Or rather, the more appropriate word would be, songs powerful enough to affect the world.

And so, each variant of Heaven and Earth Song are extremely powerful. Unfortunately, the weakest of them are rank 2. Meaning, Mordred is using amplification methods to temporarily boost his power with soul-path methods, such as burning through souls.

Woosh! As the souls within Mordred’s Phylactery rapidly dwindle, invisible soundwaves reverberate throughout the area. The minor elemental wave-based dark clouds have already been provoked by repeated tesla coil fires, and Mordred’s song was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

At that instant, the dark cloud which seemed like a dark entity biding its time suddenly transformed into an apocalyptic thunderstorm.

BOOOOM! Lightning strikes containing the power of peak-stage rank 2 attacks landed on the water near the platform where Mordred and the lizardmen stood. The aftereffect of the strike left red stains in the lake’s water as aquatic lifeforms exploded into blood and gore, the lizardmen squad’s eardrum were also wounded, but since Mordred had protected them with his sound-path methods, they were not fatally wounded. 

Even the special timber used which was reinforced by Mordred’s method to serve as the platform’s foundation is ignited in electrical fire. The platform never got hit by the lightning strikes directly, Mordred is using the lightning lake as a buffer zone. Since it was expected, some lizardmen immediately moved to kill the electrical fire.

Mordred’s hands never stopped moving. The thick, viscous blue liquid in his arm is slowly getting thicker and thicker as Mordred keeps pumping his comprehension into the lump of material. Gigabytes of True Meanings per second are being injected into the lifeless liquid, the telepathic resources that he had accumulated for a long time being expended rapidly, yet he acted as if it didn’t affect him.

The basin where the slimy liquid is being processed by Mordred is connected with the pillars of the platform, it is funneling an obscene amount of lightning particles towards the liquid. 

In other words, the elemental wave, or rather, the storm itself is being used as a material for refinement, and the lake water is a buffer so that the harm is slightly mitigated.

As more lightning strikes began dropping like crazy, Mordred started to chant in dragon tongue. Even though the lizardmen heard clearly, not a single one of them could understand the word, but Mordred seemed to have poured a lot of effort in this step. 

The dragon tongue is so powerful that it could affect the world. In fact, the origin of magic is said to be ancient dragon tongue. Every single word within the language is a mantra, a chant for spellcasting. A word or a sentence is usually enough to invoke a spell. 

Naturally, since the language is so powerful, not everyone can speak it. There’s a heavy requirement for non-dragon to use dragon tongue, otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to showcase the true power of dragon tongue.

As if laughing in the face of the ancient race, however, Mordred is extremely well-versed in their language. 

Dragon Tongue is a spoken and written language. Even if he can’t write dragon runes since there’s no dragon material to speak of, he can use a portion of his Heaven and Earth Song to imitate the power of dragon tongue. 

This would reduce the actual power of the dragon tongue by a massive margin, but it was so powerful that even in its reduced strength, it is still capable of affecting the world. 

After projecting his will through dragon tongue, a lightning strike so powerful that it bordered on the level of rank 3 attack landed in the basin. It also engulfed Mordred and immediately vaporized a few rank 1 lizardmen that got too close.

Thazk was fortunate enough to be resistant against lightning damage, but he was thrown a few meters, lucky enough to not fall from the platform. After coughing steaming hot blood, he found the strength to raise his head and looked at Mordred.

The man made no indication that he was affected, but his body is literally glowing with heat. The electric current was so high that it almost melted his body. 

PSHHHHH!!! Almost every part of Mordred’s body opened up, exhaling large amounts of superheated air as liquid nitrogen within his internal system was being used as coolant. 

Mordred tried to make a move, but some of the electrochromic metal that made up his skin tissues fell off, melting. “[Subjective Time Reversal]!”

With a golden glow of time-path, Mordred’s body had its flow of time slowly reversed. However, even after a few seconds of being showered under his time-path method, his body is still damaged. Naturally, he can’t use this often as the time-path module within his body can only have one instance of [Subjective Time Reversal] per month. After usage, it enters a cooldown grace period, passively collecting timeforce through the passage of time until it is ready for another use. Even if he didn’t have that restriction, he would still have to wait a great period to prevent it from hitting his body with heavy recoil.

“Healing from a rank 3 attack is still too much, even with my cheat-like contingency time-path method…” Mordred muttered as he activated repair protocols one after another. 

The last attack from the “minor” elemental wave was powerful enough that it should be considered as the opening strike of a major elemental wave. Even with his strongest AT-Field configured to defend against lightning-path damage, it broke and penetrated the defensive force field. The backlash from having his AT-Field broken brutally like this inflicted great damage upon his soul.

Any other rank 1 cultivator would already be deader than dead even if their body could endure it, their soul would dissipate like ash blown away by the wind. Fortunately, Mordred’s truesoul is extremely robust, even without its usual immunity, and especially resistant against lightning-path damage. But even so, his truesoul was still moderately wounded.

“I’ve unexpectedly suffered from negative karma… the minor elemental wave is too strong. Luckily, the Phylactery is safe.” Mordred completely scraped off the electrochromic metal that made up his skin tissue. After shedding all of his skin, his teared muscle fiber which was woven from hair-thin metal fiber is visible. If one scrutinizes his silvery-black skinless body, there are black slime-like liquid crawling in all parts of his body. “The dormant nanomachines have begun emergency repair protocols. Great, it is possible to maintain repair operations during combat…Alright.”

Mordred put his attention back to the core of the platform where he had been using refinement-path methods. On the basin, the thick dark black liquid is no more. In exchange, there’s a dark blue-purple stone with the shape of an egg.

“Artificial Lightning Elemental Egg refinement successful!” Mordred sighed in relief. He was worried that the elemental wave’s last attack is too powerful, but it seems like his worry is for naught.

“Thanks to my negative karma fucking shit up, the elemental wave is stronger than I’ve planned. However, unfortunate events like these carry more benefit if one is able to properly react, adapt and overcome it. If I didn’t have Phantasmal Brilliance Extreme Spirit, I would’ve been on the verge of death…or not too far from it. In any case, it’ll take me weeks to properly heal up to my original condition.” As his cultivation base advances, he’ll be more resistant to damage, but when he suffers from it, it’ll be harder to recover from it.

“Now then, the next step is the hatching process.” 

Mordred carefully extracted a spiritual seed from his overworked crystal processor. When he activated [Subjective Time Reversal], he specifically wasted over 80% of the power to revert it back in time before being broken by the lightning strike.

A spiritual seed to an elemental is something like sperm to biologicals, it is one of the core components for an elemental lifeform to hatch from an elemental egg. 

In a sense, an elemental egg is a developing embryo of an elemental lifeform. If someone can inject a spiritual seed into the egg pre-hatch, then one can actually manipulate how the elemental lifeform would grow in the future.

This is one of the methods to establish a relationship with an elemental lifeformt. 

“In a sense, this elemental lifeform is conceived by heaven and earth through my refinement….” Mordred caressed the egg. 

After the first of his touch, the eggshell crackled. It shook a few times before the eggshell split into two halves, revealing a palm-sized humanoid figure with reptilian characteristics. The edge of the small humanoid’s limbs are covered by purple-blue reptilian scales, whereas the back of said creature is a small leathery wing with the same color.

It… or rather, she has a faint bulge on her chest area, and her face looks oddly familiar with Mordred for some reason, minus the purple-blue back-length straight hair.

The small humanoid blinked and scratched her eyes with her scaly fingers. When she saw Mordred, she immediately opened her arms wide and hugged his stretched hand, specifically his right thumb. “Daddy!”

While the elemental undulation coming from the newborn is as strong as he had expected, he wasn’t expecting her to have his characteristics. By this, it meant Mordred’s true face, not the interchangeable face that he had with his current body. 

“Daddy, I’m hungry…” The small elemental sucked on Mordred’s metallic thumb. By doing this, she was able to somehow extract electric current that powered Mordred’s body. 

This simple action is a showcase of her profound mastery on lightning-path because Mordred’s body has been slowly refined by his soul radiation, it isn’t easy to penetrate his AT-Field, even when it is running in passive mode.

Mordred stared at the elemental lifeform that thought of him as a father. It took him a few seconds before he smiled. She had willingly become Mordred’s Symbiont by herself. The fact that she could bypass Mordred’s AT-Field effortlessly is proof of it.

“If you’re that hungry, I can give you excellent food.” Mordred’s body produced an ethereal hand that looked like a holographic image. 

This additional hand is actually his Chaldean Soul. He was capable of partially detaching the soul from his body. This holographic hand has two crests on the back of its palm. 

As his soul undulated, he opened up his holographic hand as two distinct life forms manifest from the two crests.

The first one is a palm-sized pink butterfly of pure lightning particles. Its body shines in pink elemental-luminescence caused by intense lightning particles as pink sparks are occasionally produced by its body. While flapping its pink wings, the butterfly produces pink glittering particles that would make anyone affected become sleepy. 

As for the other lifeform, it looks like a miniature demon with dark red skin, demonic wings, and a bat face with three jaws filled with fangs. Its whole body is constantly dripping a trace amount of blood-like liquid which would disappear as if it were merely cosmetic purposes. This demonic visage couldn’t stand still as its body twitched once in a while as if being told to stand still is giving it physical pain. “Grrrr!!!!” This new elemental growled, trying to break free from Mordred’s suppression. 

In truth, these two elemental lifeforms are newly refined prior to the newborn. Mordred sealed them within his soul, using the special characteristics of his Chalean Soul to imprison and slowly wear down the elemental’s will. . 

“This one is Disenchanting Dreamspark, while this one is Übelblut Devouring Thunder. Both of them are rank 0 Legendary-grade Lightning Elementals, but they are still immature.” Mordred’s holographic hand merged once more with his physical body as he used his finger to pet the newborn elemental. “You can eat them.”

The newborn elemental’s eyes seemed to glimmer in excitement. She immediately lunged at the Übelblut Devouring Thunder and started a fight. 

Unfortunately for the demon-looking elemental, not only its survival instinct is suppressed greatly by Mordred, the newborn elemental has profound understanding in lightning-path, thanks to the True Meanings that Mordred used as refinement material. The poor evil elemental got its body dismembered and its elemental-corpse being devoured by the newborn quickly. 

While all of this was happening, the Disenchanting Dreamspark did not take action. It was as if the butterfly is blind, but Mordred put more attention on suppressing its will more than the Übelblut Devouring Thunder due to its very nature. 

After the newborn completely devoured the evil elemental, it set its sight on Disenchanting Dreamspark. The newborn shared Mordred’s sentiment. Although the Disenchanting Dreamspark is idle, the newborn didn’t lower her guard.

The newborn’s hands produced crimson lightning to attack the pink butterfly to disorient it before lunging towards it. Her close combat ability seemed to be inherited from Mordred, thus it didn’t take long before the Disenchanting Dreamspark was killed and its elemental-corpse was completely devoured by the newborn. 

“Thank you daddy~” The newborn took flight, orbiting Mordred’s head a few times.

“Does that satisfy your hunger?” Mordred asked, putting his finger to the newborn’s tiny little head and patting it a few times.

“For now, yes!” The newborn quickly answered, pushing away from his finger and kissing Mordred’s cheek. Her body was engulfed by misty pink and crimson-blood lightning sparks. “I’ll need some time to get used to their powers…” The newborn dived headfirst towards Mordred’s chest, more specifically, his Core Reactor. Then, no trace of her existence can be sensed from outside as if she knew there was a special compartment in the reactor where she can call home.

“You've devoured two lightning elementals of dream and blood… I’ll give you some more lightning elementals later. For now, are you fine with the name… Morrigan?” Mordred asked.

Through the telepathic link that they shared together, Mordred could sense her affirmation. He then smiled, “With you around, I’ve got a trump card against Lord Erebus.” 

Mordred opened up both of his hands. 

On his left, sparks of crimson-blood and pink lightning intertwined, while his right hand is slowly being engulfed in black tar-like liquid. The liquid soon ignited, producing a black fire which oddly, does not produce any heat. On the contrary, the temperature of the local area seemed to take a great dive as frost molecules were starting to appear in the air.

“Morrigan as Lightning Radix and Dark Mist as my pseudo-Fire Radix… They should be enough as support. As of now, my consumables should be enough to wage a small war, the question is how to bring them out because Larissa is carrying my dimensional storage ring. Well, I can loot on from the human hunters that Thazk captured.” Mordred clenched his hands, erasing both the lightning and quasi-fire in his hand. 

“Then, I only need to return to the city and start gathering intel on Lord Erebus… Hmm, Larissa’s Shadow Stalkers should’ve been doing it, I only need to get the reports from them. But first… I need to heal up.” 

With relative haste, Mordred then began preparing for his departure.