Path of the Ascendant

With a cleared head after she worked through a few of her frustrations, the Ascendant returned to her attempts to remake the Abyssal Eye in some vaguely effective manner. Although the formation of wet cracks in the ground did have its uses, especially when the strange spectres that were formed first could easily be used to distract or confuse the enemy, it was not at all at the level of a typical seventh realm technique. It wasn’t even at the sixth realm, which was what one would need to perform it, but closer to the fourth or even third.

Simply throwing out some planar energy should have been less efficient, and yet it could do significantly more damage to the terrain even without the Ascendant’s immense power. Thus, the Replica Abyssal Eye was indeed insufficient at this stage.

The fact that it had a clear response to the element of energy poured into the technique was a bit of an inspiration to her, so her next target for testing was Li He, although she did have to wait for two more days before she had created something worth testing. As she had managed to replicate the ruptures formed by the true Abyssal Eye, she knew that her focus ought to move onto the other part.

Minions were extremely difficult to recreate, as the structure of the Abyssal Eye itself didn’t accurately convey the manner in which it accomplished everything that it did, so the first thing she needed to create was any independent entity, whether or not it was going to be of the same nature as the abyssal creatures of the Eye or not. Perhaps she would simply create some clumps of matter that would jump out of the abyssal cracks and land elsewhere without much consequence, but that would be sufficient for her purposes. The moment that she had completed that would also be the moment that she gained the ability to properly manifest phantoms and other entities for her own use.

After all, there wasn’t as much difference between two minds, regardless of their nature, as there was between a mind and anything other than a mind. Being able to make one mind could allow her to make as many of them as she wished, and of any type that she wanted. Sure, it would take some additional effort, but that didn’t really matter in comparison to getting any variation right first, and the additional experimentation might well result in some additional developments that she didn’t otherwise expect to achieve.

This was already the case with the creation of a dynamic technique that functioned regardless of element, an abnormal thing by any standard, and she had a good feeling about attempt number 2.

“This is the same technique that Long Tao had been disappointed by?”

“I’d heard that she had been quite impressed by- oh, shit, I’m getting infected by your constant talk of sex. Try the technique and don’t get me started like she had, since I don’t have the patience to deal with a second horny dragon.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not that obsessed with my arousal, and I know of ways to deal with it. Long Tao knows too, but she can get a little… anyway, technique. Doing it.”

The red-scaled dragon focused upon the technique and circulated her energy for a notably shorter period of time before she was able to release her energy. This time, there were no projectiles, and instead her power rushed through the ground at a vast speed before arriving at the point where it was to be unleashed.

There, a blast of it knocked the ground asunder, revealing a pit of magma just below the surface. From that, a series of flaming masses surged out of the ground and spread out, hovering around without much purpose for a little while. To test whether this was it, or if there could be more to attempt 2 of the Replica Abyssal Eye, the Ascendant lifted her Arm and unleashed the dark smoke of her killing intent to produce a few phantoms that she made to attack both the central magma pit and the red dragon, although she made sure that none of her strikes could actually damage Li He.

She timed the first series of attacks, against the magma pool, to come half a second earlier than those aimed at the dragon, and confirmed that it was only the second series of attacks by the phantoms that elicited a response.

From the moment that the killing intent contained within the phantoms was aimed at the dragon, the spheres of flame moved quickly and rushed towards the attacking entities, moving quickly enough to reach them before they could attack or disappear. As soon as they came into contact with one of the phantoms, brushing against the smoke and displacing it slightly, the masses of energy burst and exploded, completely shrouding their position in an immense heat and quantity of flame.

It came near to both Wei Yi and Li He, but neither one cared. One had an immense resistance to all yang, skin tough enough to endure even the strongest strikes from ordinary weaponry, and flesh that could recover from the gravest wounds in moments, and the other was a dragon. They were far more impressed with the effect itself.

“They moved… without my involvement? That’s not what Long Tao said should happen.”

“Yeah, I tried something different. Ideally, I’d make the masses of flame into some type of minion that I could command, at least vaguely, and the small pit into massive networks of cracks and caverns that could be traversed both by my summoned entities, myself, and anyone that I may wish to bring into the cracks,” the Ascendant explained, seeing as the dragon had already been informed of some details of her plan, “For the moment, the individual segments of the final technique are in development, and I’m having others test them to verify their effectiveness.”

“I see… Do you have any more of these for me to test? It was quite interesting to do so, actually, and I wouldn’t mind having another go.”

“Later. I need to work on understanding the reason that the flame spheres moved as they did.”

Li He nodded and, after a glance to confirm that there was nothing more for them to speak about right now, she departed, leaving the Ascendant to stare upon the land that cooled and recovered to a state vaguely reminiscent of how it had been before. Only the grass could not be repaired immediately.

“Wei Yi, have you decided completely against utilising the thing you have placed into the depths of the Kong Prison Realm?” Yi Shi Ming’s voice came from beside her, the spatial spirit appearing beside her, “It has come to my attention that you haven’t made much use of it, whereas it had been a major part of your activities prior to this.”

“The Mirror of Potential? I haven’t been able to employ it while wandering around, but now that I’ve returned… It might not be a good idea to use it much more than I need to. For most, it seems like the higher their realm, the more they are affected by otherworldly gifts. Most that I’ve come across start out fine, and end up at their most insane when they near their limits and lose track of themselves. For me, the conclusion would have to come by the ninth realm, whether or not I manage to go past that to something unseen within the Planar Continents prior to now.”

“You believe that the otherworldly gifts would finally have an effect upon you?”

“Before that, I don’t think that it is absolutely safe to say that I have never been affected. Perhaps I have been, and, in fact, I can tell that I certainly have experienced some changes as a result of the Truth of the Universe.”

She referred to how the memories hidden in the characters of the Truth of the Universe had come up many times in her earlier days, and how they had almost certainly contributed to the memories of the Thunder Lord in spurring on her exploration of her own sexuality, among other matters. Whether or not those memories had directly led to her lack of desire for men and the complete opposite for women, or if a number of her key traits had come from the minds and memories of others, she couldn’t know.

Hence, she knew that she could be led to doing things that she might otherwise not do, even if it only meant that they would be done sooner. That could lead to some vital changes to her before the right time, and that could lead to her doing that which she did not wish to do, at least now. A right action taken at the wrong time could still lead to negative developments, after all, so even if all that the influence of various otherworldly gifts and their power could only lead to her deeper parts being unveiled sooner, it might still be utterly devastating.

“Aside from that danger, there is also the fact that the more I use my own head, the more that I advance my own understanding of reality and the phenomena that lead to it being what it is. With enough work, I could bring out all kinds of wonders relying purely on my own talent, and I think that such a thing would be significantly more valuable than relying on an outside factor.”

“That much is certainly true. The possibility of these gifts being taken away in some manner is present, but if your mind was to ever vanish…”

“It would be no different from me vanishing. At that point, I doubt I would have much input regarding my fate, or the fate of the Planar Continents, even if I may have wished to do a whole lot prior to such an event occurring,” Wei Yi nodded, “By the way, the barrier is progressing as we were expecting it to, right? These experiments, and my attempts to find more planar stones in places where my divine sense barely reaches, have taken up quite a bit of my attention.”

“The changes do appear to be occurring to your expectations. Their purpose is still unclear, though.”

“It seems rather straightforward, actually. They either want to make use of the foundation of the barrier to make a weapon, or they want to use it for their personal benefit. Once the Chen District is taken and we see their response, we’ll know exactly which one it is.”

“Even then, there could be quite a significant variety to what they might produce. Some of their creations can be dangerous to you, whereas others would be incredibly harmful to the lands that they control, or the people within their reach,” the mother of the Master of Yi City said, turning in the direction of the barrier, which could be seen all the way from the northern lands of the Luo District thanks to their cultivation realms, “Ideally, you would be certain that you can disrupt their arrangements before any such damage is done.”

“I can break most of what they’ve got right now, and if I invoke Touch the Heavens, I can guarantee that something breaks – not necessarily what we might want broken, though.”

She too looked out at the green walls of light, extending far into the sky and interfering with the movements of the clouds, and narrowed her eyes as she gazed upon this obstruction. It was indeed somewhat risky to simply allow its repairs to continue untouched, but since the potential reward outweighed the risk, she was going through with this decision.

 

“You must be enjoying the testing process, Wei Yi,” Long Hua said, “How many techniques have you managed to create at this point?”

“None. Alternatively, you could say that this is the third one, but that would be if the various iterations of the technique were to be classified as independent techniques, which could be done if I was sufficiently bored…” the Ascendant replied while handing the technique manual to the dragon, “Were you expecting me to have come up with a thousand techniques by now? I don’t think that I’ve ever worked that quickly.”

“I’ve heard differently. For instance, there was apparently a war with some automatons that you’d won by coming up with a series of techniques in just a few days, before unleashing the prototype of yet another one at the end and shocking everyone present.”

“Technically, there were two or three techniques used at most. The Railgun Bolt and Repeated Bolt techniques are indeed different, but their variants are not, and Touch the Heavens was a work in progress, as you’ve already said. Still, comparing that situation to this one isn’t reasonable, as there I was simply attempting to replicate a physical phenomenon while here I have to recreate a complex and rather unique artefact in the form of a technique, and attempt to do so in a manner that is compatible with the bodies of ordinary cultivators.”

“Dragons aren’t exactly… ordinary, though I’m sure you know that.”

“Your meridian channels are more alike to normal people than mine are, and you’re tougher than them but far less so than me, meaning that you function as sufficiently tough and accurate testers.”

“Right…”

Although Long Hua was not the most familiar with the development of techniques, as exhibited by her mistaking variations of a technique for individual techniques, she was fast enough at processing all of the knowledge that went to her head, and was able to use it not long afterwards. This test took place a day after the previous experiment, and so the dragon had not had too much information on the previous tests, aside from the fact that they did occur, meaning this speed of learning was her own.

Perhaps she was somewhat of an overlooked talent in this regard, although it wouldn’t matter much as she was a dragon, whose strongest methods were generally belonging to her blood. New ones could be provided, and they might even work quite well, but the improvement would be marginal at best, insignificant at worst.

The only thing that would strengthen a dragon significantly would be something so fundamental that it couldn’t be compared to most existing techniques, and could never be equalled to traditional draconic techniques. For instance, the cultivation methods that Kong Shi Meng had provided to Long Mingyun, who then passed along the techniques to the dragons under her protection, were minor improvements to their natural methods, and could hardly be improved further even with full use of the Truth of the Universe and the Ascendant’s mind, which was a powerful tool in and of itself. To reach the point of fundamental change, she would need to create something akin to her own Ascendant’s Dao – the cultivation method, not the Dao itself – or the five meridian network technique.

However, such things needed some time to become valuable and effective, as trying to bring in something like that in the middle of a war that ought to last less than a few years would not give the dragons enough time to properly cultivate their other paths, and thus all but the development of bloodline power would give them no benefit whatsoever. Instead, it would be best to focus on training that which they already have, and improve it as much as possible.

“Alright, I’m doing it now. Stand back, if you need to.”

As always, the Ascendant had kept the details of the technique to a minimum, which was possible through a highly detailed description of how to use all of the energy provided instead of it.

Thus, the dragon’s energy was released, and a large rift formed within the ground and rushed forth, spreading out to cover a large portion of the field before them – a far better display than the initial cracks formed by the first attempt of the Replica Abyssal Eye technique. It wasn’t conjured by spirit-like masses, which was very much intentional, but the release of humanoid, bloated limbs with grey skin was not. Each one pushed its way out of the cracks, revealing the body and head of the bodies that were in similar conditions to their hands, but that is where they stopped.

“Uh… I didn’t control them emerging in the first place, so I don’t know if this is intentional…”

“No, not quite, but now we need to check if this is the full extent of their actions. Let me verify that they won’t bring themselves further out if something provokes them, since that has previously happened with the last attempt.”

The dragon hadn’t had the time to ask further questions before the testing phantoms appeared at various points around the bodies, some simply standing by whereas others were made to actively poke and stab at them. One was bound to produce some kind of interesting result, provided that one was possible in the first place, so there was little reason to delay attempting anything in particular with the vast quantity of test material she was able to work with.

As it turns out, that was a good decision, for only the attempts to directly touch the corpses was productive and conducive to any kind of change to the outcome of the technique.

Every single bloated corpse that was touched suddenly swelled up and burst into an explosion of flame and raw wood-type planar energy, clearly derived from the dragon’s affinity with wood, wood-type cultivation technique, and her wood-like scales. This resulted in a certain mixture of colours most pleasing to the eye, but the destructive power far outweighed the visual splendour of such mixed shades. It was far more impressive than the mere rupturing of earth, and it performed at the level of the upper fourth realm, lower fifth realm at the least, which was far superior to the previous displays, if only slightly.

“Whoa, that’s an… interesting technique you’ve made there. Any reason to make exploding bodies like that, or do you just have some strange interests when it comes to designing techniques?” Long Hua said.

“No, I had no clue how this would turn out. Again, the intention is not to make a technique that I can use, which is rather simple, but to develop a sensible technique from the foundation of an artefact’s channels. As such, I am having to experiment with live subjects, which also produces variation due to your cultivation paths and elements. However, the bodies do have quite a bit of potential.”

“How so?”

“They are very much a misleading factor for the enemy. Imagine seeing someone perform this technique, then only find some bodies partially crawling out of the ground. You would think that they have either failed in some way, or that there was something else to look out for. The latter is a worse outcome, but the former is very helpful,” Wei Yi explained, “Just like some of my phantoms, the enemy might try to touch the bodies while laughing at your failure.”

“Only to be exploded… I suppose that does have its uses, even if a simpler, faster explosive technique would be more useful most of the time.”

“Few techniques are Absolute, so most vary greatly in usefulness. For some opponents, attempt 3 would be utterly useless, but against others it would be lethal the vast majority of the time. In addition, everything that I figure out here could lead to me improving my overall skills, so it is very much worthwhile to improve these attempts until I get to something that could be described as being perfect, at least for the role that I wish this technique to perform. Even if that fails, at least I will have some interesting variants.”

“What are you trying to make?”

“An army of independent minds, capable of obliterating my foes and acting as disposable minions in times where I require them, but have no such entities to spare. After all, I don’t want to throw away the people under my protection, and I might well get stronger forces from the final form of this.”

“Ah, that is interesting. I look forward to seeing what you are able to produce in the future, but I suspect that I no longer have any ability to help you.”

“Not at the moment, no. I will test out some more variants of my technique when I come up with them, but for the purposes of seeing how different people manage to use my variants differently, I won’t be inviting you again. Once I’m finished, though, I can share it with everyone via my killing will archive in the centre of the Kong Prison Realm, so I’ll tell you once it’s available. Now, go away,” Wei Yi waved away, turning away from the dragon and focusing on the remnants of her technique.

The dragon was clearly disappointed by this, but she must have gotten the hint from her peers and did not remain for long, disappearing off to some part of the Ascendant’s domain. A dragon was hard to miss, though, so she was sure she could find her if necessary.

 

“M-Master! You’ve decided to speak with me, finally… What is that manual?” Ju Yazhu asked.

“I want you to test the technique, and since you’ve got some perfected stages – a decent amount, for a regular person, even – combined with my cultivation technique, which you can update by checking the archive, if you haven’t done so already, you ought to be strongest at this cultivation realm and stage, and the most suitable overall.”

“Alright, I will try and perform this technique for you, master-”

“Stop. First of all, why the change from teacher to master, and second of all, can you not? Just use the technique, see what happens, and if it works out, then feel free to use it for yourself in the future, if you wish.”

“Sorry, teacher, I-”

“Just fucking do it.”

There was no comment from her student, only the sounds of her flipping open the tome and browsing through its contents, studying it intently. All of the necessary comprehension flowed into her mind via the mental energy that composed the manual, and when she was finally finished, quite a length of time afterward, the mental energy dissipated into naught. Her student was left empty handed, and she didn’t move for a few more minutes as she processed all of it.

In this regard, she confirmed that the dragons were certainly significantly more skilled in basic reading comprehension than most humans, but she wasn’t going to distract Ju Yazhu just to inform her of that fact.

Fortunately, when her eyes opened, she didn’t hesitate to begin her attempt at using attempt four of the Replica Abyssal Eye technique. She focused her energy, circulated it according to the pathways laid out within the technique manual, and only two minutes after that, she was beginning to manifest the effect of the technique. Given the slowing down necessary for a third realm cultivator to perform a technique designed for someone in the sixth and seventh realm, this was a decent display, even if it clearly displayed a great need for improvement.

As one might guess from the fact that the Ascendant wasn’t just designing this technique for herself, offering others the possibility of using her Replica Abyssal Eye was also significant, since it could permit her to multiply any army vastly and let the individual combatants stay behind while summoned minions did their work for them. Hence, optimising such things would benefit her in the end.

Once the technique went off properly, the results were staggeringly different. Instead of travelling through the ground, all of that energy shot out at a great speed and touched the earth before them. It did not linger, but instead pulled up what it touched and slowly did the same with the surrounding earth, amassing a great clump of dirt that slowly attained the vague form of an entity with legs and arms, although the distinction between the two could hardly be formed from looking upon it. This thing didn’t stand still, either, and instead rushed off in a seemingly random direction, flailing wildly and generally being a major nuisance to whoever cared about the field that Wei Yi had chosen for this test, as it was completely ruined after this.

It did not go on for long. With each step, some dirt fell from the entity, and not four minutes before it began, it fell apart completely.

The same could be said about Ju Yazhu’s planar energy pool, for it was consumed nearly entirely to perform the technique and had no opportunity to recover with anything approaching the recovery speed provided by the nascent rift or the full Ascendant’s Dao (technique).

“Ah, that…” her student could say much before she simply fell, right into the Ascendant’s arms.

“It seems like it worked out well enough. This is not quite what I was intending to achieve, but since it worked with someone at your realm, the effectiveness for others will be incredibly higher for all of my attempts of this technique, as soon as I modify them accordingly,” Wei Yi said, bringing her a little closer and casually stroking her hair as she did so, “By the way, how have you been doing? Any problems you’ve run into since we last spoke?”

Ju Yazhu was clearly shocked by the sudden caress, for it took her almost a whole minute to stutter, “P-Problems? What do you mean?”

“Well, after you were turned into a woman, I hadn’t stuck around for too long, so you could have easily come across a whole number of issues that you couldn’t have ever come across before. Why don’t you tell me about how things had gone since we’ve last spoken?”

“Where is this coming from? Did I do something wrong? Am I going to die soon?”

“No, you’re not, but I suppose I might have overdone it a little. I just figured it might be a good idea to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh… Well, I’m fine, mostly. It was a little strange when I was getting used to everything, but now that I’ve been a woman for five months, I think I’ve adjusted to everything. Only… I might have asked this already, but is it normal for me to still be attracted to women… no, other women? I figured there might be a chance that this would change…”

“Why would it? Your mind is mostly the same, isn’t it? Your body is still your own, even if it has been affected by the extreme quantity of yin you now possess. Why would your preferences change?”

“… I guess they wouldn’t… Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”