Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

Mordred gazed upon the myriad kobold hunters scurrying about the lair’s entrance. Despite not being able to grant them body runes to perform better due to the lack of materials, the kobolds are faring better than they had ever before.

They set their backs straight, pride visible from within their eyes and gestures. They were no longer feeling downcast after being subjugated by Mordred. In fact, it was the best thing that had ever happened to them. Without his guidance, none of the deeds they achieved would be possible.

Grem approached him as he started to report, “Lord Nyx! Everything is going well. With your methods, our hunters returned with a great harvest today.”

Mordred nodded, “Excellent.” he praised.

“Yes, my lord. Since you’ve eliminated the mature Twin-horned Mountain Goat that bothered our men two weeks ago, we’ve finally managed to capture several other beasts. Following your instructions, the hunters wound and tied their legs and covered their eyes…”

As if proving his report, several teams brought captured beasts inside the cave. This batch of beasts are going to be used for refinement. The blood, muscle, tendons, organs, bones and the horns are cultivation resources as long as one understands how to use them.

Twin-Horned Mountain Goat is a lightning-path beast; its body parts are lightning-path cultivation resources. Blood and organs could be refined into catalysts that can be used for lightning-path spells. Its flesh can be consumed to increase one’s affinity with lightning elemental particles infinitesimally. The tendons and bones are excellent materials for artifacts.

In fact, the top few kobold hunters were equipped with artifacts made out of their prey. 

For example, Grem wore a full set of bone armor made from Twin-Horned Mountain Goat materials. His resistance against lightning-path attacks was the highest, not even Kor could compare in this aspect. He is also equipped with a bone sword, a small bone buckler, and a hidden crossbow whose strings are made out of beast tendons. All these were the result of Mordred’s works, their strength and durability was stronger than the iron weapon they brought from Magnur city.

Not only that, it’s craftsmanship is also something worth noting. When Grem wore the equipment, he looked menacing and cruel, just a glance would instill a sense of discomfort. 

With that said, Mordred’s only regret was the lack of materials for runecrafting. 

The only viable runecrafting material from the Twin-Horned Mountain Goat are their horns. While he collects large amounts of them, it is the most useful part of the beast. He was reluctant to use them for low-level perishables that would be replaced in the near future. It was like writing on low quality papyrus paper with gold ink.

The Twin-Horned Mountain Goat was not the only beast that the kobold managed to successfully hunt but the materials harvested from other beasts are unsatisfactory in his eyes, saved for a select few.

Of course, it was only in the eyes of the former demigod Mordred. For common early and mid-stage rank 0 hunters, any equipment made out of mid-stage or late-stage rank 0 beasts are treasures worth risking their life for.

However, if the kobold miners had found the Magnetic Storm ore, things would be different. The synergy of the two materials would make excellent lightning-path artifacts. It would significantly increase the power level of the hunters under Mordred’s command. Unfortunately, no good news came from below even after all this time.

 “You may proceed. I want to continue working on making equipment.” Mordred walked into the deeper parts of the lair.

“Understood, my lord.” he bowed as he let Mordred walk past him.

An uncomfortable smell was coming from the dark room. Since Mordred didn’t possess a respiratory system, he was not bothered by it, but the rotting stench was so potent that a normal person would puke the moment they entered the room.

Mordred’s footsteps were heard by the room dwellers. Suddenly, sounds of rustles could be heard from within. 

“Ymir.” Mordred muttered.

“My Lord Nyx!” a figure soon approached him from the dark corner of the room. 

The old goblin’ second-in-command was no longer his old self. First, his ugly face has turned even uglier with his teeth becoming all fangs, unevenly distributed on his jaws. Secondly, his sclera became black while his pupils were dark grey. The most noticeable part of his change was his green skin turned pale grey, only several faint areas remain its old color. His chest, forearm, and other vital areas were protected by bone plates, spikes protruding directly from his flesh.

There was no trace of the former Ymir. He had completely metamorphosed into something else. 

“Blood-path encompasses bloodline while transformation-path governs changes. Although my attainment in those two paths merely at [Exemplary], my necro-path methods allow me to produce the profundity of the two… These results are not too bad....”

Necro-path was a branch of soul-path; it was in a very similar situation to ice-path or snow-path being a branch of water-path. The attainment between these paths were related to each other as it was easier to become an expert of the branch path after mastering the main.

It was like a civil engineer would have an easier time learning auto engineering compared to a psychologist or an athlete.

Since Mordred is essentially the greatest soul cultivator in Morgen World, delving necro-path took little time in his previous life. It’s just that, he never got the chance to showcase his ability due to necro-path being taboo.

Although the cultivation world differentiate cultivation paths, the real world isn’t that rigid. At some point, blood could be regarded as blood-path material but from a certain perspective, it can also be regarded as a necro-path resource.

“With the world guardians and deities focused on cracking my Secret Plane, some of my minor soul-path inheritance identified by the inhabitants of this world as brave-class necro-path inheritances would be revealed one after another. It will invite more experts or even the next hero to become necro-path cultivators. By their influence, it would be easier for me to use soul-path methods openly in the future…” Mordred was distracted as he scrutinized Ymir.

Bones and flesh remains of living creatures could be considered as necro-path materials. With an influx of bones and flesh of various lightning-path beasts, Mordred felt it was a shame that he could not use them for runecrafting. Therefore, he had an idea to perform necro-path life-alteration surgery for Ymir and the other goblins. 

Ymir was baptized under excruciating pain, bone matter and rotting flesh for a few days before he took his final form. Now, he and the remaining goblins had metamorphosed into a necro-path lifeform called bonelings.

Bonelings possessed bone spurs and bone plates forcefully planted or naturally grown from their body. The process was painful even if it was natural since the bones need to penetrate their flesh and muscle. The good thing is, every piece of their bones are as durable as, or even stronger than metal.

With certain necro-path methods, the bones could become even more lethal by imbuing them with necrotic poison or energies. 

“Did you cultivate according to the inheritance I handed down?” Mordred asked coldly.

“Yes, my lord.” He honestly answered. “At first, I was reluctant to eat the flesh you’ve refined, but now, I crave for them.” there was a burning hunger radiating from his eyes. 

The current Ymir was not too different from a zombie. For him, rotting flesh, a beating heart or the brain of living creatures become appetizing food comparable to gourmet cuisine. 

“There will be some time before new food arrives. Did you finish the leftovers?”

At the top of the food chain, there were kobold hunters followed by miners, farmers and it eventually went down to goblins before they were exterminated. Now, the role of bottom feeders was taken by the bonelings, they fed upon the leftover flesh after hunted beasts were deboned or dismantled.

By consuming rotting corpses, these Necrophagous creatures would accumulate corpse poison in their bodies. During battle, corpse poison could be released in the form of gas or liquid, depending on the concentration or the method of release. 

“Yes, my lord.” Ymir answered while his body spasms uncontrollably once in a while. 

Seeing the little twitch in his body, Mordred understood that the side effect of the corpse poison accumulation in his body could not be completely contained. It was a shame, since if he could cultivate the corpse poison accordingly, his combat strength against living creatures would be higher than Kor and Grem combined. 

The current Ymir must be feeling unwell with his body in constant pain due to the corrosive power of corpse poison not regulated properly. 

‘The worst thing that could happen to Ymir is being poisoned to death by his own corpse poison… well, whatever…’  Mordred did not care too much about what happened to his physical body. His soul was already branded, the moment Ymir died, his truesoul would be snatched by Mordred’s soul phylactery. The principle is similar to a god branding the soul of their believer, but the range is significantly shorter.

Ymir had become a true necro-path lifeform anyway, as long as he did not die under very specific circumstances, his truesoul would be collected and could be used to manufacture incorporeal necro-path or soul-path lifeforms.

“I will refine some more cultivation resources for you, but you have to learn how to circulate the corpse poison. It should be like blood, saturating your body to provide corrosive energy. What’s happening right now is corroding your body at a snail’s pace. If you can’t properly regulate it, you’ll die sooner or later.” Mordred warned, but did not wait for an answer.

“Leave this chamber at once.” he ordered as he started to get busy.

Bones of various beasts were stored all around the room. This was a room specifically designated to refine bone matter, so to say, a Bone Refinery. Here, bones are processed through Mordred’s sound-path methods such as [Micro-Soundfield Forge] or others so that they could be used in various needs. 

Armor, weapons, and other tools made out of bones are becoming popular due to the lack of metal tools available in Mordred’s lair. Of course, to make bone tools out of precious lightning-path beast materials is like making a toilet out of solid gold, but he didn’t mind. The bones with the greatest value are already taken for his personal use, after all.

Kasumi slithered out of Mordred’s ribcage, making his skeletal body unbalanced due to a sudden shift of weight.

“To construct the perfect body according to my previous life design is too difficult. Countless priceless core materials are missing such as the nine heavenly essence springs, otherworldly astral beast’s soulcrystal skull, a neutron star’s exotic matter core, dark abyssal phoenix’s wisdom heart, myriad wave photonic dragon’s reflux organ, heavenly diamantronic metal essence, the crystalized eyes of the second generation hero and some others that I cannot even utter the names.” 

“Every single one of them is a treasure of a great plane or a world, it would take me centuries to actually gather them even if I suddenly return to my peak, especially the crystalized eyes of the second generation hero where I have to rob the ancestral heroic tomb of this world.” 

“Thankfully, I have taken preventive measures where I have the knowledge but did not possess the resources to refine it. Therefore, I have over nine thousand body designs depending on the situation after my revival that I can choose from.”

“With the available resources, the most optimal body design I can choose is a lightning-path body.”

“The core materials for the rank 0 lightning-path body are not that difficult. I have fulfilled the materials requirement for the flesh, tendons, and skeletal frame. Unfortunately, the core material for the liquid metal blood, high powered lenses, mana reactor and elemental particle converter is yet to be found…” Mordred contemplated deeply.

Due to the influx of materials gathered by the kobold hunters, Mordred was free to play around with various materials. The weapons and tools made out of bones were the result of his experimentation to determine the best method to process them.

A few days ago, he finally grasped the best method to use these bones and started to act on it. 

Thus, he was currently planning to refine a new body. After all, what is inside is important, not the outside. A soul cultivator could easily switch between physical bodies as long as the proper procedure was followed. In this case, since the body he planned to refine was custom made to fit his soul, changing between physical bodies is like changing clothes, there will be no repercussions in the long run.

“Perhaps there was no need for me to construct a mana reactor and elemental particle converter. The aspect of eyes could also be covered as being blind since I can solely rely on hearing. The problem is the liquid metal blood…”

It was completely normal for refiners to run out of materials or the materials they wanted to use ran out. 

In the past, he had the Hunter Association to find them for a price, it was one of the reasons why he participated in the creation of the organization. Now however, he was extremely limited by the circumstances.

“The most realistic choice I could make now is to use Kasumi's slime matter as replacement material for the core components but she would lose over 70% of her current slime mass. It would be difficult for her to be useful until I can get her more slime mass…” he pondered.

“The average kobold contains around 5 to 8 grams of iron in their body. Grem the Ironscale kobold could only provide slightly over 2 kilograms. Unfortunately, even if I murder all the kobolds including Grem, it would only give me three kilogram of iron matter at most. Furthermore, the efficiency is so bad that only 0.01% of the iron matter can be refined into liquid metal blood even with other supporting materials, and that was the lowest grade…” 

Obviously, killing kobolds to harvest their blood is not a viable option. Therefore, his plans changed to collecting the blood of lightning-path beasts.

“Lightning-path beast blood would contain higher lightning-elemental particle affinity; the iron matter I can extract from them would be less than from metal-path lifeform. But that wouldn’t be a problem as long as I can get a proper body to infiltrate human society, it would be enough for the time being.…”

Mordred modified the design he had already chosen, leaving the most powerful parts of the body empty. This caused a massive thought expenditure and hindered his soul and mind rune cultivation, but after a long contemplation, it brought him a great result.

“It’s possible!” he was content from the bottom of his heart.

The new design lacks most aspects of what a human body would have, such as eyes, a heart, lungs, and other organs, but it did not lack a crystal processor: a synthetic brain that allows him to generate thought far more efficiently than his current self. With this, even if he can’t function like a real human, it would be possible to infiltrate society and not lose the ability to think because his soul is over drafted.

“Refining the crystal processor will take the most time, it will also consume all my best resources while not giving me a satisfactory result… but it’ll do for now. Without trade with society, it would be hard to refine a completely functional body.”

However, his plans were disrupted with Grem suddenly intruding on the bone refinery.

“My Lord, great news. Our miners have found the objective that you’ve tasked them with.”

Mordred’s empty eye socket seems to gleam with purple soul light.

…

Body, mind and soul, the three aspects of cultivation.

For mages, spiritual force attributes are the most important attribute because it directly relates how powerful one’s mind is. The cultivation of spiritual force is always related to meditation and study, therefore every mages is always knowledgeable in their fields.

The next vital attribute for mages is Mana Pool, it acts like a power source for various purposes. Without mana, mages would not be able to cast spells, they are merely people with stronger spiritual force. Perhaps, some who cultivate special cultivation methods could use their spiritual force to affect objects from afar, but not all mages cultivate the same way. 

That being the case, higher mana pool attribute meant the mage could cast more spells compared to its peers, it was always a good thing to have more reserve inside one’s mana pool.

Not unlike spiritual force, nurturing Mana Pool is also related to meditation, the only difference is it depends on the environment. Ambient mana level in the environment is oftentimes merely sufficient for passive mana regeneration for the typical mages, it won’t allow the mage to nurture its mana pool.

It needs to be said that the size of the mana pool rarely or never changes after it’s awakening. It's both a real and an illusory organ that exists in the body, even rank 3 legendary mages found it hard to expand the actual size of their mana pool with their resources.  

Therefore, the method to nurture mana pools that was circulated amongst magic casters society is not about expanding the actual size of the mana pool, but to condense the concentration of mana so that it could hold more while having the same volume.   

The method to nurture a mana pool is actually very simple, basically a mage only needs to condense mana to ‘wash’ the walls of the mana pool repeatedly until it becomes accustomed to the new energy concentration. By repeatedly following this path, one’s mana pool’s walls will slowly crystallize to allow purer mana with higher concentration to be stored within.

Say a mage awakened with a size-10 mana pool. The size rarely changes, but the mage could condense particle-like mana into a more concentrated form. Following this logic, the size-10 mana pool would hold more than 10 units of mana within, but only if the mana pool is strong enough to withstand the pressure. The condensed mana pressure should never be above the threshold of the mana pool walls, lest it will explode. 

Therefore, the mage needs to find balance between condensing mana or nurturing the mana pool.

After the mana pool becomes accustomed to the new concentration, it will automatically regenerate mana into the same concentration, allowing the mage to condense more. This was the typical method of mana pool condensation.

With that said, a mana-rich environment will be extremely important for magic casters to cultivate since they rely on the level of ambient mana to progress. 

In this world, there exists naturally formed springs that filter heaven and earth’s energy into a type of energy that can be used by cultivators: Mana. So to speak, these ‘mana springs’ are the optimal location for magic casters to cultivate their mana pool. There, the concentration of ambient mana is extremely high, a mana spring could elevate the ambient mana level to two, three, or even ten times of the usual concentration, it could even be used to produce mana crystal coins.

Of course, using mana crystal coins to cultivate also works since it’s the main currency used by cultivators of Morgen World, but that was beside the point.

“This is… a mid-grade mana spring.” Mordred scrutinized the flower-like mana spring under an abyss-like hole with great interest.

Under the depths of his lair, hundreds of branches were explored in order to find what he was looking for. One of the kobold miners have found a mana spring through sheer dumb luck which surprises him greatly. The miner was lucky because only cultivators can sense mana, highly-trained non cultivators can only feel the abnormal amount of ambient energy.  

“Blue Lotus Heavenly Mana Spring… Is this true luck or an arrangement of my true body?” He muttered silently.  

Mana springs filter heaven and earth energy into mana, but it is not the only energy it generates. Roughly half of them are converted into elemental particles, and Blue Lotus Heavenly Mana Spring is the type that produces water and lightning elemental particles. 

“The ambient mana and elemental particle saturation of water and lightning in this area are at 2569% compared to the surface world, and I am a distance away from the spring itself. Although Blue Lotus Heavenly Mana Spring is not a pure lightning-path mana spring, I can still use it.” Mordred’s plans need to be changed greatly. 

Handling a mana spring is not the same as handling rare bones from beasts. Mana Springs are strategic resources that could affect the situation of a tribe or even cities. Typically, a mid-grade mana spring could produce a wealth of ten to a hundred million mana crystal coins over the course of a hundred years if managed properly.

One crystal coin worth ten gram of mana crystal. Theoretically, it could recover 10-unit worth of mana. Unfortunately, the best crystal coin direct-absorption method is only at 10% efficiency, therefore it was more popular to refine mana crystal coins into mana potions of various concentrations.

This turned mana potions into not only battle resources but also core cultivation resources. Crystal coins became the world’s hard currency due to near-zero energy decay rate. It could also be used for fuel; large artifacts are infamous for their mana crystal expenditure.

That being said, even rank 3 Legendary experts will be tempted to snatch a natural mana spring even when handled poorly has the chance to lower the crystal coin production by over 90%. It was simply that precious, and Mordred was truly lucky to find one this early. 

Just like its name, the mana spring has the shape of a 3-meter-tall blue lotus. Blue elemental particles of water and lightning constantly gush out from the glowing flower, while the roots extract heaven and earth energy. 

The spring was located on a small island within an underground lake flowing with electric current. Splash! Mordred sensed a large amount of lifeforms in the waters. They were groups of beasts, the smallest one was 1-meter-long while the longest was over 25-meter long with a body as big as a small hill.

“The Mana Spring was connected to the underground river network, that’s why the miners were able to find it, my lord.”  Grem said as he moved in front of Mordred to block him from potential danger.

“Hmm, before I can refine the Blue Lotus-pattern Mana Reactor, it seems like I have to clear this lair from beasts.” Mordred pondered. He had expected there would be something guarding it, but the number of beasts underneath his lair was alarming, especially since he had never delved this deep into the mountain.

“Hide!” Mordred instantly used various soul-path and sound-path methods to hide his and the kobold’s presence without caring for the expenditure. “There are several peak-stage rank 2 beasts in there! Thankfully, we are over four hundred meters over the lake.” 

Their current position is in one of the countless small crevices that provided the underground lake with waters. The underground lake itself was located within a giant mineral pocket that hides the Mana Spring’s energy undulation. Therefore, they were capable of investigating the situation below without alarming the natives if they were careful. 

“My lord, I guess we found out why the Duergars abandoned this mine.” Grem sighed after ensuring they were undetected.

“So it seems. This unknown mineral pocket is covered with extremely rich magnetic storm ore veins.” The rocky layer that Mordred stepped on reflects a metallic glint under the bioluminescence from the underground lake. The ground is an extreme-purity mineral ore vein that he had been looking for.

“Mining the ore in this condition will definitely alert the beasts below while getting the Blue Lotus Heavenly Spring without clearing these beasts is impossible, but they are not living in harmony.” Mordred’s soul-path investigative methods were unable to probe the situation on the lake, but the echoes coming from there were loud as if a life and death battle were currently happening within and above the surface of the underground lake.

“Perhaps, we can fish in muddy waters…” Mordred’s empty eye socket glows in dark purple soul light as he activates wisdom-path soul arts. “But first, let’s make some preparations for our hunt.”

Mordred urged Grem and the other kobolds to return, but he did not forget to discreetly gather some precious magnetic storm ore under a noise-suppressing field.