The Visionary Sect within the Main Lands was special one.
Unlike other renowned Clans that lived within the Main Lands, venerated for their destructive and amazing martial arts, spells and techniques, the Visionary Sect didn’t even fight.
They were a small-sized Sect consisting only of Oracles.
This made them incredibly valuable to the Seven Clans that governed Ilali, giving them insight on any major event of their country or, rarely, the world.
It helped that the Visionary Sect was neutral with all of the Clans, and their services were available for all to use. For a price, of course.
Exactly five months ago, the female Zenith Patriarch of the Visionary Clan, Raijen Shi, had a vision before succumbing to a coma:
She opened her eyes to a world of pure light.
Star-like adornments flickered endlessly from above.
Radiance was endless, the source of which was a giant, majestic, thick tree in the center that connected the sky and ground together like a sturdy pillar.
Everything was tranquil.
…Then a bud of darkness grew in the depths of the earth.
It was tiny at first, barely noticeable and insignificant.
But then it blossomed into a thorny, cruel tree, its roots sprawling from the ground and spreading into the light around it.
It consumed the light, starting with the earth.
Like a cancer, it grew and grew, its sinister aura making its way to the majestic tree.
Raijen had to pull herself out of the vision.
Every second she spent watching and observing was pressure that tightened around her mind – pressure that would burst as soon as she opened her eyes.
But she continued watching.
She had to see where it led.
More buds of darkness grew around the majestic pillar, becoming thorny trees, which eventually began merging towards the center!
Just as the two forces of light and dark were to meet… Raijen was forcefully yanked away from the dream.
Countless cracks surfaced on her Rank 4 sea of consciousness, making her grimace and cough a mouthful of blood.
She was in a small room filled with runes and energies, circulating around her mental sphere and body.
The floor itself was riddled with arrays, yet none of them seemed to lessen the damage on her centers of power.
Raijen cursed weakly.
Twice she had a vision that made her knees weak. 𝘰𝑣𝘭.𝗇𝓔t
The first was many years ago, but it was brief and extremely vague, like the rapid flashing of horrid images she half-remembered.
“…Has the Temple of Shadow returned?” she whispered under her shivering breath, devoid of strength to lift her arms.
Her eyes drooped as her body regressed into a malnourished state.
‘I… I must… inform the Clans.’
That was Raijen’s last thought as her vision grew dark, and her consciousness faded to black.
///
Liam finished up forging the three shortswords for the Temple.
Only one of them was Rank 2, with the other two blades at the low and high ends of the upper-tier of Rank 1.
There wasn’t much he could do there, and it wasn’t really his fault.
Spirit Beasts functioned the same in his mental sphere as their counterpart, which was a relief to say the least.
Beasts of varying elements had body parts that differed in property, and Liam’s expertise rested with darkness elementals.
‘It should be good enough for their standards.’
Liam didn’t really feel the need to inscribe them.
The back-to-back forgings took a full day away from his schedule, and the inscriptions would take another week.
He stored the weapons for later and began to consume the pills he bought the day earlier.
A week quickly passed.
Liam’s schedule was jam-packed.
Between studying Spirit Beasts, learning how to make a spell, memorizing Blood Arts and cultivating, Liam couldn’t afford to waste a second.
Making a spell, body-tempering method or any technique in general had its own stages.
The first was the Visualization/Conceptualization stage.
This was the most important and simultaneously difficult part of making a spell.
If Liam wanted to make a body-tempering method that combined both of his forms, he would have to incorporate his Ashuran strength and physicality with his human intellect and mental energy.
To do that, Liam would have to understand his Ashuran state down to the very nerve, and the connections it had to his human side when he transformed.
Honestly speaking, Liam didn’t think that was possible for his current level of strength.
‘Techniques that complicated can’t be made with a Rank 2 sea of consciousness. I’m not even sure a Rank 3 mental sphere can make that possible…’
‘But if the King’s Eye improves, I can get a better understanding of the spells I already have.’
This wasn’t considering the amount of issues something like that entailed.
It definitely wasn’t safe, nor was it going to be painless.
After that was the Testing/Polishing stage.
Hypothetically, if Liam were to inscribe that body-tempering method, there was no chance whatsoever it was going to work on the first try.
Any spell or technique was the same.
Even back on Earth, things had to be tested out countless times before being approved.
Liam’s technique had to be rigorously tested and polished before he could even think of cultivating it.
‘How I can test something of this caliber is beyond me, though.’
Only after he could pluck out the countless issues with the technique, was when Liam could move to the last stage.
The last and final phase was the Utilization stage, which simply meant that the technique could be used without issue, and only required Liam to iron out and perfect it.
Liam lowered his sights and chose to work on a simple spell for his chaos instead.
However, he finally figured out part of the Blood Arts!
After a solid two weeks had passed, Liam grew confident enough to change some of the Links connected to the Rank 2 Blood Arts.
Sitting cross-legged and bare, the tips of Liam’s fingers had a blood-red tattoo on them, running from the tip to the base.
Tensing his slender fingers, wafer-thin strings of blood shot out from the tip and flew across the room!
Liam smiled broadly.
It worked!
…Only, they lacked any power or tensile strength, weightlessly landing on the ground like confetti and melting back to liquid.