An Immortal Legend: The Tale of the Sightless Wanderer

Chapter 5: The Assembly

After sending the Masters off to make the necessary preparations, Lugiel and Magnum returned to his bedchamber and passed through the secret passage beside his armoire, leading them back to his hidden chamber.

There’s still more than half a day before the Leaders Assembly and they are not the type that idles during freed hours. Another fact about Lugiel is that due to having two bodies, with the other forced to hibernation when the other is active, is that the need for rest and slumber for the active body are nullified. Therefore, he spend those allocated time to his cultivation.

When a creature treaded the path of either the Martial Art or Sorcery, it all starts with learning and integrating a cultivation method. It is the first and the simplest but at the same time it is the most crucial since once a creature began practicing a certain cultivation method, it is ideally should be for life as shifting to another would require the total destruction of everything the practitioner accumulated through the prior method. Not only would one return to square one but the risk of total wastage and even death during the process are extremely high.

Lugiel’s cultivation method is the unknown-tier called the ‘Beast God Scripture’.

He inherited this from his Master but since he was already practicing a different cultivation method when he took him in, he could not practice it. Still, he kept it knowing that he would one day create an alternate life for his mission, a clean slate who can practice it.

It is also through this how Magnum was born.

To practice the Beast God Scripture, a soul of a beast must be injected into the cultivator’s body. The earlier, the better, and the mightier the beast is, the greater the feats the cultivator can reach.

Coincidentally, an expedition he did in the Unknown Reaches enables him to retrieve the sealed soul of an ancient Dragon which he injected into this body while it was still conceived inside the womb.

Magnum was then born alongside the birth of this body and since then, he had been his partner.

All cultivation methods have varying numbers of stages with varying difficulties of advancement but all are also always divided into two phases – the Body Forging which is mostly in the first stage, though it might vary on some. Then, after mastering the Body Forging, the Mana Manifestation will occur. It is at this point that a cultivator is officially a Martial Artist or a Sorcerer.

From then on, it would be the eternal phase of Vessel Tempering (the strengthening of the Soul Realm which stores the Mana and record the combat arts) and Mana Accumulation (the accumulation of Mana both from those generated by the soul and from external sources).

The higher the stage of the cultivator is in his or her chosen method, the greater the Soul Realm and the quantity of the accumulated Mana, and the greater the Mana one has, the better they can practice and master the Martial Arts and Sorceries they are mastering.

Lugiel then dropped to the floor into a meditating position and the moment he shut his senses, he and Magnum entered his Soul Realm.

Entering his Soul Realm, what welcomed them, as always, is the seemingly endless cluster of mountains and the single river which length overlays the peaks of all of them. The origin of the river remains unclear but Lugiel could tell that it’s in the final mountain, the thing in which this massive shadow from the horizon belonged. They’ll reach it eventually once he mastered this method.

As to how to advance in this method, it is simple. Magnum, as his avatar, must cruise against the flow of the river and overcome all the barriers, obstacles, and the mountain peaks along the way. The mountain peaks serves as the stages by default as there isn’t truly a clear parameter of stages in this method as a matter of fact, and success in overcoming one will result into a major advancement.

So far, they’d already surpassed five peaks and his strength is in par with the elites of the younger generation of the Clan though he kept the fact hidden through a camouflage method.

“Fall down, you stupid pile of bricks!” Magnum cried as he kick and bite the huge wall blocking his path. This is their current obstacle and the first real challenge since completing the fifth peak. Given Magnum’s current speed, it might take three days to finish.

While in this form as his avatar, Magnum will bear none of his might as a Dragon including his Dragon Breath. His size, though not as far as his sparrow size, is also a lot smaller than his actual Dragon frame. All he has at his disposal are his tenacity and Lugiel’s guidance to aid him.

The obstacles varied, some are simpler or more complicated than the others but on the other hand, there’s zero restriction of the methods they can use and thus, external interventions are applicable. In this specific one, Magnum needed a boost in strength and prior to their departure for the rescue mission, he had prepared hundreds of spirit strengthening pill.

Normally, the pill’s sole usage is to assist those undertaking the process of Mana Manifestation but recently, Lugiel discovered that it can also be applied here to temporarily boost his avatar. They’d done it once with great result though the obstacle is inferior to the current one. On top of that, the spirit strengthening pill does not rouse resistance.

There will be more obstacles with the need of more demanding and even trickier methods to surpass in the future and he would need to either find or concoct pills and potions which targets the spirit to better aid Magnum but this is a good start.

Directing to Magnum the effect from the pills he swallowed beforehand, his size suddenly doubled and his claws and fangs elongated, allowing his next attack to completely smash the obstructing wall.

*Bang!

There were more walls after the fall of the first one and before the effect of the pill could run out, Magnum managed to smash four more.

They repeated the process and by sunrise of the following day, they’d beaten 2% of the obstacles towards the sixth peak.

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An intense exchange of perspectives.

Regardless of the intent of the involved, either it is political, personal, or something else, the interpretation of an attendee towards the Leaders Assemble would mostly be such.

Hosted in the realm of Regulus for this one, the Leaders Assembly is an event initiated at the behest of the Clan Master to gather the leaders of all the sections and organizations active in the Clan whenever issues and conflicts brought to his notice are piled up. It could either be towards the Clan Master and vice versa or a leader against another, or for the most part, all of them above.

And given the nature of their Clan which makes it rare to find a free day where all can be available and the risk of the rift throwing an unexpected while they’re gathered, the ultimate aim is to resolve the majority, if not all, of the concerns as swiftly as possible.

A wishful thinking in Lugiel’s opinion.

The first topic in argument is the dispute between the Guardian Hall and the Vanguards over which sector should access the Red Wilderness this year.

In the Galactic Tree, there are small and hidden realms that are detached both from the dimensional stems and the back channels called the pocket dimensions.

Being detached, they are identical to the ruined worlds that are inaccessible through the usual means but on the other hand, unlike the ruined worlds, their entrance portals are stable and fixed in a single place in the material realm, though conditions and restrictions may apply to acquire access. Also, unlike the ruined worlds again and even to some active realms, they possess Mana that are immensely dense contrary to their rather small sizes, allowing them to generate lands with rich resources and formidable demonic and magical beasts.

In the path of cultivation, relying solely to the Mana absorbed from the earth and the sky produced slow progress. That’s when the aid of pills and potions would again enter the equation. However, when the cultivators outgrew the readily available consumables and the more potent ones are nigh or completely inaccessible, the best alternative is to hunt and absorb the Mana Cores plucked from the bodies of demonic and magical beasts. The more formidable they are the better.

The pocket dimensions are stable grounds to acquire that alongside the potential harvest of valuable resources. Thus, pocket dimensions are cultivators’ treasure.

The Clan Fawkes is in possession of several pocket dimensions, each categorized by their danger level and among the low danger level, the Red Wilderness is the richest in beasts and resources. The perfect training ground for rookie cultivators to advance and accumulate initial combat experience. Unfortunately, the access restriction of the Red Wilderness is that it only opens for three days once a year.

The previous year’s access was supposed to be for the Guardian Hall. However, this year would be the Battle of Seeds, a quinquennial tournament for the younger generation within the ages of sixteen to twenty-one that had at least reached 60% mastery of any Martial Art or Sorcery. Hence, though the schedule for the students of the Heavenly Hall, the sector which caters to the Clan’s most gifted youths, is still for next year or in two years’ time back then, the Clan Master allowed the request of the Heavenly Hall to jump in the queue in which the Guardian Hall had been fine with as well. After all, it’s for one of the Clan’s most sacred tradition.

However, there was a miscommunication between the Guardian Hall and the Vanguards regarding the new queuing. The Guardian Hall assumed that they will just be delayed for a year while the Vanguards, which has the turn for this year, thought that the Guardian Hall had swapped schedule with the Heavenly Hall and their entrance to the Red Wilderness will proceed as scheduled.

“We gave our turn for the sake of the Seeds,” the Chief of the Guardian Hall, Morress, reasoned. “The least thing we can have in return is to not delay our turn further!”

“No, it was an agreement between the Heavenly Hall and your Hall alone,” the Commander of the Vanguards, Breggia, argued. “Our turn will not be compromised over an agreement that we’re not even part of!”

“Alright, alright!” The Clan Master ended their bout. “This is a case of a simple miscommunication in which I am at fault as well,” he also admitted. He assumed back then that all arrangements were settled by the involved parties. If he had checked, things would not have progressed to this. “So, to settle this matter, I decide that both sections will enter the Red Wilderness this year and the next together. The quota will be composed of both sides in which you two will arrange yourself. And, as a sign of apology for this fiasco, I will allow one cadet from each side to enter twice in a row. Is this acceptable?”

Satisfied, both leaders saluted and replied, “Yes, we accept!”

Dismissing them, the Clan Master proceeded right away to the next matter but frowned upon looking into its content. “Something regarding the Alchemy Tower?”

“Yes Clan Master.”

Then expectedly, the one who stood to vanguard the matter is his Aunt Ximena, the Clan Master’s third child and eldest daughter, and the Head of House Angael, a leading competitor in the succession war.