Chapter 404: Strengthening
The moment Luna condensed a mass of misty blood qi, the blood-red gemstone on her chest flashed once and vanished.
Luna groped around vigorously but couldn’t find where the gemstone had gone. Just as she was feeling frustrated, she heard that ethereal voice again.
“Well done. You have successfully converted the blood qi I gifted you into your own power. Do not worry about the red gemstone; it has merely entered the solar plexus of your chest. That is a unique point of the human body. Accumulate your blood qi there continuously. When it reaches the limit, it will be the time to ignite the Heart Fire.”
Luna’s eyes were somewhat blank. She looked around but couldn’t find the person speaking.
Just then, she heard the drifting, uncertain voice again.
“Stop looking. I am a recording, not a real person, and I will not appear again. The blood-red gemstone left in your solar plexus contains information from a dream illusion. When your current realm reaches its limit, the method to advance to the next realm will reveal itself.
“The path of the warrior offers mortals the possibility to become existences comparable to Great Heroes or even stronger. All of this depends on your own efforts.”
Listening to the ethereal words, Luna was about to think when her stomach let out a gurgling sound. She frowned, looking at the pitch-black outdoors.
“I must get something to eat!”
Ace hadn’t taught her any combat techniques, only mentioning simply that filling a certain part of the body with blood qi could greatly enhance the corresponding physical quality.
Luna calmed her mind, slowly flowing the blood qi from her solar plexus to her legs. She jumped with all her might—thud!
She hit the roof, raising a huge bump on her forehead.
Luna bared her teeth in pain. She filled the injured area on her forehead with blood qi. The swelling gradually subsided. Luna touched her smooth forehead, her expression full of wonder, like a child who had received a new toy.
She then concentrated the blood qi in her right arm, especially her fist, and punched the roof beam. Creak!
The already overburdened beam let out a painful groan and slowly tilted. Luna’s face changed, and she scrambled out of the dilapidated wooden house.
Just as she rolled out of the wooden house, the entire structure collapsed with a boom. In just a few seconds, the home Luna had lived in for over a decade turned into ruins.
Luna stared dumbfounded at the ruins. After being dazed for a while, she suddenly jumped up in excitement, whispering enthusiastically, “This strength, this recovery ability—it completely surpasses ordinary people. From now on, I am a warrior!”
Gurgle… Her stomach roared, seemingly making a final protest. Luna licked her lips and cast her gaze toward the village chief’s house. She remembered there were a few very fat hens there.
On the other side, Ace had already left the place. He had casually sown a seed and left it to grow freely. It would be good if it could cause ripples; if not, there was no loss.
Clouds and mist slowly covered the moon, leaving the entire night in pitch darkness. Ace flew slowly in mid-air. The 3-ring spell Invisible Concealment was activated; he gradually became transparent, his aura non-existent.
“Byrne City is the largest city in this vicinity. If I want to understand the Artemis Kingdom and the Old Continent, this is an inevitable stop.”
Treading on clouds and mist, Ace gradually approached Byrne City. This place was ruled by the descendants of the Sleep God Byrne. According to the city laws, all residents of Byrne City must fall asleep within three hours of nightfall.
Amidst the clouds, Ace looked at Byrne City. The Golden Spell Eye of Truth emerged in his eyes. Aided by layers of rune structures, Ace saw one pale golden light and four deep red lights.
His pupils constricted slightly. He understood clearly what pale gold meant: that was a Level 3 existence, a Legendary Hero possessing a Noble Phantasm!
“This city has something like a dream mist existing faintly. It is very likely the authority or even the Noble Phantasm of that Legendary Hero.
“The Sleep God’s domain is sleep and dreams. Legend has it that He controls the terrifying power to make all lives below the level of Deity sleep eternally and is the source of dreams. It can be said that He and His descendants likely have a direct path conflict with me.
“I want to turn illusion into reality based on dreams, and this foundation lies in the domain of the Sleep God Byrne. This is an almost irreconcilable contradiction. I cannot enter this city for the time being, unless that Legendary Hero leaves.”
Having thought everything through clearly, Ace slowly moved away from this city shrouded in dreams. Before he became strong enough, he didn’t want to be discovered by the opponent.
Near a small town called Baird, Ace stopped.
He hid in a barren mountain not far away, excavated a simple underground limestone cave, set up warning rune arrays and trap rune arrays, and then immersed his mind into the mental imagery dream world.
The Level 2 Artisan Bloodline had been almost completely analyzed by Ace. He combined the internal structure of the runes within it with manifestation, greatly perfecting the internal structure of the Manifestation spell model.
Ace’s dream manifestation ability originally had the same effect when manifesting any inanimate object. By extracting relevant runes from the Artisan Bloodline and modifying his own golden runes, Ace successfully added the runes learned from the Artisan Bloodline into the rune structure.
Ace performed a targeted modification on the manifestation ability, greatly strengthening the manifestation effect and ability regarding wonders, especially weapons. True Spirit Ace descended into the depths of the mental imagery dream world and embedded that manifestation rune structure into the core spell model of the dream once again.
The entire dream world trembled slightly, appearing to resonate with the sound of metal drums. The sky of the dream world gradually became oppressive as dense phantoms of various weapons appeared in the sky.
Aleias looked at the sky full of weapon phantoms, her purple eyes flashing with splendor. Having lived in Ace’s mental imagery dream world for a long time, she seemed to resonate with this false heaven and earth. Her own Artisan Bloodline, floating within her Soul Sanctuary, broke free at this moment.
Aleias floated slowly. The mass of bloodline power extracted from her body surged constantly, changing into various forms.
True Spirit Ace appeared. Looking at Aleias’s state, an idea gradually formed in his mind. He spoke to Aleias with a voice that struck directly at the soul.
“Perhaps you can help me test an idea first. I need a Natal Artifact that can continuously manufacture Pseudo-Noble Phantasms or Golden Wonders. This requires three abilities: Noble Phantasm analysis, recording, and forgery.
“Choose one ability, and I will assist you in creating this magic tool.”
Aleias, currently in a state of resonance with Ace’s mental imagery dream world, saw her eyes change from purple to a bright white. Her mind operated on instinct, and she gradually spat out a sentence.
“I don’t want to counterfeit; I want to forge!”
Ace nodded, deciding to help her create the Natal Artifact.
Aleias was currently only an advanced warlock apprentice. She hadn’t even fully understood logic and mathematics yet. But warlocks were different from wizards after all; they relied more on bloodlines. Before Level 4, relying on the advantage of bloodlines, they might even advance faster.
However, to reach Level 4 (Demigod), the bloodline would instead become a shackle.
Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com