Chapter 341
Chapter 341
Kyon took the choice of enchantment seriously. He had enough resources to enchant a human soul up to the advanced grade. First, he needed to test the waters experimenting on a relatively cheap rat.
Lovr picked up the animal and cast the most promising enchantment of enhancing pure energy that required all the nine elements.
As expected, the new enchantment replaced the previous one. The effects didn’t stack.
Kyon infused the rat with Synergy and forced it to release some pure energy to test the changes.
{Hm… How curious! The element has become two stages more powerful. It means it will be only eight stages more powerful after a master grade enchantment. Not too much.}
Any practitioner in the world would hit him in the head for this outrageous statement. Eight stages for the fundamental element with a single grade! Wasn’t it a blessing from above? Pure energy could be used for both defense and attack! This arrogant bastard was a tad too presumptuous!
Kyon was disappointed that even an 8-stage advantage wouldn’t do him any good. Competing with opponents 15 stages stronger would be pure idiocy like head butting with a bull. One stage in their cultivation meant more energy density than eight stages in his. His offensive and defensive elements would hardly change!
{This enchantment will slightly increase all my characteristics and most importantly, it will raise my speed by almost half of the phase! That sounds interesting…} – Lovr concluded and moved on to consider other options.
The pure energy resistance also piqued Kyon’s interest. An enchantment of the master grade would decrease the impact of the opponents’ blows by 12 stages. However, he would have to find another way to block the rest of the elements. Fortunately, there were plenty of them. And yet, the increase in speed still looked more promising.
The regeneration enchantment seemed to be good, but it was nothing like the previous two. Besides, Kyon was planning to create a healing technique based on the Grands’ legacy.
The muscle-strengthening enchantment didn’t work. In fact, there were lots of non-material things, such as detecting the source of darkness, light, killing intent, or possible surveillance, as well as increasing spiritual sense, soul instincts, and maybe even good luck, but Kyon had no idea how to get through to these metaphorical features and create the necessary trigram pattern.
Kyon went over a dozen different options but didn’t find anything outstanding. It was only a waste of resources. He would have to make a choice between two enchantments: enhancing pure energy or increasing durability of his body.
The most demanded enchantment in the world that required only three elements was on a par with the one that enhanced pure energy and required nine elements. It increased durability of the body by five stages with each grade (taking into account the pure energy protection), which was really impressive.
All enchantments gave a different stat multiplier. For example, weighting enchantment multiplied the mass by 10, hardening enchantment made the object about five times stronger (5 stages), element enhancing increased its density by about 170%.
If an average practitioner was given a choice between enhancing the most important element by four stages or increasing the body durability by 10, anyone would choose the first option. It increased the speed due to the movement technique, as well as defense and attack.
However, Kyon was in a different situation. Enhancing pure energy would speed him up by 4 stages multiplied by 13 combat fists. However, increasing durability by 10 stages would be multiplied by his carbon skin, his carbon bones, his upgraded arm and head. Roughly speaking, he had to choose between speed and super strength. Which should he choose?
Lovr recalled his battle with Princess Kara at the Stones’ party, where any opponent could deliver a fatal blow and take his life. Dozens, if not hundreds of times, he miraculously avoided being hit at the very last moment. He didn’t enjoy dancing on the razor’s edge. He’d prefer to be a tank than a racing car on the battlefield, especially if he could teleport.
{That settles it.} – Kyon concluded.
He created a massive mold with a pattern for unbreaking enchantment, filled the holes with an equal number of all types of keys, stood in the center, and activated the enchant. The scarlet energy consumed the enchanter and rushed to the keys in his soul.
Kyon felt a slight tingling sensation all over his body, flowing into the channels and beyond. Then it gave way to another one that felt like drying wax on the skin as if he were turning into stone under Medusa’s gaze.
A bright flash lit up the room as a mark of success.
Next was the unbreaking enchantment of advanced grade. According to rough estimates, it was ten times more expensive and would take about 800 thousand keys out of a million that he had. He would have to spend almost everything he had earned in the forest tournament.
How many keys would he need for the unbreaking enchantment of the highest grade? The whole Feruzovs’ treasure wouldn’t be enough. Anyway, he lacked the superior grade of ether. As for light, it already had a superior grade thanks to the voracious key sphere.
Kyon cast aside all his doubts and created another trigram, this time with more intricate patterns. He filled the grooves with nephrite powder and put the keys in the rings, or there wouldn’t be enough space for such an amount.
Soon the scarlet glow lit up the room. Success again, but at what cost!
Kyon clenched his fists and smiled: {It was worth it. By all means. There is nothing more important than getting stronger. Especially in terms of protection.} – He reassured himself.
Now the durability of his body was comparable to that of a practitioner ten stages stronger (if they used only pure energy for defense) without taking into account the carbon skin and bones, the modified arm and head. If late Artie (Artemis) Grand tried to stab him now, he would hardly leave even a small cut. Even if Triana hit him in the head with her claws just as she did when they first met, she would leave only minor scratches on his skull. That’s how unbreakable he had become.
He was so sleepy, he couldn’t think straight. His hand reached for the pillow, but his mind demanded a few more experiments. He had to get rid of some doubts and confirm some guesses.
Kyon created a granite stone and crushed it with his hand. It turned out to be harder than usual.
{As expected, everything my soul creates will also be augmented with enchantment.} – Kyon grunted contentedly. His earth element had reached a completely new level. Even lord phasers would find it difficult to crash the adamantium rock.
Lovr put the stone in the trigram, cast a weighting enchanted, and broke it again. To his utter amazement, the stone had gained extra weight beside being ultra-strong.
{Seriously? The previous entchant stayed! But why?!}
Kyon quickly realized that his enchanted soul had undergone qualitative improvement. That’s why it had such a high price to pay. It wasn’t just about protection, something like invisible armor. His soul now released enhanced elemental energy, albeit with an empty slot.
Lovr was delighted. His weapon would be ultra heavy beside being ultrastrong. Besides, his earth element was many times more powerful than was expected to be. He did not regret his choice of enchantment, not in the least.
He took out the Scourge and infused it with the earth element to multiply its strength. It’s one thing to create something new, and a different thing to make something better. It took him only two hours to do the necessary upgrade. As the sword became stronger, it also changed its shape and turned red. Kyon would hate to reveal his true identity.
Now Lovr had just enough resources to enchant the Scourge with the superior grade weighting enchantment, but he lacked the superior grade of ether. Besides, 10,000 kilos of sword would be too much even for his upgraded right hand.
Kyon cast an advanced grade enchantment and waved the sword. A thousand-kilo sword was ok. He could last two or three minutes of the battle with it. However, there arose a new problem: he lost balance with each swing! His dexterity could go to hell if the sword brought him down.
He could solve this issue by the sticking to the floor technique that could be performed with pure energy and was known to any experienced practitioner. Any noble phaser faced the problem of sliding on the floor during hard braking or acceleration. This technique solved the problem once and for all. It allowed any sudden change in direction. A practitioner could stop a racing horse and not budge.
A surprisingly bright thought flashed across his tired mind.
He applied a formation on the handle and activated it, his eyes red as he were a maniac vampire.
The sword suddenly lightened by 900 kilos. Its weight had been sealed into the formation in the form of energy, similar to Triana’s transformation process.
Then the weight returned just like that.
Kyon wiped the sweat from his forehead and burst into laughter: «I am fucking genius!»
The weight-reducing formation has two conditions: 1 – the object must be infused with pure energy. 2 – increasing or decreasing weight requires energy. Therefore, this method is ideal for heavy weapons but not suitable for construction. Lovr couldn’t find a single mention of this method in the entire Boston library because such formations were never as perfect as his. They required too much energy, needed to be recharged, and the object reduced only half of its mass.
Kyon could seal as much as 95% of its mass instantly with minimal energy consumption. No formacist in the world could ever reach this result. With this formation, he could dodge and attack with the same ease as if he held a cane in his hand! Only, he would have to return the mass just before attacking the opponent.
Lovr’s eyes suddenly flashed brighter than the stars with another idea. He applied another formation on the hilt and threw his sword across the room, holding out his hand as if carrying out his own mic drop.
The spatial attribute enveloped the weapon at once.
~whoosh~
The sword teleported back to his outstretched arm.
Kyon laughed even harder than ever. Now he could change the mass of the sword as well get it back in his hand! He didn’t have to worry about losing his weapon. He could even throw it like a spear without thinking about the consequences!
Kyon collapsed onto the pillow with a happy face and instantly fell asleep. He was as happy as a chick that had just hatched from an egg and realized that he was not a chicken but a pterodactyl. He had become powerful beyond imagination.
While he was sleeping, Synergy worked at full power. Kyon had been in the light state for a whole week. If Juno or Triana had been around, he would have given them freedom. That’s why he had to erase the slightest mention of the tigress from his memory. If he had met his sworn enemy, he would most certainly have spared them. Kyon couldn’t live like that anymore. It was time he got back to normal.
«I loved her…» – A ghostly voice sounded in his mind.
Kyon opened his eyes and stretched. He got back in shape after almost ten hours of sleep, but most importantly, he returned to his true self! Now he could go back to the tigress and play with her properly. He’d missed her and her gorgeous body.
With Synergy, he saw the hotel room through the visual formation, and his eyes grew to the size of saucers: {Triana! What are you doing, stupid bitch?} – He rushed off to the hotel, his fists clenched, his teeth gritted in silent fury.
(A.C. I’ve calculated the exact mass of the weapons in different arcs, including the final ones, and concluded that these numbers are so extreme they’re virtually inconceivable. I will have to sacrifice “realism” in favor of beauty. You might want to consider it a beneficial convention.)