280 Tomes (3)
It wasn’t that the Acacia Family Singularity Technique was so much better than the other two. It was only that in consideration of Dyon’s circumstances, their technique happened to be perfect for him.
When Dyon had first met Ri, she had told him that her father’s manifestation was mist. At first, Dyon had attached this to Uncle Acacia because he hadn’t been aware of her origins at the time.
But, something was wrong. Did Ri mean that the King had a mist type manifestation? But, according to his knowledge, King Acacia was the first of the Acacia family to awaken their original manifestation in millennia. Yet, the Acacia family technique wasn’t mist… It was a manifestation they called: The Tree of Life and Death.
When Dyon told Ri about this, she too was confused. According to her knowledge, her father’s manifestation was indeed mist. She hadn’t been lying to Dyon at the time. However, as they thought about it, they settled on another possibility. King Acacia had the Tree of Life and Death manifestation, but, chose to use illusory type techniques to hide it, to the point where only Sinaht Sigebryht was aware of its true form. And the more Dyon read about the technique, the more he realized just why someone would want to do that.
The Tree of Life and Death was the most useful ability to Dyon now for two reasons: healing factor and stamina.
The problem with Dyon’s devour technique was that it was only a short-range stamina booster, and it only did so for his soul – completely ignoring his body’s fatigue and the eventual energy cultivation fatigue he would have.
But, the Tree of Life and Death was different. Not only would it replenish his body and energy fatigue, it could do so at long range!
Imagine hundreds of roots spreading through the ground of a battlefield, wrapping themselves around unsuspecting victims and becoming the fuel for Dyon’s continued fighting. Yet, what made Dyon shake with agitation was the fact that the original weakness of the technique was that it couldn’t replenish the soul while it replenished your body and energy. Meaning, you were essentially trading your soul strength for body and energy strength. However, how could Dyon have this problem if he used Devour simultaneously? Both techniques completely and perfectly complimented each other!
The best part was that this wasn’t the end of the abilities of the Tree of Life and Death. Not only did it have the ability to steal energy and stamina from people, it could do so from the surroundings as well. Meaning, even in the absence of people susceptible to the roots of this manifestation, Dyon could pull energy from the air and earth at a much quicker rate than he would be able to normally.
This also had the added effects of making the Tree of Life and Death manifestation highly sensitive to concentrations of energy. Which may very well be useful in a myriad of applications. However, there was one thing that stood out to Dyon about this ability…
‘This means…’ Dyon’s eyes widened as a thought suddenly crossed him mind.
Being able to take energy from the air much quicker didn’t just apply for battle, it applied for cultivating as well! Meaning, if Dyon cultivated this singularity type technique, regardless of his talent for energy cultivating, he could increase his pace at absorbing energy exponentially by using the Tree! All he would have to do was lay energy stones around himself, and his rate of absorption would accelerate! Even without energy stones, his energy cultivation speed would be nearly unmatched!
‘What if I used clones at the same time…’ The possible combinations of these techniques were endless. It made Dyon almost not want to choose.
‘Fuck it.’ Dyon thought wildly. ‘I’m going to learn the Florence cloning technique first, create a 75% clone, then use it to cultivate the Mathilde family singularity technique. After I create the clone, I’ll use my main body to cultivate the Acacia family technique since it’s more important to me.’
The clone technique was only one aspect of the Florence family technique and as such would take a shorter time to learn than the entire technique would. In terms of the second aspect, he had already decided to use the Florence family technique to increase his affinity for certain things, and he knew the perfect catalysts.
Dyon planned to drain himself of the blood essence given to him by his master and her husband. Using them as a catalyst, he’d trade off the ability to increase his body strength further in order to gain perfect affinity the wills he was lacking in… Especially celestial and demonic will. Therefore, the remaining 69% of blood essence he hadn’t fully integrated, would go toward the Florence family technique. He would then rely on solely integrating the demon sage blood to body cultivate. After all, it was far more powerful than the demon qilin or celestial deer essence. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
In addition, because he was only focusing on integrating one blood essence now, it would also go faster.
‘This works out perfect. I get to keep my bodily strength at the peak of the manifestation stage and still gain the benefits of my master and her husband’s affinities. Although… it will probably be painful removing the blood from myself despite it not being fully integrated…’
Suddenly Ri sat next to Dyon on the bed, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Did you make a decision?”
Dyon grinned. “I’m just going to do all three.”
Ri rolled her eyes. “I knew you’d end up doing that anyway. Remember to be careful, the techniques are powerful, but there’s a reason for that. They’re not easy to cultivate… What do you think about the Acacia family technique?”
Dyon paused for a moment. “It’s amazing. I didn’t even think about it before, but this technique benefits more than just the person using it. While it can improve my stamina and healing, I can technically divert the energy I absorb as well. Meaning, I could heal our entire army if take in enough energy.”
“It is pretty amazing…” She said absentmindedly, stroking the cover of the tome.
Dyon immediately knew what Ri was thinking about, so, he pulled her into his lap, holding her quietly and stroking her long blue-silver hair. “Your father is very powerful, little feu glace. It’s to the point where I doubt he left because he lost his mind.”
Ri nodded silently, letting Dyon comfort her. It was clear why she was bothered. They had figured out long ago that it was likely Ri’s father had this exact manifestation… So how could someone so powerful, with so many abilities, just disappear? Although Dyon didn’t want to say anything because it might only make it worse, it was likely King Acacia had left due to Ri’s mother.
A kitsune was a supreme level beast. In fact, it was a supreme level beast so powerful that it lorded over other supreme level beasts. How could the background of Ri’s mother be simple? It was likely King Acacia was fighting a difficult battle all by himself right now. And Ri wanted nothing more than to help him.
“When we find them, Ri. Because, trust me, we will. I’ll put my everything into bringing them both back. I want to carry half of your burden too.”
Ri smiled, kissing Dyon’s cheek. “Th – “
“Ah, ah, ah. I better never hear words like thank you from, ever! Okay?” Dyon playfully held his finger to Ri’s lips, silencing her as she giggled lightly.
“Okay. Let’s cultivate.”
Dyon nodded, turning to tomes.
It was good that they did this now… Because the gates were about to get even more unpredictable.