Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

Year beasts are lifeforms native to the River of Time. Their unique constitution allows them to freely navigate within the river of time’s temporal waters without worrying about the time corrosion. Each of them are ‘biologically’ immortals. Theoretically, they are not limited by lifespan. As long as they live, Year beasts will become stronger as they grow bigger. 

That being said, a rank 2 Chicken Year Beast would be problematic because year beasts are the predator of other year beasts, they are extremely hostile towards each other. Only the strong can survive, if year beasts do not die in their youth, they will grow into excellent combatants. Furthermore, since they are time-path lifeforms, most rank 3 or weaker cultivators have no defense against them.

Only cultivators who have ‘Legendary’ attainment-level are capable of mimicking the profundity of other paths. Defending against time-path would be difficult unless a cultivator’s understanding of it is high, or their primary cultivation technique has defensive measures against it. 

‘It was a correct decision for Valerie to run away from the beast. Despite not being the most aggressive, chicken year beasts are fickle and chaotic, you can never know what’s on their mind.’ Mordred nodded as he heard Valerie narrate her story.

“And so, it was lucky for me to get away from the beast’s senses. I saw the chicken year beast use its weird eyes that makes other beasts frozen in their tracks. Be careful, Grandmaster Xinjian.”

Mordred closed his eyes as he touched the spot between his eyes. This was his habit when he’s in deep thought.

‘So the chicken year beast also has Flashback Magic Eyes which trapped its victim in their past memory. Quite troublesome. Rank 2 beast… Can I do it?’

Each major difference in rank meant a qualitative leap as a lifeform, and so, any rank 2 beasts are fundamentally superior to their rank 1 counterparts. Not only that, the existence of the River of Time Tributary also altered the environment into that of time-path. Other paths would be suppressed greatly.

‘Sound-path have no fundamental advantage against other paths like that of fire against water, but it also has no fundamental disadvantage either. The time-path environment wouldn’t affect me to the point of crippling disadvantage.’ Mordred calculated the variables. ‘If I go all out with my sound-path method and refine a specialized set of tools, there might be a chance to kill it, but I need to personally investigate the situation there.’

Mordred quickly decided to kill it. 

‘Not only the Tributary itself, if I can kill the chicken, I might be able to upgrade my crystal processor with an overclocking module from the chicken’s body parts. But first…’ Mordred opened his eyes, only to see Valerie checking up on him. 

He might’ve dissed the dark elf, but she was actually very pretty. Actually, there’s no ugly elves as they are a race infatuated with beauty. When she dropped the hood that covered her head, she revealed her pure silver hair which was braided to maximize ease of movement. She has enchanting crimson eyes and a beauty mark underneath her left eye. Her cheeks still contain a bit of baby fat even though she’s in her fifties, but that was expected as elven species matured slowly. Her dark purple skin is covered by a layer of dirt since the underground world lacks clean water.

Since Mordred is no longer distracted with his past memories, he could appreciate Valerie’s figure and beauty. She was as tall as Mordred’s current Mortal Shell, standing at 1.8 meter. Her robe conceals her figure, but from a glance, it was enough to know that she’s voluptuous with an hourglass-like waist.

There’s no such thing as a fat elf. They were genetically superior in that department.

In addition, dark elves are known to be very skilled in the art of the bed. They are also pious worshippers of the Dark Elven Goddess of Desire as if they are her possession. Every single one of their priestesses received pleasure-related blessings from their goddess. 

That being said, when she was checking him out, she was also trying her best to understand what kind of person this ‘Xinjian’ is. She’ll have to pay him back for his protection, after all. It’s best if she could pleasure him to the best of her abilities.

‘I’ll need to take precautions if she’s a believer of the Dark Elven Goddess of Desire… but according to my memories… the Goddess of Desire’s influence over the Dark Elves weakened significantly after I took the Delcroix clan under my wing because I showed those…  condescending ‘females in heat’ a way out of the Goddess' grasp. My soul-path methods should still be effective against the goddess’ faith-path methods.’

While Mordred concealed his desire, he showcased the attitude of a proper man. Well, he isn’t a human with proper morals in the first place but there’s a need to act like it.

“Can you lead me to it?”  

“Yes!” Valerie nodded. She has no hesitation because in her eyes, Mordred’s rank 2 cultivation base is sufficient to kill a Chicken Year Beast. After all, true sword cultivators are unique in a sense that they could fight across major realms against other cultivators. The year beast wouldn’t be able to murder someone with legendary attainment in sword-path (in her perspective).

 

…

 

Less than an hour after she traveled with Mordred, Valerie actually collapsed onto the floor due to fatigue. And so, the 20 kilometer or so descent that would normally take a day with their speed was delayed to three days because Mordred had to take care of her until she rested sufficiently. 

Mordred does not feel it was a waste of time because he has yet to identify the echoes of time that the River of Time Tributary would produce. In other words, he hasn't learned how to detect his goal and so, the time spent on taking care of Valerie wasn’t a waste. By being  a guide, she was optimizing Mordred’s time despite being weaker than him.

Currently, Mordred is hiding in a small room blocked by a large rock while Valerie is waiting for him while he meditated.

‘In these three days, Grandmaster Xinjian has never made a move on me, but he has always protected me with his… sword finger! As I’ve thought, he is a Sword Saint or close to reaching that realm!’

Of course, Mordred doesn't have the attention to straighten her misunderstanding as it was more beneficial for him to act as if he’s a rank 2 grandmaster. 

That being said, the two have been hiding inside the room for more than six hours. Valerie did not dare to distract ‘Xinjian’ because his target is something that she could never hope to defeat in the first place.

“I see…” Mordred nodded occasionally while his eyes were closed. Although Valerie felt it was weird to repeat ‘i see’ while Mordred is not really seeing with his eyes, she felt waves of energy undulation from ‘Xinjian’. The said energy undulation is extremely similar to what Martial Artists’ developed after reaching rank 1, which was Reduced Force Field. Within its circumference, martial artists could detect most things through their 6th senses, thus, it isn’t wrong for him to keep muttering it multiple times without using his eyes. 

“Alright, I’ve scoured the area and found its vague location.” Mordred opened his eyes, confidence gleaming from it.

“Huh? Grandmaster Xinjian, we’re over 2.500 meters away from the location where I think the chicken year beast would be. Even if you’re a sword cultivator, it would be difficult to…” Valerie stopped her words. How can she doubt someone with a legendary attainment in sword-path? 

“I’m… not a sword cultivator though…” Mordred frowned but did not explain further. “Stay in here. I’ve made sure that no creatures can enter this room. I’ll be back before your food runs out.”

‘Huh? You’re not a sword cultivator?’ Valerie felt like her brain malfunctioned. Her senses clearly indicate that everytime Xinjian made a move with his finger, there’s a trace of sword-path profundity in them. After all, she has learnt some level of swordsmanship in the underground world for decades. Although she isn’t a master of sword, she has quite a bit of attainment in it.

Mordred left the flabbergasted Valerie while he used his stealth methods to get closer to the Tributary. The 2.500 meter distance was calculated in a straight line. The real distance was actually more than 4km due to the convoluted cave network, it was a necessary precaution that Mordred took so that the beast wouldn’t be able to anticipate his presence. 

As he got closer, his Myriad Synesthesia began to sense the distorted echoes of time. The closer he is in reaching the tributary, the more areas are affected with inconsistent rate of time.

‘I’ve never physically traveled to the river of time… but it should be interesting.’. As a magus, it was his nature to pursue the absolute truth and explore the unknown, but he suppressed the urge as he had priorities. Exploration on the River of Time can only be realistically possible if he already has rank 4 Paragon cultivation base and the necessary facilities. He quickly erases this distracting thought.  

When he reached 500 meter away from the tributary, his senses picked up the vague presence of the chicken year beast, including the tributary that he’s been looking for. 

‘The tributary is actually very small… in the material world, a three dimensional hole would have the shape of a sphere. Which means… that golden sphere with 2-meter diameter which incessantly leaked golden timeforce in liquid concentration must be the Tributary, but to reach it, I’ll need to hide from the chicken’s senses…’

In his senses, the echoes of time are inconsistent as it approaches a certain spot.

Unlike using sight which depends on the reflection of light, Mordred’s Myriad Synesthesia relies on the vibration of sound. 

Light moves at the speed of light and sound moves at the speed of sound, that was common sense. 

The dimensional laws between Morgen World and Holy Terra are different, in this world, sound moves roughly 700 meter/second¹343 m/s on earth but light speed is over a million kilometers per second²299.792.458 m/s on earth. The differences between the two are too big. 

Of course, since the underground world is inherently a dark-path and earth-path environment, the speed of light is suppressed to roughly half of that number. But still, Mordred’s Myriad Synesthesia is completely useless to those who can move faster than the speed of sound as it relies on sound-based feedback.

In an environment where time is distorted, the difference of lightspeed would hardly be noticed as it is still too fast, but it’s a different matter altogether with sound. If the sound wave passed through a location with 0.1 time dilation, the relatively slow speed of sound becomes even slower, messing up Mordred’s primary perception to a great degree. 

For Mordred whose perception mainly relies on sound waves, time dilated environments are almost similar to a dark spot to those who rely on their eyes. However, Myriad Synesthesia is a passive soul trait, just like how a normal human has ears to hear, eyes to see, and nose to smell. Mordred have lived for too long to let this flaw exist so methods to hear objects at supersonic are already plenty.   

“First, using a multi-layer AT-Field to conceal the undulation and using the colors corresponds to time-path as the outermost layer to blend in with the environment. Then… rank 1 sound-path Kai kuji-in (Sense seal) Ninjutsu… [Supersonic Synesthesia]!”

After the activation, Mordred produced harmless near-inaudible supersonic sound waves. The reflection of sound would function like a radar, mapping the ‘dark areas’ of dilated time zones slowly. His method also coincidentally penetrates the chicken year beast’s stealth method. 

‘So the chicken year beast has leveled the ground and demolished the walls to its heart’s content, turning the area into a relatively flat, rocky region with a golden river of timeforce spreading its smaller tributaries everywhere. It’ll be hard to ambush it…’

The core area that housed the Tributary is still ‘dark’ in his hearing because the sound waves that he sent are automatically subjected into chrono-stasis. However, if he used his eyes, he could actually see a golden sphere producing golden water which was a liquid concentration of timeforce.

‘It seems like the tributary froze my sound waves but not light…but actually, the golden light isn’t photons but timeforce particles which act like photons in this concentration. That being the case, it’s nearly impossible to sense what lies beyond the tributary but I only need the tributary as it is, I don’t need to enter the dimensional hole or anything.’

Mordred does not want to bother the chicken too much, so he refrains from getting too close to the 5 meter tall giant who’s currently eating a Month Wildlife, a type of smaller and weaker native lifeforms of River of Time. Still, he will have to eventually kill it to take the tributary so harvesting some timeforce is a must.

As stated previously, time-path is special as it affects every elemental path. Only space-path is able to properly support or counter time-path directly. Time and space’s relationship is like water and fire, water can beat fire but fire can also beat water.   

Since Mordred currently has no access to space-path resources (due to their relatively higher rarity compared to other paths), then he’ll have to get time-path resources to make a countermeasure. The chicken would be impossible to kill with his method otherwise.

Mordred dislocated almost every piece of his limb. A human’s arm has three major joints which are armpits, elbow and wrist, but Mordred could effortlessly dislocate not only the joints but also his bone to create more bending points. Each of his mechanical organs is not larger than his skull, it can be shifted temporarily. As long as his skull could fit, there’s no hole that he couldn’t crawl into. His unnaturally high [Flexibility] attribute was caused by this. Like a human-snake hybrid, he slowly slithered towards the time-path environment under multiple stealth methods. 

The room where the Tributary manifest has high vertical and wide horizontal area because the chicken year beast is so big. Liquid concentration of timeforce flowed into the material world like a three dimensional golden river because there’s actually no reason for it to follow gravity. After all, timeforce is not something with heavier-than-air mass, at least in gaseous and liquid concentration. That  being said, the localized time-path environment is filled with Month Wildlife and Day Critter. 

Month Wildlife are small, non-dangerous lifeforms of time-path with the form of normal animals like rabbits, deer, sheep, rat or other. These creatures are the primary food of Year Beasts. As for Day Critter, they are smaller creatures which are the food for Month Wildlife, such as insects or other. The bottom feeders in the River of Time are not Day Critters but Second Microbes.

Since Mordred has infiltrated the edge of the distorted time environment, there’s a surge of Day Critter and Second Microbes foraging in in the timeforce river. Due to the golden glow of timeforce, this area is filled with golden color as if this barren underground room has turned into gold because fucking Midas couldn’t keep his hand to himself.

As Mordred slither through, his mouth opened and drank the liquid concentration of timeforce. 

Needless to say, timeforce is extremely toxic. Not in a literal sense, but it is harmful to one’s lifespan. Since timeforce is a type of energy from the River of Time, touching it affects one’s time. Only when timeforce is concentrated into solid and sealed with certain methods does it become stable and relatively inept.  

While Mordred consumes liquid concentration timeforce, he doesn't digest it. Inside his mouth, the timeforce is being solidified until it crystalizes through Ninjutsu. His tongue continuously activates the ninjutsu to properly seal the timeforce crystal. He swallowed it and put the crystalized timeforce somewhere near his biofurnace (stomach) for safekeeping.   

Also, while doing so, he took as many as Day Critters as possible. These small lifeforms might not be as powerful as year beasts, but they have some uses. For example, he had just eaten (store) a day critter known as Ticking Shell Crab. The said creature’s shell is a core material to refine low-level time-path consumables. 

As for Month Wildlife, they are too big and easily noticeable. Each of them are the food of the year beast, even if the beast is beyond retarded, achieving rank 2 is an achievement in itself. There’s no such thing as a dumb rank 2 beast. At the very least, the beast would know details regarding its own food source, but for its food’s food, that’s a different thing altogether.

‘What the fuck!’ Mordred suddenly screamed in his mind. While he was slithering here and there to condense timeforce, his senses picked up the existence of a golden egg.

‘That fucking chicken year beast is laying egg… this is the perfect chance to kill it!’ Like most creatures, the chicken year beast will be somewhat weakened after laying an egg. Stronger lifeforms would be having difficulties in multiplying because of various obvious reasons, and thus, laying a single egg meant at least a 10 to 30% decrease of power.

‘I was prepared to spend 2 to 4 weeks slowly analyzing the chicken’s weakness, but this will save me a great deal of time… ’  

BOOM! While Mordred is distracted, there’s another rank 2 beast as big as the chicken that noticed the year beast’s weakness and attacked it. The underground world’s competition for survival is extremely brutal, there’s no way other intelligent beasts wouldn’t make use of this opportunity.

Mordred did not dally. He quickly gathered up all the necessary things he needed and left. ‘Even when weakened, the Tributaries have altered the environment. Dark-path creatures would be extremely suppressed by the chicken.’ After he exits the distorted time environment, he makes a final glimpse at the large beast that entagle itself with the chicken before leaving.

“That is one ugly motherfucking spider…” Mordred felt his scalp tingle after seeing the myriad holes that the giant hairy spider had in its body segment. For some reason, it awakens his inner trypophobia even though he doesn’t have it.