Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

“Chief!” The elite guards were shocked to see the new form. The sight of a skeleton moving without flesh was a magical spectacle, but also disturbing. Nobody could get used to his new appearance the moment they saw him. “I have successfully converted myself into an undead. Now, it’s time for our retaliation towards the Kobold...” he said with a cold tone. The empty eye socket released an eerie aura all around to those who present.

“Yes, chief!” the guards lowered their gaze. Despite being the chief’s own decision, it’ll need some time before the goblin could accept the fact that their chief has become an undead.

“I have drafted a plan already, gather up the warriors.” The empty eye socket was a disturbing sight. His words were cold which made them think that he did not see them as fellow goblins, but it was rude to run in fear before the presence of the chief.

“At once, chief.” The guards went to fetch the warriors as soon as possible. Seeing this, Mordred could only chuckle. It was a natural reaction after all. The living and the dead could not mix in one place. It was simply against the natural order of the world.

“I will need to make some plans regarding this. Hmmm.” Mordred touched his chin as he pondered deeply. As he lost in his thoughts, he forgot about the time. Being an undead, he cannot tire; thus he stood there for an hour lost in thought until the guards returned with a cadre of warriors behind them.

They were surprised at first, but they recognized the shamanic attribute draped on the skeletal figure, thus instantly recognizing the Chief who had successfully converted into an undead.

“Chief!” they gave their respect, but their gaze was still unusual towards the skeleton.

“Hmm.” Mordred awoke from his deep thinking. “All the warriors are here? Perfect.” He brought them into an open space.

What he decided after thinking about the current situation is to disseminate a new warfare ideology amongst the goblins.

Morgen World’s culture revolves around personal strength. Despite the existence of martial formation, most major battles are relatively fought through utilizing martial prowess: general against general and soldiers against soldiers. It had become an unrefuted fact that from the lowest street fights in the slums, to the highest duel between a heroic individual that wars happened followed this ‘rule’.

Basically, powerhouses are pit against other powerhouses while cannon fodders are to fight other cannon fodders.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of a modern Magus who has come from a higher civilization, this wasn’t the best method to fight large scale wars. Yes, the personal power of an expert could affect the balance of large scale wars, but one needs to be overwhelmingly powerful enough to do it. 

“In Holy Terra, Magi rarely participates in large-scale battles due to various reasons. One, Magi are extremely low in numbers. Two, secrecy is the thing they loved the most, only second to their unceasing desire to pursue the truth. And three, after Holy Terra’s progenitor of Information-path, a Magus named Intelligent Metal brought forth the age of information, mortal soldiers started to have a fighting chance against Magi with their technologically advanced tools.” Mordred muttered silently with a tinge of regret.

Okay, you can use magic and stuff. But can you defend yourself from a nuke? Intercontinental nuclear missiles are not a problem? Okay, then what about a 10-ton tungsten rod dropped from orbit? Can you defend against them? Then what about a hundred 1000-ton kinetic rods? With the ease of information circulation in the world wide web, it didn’t take a lot of time for mortals to devise anti-magic rounds or other anti-magus methods.

The answer is too easy to guess.

Since the age of Information dawned by Intelligent Metal in the early 22th century, the remaining Magi of Holy Terra become even more secretive while mastering information-path methods. Every accomplished magus began amassing factions filled with mortals while they manipulate society through them.

“Following the primitive warfare ideology of this Morgen World is foolish. The Kobolds are not that powerful, their fleshy body is a tad weaker than goblins. The only reason why they have an advantage in battle compared to the goblins is merely their numbers.” He analyzed.

On a strategic level, the goblin possessed the Chieftain whose shamanic healing spell is critical on post-battle recovery, while his buffing spells also contribute in key areas, but he was limited when the enemy numbered twice or thrice of his numbers. In terms of combat stratagem, the goblin chieftain did all of that spontaneously, and neither side was not getting any other strategic advantage due to their limited intelligence.

“This is a new combat doctrine I’ve learned after battling the kobolds for so long… In the last battle, I had an epiphany…” he blatantly lied towards the goblin soldiers and elite guards.

Mordred then patiently instructed the goblins to a new world of large-scale combat. If Morgen World’s warfare revolves around personal power, then Holy Terra’s modern warfare revolves around discipline and tools.

In other words, strategy and teamwork is the core concept of modern warfare, since the gap of killing power is filled with a technologically advanced arsenal.

Of course, Mordred is currently not in the possession of magitek guns or other magitek weapons, but how can that be a permanent situation?

Without forgoing individual martial prowess, the goblin warriors and goblin elite guards are separated into 5-man squads, with the elite guard acting as captain. Since there are roughly forty combat-ready goblins in total, they were separated into eight squads. There were no more warriors or elite guards, only goblin soldiers with captains leading them.

“Following the doctrine of command-path, discipline is more important than your life. Orders are everything. If you fail to comply with my orders, then you will receive a warning brand.” Mordred taught them as he activated a command-path spell to draw a red X mark in the air.

“Three warning brands and you are not qualified to be a soldier. Your family will have to receive the brunt of your action. You can only do menial work like cleaning the latrine, and the rations you’ll receive will be less…” He explained.

After a long explanation about the terms that the goblins are unfamiliar with, Mordred started the real training. Slowly but surely, the goblins understood the concept of discipline of command-path. Most still disobey his orders, but Mordred increases the severity of punishment as time passes by.  

The result of his training is invisible in the short term, but it’s significantly more effective compared to the primitive ideology of warfare of Morgen World in the long run, especially later after he found the resources required to equip them with magitek artifacts.   

With that said, Mordred has no fear of being overthrown by the goblin he enlightened since the upper limit of their battle strength is inherently limited. The army he trained will be extremely powerful compared to the typical armies of Morgen World, yes, but they will be limited by logistical support. If he controls the Logistics, he becomes the master of the army.

It was that simple.

Besides, a goblin that could rise into the rank of the gods in this world only happened once, and that’s due to special circumstances that could not be replicated ever again unless the current Goblin God in the Greenskins Pantheon died mysteriously.

After a long time of practicing, the goblin started to understand the concept, but not every goblin was that lucky. Most of them are so dumb, that despite Mordred effort in teaching and training them, they did not show the potential of order and discipline of true command-path armies since goblins are an inherently inept race.

By the end of the day, Mordred felt exhausted. As a skeletal mage, his body lost all sensation except for hearing, and could never feel tired. On the contrary, it wasn’t his physical body but his mind. More specifically, his ‘thoughts’ have started to dry out.

“Thoughts are produced by the living body, supported by the soul foundation. The brain would constantly produce thoughts to support the thinking process, but without the living body producing telepathic thoughts, my soul is strained to compensate for my thought expenditure.”

When people think, thoughts would appear in their minds. These thoughts will collide, fuse, or cancel with each other, producing more thoughts: this would be defined as a thinking process. The thinking process of a simple matter did not consume a large number of thoughts, but training goblins are different. Command-path cultivation is thought-exhausting, every single facet of it needs to be pondered, therefore expend more thoughts.

In normal circumstances, a person generates a large number of thoughts every second, the thought expenditure is less than thought generation rate, allowing a person to have a healthy amount of thought in their brain at every instance. However, things are different when it comes to heavy pondering.

A fitting example would be when a student doing a life-changing examination that could determine their future, he will be more focused, expending thoughts like crazy to ensure the questions are answered correctly. Especially if the exam is difficult. 

After the exam is finished, the student will become mentally tired: this is the result of having expended a large amount of thought. This was also what Mordred felt, only multiplied by dozens of times due to his lack of a biological organ that generates thought.

Every magic caster possesses an attribute called Spiritual Force, which defines one’s mental strength. This could be stretched to one’s ability to generate thought, therefore, a person’s spiritual force is comparable to a person's stamina in terms of mental durability of exercising one’s thought. His condition right now was no different than an athlete experiencing muscle backlash after heavy exercises but instead of physical, it was mental.

“Every Magi of Holy Terra are natural wisdom-path cultivators due to their upbringing as scholars of the truth. Their methods of influencing the generation of telepathic thoughts, telepathic wills, and telepathic emotions are worlds apart compared to the native magic caster of Morgen world…” He mentally smiled.

Mordred was a former Archmage and Soul Magus of Holy Terra, his foundation on wisdom-path is naturally beyond the standard of Morgen World. He was once known for his ability to dismantle spells once he got familiar with it, which defies the logic of Morgen World. But despite this, his current soul foundation was too weak to compensate for his weakness.

Magical artifacts native to Morgen World couldn’t fulfill his need, he requires magitek artifacts or more spiritual force as fuel to balance his thought expenditure.  

It felt like his soul was being pierced by countless needles. The thought expenditure was too intense. The only method to recover from this condition is to pacify his strained soul by sleeping, and accumulate more spiritual force so that it could be used to generate more thought, but how could he sleep while the kobolds are gaining ground as time trickles by?

“I will have Kor to replace me with teaching the soldiers… Ymir, take care of this.” Mordred commanded Ymir, one of the largest goblins while also the second-in-command of the goblin elite guards after Kor.

Ymir nodded as he accepted the mission, “Yes, Chief!”

When Kor made an appearance, there were commotions, but Kor explained a few things that made them revere Mordred with respect. It took a while to get used to his crimson-colored skin and taller body but other than that, he looks exactly like the original Kor. Soon, they returned to train the aforementioned battle formation given by the chieftain.

While all of these were happening, Mordred retreated to his room to sit down in lotus position. He used his last supply of thoughts to design a better method for accommodating his weakened thought process. After all, his thought has never been expended as quickly as this after he mitigated death by sending his soul into a soul phylactery.    

“Spiritual Force is a higher version of telepathic thoughts, will, and emotion. It is a supreme wisdom-path resource. People with higher spiritual force attributes possessed a natural wisdom-path foundation, grand mages had eidetic memories while having processing power comparable to supercomputers due to their wisdom-path foundation… Spiritual force is a supreme wisdom-path product.” he muttered.

“Forcing myself to produce thoughts like this are simply ‘diluting’ spiritual force into lower grade ‘thought’, ‘will’, and ‘emotion’, the three core aspects of wisdom-path. At the current rate, it is acceptable, but it is not sustainable. When my spiritual force runs out, it wouldn’t be mere pain that attacks my soul, but I will also enter a deep sleep until I recover a part of my spiritual force… this is not acceptable in a battle.”

Undead are well known for their ‘slow’ response because of this very fact. Even Liches and Undead Dragons could not fight perpetually. They require time to accumulate thought to use them in battles, lest they expend their soul foundation in doing so. It is one of the weaknesses of converting into an undead, few magic casters choose to do this, only those who are desperate enough choose undead conversion as a lifespan extension method.

“The way of the heaven is taking the surplus and giving the deficit, with near-infinite lifespan, something in return must be traded…” he touched his chin in annoyance.

One of the methods he thought of immediately was to feast on emotions by using a special wisdom-path method. Back in Holy Terra, he utilized this method to the limit, causing mass panic, despair, and chaos. It was one of the main factors why he was forced into reincarnating in another world.

After thinking about it, his method would still be effective in this world. Nobody would care if he creates a negative emotion farm with lower races as the subject. Negative emotions are the easiest and most compatible emotion for undead to gather and accumulate.

Liches and other high-ranking undead are known for having numerous chambers of torture just to fulfill this need. It wasn’t a hobby that undead tormented the living, it was also not a desire, but it was a need.

Like humans, they eat food, drink water, and breathe air.

Without this ‘intake’ from the living, undead souls will be corroded and weakened until there’s nothing left but an empty husk, or in this case, the end of its original personality. It’s in Mordred’s best interest to fulfill this undead instinct. Thus, he needs to hasten the plan of subjugating the kobolds, then properly construct a negative emotion farm to feed his need. This means he also needs to properly manage the goblins.

Of course, he could also feast on souls directly with his soul arts, but that is like putting the cart before the horses.

“Thankfully, I’ve encountered this setback while I am not in combat. Before I can refine a magitek artifact, devouring emotions is a viable method to recover spiritual force…”

“Horror, despair, and anger that had been accumulated by this goblin group have yet reached a satisfying level because I added some hope and positivity. For now, I’ll have to consume the negative emotions while normalizing cruel behavior to change the nature of the goblin I’ve subjugated…”

Mordred started to cultivate. Unlike Liches or other powerful undead that feast on negative emotion passively, the emotion lingered in the whole cave was captured by his wisdom-path methods.

Thoughts, will, and emotion have myriad forms the moment they exit a person’s sea of consciousness, but most often they look like specks of lights when concentrated sufficiently. They were often revered as telepathic thoughts, telepathic will, and telepathic emotion in this form.

Horror, despair, anger, et cetera are categorized as negative emotions, therefore the usually colorful speck of lights possessed a darker hue than positive telepathic emotion. A dark cloud of negative telepathic emotion in the cave moved, gathered, and concentrated as if having a sentient will. Then, the dark cloud slowly moved towards Mordred’s skull, gathering at the spot between his two eyebrows.

Absorbing negative telepathic emotion is harmful, especially in this quantity. Negative emotions of this concentration have a corrosive nature that will influence any lifeform it touches. It could overload the person’s brain with so many hormones that it’ll burst. Even if the lifeform survives, their nature will change completely, just like a person who has experienced the abyss of depression.

However, this concentrated negative emotion was only harmful to those who don’t know how to use them, or to the weak. It was like a knife is dangerous in the hands of a toddler but becomes a killing tool in the hands of an expert.

Not only is Mordred immune to his brain bursting from absorbing this quantity of emotion due to the lack of a biological brain, but his mentality is also invincible!

Converting the negative telepathic emotion into usable spiritual force is a wisdom-path method that he had mastered back on Holy Terra, the loss of conversion is negligible. Soon, his spiritual force recovered, overflowing his sea of consciousness!

“Dangerous, I’ve underestimated my spiritual force attribute’s upper limit.” Mordred feels a stinging pain in his sea of consciousness. Spiritual force overflow could affect his sea of consciousness and soul. The risk was no different like a gas tank exploding from its internal pressure being too high.  

“I need to expend the spiritual force!” With that in mind, he decided to cultivate in Magus Meditation Technique.

Unlike the magic casters of Mogen World that cultivate their spiritual force development quotient to 100%, Magi thread a different path of cultivation. Magi carved mind runes in their sea of consciousness, which is multiple times more difficult than magic casters.

“Magi carved at least 56 of the normal 99 mind runes in their sea of consciousness before they are eligible for advancement to rank 1 official Magus. Last time, I carved 107 mind runes, with eight of them being hidden mind runes before my advancement. This time, I will strive to fill the maximum amount of hidden mind runes for perfect advancement…” he smiled as he began carving the mind runes.

Mind rune carving is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. An apprentice magus will usually have to understand multiple profound theories such as telepathic rune diagrams, attributes of spiritual force, mental diagram structure, and many others. The mind runes will also have to be carved according to specific sequences since everyone’s mental structure is different. Failure in carving the mind runes in these sequences will leave one to be stuck in a specific number of mind runes, limiting future cultivation.

Magus cultivation is an extremely profound subject, mere effort, talent, and resources rarely produce an official rank 1 Magus.

Yet, Mordred has mastered this stage of Magus cultivation already. His mind runes started to be carved rapidly, from one, two, and keep rising into 4 mind runes in succession. The mind rune sequences are not a problem for him, since he had understood his mental structure the best.

“Spiritual force development quotient and magus mind runes are exclusive, one could not cultivate both in tandem. But who cares about the spiritual force development quotient, when magus mind runes are superior in almost every way?” He smirked.

Every single mind rune increases a magus’ spiritual force by 0.1 unit. Meaning, with an increment of 10 mind runes, a magus gains a spiritual force equivalent to a typical mortal’s worth of spiritual force. Spiritual force development quotient does not affect one’s spiritual force, therefore it is inferior in this aspect.

In under a night, Mordred managed to increase his spiritual force by 0.4 units! It was high, even in the standard of prestigious mage academies. Of course, unless Heaven and Earth treasures are used in the equations, it could not be compared at all.

“I’ve suppressed the spiritual force overflow while carving a few mind runes. My thought generation can be refreshed other than using my soul foundation.”   

The negative telepathic emotions could be used to restore spiritual force which grants him more leeway compared to his previous condition, and if it overflows his sea of consciousness, he could use it to carve more mind runes. Sleeping for a night would help in de-stressing his strained soul, pacifying his soul, but that is not required at the moment. There’s no need for him to conserve thought like his previous time unless it was used for deduction or cultivation.

Mordred returned to the training grounds the next day to see Kor meditating in peace, resting while waiting for goblin soldiers to arrive. Sensing his presence, Kor stood up, and bowed in respect, “Maste- Chief, the warriors have made progress…”

Mordred nodded. Both of them waited for a few minutes before the goblin soldiers arrived punctually.

“Not bad.” Mordred smiled. At the very least, his new soldiers are improving in the aspect of the discipline. There’s no need for him to punish them for the smallest mistake anymore since that would be counterproductive.

Using a brief time to calculate the number of rations the goblin currently had, he devised a cruel training regime. Today is going to be spent on drilling the basics. Mordred deducted from the original chieftain’s memory, that the kobold is close on sniffing the trails back into the cave. He has to train the goblin soldiers on defensive fighting style due to the lack of time.

By the end of the day, the soldier had understood basic defensive formation. Today, they have learned the art of shield wall defense. Letting them rest for the rest of the day, Mordred releases a small content smile as he starts his cultivation of carving mind runes.  

During around midnight when he had just carved a mind rune, Ymir rushed towards Mordred with a panicked expression.

“Chief, the kobolds have found our location!”

Mordred’s cultivation paused. “Oh, it was longer than expected.” He mentally smiled, “It’s time. Gather up the soldiers, we’re going to war.”