NOVEL NEXT Chapter 72 – New Mortal Shell
Crack! The sound of spine segments followed by knuckles grinding against each other could be heard. Then, after Mordred felt the sensation from his artificial nerves, he condensed a two-layer AT-Field of transparent and silver of space-path and sword path. He made them overlap together so that it would replicate the reflective property of a mirror.
What he saw was a 1.7 meter tall man with extremely pale white skin and crimson red eyes. With short black hair, sharp ears like that of elves and a beauty mark beneath the left side of his lips, he had a charm that would attract the attention of any being with a soul.
“Right, Erebus is a vampire…” Mordred muttered as he altered the properties of his radiance-type AT-Field. The charm that would attract any lifeform with a soul is slowly being shifted into something that would attract any lifeform with blood flowing through them.
AT-Field is what held the truesoul as a whole. If one has absolute control upon one’s soul, then the manipulation of this automatic ‘defensive’ method is possible. And so, through clever tuning of his AT-Field that corresponds with blood-path, this effect was possible to achieve.
Of course, AT-Field manipulation isn’t easy as it contains a great amount of parameters to fine-tune (especially since Mordred has high attainments in various paths). When he fought Dragon’s Shadow, the few seconds of sword-shaped AT-Field consumed telepathic thoughts equal to a day of activity.
At that time, it was a necessity so Mordred wouldn't mind the cost, but it is unrealistic to use AT-Field as a solution to everything. After all, Mordred’s naked truesoul can hold a limited amount of telepathic thoughts at one time.
That’s where the mechanical body would come in handy. The mechanization of a fleshy body allows the automatic parameters tuning through the Operating System. Just like automating the biological equivalent of ‘reflex’ such as blinking or breathing, he could add various modules or functions in the OS so that he doesn’t have to do the complicated operations of fine tuning the parameters by himself.
Also, due to his previous life accumulation, Mordred’s truesoul has a lot of traits thanks to his apex and higher attainment levels. Achieving rank 1 is truly a qualitative change for Mordred.
These so-called ‘soul traits’, which was equivalent to bloodline ability to bloodline users, are [Myriad Synesthesia] from sound-path, [Madness Reaction] of wisdom-path, [Soul Reaping] of soul-path, [Temporal Encryption Protocol] of information-path, [Lightning Brilliance] of lightning-path, [Reactive Refinement] of refinement-path and [Sword Prowess] of sword-path.
Since his current appearance was just a test drive, he soon took the form of someone else with tanned skin, short black hair and black eyes. His ears returned to that of a human and the bone structure of his face seems to be altered in such a way that he has a double chin covered by a thick beard. The skeleton of his limbs also extended slightly, making him taller by a dozen centimeters.
At this instant, he turned from a young vampire into a middle aged male. The change was near instant as the polymer nanocomposite that made up his skin tissue could transform rapidly. With this identity-less face, it shouldn’t be possible to link him with Mordred or the future Lord Erebus.
After making sure he has no problem in his appearance and soul radiation, he made a brief assessment. “[Interface System]!”
Attribute Statistics
Name: Mordred
Title(s): Grimsong Specter, Great Archmage, Devil King
Race: Armored Soul Tribe
Mortal Shell: Rank 1 Human-pattern Mortal Shell
Occupation: Soul Magus
Rank: 1 (Red Star)
Physical Attribute
Strength: 25
Endurance: 24
Agility: 38
Flexibility: 68
Perception: 60
Reaction: 61
Energy Attribute
Soul Runes: 100 (1 Red Star ++)
Spiritual Runes: 89 (8 Transparent Star)
Soulforce: 99.8/100
Soul Essence: 99.8/100
Spiritual Force: 8.9/8.9
Mana Aperture: N/A
Extra
Current Effect: [Faux Soul Configuration], [Interface System], [Absolute Territory Field]
AT-Field Attribute
AT-Field Synchronization Rate: 100%
AT-Field Base Defense Rating : 10
AT-Field Density: 400%
AT-Field Rank 0 damage resistance:
Sound: Immune
Lightning: 98%
Information: 98%
Wisdom: 98%
Dark: 74%
Physical: 67%
etc…
AT-Field Rank 1 damage resistance:
Sound: 91%
Lightning: 82%
Information: 81%
Wisdom: 80%
Sword: 74%
Dark: 35%
Physical: 31%
etc…
…
AT-Field Rank 2 damage resistance:
Sound: 40%
Lightning: 21%
Information: 20%
Wisdom: 20%
Sword: 15%
Dark: 9%
Physical: 9%
etc…
…
AT-Field Rank 3 damage resistance:
Calculation error…
…
Soul Traits:
[Myriad Synesthesia] - Investigative (Sound). The 6th sense to ‘hear’ reflections of sound, including but not limited to the sound of emotion, the sound of colors, the sound of smell, the sound of elemental particles, the unique frequency of soul undulation, the sound of space, and the echoes of time.
[Madness Reaction] - Offensive (Wisdom). Staring at Mordred’s truesoul would subject anyone to madness and despair. Those who cannot resist would turn insane, while those who are too weak would have their sea of consciousness crumbled instead (instant death or turned into a retard).
[Soul Reaping] - Restorative (Soul). Attracts Soul Nutrient in the environment with accelerated rate. Can be activated to reap the soul of anyone who died in the proximity and achieve the effect of ‘heal on kill’.
[Temporal Encryption Protocol] - Stealth (Information). Soul presence could not be detected across timelines (near-immunity to same-rank psychometry or clairvoyance and resistance to higher ranks).
[Lightning Brilliance] - Logistic (Lightning). Significantly increase defense against lightning-path attack, and allow the soul to serve as medium to absorb lightning elemental particles for later use.
[Reactive Refinement] - Defensive (Refinement). Progressively refine any effects harmful to the sea of consciousness or truesoul.
[Sword Prowess] - Auxiliary (Sword). The ability to comprehend sword techniques by hearing it once and learn it with a single look.
Mordred’s activation of the Interface System was spontaneous and cost merely 0.2 units of soul essence because his new body had been embedded with this particular method, similar to the mass produced artifact known as Hunter’s ID Card.
When Mordred saw his physical attributes, he was content with the result of his new body. The typical rank 1 cultivator has around 10 to 15 units in their physical attribute. They are at the very least, ten to fifteen times stronger than the typical human (as they are the base metric of this calculation).
Their cultivation technique would dictate what attribute would be higher. For example, martial artists of strength-path would have higher strength and endurance attributes, an agile-type martial artist would have greater agility and flexibility, while a mage or strategist-type cultivator would have greater perception and reaction.
The six physical attributes are as such:
[Strength] determines one’s raw strength to resist resistance, or the ability to produce raw kinetic force.
In biological terms, [Endurance] refers to the durability and energy storage of one’s cells. Since Mordred is wearing a mechanical body, it means the durability of the materials that made up his body.
[Agility] would refer to the speed at which one’s muscle tissues could expand and contract. A martial artists’ attack sometimes relies on agility instead of strength because momentum is speed times weight. Since his body is roughly 800 kilograms in weight (if he did not activate any anti-terrestrial magnetism module), it could be said that he has the necessary explosive strength to one-hit any rank 0 cultivators, even under multiple defensive methods.
[Flexibility] is the ability to move joints effectively through a complete range of motion. His unnaturally high flexibility attribute is caused by his ability to naturally bend the limbs or joints in those that wouldn’t be possible in a human body, such as bending the knees, elbow or neck to impossible angles, et cetera.
[Perception] is the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through senses. He also has an unnaturally high perception attribute which was comparable to rank 2 entities due to his extremely sensitive hearing coupled with synesthesia.
The last one, [Reaction], measures the body’s reaction speed to stimulus and thinking speed. Mordred is using a mechanical body so Reaction measures his computational power, He has extremely high Reaction equivalent to some rank 2s because plundering the central computer of the combat exosuit micro-plane allowed him to refine an advanced crystal processor that was far more efficient than the one in Shion’s head.
The six physical attributes are actually measured through various metrics. Sometimes, one’s sight is greater than that of hearing or smell so [Perception] measures the subject’s five, sometimes six or seven senses together and then averages them out. The six physical attributes, especially perception, would be unreliable to measure one’s combat ability because there are all sorts of combat methods and doctrine out there.
However, these data are sometimes sufficient to create an archetype profile to make further deduction.
Since his body is equivalent to a mid-stage or even some late-stage martial artist in strength and endurance attribute alone, he could survive a hit or two from a rank 1 martial artist without breaking. This would be crucial since his new body is built for agility and flexibility.
Mordred did not regret his decision to refine this ‘fragile’ mortal shell. This was the best body specification that he could refine with the resources in the micro-plane. It’s not even sufficient to refine an exosuit for himself, but that was expected since his future identity, ‘Lord Erebus’, wouldn’t be using exosuits.
He tried a few shapes of AT-Field other than the mirror one to familiarize himself with the new hardware. Typical machine wouldn’t be able to host Mordred’s soul. The synchronization rate of his AT-Field would lower which resulted in lower deployability and durability.
It was only after being treated with a demon soul that this mortal shell could host Mordred’s truesoul with 99.9999% (basically 100%) AT-Field synchronization rate.
“Let’s see…” Mordred deployed his AT-Field in such a way that it refracted light, turning his figure invisible from the naked eye. With his various counterintelligence methods, he has gained invisibility from most rank 1 and true invisibility from rank 0 entities unless special methods of investigation are used.
“Thanks to the 20th superlative height of rank 0, my AT-Field density is 400%. The base defense rating of 10 units could handle around 40 degree of damage before breaking if I condense it to the fullest, but I will have to maintain my 400% truesoul density, which was my perfect soul rune template model, throughout the next stages. It’ll take me 4 to 5 times more soul resources compared to other soul cultivators of the same rank to advance…”
Mordred touched his chin. “But, there are countless living beings in Morgen World and its derivative dimensions. It’s not like my homeworld’s capital, Holy Terra or it’s largest Manufactorium, Crimson Mars, which was limited by the roughly 10 billion human souls living on each of those planets. In population alone, perhaps the Hartina Kingdom could rival one Crimson Mars, and there are multiple countries in this continent alone. This time, I might reach a higher realm than what I did in my previous lifes.”
Mordred deactivated the mirror AT-Field as he typed in the console command on the gate. The gate was connected to the barest minimum of resources sufficient to activate it once, The purple gate opened but Mordred did not take a step. He took one last glance at the central area of the micro-plane which was barren and devoid of any useful resources because everything else has been taken into Mordred’s rank 1 dimensional storage that he refined with the secret stash of materials left by Kasumi.
“With this, I can begin the initial stage of Project: Wild Hunt. But first… I’ll have to usurp Lord Erebus’ identity.” He muttered in a low voice as he stepped into the gate.
The exit point that he chose isn’t actually the gate in the underground storage room. Mordred isn’t that retarded to put only one exit because he knew there would be situations like this. Therefore, the exit is somewhere not too far from Fort Esela, made from a single-use space-path magic formation concealed hundreds of years ago.
“This should be one of the myriad entrances of the Underground World…” Mordred was worried that the age of the magic formation would affect the spatial coordinate, but since the 100 kilometer distance isn’t considered as too far from the origin point, a 0.001% margin of error in the teleportation accuracy means a few meters away from the intended arrival point. It is still acceptable. At the very least, the arrival point isn’t within the cave wall as it would cause complications.
In this dark room, he used his hearing to briefly scout for any lifeform. He did not detect any rank 1 lifeform in a 1 km radius but he was able to create a 3d map of the ant-tunnel-like cave. “Ymir, scout the periphery.”
Mordred ordered his spectral soul squad leader as ten formless darkness split away from his shadow. Although Ymir has infinitesimal combat power, he and his subordinate spectral souls would function as a good ‘eye’ for Mordred.
Despite achieving rank 1, he isn’t invulnerable. This place isn’t as beautiful as the surface world. “The first layer of the Underground World isn’t connected to the other continents, but it's still not a place that would allow me to relax. Thankfully, only in the second layer does rank 2 entities so common like they are grass, I can still manage my way through the passage between the first layer and the surface without a problem.”
The Underground World isn’t actually another world. It is just the underground layer beneath the surface of Morgen World. The vertical size of the Morgen world is not equal, the distance to reach the skies is theoretically shorter than from the surface to the bottom of the world. This amount of ‘space’ is only filled with earth and other minerals, but since there are all sorts of lifeforms in this world, it is eventually filled with lifeforms who typically couldn't survive under the sunlight or just rejects who are exiled due to various reasons.
Just as he sent out his Spectral Souls, his AT-Field which was refracting light got hit by a dark shadow. It produces a sharp sound as if a crystal glass is being scraped by a sharp object.
“Of course… dark-path lifeforms are especially good at hiding and due to their evolutionary path…they also have excellent stealth detection methods. I haven’t mastered dark-path to apex level, and there are gaps between my memories and experience so I could not use my full method. Which is why… you’re going to be my food.”
The sharp object that attacked Mordred’s AT-Field was none other than the leg of a rank 1 beast, eighteen-eyed spider.
This beast is actually pretty common in the underground world but Mordred has no information about this creature. There are order of priorities in his memories, and weak rank 1 creatures like this aren't considered important in his previous life. When he ‘died’ and resurrected, unimportant memories like information on most beasts are lost. And so, it was natural that he could not detect the rock spider because this was his ‘first’ encounter.
The eighteen-eyed spider is as tall as two meter, having 10 hairy legs and of course, 8 eyes. Anyone who guessed it has eighteen eyes should be feeling pretty dumb right about now1Getcha ;).
Then, where does the eighteen-eyed name come from?
It was actually the spider’s legs. Each of its 10 legs have a crystal sphere on them that would be a tool for it to unleash petrification rays. In addition to its real eyes, each of these crystal spheres are excellent ingredients for a body rune of the head slot (for a magic eye), so the crystal spheres are often revered as eyes. Therefore, the name.
Crack! His AT-Field isn’t strong enough to handle a bombardment of attack from the spider. Be it claw attack, petrification ray, its poisonous webs, they all fell on his AT-Field but Mordred isn’t just standing still while his mind is distracted. He was observing the eighteen-eyed spider with great interest. He didn’t mind his crumbling AT-Field as it wasn’t condensed to the fullest like when he fought against Dragon’s Shadow. Even if it broke, he could deploy another layer faster than the speed of which the beast could break them.
“I see…” Mordred muttered as he activated a soul-path killer move. “Your soul is mine.”
He made a grasping motion as a strange attraction force forced the spider to halt its onslaught. Mordred produced a giant spectral hand and used it to grasp the spider. There was a tug-of-war between Mordred and the beast, but Mordred used a stream of telepathic will to put the spider’s consciousness to sleep.
The beast is resistant to sleep, so Mordred used more telepathic wills to put confusion, dizziness, horny, discombobulated, hunger, sorrow and 8 other mind effects on the spider to reduce its resistance.
The tug of war through Mordred’s giant spectral hand is actually a battle to forcefully extract the beast’s soul while leaving the body intact. When a spectral image of the spider has finally pulled into Mordred’s Soul Phylactery, the spider’s physical body is dead. The dark-path beast might be resistant to mental and soul attacks, but Mordred is an expert on these.
As he devours the beast’s soul, he deciphers the beast's habit, soul frequency and memories. With this new information input, his Myriad Synesthesia would be able to detect the soul undulation of any eighteen-eyed spider in a 1 km radius. There wouldn’t be any instance of Mordred being ambushed by the eighteen-eyed spider anymore in the future.
His originally ‘barren’ 3d map in his crystal processor is now filled with a large amount of beast presence hidden in every nook and cranny. Due to the new intel, he also deduced several similar methods that might be used by other dark-path beasts, so the amount of beast that he detected isn’t only one variety but Mordred isn’t content with the 3D map in his mind. He made several adjustments to the mapping program and created multiple tags in it.
Now, the ‘dots’ in his 3d map are tagged. Weaker lifeforms would be colored gray, those of the same rank will be white, and those of higher rank will be red.
“This won’t be enough…” Mordred pondered for a few moments before deciding to add more tags. The tags will be useful in creating a search query in his database. So now, not only he became aware of what’s around him in a 1 km circumference, he could also use a ‘fine-grained’ search method to find whatever it is that he’s looking for. Of course, the absolute limit of his Myriad Synesthesia isn’t actually 1 km, but more than that would exhaust computation resources that would be useful for other things.
For a passive investigative method that is always active, 1 km radius is sufficient.
After updating the mapping programs in his crystal processor, Mordred started to dismantle the spider corpse. The materials from the beast are good quality and for a refinement-path expert like Mordred, these could be used for making body runes for his mortal shell. The beast’s large corpse soon becomes a bulk of useful dark-path material in Mordred’s dimensional storage ring.
