Fate Shift - Chapter 18

In modern times, only the first seven Cultivation Realms could be considered universal. These seven realms, in their standard order, were Qi Acceptance, Qi Birth, Meridian Opening, Soul Inception, Armament Bonding, Aura Genesis, and Qi Transformation. Individuals in the first three realms were considered novices, while those in the following four realms were apprentices.

The eighth realm and start of the journeyman rank was where things became less clear. While some cultivation realms following Qi Transformation were well known, the order one entered those realms was up to each individual. One’s Qi, Cultivation Art, and even personal preference could determine when a person entered a specific realm.

On top of this, most sects concealed information on cultivation realms they knew of. What this meant was that cultivation in the early ranks was rather easy but the further one progressed the harder it became to continue cultivating.

This was especially true for the demons of the Far West. Although a few demon tribes had partially or completely intact legacies, most didn’t. So for the average demon tribe, their strongest members would be journeyman cultivators or occasionally an expert. Only the real powerhouses had several experts, let alone master rank cultivators.

When Gazeen applied this knowledge to the speech of the Sword Hall creator, he became excited. An Immortal would have to be at least an expert rank if not master rank cultivator. Plus, all the history-defining figures the Immortal mentioned were master or grandmaster rank. For a cultivator who wanted to compete with such powerful figures, there’d be no way they’d design a style of cultivation that was only effective for the first seven realms. In other words, Gazeen could not only become strong if he had access to the complete style; he could make his whole tribe strong!

It was because of these thoughts that Gazeen eagerly extended his divine sense, which he was still adjusting to, into the jade plate outside the log cabin. A swift but calm data stream surged through the sand wraith’s mind. He impatiently waited for the stream to finish before looking at what he had to work with.

The first thing Gazeen did was to look at the One Weapon Thousand Purposes Style’s Cultivation Arts. He started with the Extreme Unity Art. As he looked through it, he came to have a better understanding of what the Immortal meant by ‘One Weapon Thousand Possibilities.’

Extreme Unity combined many different powers and techniques together. It started off normally enough with Armament Bonding. Like most arts, the Extreme Unity Art suggested one needed to form a strong connection with their Armament in the Armament Bonding Realm. The first major difference it had from other arts began after that though.

The Armament Bonding Realm was an invention of the Supreme Slayer, Taeh. As someone whose Qi and specialization lay in the creation of artifacts, Taeh had lacked combat potential. At least in comparison to other cultivators, Taeh had initially been quite weak. The Armament Bonding Realm was his solution to the problem.

Taeh was already incredibly skilled at creating items and was particularly good at making items with complex functions. His problem with them was that they lacked raw power and couldn’t be improved. Even if he had a treasure for every situation he might face, which was unrealistic, Taeh still needed to keep cultivating. If his treasures kept becoming obsolete, how was he going to protect himself without constantly wasting time making new artifacts?

The Supreme Slayer’s solution was to make a weapon capable of cultivation. He began by imitating artificial meridians, using the research on them to guide his path. Using that strategy, Taeh created a treasure with its own Breath, Dantian, and meridians. Then he formed a bond with the treasure that linked him to it. From then on, cultivating benefited his linked treasure the same way it benefitted him. When he formed a soul, his soul was split into two pieces, one in his body and one in his treasure. When Taeh created his aura in Aura Genesis, so too did his treasure. Naturally, this treasure was the first Armament.

Since Taeh’s Armament Bonding Realm caught on and became a commonly accepted Cultivation Realm that every cultivator should cultivate, certain perceptions became widespread. One such perception was that the stronger the Armament bonded, the more powerful it could become. This reasoning was based on the way Armaments grew stronger through cultivation. Due to its nature, once a link between a cultivator and their Armament was formed, there was no way to reforge the Armament without causing severe, perhaps even permanent harm. In effect, this meant that should an Armament ever be completely emptied of Qi, it’d be no more powerful than it was before becoming an Armament. The only exception to this rule was that body cultivators’ Armaments would also be strengthened when they practiced body refinement, so even without any Qi they’d still be more durable than before.

So from the average cultivator’s perspective, the ideal Armament was a powerful treasure constructed from the best materials that was just weak enough to be bonded successfully. The Extreme Unity Art held a different view on this subject though. It suggested that the most important goal in Armament Bonding should be to form the deepest connection possible with one’s Armament. The Extreme Unity Art clarified that this was because there were several techniques that would only function when supported by a sufficiently strong bond, including techniques that could improve an Armament’s structure.

Reading more, Gazeen realized that the Extreme Unity Art’s main focus was to make all of a cultivator’s various powers work together synergistically using the Armament as the basis for the synergy. It contained techniques for using one’s divine sense, soul, body, mind, and etcetera with their Armament and in turn detailed how to combine these various powers together through the Armament. The amount of raw information stored in just this one art was overwhelming. Gazeen could clearly see that the Immortal who’d made the One Weapon Thousand Possibilities Style really had studied many different aspects of Qi Cultivation.

The sand wraith decided to stop looking through the Extreme Unity Art and instead compared it to the other two arts in the One Weapon Thousand Purposes Style. The other two arts were called the Moment’s Flare Art and the Body as Weapon Art.

Moment’s Flare was an art meant for cultivators who wanted to be able to defend themselves without focusing on combat. One didn’t need to practice body cultivation, martial arts, or too much of anything for this art. People who cultivated Qi to become better at their trade but wanted to retain the ability to defend themselves in a pinch would love an art like this. Its focus was on condensing all of one’s power into their Armament and using that explosive strength to quickly end battles. Once a battle was over, it would be very simple for a cultivator to retract their powers, returning to a normal state.

The Body as Weapon Art took an approach much closer to the Extreme Unity Art than the Moment’s Flare in some ways. This art was all about enhancing one’s Armament, then consuming it and using it to cultivate one’s body as a weapon. The ultimate goal of this art was to make one’s body function as their Armament. It also contained many strange techniques, just like the Extreme Unity Art.

After glancing through all three arts, Gazeen considered them. Moment’s Flare’s greatest advantage was that it was compatible with virtually any cultivator and could easily be combined with other styles of cultivation. In terms of combat potential, it was easily the weakest of three arts though. Moment’s Flare was clearly meant for people with little combat experience or lackluster ability. It assumed a drawn-out battle was a lost battle and focused on ending any conflict in under a minute. That said, many of the techniques contained in the art could be used without using Moment’s Flare as one’s Cultivation Art. Basically, it was worth studying but wasn’t a good Cultivation Art for Gazeen.

That left two choices, the Extreme Unity Art or the Body as Weapon Art. Between the two, the Body as Weapon Art had a clearly demonic nature. Human cultivators of the Demonic League and most demons would no doubt be attracted to this art. Gazeen wasn’t a normal demon though. A sand wraith’s actual body was just a pile of sand, nothing more. A Sand Wraith’s greatest strength came from their soul, once they formed one in Soul Inception, not their body. For that reason, Gazeen decided to practice the Extreme Unity Art.

Radsidan, Obbun, and Xumnuh also chose to cultivate with the Extreme Unity Art. Sabsreck, Wesh, and Dregg were the only ones who picked the Body as Weapon Art. Each of them settled in at their own cabins and went to work on their cultivation.