Chapter 116
As the months continued to flow by, Dyon spent many meditating on his wills. When he wasn’t doing so, he focused on control. Whether that be repeatedly slashing the same stroke again and again, or stream lining his wills into needles as opposed to the gush he had used before.
In his master’s memories, he confirmed his thoughts on the levels of mastery when it came to wills. For example, in his master’s prime, she would be able to send an infinitesimally small beam of celestial will that would completely cripple attacks.
That not only showed her level of control over the will, but also her understanding of it. Celestial will at its core was meant to purify, but that also implied that it was meant to be focused on flaws. To use celestial will the way Dyon had been could be said to be incomparably wasteful of heaven’s treasures.
To one day reach a level where he could sense the crux of a flaw in a technique, and then focus his celestial will there, would have to be Dyon’s goal.
Of course, the other wills had their own ways of perfecting them. Some easier and some harder. But, Dyon knew it was impossible to figure them all out in such a short period of time. So, he was calm and patient. Instead slowly building his understanding as time went on, fortifying his wills more and more.
However, the months were not without problems. Under the pain of Celestial Deer’s Rend, Dyon had managed to reach the Peak of the Blossoming Stage in his half a year’s time, but he found this to be horrendously slow.
In addition, when he tried to integrate more of the three blood essences he had within him, he had only managed to add a half percent of the ones bestowed to him by his master and had made no progress on the one he had taken from the sage.
This was a major surprise to Dyon. He had a.s.sumed that the sage essence was only incorporated to a percent because his master was much stronger than the sage, but, it seemed as though he had it backwards: the blood itself was far more powerful than the demon qilin essence or the celestial deer essence.
‘Just who was he… And how could someone so powerful end up in such a state…?’
Dyon didn’t let this get him down though. He understood that incorporating different blood lines to yourself was incomparably hard without an expert to help you. He would need high level treasures to replace the help he should be receiving.
But, what did worry him was the effect the blood was having on him. The l.u.s.t he felt due to the demon qilin essence and the sage’s essence set a continual undertone on Dyon’s consciousness. This made him almost happy that he couldn’t incorporate any more for now, or else he had no idea what he would end up doing.
As such, Dyon set aside body cultivation for the moment, and focused much of his attention on his soul and understanding of wills. Although he still lacked a suitable way to use his soul in combat other than array alchemy, he had no choice but to make due. Because of this, Dyon spent a lot of time on his will of crystals as well, so that his arrays would be boosted to the best of his abilities.
His focus paid off. Before he began this training, Dyon was able to speed array low level Pract.i.tioner arrays. With the weakening caused by speed arraying, the arrays were comparable to the strength of an 8th foundation stage fighter. Dyon had been countering this weakness by layering his arrays with crystal will and making many at a time. This allowed his arrays to be comparable to a low level Meridian Formation fighter, which is also why he was able to fight the geniuses.
However, this was before Dyon had thought to focus his attentions on the split minds drawing technique instead of speed arraying. Instead of simplifying arrays to draw them faster, Dyon decided to invest as much time as possible to split his mind into more and more pieces so that he could draw the arrays in all their complexities in the heat of battle.
The problem with this, and the reason no one had ever tried to do it before, was that the split minds technique took incomparable concentration. This was originally the reason why Dyon had decided on speed arraying instead. But, what Dyon noticed was that although his peak could split his mind 16 times, he could still split his mind four times in battle.
Which means, if he increased his level in the split minds technique, the level to which he could split his mind in combat would also increase. If Dyon combined speed arraying and the split minds technique, he wouldn’t have to simplify the arrays as much as he does, which means they would lose a lot less power. This would mean a low-level Pract.i.tioner array that he speed arrayed, might only be marginally weaker than it would be in its full state.
If anyone knew what Dyon was planning, they would think he was insane. To be able to speed array was already a feat no one else could accomplish. But, to then combine that with another technique that only grandmaster level characters even dared to try? It was ridiculous.
Not to mention, the way Dyon planned on incorporating it was ridiculous. Not only did he want to split his mind multiple ways, he wanted to split them up to draw multiple arrays at once. Meaning, if he split his mind four ways to create 10 arrays, he would want each of those four minds to be working on 25% of each array. The founders of array alchemy were rolling in their graves.
However, Dyon had tapped into the essence of array alchemy. Although there were formulations that were better made in some ways as compared to others, the crux of array alchemy is understanding the laws of the universe, communicating with them through your aurora, then manipulating them to your will. To forge your own path was the exact point.
Soon, the six months Dyon had given himself were drawing to a close. His movement and sword techniques had increased with his understanding of wills. His movement technique had officially reached the peak of the small success layer of its first stage, and although he had yet to comprehend a sword style of his own, Dyon’s sword and control had become refined much more than it had been.