ACC Chapter 50 Gallery
I stood before something cylindrical and dark. It should have cast a shadow upon the ground and yet, there was none that I could see with normal eyes due to the fact that the dark substance was all around me, having ensnared hundreds of these cylindrical beings, which used to be worms made of brown sand.
"This dark gallery... Why are we here, Reed? There are plenty of other depictions of power that are far more agreeable to me."
"I am here to study, to broaden my horizons. You could even say that I am searching for inspiration into a new Deity art." I answered the symbiote, which was looming behind me.
"What do you plan on gaining from this twisted amalgam of darkness and ice?"
"This is fascinating in its own right. Have you ever seen black ice? The both of us have never seen it. The woman who wields this power is one I have never seen in battle up close. So, let me have the chance to enjoy this. You can go to the other areas if this makes you uncomfortable."
"Yay!"
And with that cheer, the symbiote literally vanished from behind me, bringing a wry smile to my face. It lacked a truly curious mind like mine.
With that Interlude finished, I directed my attention once more to this dark ice, whose chill was lowering the temperature around me even with the Sun at high noon.
Things that could theoretically exist within this universe were easier to create runic keys for, from metals, to many more things like different colored flames... Even things like rubber and plastic.
But esoteric things like this black ice, a true merge of darkness and ice, required experimentation and luck to be pulled off. So, for someone to take that runic key and base their core around it, that was beyond bold.
This power, according to what I could conjecture from my investigations, was based around a principle where if even a tiny sliver of the cold snow flakes made contact with a shadow, then everything it was in contact with froze instantly.
The snow flakes were a mere deduction, and there was no evidence of them to back up my theory, but I had heard that the woman could conjure dark snow flakes. That was what my theory was standing upon.
The reason that was promoting my curiosity was one simple pursuit of mine. I didn't merely want to have my powers based around wood, but life itself!
Conjuring life through chemical reaction wasn't something I wanted to particularly delve into extensively. What I really wanted was to give my wooden creations, life. Even if they lacked true sentience, I wanted creatures.
This black ice was as far from that goal of mine as the sun was far from the Earth, but I was hoping for some insights into a new Deity art atleast.
Creating wooden living creatures would have to wait until the next stage of cultivation.
Awe bloomed within me as I admired the work of the matriarch of the Ice clan. She was an old woman that had atleast capped a 1000 years of life on the planet, having had plenty of time to refine her arts to the level where they amazed me.
With her lifespan, she must have advanced to Core Formation during the planet's primitive years, and yet, without our advanced technology, had managed to merge darkness and ice!
The reason why her ice fascinated me so was because of the kind of art I wanted to create next. From the way the sand worms had been frozen, I was certain that it must have froze them instantly, akin to flash freezing.
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The next art I wanted to create was something close to that. Wooden matter that could grow so fast that in only a fraction of a second, it could ensnare something, a person, or creature.
After a few minutes of closely inspecting the frozen landscape, taking in every single sculpture plus the frozen sand, I moved on.
There was more to be seen within this gallery. In a few days, it was going to be destroyed in favor of the city's expansion.
Weeks had passed since that time in Lily's hometown. This was the battlefield that had seen the most intense fighting. It was located in the northern direction of Defiant, and from this sand and high temperature, anyone could tell that it was connected to the Sahara desert, the largest stretch of brown sand in the world.
With a step, I left the black collection of sculptures behind, finally stepping upon the natural brown sands of the desert, with the heatwave finally inundating my body.
According to analysts, everything about the climate of the planet had somehow been enhanced considerably, with the heat I was experiencing having the capability of frying a mere mortal without any cultivation in just minutes.
A song, one that had the effect of captivating the heart entered my ears. It was a love song, whose notes were embedded within the wind. My divine sense captured the strand of music-attuned wind that had carried it over to me.
The song was beautiful, but I had doubts that Qin Wentian's power could inspire me. So, I had decided to skip every scrap of radiation left behind by his power in favor of the black ice and golden patches.
The entire area of conflict, the battlefield, was scattered with their powers. The three, the Golden Merchant, Ice Matriarch and Qin Wentian, had worked together to push back the strongest spirit to date, one speculated to be carrying the entire power of the Sahara itself!
The battlefield was large, with the area measured in miles. Patches of black and gold, plus winds carrying song, were the main composition of the battlefield, with the brown sands initially controlled by the spirit bereft of any attunement, as if mere days ago, they hadn't been in the grasp of the spirit.
I took a step, with my boots crunching the sand beneath my feet as I leisurely moved around. I wasn't the only one in the area though. Many others, from Nascent Souls to Foundation Establishment cultivators, were perusing the place, seeking insight or inspiration. If the gravity and temperature hadn't been unbearable, then Livia would have allowed those children in the Spirit Gathering realm to join in.
My stroll took me to a golden mountain, whose light was blinding to the eyes at certain angles. It was composed of coins, millions of them. Some were even rolling from the top onto the sand, turning the brown sand golden when they settled.
As I moved towards it, my eyes kept glued to the golden sand just below the coin. Within just a second of my attention, a coin rose up from the golden sand, pushing the one on top of it above.
"Imagine what we could do with this mountain if it were real money!" A teenager, one in the Foundation Establishment stage, exclaimed to one of her friends next to her. Her eyes were shining as they beheld the golden mountain, like she wanted to collect everything it was made of.
A chuckle, an unintentional one, escaped my lips, dragging their attention over to me.
I cursed inwardly at my inattentiveness, before directing a smile their way, as they nodded in acknowledgement.
The Golden Merchant's power was gold, specifically golden coins. He was like a mint, though gold hadn't been part of currency for a long time. Spirit coins had been invented in the far history, and in the current Era, physical manifestations of currency had ceased to exist.
The golden coins were fascinating in the way that they birthed more of each other from the surrounding sand. If I wasn't mistaken, then this coin mountain hadn't been this high at the start, but grew with time.
The self replicating nature of the coins would have been attractive if they had been placed, in water, wood or flame. But this wasn't that interesting because of the fact that sand was closer to gold. Earth was the prime element that both these derivatives could be created from.
So, I took only a cursory glance before walking away, leaving being the group of teenagers that were still fascinated by the prospect of riches.
Many pieces entered my eyes in the course of my walk, some drawing me in with their mutated principles, while others too simple to attract more than a cursory glance.
An hour later, some commotion in the distance, which had attracted quite the crowd, drew my attention. I knew that there were only a handful of these battlefield pieces that were capable of causing a commotion.
And most of those pieces were mutations birthed when two of the powers merged and mutated, or even all three. Black ice, song and coin could all merge and mutate into unexplainable things. For example, I had passed by a single coin a few mites ago, having two distinctive colors, black and gold.