I flew across the Ashen Wastes, looking for the perfect candidate for my experiments. I was starting to slightly regret my extensive hunts because there were no monsters to be found anywhere close to the Echoes of the Forgotten Dawn village. At least not those ideal for my needs.

I would have preferred one with a Spatial Element, though those were extremely rare, and once creatures reached the Spirit Realm, the Elemental alignment became largely irrelevant. By then, every living being already figured out all Elements, though some still dominated over others. It was just easier to work with a single Elemental alignment, since there would be no interference from the other parts of the core.

It was not like you could just take the desirable chunks of a core either. The multitude of Elements were intertwined tightly on a molecular scale and couldn’t be separated, requiring special Runes to be inscribed to make it all work properly.

I wasn’t sure how that would affect a living creature though. Inscribing binding Runes directly onto a living being wasn’t done often, and I have never heard it done to a living core.

Tattooing the skin with Qi conductive paint was sometimes done to enhance a person’s or creature’s defenses or strengths, creating a sort of permanent enchantment, but that’s about as far as my knowledge went.

There was the risk that messing with the core could irreparably damage the Cultivation of the one this was being done to, with even worse outcomes not out of the realm of possibility. Which was exactly why I needed a suitable guinea pig.

[Come on, guys, now it's not time to be hiding.] I murmured to myself as my Spirit Sense scanned large swaths of land, searching for creatures strong enough to suit my needs. I did find a few beasts in the Golden Core Realm, but they were already nearly dead from starvation and would simply perish from the experiment before I got any useful information out of them.

I needed something beefier. Something that had enough life force to survive some minor accidents. They were unlikely to happen, but still. I needed something like…

[A swine!]

My spirit Sense detected something large and powerful. I immediately flew to confront it and soon realized it was a large boar-like creature.

It slowly trotted across the wasteland, its hooves sinking meters deep into the gravel and sand, but it didn’t seem to mind it too much. Maybe that’s because it was more than twenty meters tall, and the offending material barely reached its ankles.

It advanced with surprisingly little sound, except for the occasional snort as its snout sniffed the air.

Now, by that description, you might think it was a normal-looking swine, but that would be far from it. The beast’s mouth was filled with razor-sharp teeth, and it had tusks and horns growing out of its head that were meters long and thicker than a human.

The ivory was a deep silver color, with streaks of purple and black at the tip. Blue and pink lightning flickered across its matted fur that appeared more like a spiky carapace than animal hair.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Small beady eyes were nearly completely hidden beneath its mane of thick, curved, blade-like hairs. Yet even so, I could see the wariness and hunger that drove the beast forward, and as soon as I landed it went on full alert, snorting at me and digging into the ground with its front hoof.

Lightning dancing across its body intensified and buckets of saliva flew from its mouth as it bellowed a warning.

[Easy, big guy.] I spoke softly and lifted my hands to show I was not a threat. [I don’t want to hurt you. Well, not too much anyway.]

It seemed that my honesty wasn’t taken kindly as the swine almost immediately showed increased signs of aggression. Without much warning, it charged, its form wrapped in lightning giving it increased speed and ramming power.

I braced slightly as the swine smashed into me, but the creature failed to even push me back despite its considerable bulk. At the same time, there was an electrical discharge similar to a ball of lightning that scorched the impact zone. It kind of tingled.

As the dust cleared and the results of that mindless charge were revealed, I was standing tall and looking down on the wild swine still attacking my scale-armored leg. In the time it took it to reach me, I had expanded my body, overshadowing the beast ten times over.

I chuckled at its feeble attempts at hurting me, and its tiny ears picked up the sound, after which it took a step back and looked up.

For a second, we just stared at each other. Then I grinned. [Boo.]

The swine squealed in a panic and flipped around, stumbling over its own legs to escape as fast as it could. Laughing at its comical attempt at getting away, I caught up to it with a few steps and grabbed hold of the creature, lifting it up.

The swine squealed and thrashed around, triggering explosion after explosion of lightning in an attempt to escape. It was only slightly effective as my hands started going numb, but even that little damage was regenerated immediately, allowing me to hold it tightly.

[Alright, settle down, little one.] I rumbled and poked its mind with my own. [Relax.]

The overgrown piggy instantly went limp in my embrace, either pretending to be dead or my order had a greater effect than I was expecting. Checking, I felt its breathing and pulse, and quickly realized the creature had just fallen asleep.

[Okay… That’s one way to relax, I guess.]

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I flew back carrying the massive swine under my armpit like a folded fur coat. I landed not far away from the Dreadstone mine, which already looked like a crater in the ground, and placed the pig to the side. I then shrank down to a more manageable size and visited Thener in his tent to borrow some papers.

The man was hard at work, studying the materials I gave him, and trying various techniques to get them to merge. Since he seemed busy, I left without disturbing him.

Returning to the swine, I took a seat on its belly and unfolded the papers. I then took some ink and began drawing. The general blueprint for creating a storage device was quite simple, but that only held true for a prepared crystal core of a dead beast with a Spatial Elemental alignment.

Creating it from the core of a Spirit Realm creature was considerably harder as it required custom stabilization runes, and for my idea, the problem was even more complicated.

Of course, I did my best to try, and I already had some ideas, I just had to fully flesh them out before beginning to carve into living flesh.

[Gerald Nr.2 reporting for duty!] My clone saluted as soon as he was created.

I just silently nodded and went to create a few more. They were all my exact copy, with the same ideas and thought patterns. I didn’t need more brainstorming, instead requiring extra hands to finish the task sooner.

[Let’s get to work.] I said and began drawing the incredibly complex and complicated array design. I had no doubt that as soon as I finished drawing, a bunch of mistakes and possible optimizations would jump out at me, but until then, I had to focus.