Jack suddenly felt a cool, relaxing Energy run over him as he felt his mind calm down. When his mind calmed down, he could look at this objectively.

“Path of Magic is centred around training ones Soul. The higher level one reaches with their Soul, the higher their synchronisation rate with the Energy all around.” As Jack thought that to himself, he closed his eyes and tried to feel the Fire Energy in the air.

He could feel the warm Energy hovering all around and as he tried to pull the Energy into his Crystal Core, it started rushing towards the Core, being assimilated into it. Raelag’s Legacy had the Element of Fire, so it mainly used the Fire Energy in the surroundings to progress on his path.

The Elemental Arts were actually high risk- high reward type of Arts because progressing in them was harder than in non elemental Arts because they would usually need a special environment to be cultivated in. It was very hard for someone training in Fire Element Arts to train somewhere that was covered in ice and snow. Jack stopped absorbing the Energy and opened his eyes.

His eyes were serious as he thought to himself, “I can’t cultivate normal Art’s as my dantian is wrecked. However, Body Refining Art’s….” When Jack thought about it this way, he suddenly felt that this new path wasn’t completely impossible like he thought about it before.

Although he couldn’t gather the Qi into his Dantian any more, he could still walk down the Path of Body Refining. In their Cosmos, cultivators were divided into two major Path: Qi Cultivating and Body Refining.

Jack had traversed the Qi Cultivating Path before as he gathered the Qi into his Dantian and mainly gathered Qi, purified it and used it to nurture his body. Qi Cultivating Path was many times easier than Body Refining and they had a larger variety of techniques they could use. However, it was very hard for a Qi Cultivator to triumph over a Body Refiner of the same stage as him.

Body Refiner’s literally cultivated their bodies and their speed of progress was slower than Qi Cultivators and their Path was many times harder but the rewards were also many times higher. Usually, a Body Refiner that didn’t take shortcuts or cut corner’s would easily be able to win against anyone in the same stage as them and have a fifty percent chance of winning against someone a stage higher than him.

Jack suddenly realized something as he stood up and let out a bitter laugh, “Seems like I truly am stupid…. Mages biggest weakness is their fragile bodies, meaning that in close combat, they are many times weaker than others. However, Body Refiner’s specifically temper and cultivate their bodies but they lack strong ranged techniques.”

A hint of smile appeared on his face as he thought to himself, “If I combine the Path of Magic and Path of Body Refining, the road will be long but it will be very strong.” After thinking of the second Path to merge into his Path of Magic, Jack ordered one of the servants nearby to keep an eye on Nalser. Jack’s Soul was linked to Nalser’s and he knew where he was or whether he was in trouble or not from a far, Jack still didn’t want to leave him all alone. The servant bowed and started looking after Nasler as Jack went back into the study.

When he got back to the study, he took out the Mask from the Spacial Ring he had and focused his attention on the Mask. Suddenly, Jack disappeared as the Mask dropped to the floor. When Jack opened his eyes again, he was inside the Hall of Troops. Usually, only his consciousness would enter the Mask but since the Mask could hold other living beings, why couldn’t he enter it? In reality he could and this was what he had done right now. When Jack appeared in the Hall, Shadya and Veyer immediately appeared in front of him. Jack looked at Shadya and said, “I decided on the second Path that I want to merge into the Path of Magic.”

Shadya’s eyes opened wide as she stuttered, “So fast...” Jack immediately explained what conclusion he had come to and also asked for their opinion. After Jack had finished his explanation, Shadya and Veyer looked at each other with a hint of shock evident in their eyes. Shadya finally said with a bitter smile, “You truly are a monster. To reach this conclusion in such a short timespan.” Jack asked, “Is something wrong?”

Shadya shook her head as she answered him, “No, this combination was also the one that Master Raelag found the most complementing of one another. However, it took him a lot of time to carefully ponder on the various actions and reactions of the two paths.”

Jack nodded his head as he understood what she was talking about. Body Refining and the Buddhist Path was similar too. Buddhists trained their bodies like Body Refiners but their mentality was different, to them everything happens for a reason and if it happened like this, it was meant to be. It conflicted with the Path of Magic that researched the profound mysteries of the Plane. To progress and merge the two Path’s would be very hard and actually the chances of being able to do so would be extremely miniscule.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Shadya then said, “Since Master Raelag also reached the same conclusion as you did, he prepared some of the best Body Refining Art’s that complement his own Flame Angel Art. Also, since Body Refiner’s don’t cultivate Qi but their bodies, there are no Soul Restrictions.” As Shadya said so seriously, Jack remembered what Raelag had told him about the Magus Soul and Cultivator’s Soul and so on.

In all honesty, he had forgotten about it until Shayda reminded him right now. He let out an awkward smile as he said, “I forgot about that.” Shadya’s eyes opened wide as she wanted to say something. However, she closed her mouth because she could not find any reason to rebuke Jack. Jack was only so young and he had gotten all of the information a few month’s ago. To add to that, the information was something collected by a Sage level Mage for countless years, so expect someone to remember all of it in the span of a few months was something ludicrous.

They chatted a bit more and even Veyer said a few words in, then Shadya explained to Jack how to connect to the Crown of Desolates. The Crown of Desolates held all of Raelag’s knowledge, experiences, understandings of the world and so on.

After trying a few times, Jack managed to create a connection between himself and the Crown. Shadya even explained to him that he could connect to the Crown without entering the Mask. So, when Jack learned of it, he went out of the Mask and after checking up on Nalser, he entered the library.

The Crown of Desolates had the space similar to the Library in build and all the knowledge was stored in the form of books. Jack could easily withdraw these books and read them outside. So to not arouse much suspicions to the prying eyes, he chose the library to read the books. Soul Artefacts were extremely precious and rare Artefacts, maybe Zhi and the others wouldn’t try to obtain it but the outside Clan’s and Sect’s were a different story all together.

Should they learn that Jack was in possession of a Soul Artefact, who knew what they would so? Some crazier ones may even assault Virbeth with full force to obtain it. As Jack was thinking along these lines, Shadya suddenly transmitted to his mind, “If you are afraid of prying eyes, it is easy to deal with them.” Jack’s eyes opened wide as he asked back, “How?”

“Easy, bind the City and you will be able to activate all the Defensive Formations and block out anyone, even from inside the City.” Shayda said in a sly voice. Jack thought about it for a second and then smiled as he asked for the detailed steps on how to bind the City. Binding Virbeth was several times harder because the way the Core worked was different from Cultivators Formations.

After Shadya gave a step by step explanation on how to bind the City, Jack could only let out a sigh of admiration. Usually, Formation’s could be bound by slowly flooding the Core with Qi or by “brute forcing” the Qi into the Core to wipe out the previous Master’s Mark.

Virbeth’s Core however was directly connected to the Crown of Desolates. Without the Crown, you would have no way of binding the City even with brute force. In simpler terms it could be explained it like this: Usually, there was only one Core that could be bound and it would control the entire Formation. However, Virbeth’s Core was divided into two portions, the Core itself and Crown that served as the Key to it. Without the Crown, hoping to bind the City was nothing more than a pipe dream.

Jack thought to himself, “Raelag was seriously and utterly meticulous in these kinds of things….” It was easy to see that Raelag did not leave even one simple thing up to chance from all the preparations he had done. All the books were written in Ashan so no one else would be able read them. Only those that were from the Cosmos of Asha would be able to but what were the chances of someone from the Cosmos of Asha to actually come here to read these books? Practically nil.

To make sure that his successor would have a safe Haven, he left behind mountain loads of resources and the City. Besides the Troops themselves, the City itself was nigh impregnable fortress with the Formations far surpassing every other in the Cosmos and besides that, there were also the Protectors.

Unless Jack managed to piss off a Heaven Realm or equivalent practitioner, there was very little danger for him inside the City. Shadya and Veyer themselves were also at the Dao Seeking Realm, so even Dao Seeking Realm practitioners weren’t a danger if they came alone. After getting the directions, Jack went to the room that stored the City Core.

It was at the basement of the Manor and even an Origin Realm practitioner couldn’t find it without special techniques. Dao Seeking practitioners may be able to brute force their way into the room if they came with the will to die but which one of the experts that have managed to reach such a level would be willing to discard their lives for a single City?

Jack however had the Crown of Desolates, so all the security Formations did not impend him. When Jack reached the Core Room, he was quite breathless of the scene in front of him. The room wasn’t big, only about twenty to thirty square meter’s, but in the centre of the room was an extremely complicated Magic Formation that had millions upon millions of various lines criss crossing with each other.

Jack knew that the more complicated a Magic Formation was, the higher level it was. Of the millions of lines that criss crossed with each other, only a few were lit up meaning that they were currently active. The rest were dim meaning that they were currently inactive. In the dead centre of the Formation was a little crystal ball inside which countless little brightly lit runes were revolving around at high speeds.

The runes were what made up the Formation and the crystal ball was something that acted as the container for all of the runes. Jack couldn’t help but admire Raelag’s talents in Magic Formations to be able to come up with a Formation as complicated as this one.