Warrior cultivation on the Calysta continent had five ranks. Apprentice, Veteran, Chief, Lord, and Sovereign.
At the level of an apprentice, one was at the level of reinforcing their body with mana and also had a simply reinforced physical body. An apprentice would realize that they had officially stepped into the ranks of warrior cultivation when they obtained their physical reinforcement, which meant a passively reinforced body even without the use of mana. When mana reinforcement was compounded with physical reinforcement, they would truly attain superhuman strength.
A Veteran was one who could use superior mana reinforcement and had superior physical reinforcement to an apprentice.
Aside from the upgrade to physical and mana reinforcement, a Chief would unlock mana aura. Mana aura was not well understood on the Calysta continent, but had been speculated to be a phenomenon that arose when the weapon, body, spirit, and soul began to align, reaching a level of synchronicity that would allow pure mana to be harnessed for one’s uses without conversion to other forms of energy like spells did. At this level, mana aura worked as a defensive shield and as a form of reinforcement to attain more strength. A chief would find that a thin layer of aura would wrap itself around their body to grant a new level of power, though they would lack control over it.
As a Lord, one would once again experience a significant boost to reinforcement of both kinds, but more importantly, one would attain a rudimentary level of control over Aura. This was the rank where the quantity of mana began to display its importance. Of course, at all warrior ranks, mana quantity played a role. Even without aura reinforcement, to reinforce oneself with more mana would mean more strength. Still, there was a limit to this, the factors concerned being namely output and waste. When an otherworlder wished to understand this relationship between strength, mana reinforcement and aura reinforcement, they often thought of the way engines worked.
Take an old car’s engine. With more fuel pumped into it, the output power it could generate was greatly increased. However, it had a limit and could never outdo a modern race car's engine. Furthermore, the race car engine would generate significantly greater power for significantly less fuel.
Warrior cultivation was similar but different. Mana circuits would expand with each increase in rank, allowing for more efficient mana reinforcement. One could never outdo the strength that the same amount of mana could generate at a higher rank. However, one could circulate more mana while at a lower rank and manage to achieve greater strength, and this was just with mana reinforcement. Having aura reinforcement as well was like having a whole extra engine.
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Once at the Lord rank, one could control and funnel as much mana as they could to convert to aura, though the conversion from mana to aura still took time and also took time to transfer from its generation at the weapon to wherever the wielder wanted it to be sent to their body to physically reinforce it.
A sovereign would not even experience these trivial restrictions. Aura was their horse, and the Sovereign was the general on its back. This was the level where weapon, body, spirit, and soul were thought to reach total synchronization and alignment. Innate nodes no longer existed to act as a pathway for transference of mana from the spirit to the body or to anchor the spirit to the body, and would be completely discarded. It would not be inaccurate to say that the entire body of a sovereign would become a mana node. Mana reinforcement that was usually restricted by the speed of transference of mana from the spirit to the body through innate mana nodes would now only be restricted by the speed of movement of mana in the spirit.
Reinforcement was only the least of what a Sovereign could do with his aura. To a Sovereign, mana aura was more than just a spear and a shield. It was their horse, their doctor, their arrow. Mana aura could be emitted from their legs to propel them to run faster. Platforms could be made from mana aura in the air to run on. Weapons could be constructed of mana aura.
Sovereign, a title shrouded in awe and reverence, was not merely a label to be tossed about lightly. These were entities of generational magnitude, great beings whose emergence marked waves of change. In the last millennium in the Calysta continent, a mere six humans had ascended to the realm of Sovereignty. Each one, having traversed the insurmountable, had been crowned as a major monarch, their names etched into the fabric of history.
Amidst a battlefield of the southwest Calysta continent, in a spectacle of blood and carnage, amidst a darkened tomb of monsters now reduced to lifeless husks, the dawn of a seventh Sovereign ignited. With an aura of power that pierced the heavens and earth, this new sovereign blazed forth into existence with unparalleled fervor.
Tens of thousands of monsters had been in that pile which had reached over half the height of Maruta Hill. One who stood at a corner of the U-shaped clearing that they could barely spit the center of, could clearly spot the pile of monsters due to its truly colossal size. And now, said monsters were all corpses, blasted to pieces.
She was missing an ear and her right spear-wielding arm, and was drenched in the blood of both her own and her enemies. Yet, she stood straight with her head held high.
As she took a step forward, a squelch could be heard below her feet from the corpses she indifferently stepped on.
She was not heading in the direction of the second rendezvous point any longer.
The cold eyes of the Sovereign looked towards the waves of monsters that dared to continue their march towards her.
At that moment, even the demonic domination on the dense sea of berserk monsters malfunctioned for a moment, as if the monsters froze from having realized their misunderstanding.
A Sovereign was not prey.