Armad recently discovered two major uses provided to him by his Negrinki world. He had hoped to enhance it the more but the System disabused his mind from any such thoughts.
The System told him the impossibility of escaping from an enemy to the Negrinki world during a fight. Perhaps in the future, the System had said. This was because his cultivation wasn't up to it as of yet. Some other thing, yes, but not what he was hoping for.
That was the first thing Armad wanted to try, and since the answer was negative, he decided to try Miyura.
It was the rank S skill in his arsenal and he wanted to know how much cultivation he could borrow from it without stressing himself out.
There were things he had learnt from his grandfather, professor Zaikid concerning the Miyura while in the Third Lower World.
The most important thing was that he could borrow pol years from it to add to his own. But there was a limit that when reached could take a toll on him. Exceeding the limit could tire him out so much that he couldn't go on fighting. It was akin to getting a temporary burst of strength which would certainly drain one when it was over.
So Armad wanted to mark this so-called limit so that he could take proper precautions.
He stretched out his spiritual sense to make sure that no one was lurking near and then went on to launch his cultivation.
Soon afterward, the glow of Miyura appeared on his forehead. A spot where hitherto was plain began to give off a reddish glow while a set of three swords within it circumnavigated themselves. It was just as he was used to seeing whenever he launched his Miyura.
To add to the spectacle, the Old Wilbrish writing inside it began to move. But one thing that brought him to his toes was the sight of the golem with the axe that was positioned in the center of the Miyura. It didn't merely move but stood up and swung his axe around.
He was being shown the startling difference between his previous fifty-five years and the six thousand-plus years now. The golem was jubilant about the development that was happening.
Armad concentrated his will on the Miyura and pulled out every bit of cultivation from his forebears far and wide.
His pol years overflowed. From six thousand to seven thousand. Then up it went without any indication of stopping: eight thousand, nine thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand five hundred... His muscles swelled up and he grew taller by an inch. He was the image of a fierce bull newly awakened.
The speed of it didn't falter until he reached twelve thousand two hundred pol years. It moved in trickles now until it reached thirteen thousand. This was his limit.
Still with a drop of his blood rubbed on the Miyura, he could reach about fifteen thousand. But that would cost him his health and even his real birth age.
Thirteen thousand years was a level ahead of Pseudo-Deva. It was a well-established fact that ten thousand years was the limit to the core formation stage, and from ten to ten thousand ninety-nine years signifies the Pseudo-Deva level.
Eleven thousand upwards is when the Deva level is attained.
Most Deva in his legion and those about the city were mostly around eleven to thirteen thousand pol years. Those with fifteen thousand were scarce unless among the elite tribes or in domains of the Wilberforce empire.
Armad felt that with this skill of his, he could withstand any early-stage Deva who would challenge him. And there wasn't anyone among his captains that he couldn't face barring some few among them. Even at that, he could face those few, especially in a matter of life and death. And in such a case, he could escape with his life if nothing else.
And from the time he went on with his skin-enhancing project, he was sure to defeat them.
He grinned to himself as he deactivated the Miyura.
The central golem stopped moving and the swords stood still also. He was fond of this skill almost more than his Negrinki, for the sole fact that it increased his pol years on the spot whenever called upon.
Even though the increase wasn't permanent, and it waned within ten to thirty minutes, in a fight among cultivators, one minute was enough to choose a winner, making those ten quite irrelevant.
But the perfect way it always saved the day gave Armad the courage to believe that no one dared challenge him here.
And with time, he would reach his ultimate goal.
Some things caught his attention this time, especially about his Miyura. The first was that back when he was in the Third Lower World where he was born, his Miyura never disappeared from his forehead.
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It was one of the things that set him apart from other people with Miyura, that his own had never disappeared since birth. It usually disappeared seven days after birth unless summoned. But his own never did. It was why he used to cover his head and forehead with a red cloth to avoid curious stares when seen.
The cloth itself was made from a special cotton fabric that prevented any form of cultivation from spying on him.
But the first thing he noticed after his appearance here was the absence of it. Prince Armad whose body he was currently occupying didn't have any Miyura. Or more aptly, his was an ordinary one that disappeared since day seven after birth.
Moreover, he never used it. As was the customs of the people here, as soon as a child was strong enough to start learning about cultivation, he was taken for examination.
Specialist cultivators would examine and determine which way he was more inclined towards between his core and Miyura. Or even other fields that were customarily used to gauge such things.
After his birth, it was determined that the prince leaned more towards his Negrinki and cultivation than the Miyura.
In reality, the prince learned some things concerning it but it had been long since he had used the Miyura last.
It could be rightly described as more of a decorative appendage without any noticeable levels of development. He hadn't even awakened it to be used for defense.
When he appeared, Armad came with his own Miyura and wasn't dependent upon the prince's own.
And he had now added more strength upon the prince's strength. The prince's cultivation was also inherited by him. Also, there were skills he could recall from the memories he inherited that weren't detected by the System.
The skill that brought him here left him with only the prince's cultivation but not his skills.
Armad felt satisfied and also elated by this fact. He felt it was for the best that he had retained his skills just as the prince had left with his own. The body and cultivation were enough for him.
He stood up and stretched his cramped joints. His priority now was to get more food. Wherever food was, he would go and find it to get the needed nutrients for the system to create pills and enhance his strength and cultivation.
***
While Armad was trying to find a way to get food, in a place not far from the palace, a woman awoke from a sleep.
She woke up to find herself in the body of another woman.
The last thing she could remember was a vast hilly terrain, filled with Negrinki. Poisonous Negrinki that belonged to King Micro Abbas.
She was there for a trial to become one of Abbas' senators at Khan. But she was yet to win.
She rarely slept in that place but then sleep usually comes unawares. She had sat down for some rest the other day and decided to have a meal of dried fish. But after the meal, sleep overpowered her.
She intended to wake up when the sun heated upon her and rose her up to continue her mission of trying to win. But then she awoke to find herself on a bed, with a body that wasn't hers. Did she die at the trial?
Or was she pulled over here somehow? Or was it part of the trial designated by King Micro Abbas? It was possible because it was an enchanted trial that couldn't be foretold prior.
This woman was Nusi Kilzanki who found herself in the body of a sixteen-year-old woman. The girl in question also went to bed in another time and world with the hope of going to work in the morning at the palace.
She was one of the palace maids who worked in the prince's chambers. After the death of her parents, she tried to get a job to take care of her two younger siblings. One of them was fourteen and the other thirteen years old.
But she found it hard to secure a job for the fact that she wasn't a cultivator. She was eventually forced to sell all her inheritance and paid for the awakening of her core.
When she started learning about cultivation, she found it hard to attain any noticeable levels because she wasn't naturally born with it. And soon, any thoughts of getting employed in cultivation-inclined jobs went to naught.
It was with the help of one compassionate neighbor that she secured the palace job. With the coming of Prince Armad, things started to get better for the palace servants.
She went to bed thinking of how down-to-earth the prince was. And how he would sometimes stop for a chat with the servants.
She slept thinking of her impending work at the palace the next day as always. But then, things tend to happen when they are least expected. While she slept, Nusi found her way to her body from another world.
When Nusi awoke, she was quite disoriented. But all the memories and thoughts belonging to the palace maid automatically percolated into her consciousness. She figured out that she was no longer in the Third Lower World but she was still not sure if it was part of the trials or not. She sat up abruptly and decided to try out her cultivation. It was then that she discovered that it wasn't her body and her cultivation seemed to have disappeared...