Desolate Mage: A Legend Reborn! 161 The Myth Of The Mythical Realm 2

(Updated t.i.tle of previous chapter as well)

'Insight... What is it, really...? How do I cultivate it...? How do I use it offensively or defensively...? All it has done so far is hog up the main soul-imprint and enhance my comprehension speeds... Though that is not bad, it also means I lack that killer weapon or ultimate move that others might have...'

Lars continued with his eyes open as he held the reins of the horses and moved along the road. It was early evening now - with this pace of 60-80 kilometres an hour, he should reach the border of the Wiarno Kingdom by tomorrow, then he could push his speed just a bit more and get to Wiarno City by the following day.

Checking his surroundings briefly to make sure there were no problems, then being satisfied that there were no threats in the surrounding 10 kilometres, Lars continued to meditate on his path of cultivation.

'...The weakness of my soul-imprint, Insight, is very clear... But this can be supplemented by two things. The first, forming a second soul-imprint, which I inadvertently did in the form of the concept of Greed. The second, by careful preparation. Even if my burst of power is lower due to having no specialty sure-kill move, Insight allows me to extrapolate spells and powers even beyond my level, to even use peak-Legendary spells as long as I have enough preparation...'

Lars shook his head slightly and pursed his lips at that thought, as he realised that it was not so simple.

Which opponent would let you prepare your spells in the middle of a battle...? It was a fantasy!

As such, until he had comprehended the soul-imprint of Greed with the ultimate move, Money Makes the World Go Round, every time he needed to trigger a spell of ma.s.s destruction, he would need his teammates' protection, or else he would have to damage his soul to instcast a weakened form of a Legendary spell...

His thoughts returned to the borderline between the Legendary stage and the Mythical stage; one that he was struggling at but somehow could not cross over.

'...A Legendary cultivator communes with his law, concept or element in the form of the soul-imprint. This becomes his new channel of interacting with the universe and triggering natural phenomenon such as twisting s.p.a.ce, using a bone-melting acid spray or summoning an eldritch creature. From the most initial Legendary stage to the peak of the Legendary realm, a person would then need to slowly realign his soul, mind and body to connect more and more with the soul-imprint...'

'According to the years of research, this can be likened to s.h.i.+fting one's house gradually... If mana and blood energy can be considered as the "old house" while the soul-imprint is the "new house", then at the beginning, perhaps 30% of one's possessions are moved to the new house. Thence onwards, those items can only be accessed through the "new house". However, as time pa.s.ses and the owner slowly moves all of his or her possessions to their new place, soon it comes to pa.s.s that all of the owner's possessions can now only be accessed through their "new house"...'

'Nonetheless, this doesn't mean that the mana core and blood energy that one has painstakingly developed all the years of one's life are now useless, no. On the contrary, if the cultivator had an arbitrary amount of resources, say 100 units of mana and 100 units of blood energy... At the peak of the Legendary-stage, they would theoretically still have that amount of mana and blood energy, AND still be able to utilise their full powers once-fold more through their soul-imprint!'

'That makes a peak-Legendary cultivator someone who is more than twice as powerful as another early-Legendary realm combatant!'

'This is where I was up till now, up until I comprehended the concept of Greed...! With all my abilities, whether my skills or my spells, triggered through my soul-imprints of either Insight or Greed... I am now qualified to be considered a near-Mythical cultivator! However, this is also where I am stuck despite seeming to have met all the conditions to progress further...'

'According to the records, a Legendary cultivator masters and resonates with their single concept more and more until they are fully attuned with that one single concept! The reason it is so difficult to advance to the Mythical realm is that after being fully specialised and focused on just one concept, the expert will now have to branch out and comprehend a wholly new concept entirely!'

'After which, one needs to be able to merge both one's concepts and create a new fusion concept; one that will cause the cultivator's powers and capabilities to sky-rocket, allowing them to resonate with the core existence of the universe at a far deeper level...! And the moment one has formed a fusion concept, a fusion soul-imprint made of two distinct and unique concepts... That is when one has entered the fabled realm, entered into what is considered the Mythical realm...!'

At this point, Lars allowed himself to close his eyes and take in a deep breath. He then bowed his head slightly and rested his chin on his chest as he sighed deeply.

He had already formed his second concept and crystallised the soul-imprint of Greed, right...? So why was it that he still could not advance to the next level...?

Shaking his head once more in unwillingness to give up, Lars kept his eyes closed and crossed his legs in a bid to lay all his focus on one more attempt to break through.

'C'mon... You've gotta work this time, dammit!'

Deep within Lars' soul-realm, separate from his mental world in which he communicated with Kizorik and Velzash, the grand mage released his senses to resonate once more with the concepts within him.

(Speaking of which, the two lazy b.u.ms were snoring away after a good round of food and nagging away at Lars for not training at all - little did they know that, thanks to his concept of Insight, all of his mental and theoretical practice carried over almost perfectly to his body's movements and applications...!)

'Insight.....' Lars meditated on the concept, and realised just how little he understood of this inheritance, this bloodline concept that he had received and been born with. As he watched the silvery-white sigil, the runic word of his soul-imprint rotate round and round and pulse with light, he reached out inwardly to allow it to merge with his consciousness!

His incorporeal soul-form reached out and touched the floating sigil that represented his concepts of Insight, and the sigil gradually began to be absorbed into his soul-body!

As it did so, Lars once more observed the shape of the sigil - it was a foreign word that he had no knowledge of, perhaps a remnant of ancient rune-words, pa.s.sed down from his ancestors.

The sigil of Insight's soul-imprint was formed of 6 sharp-looking brush strokes that connected to one another in a smooth, snaking pattern. Each brush strokes ending would then connect with another strokes beginning, forming a pattern that looked similar to the Big Dipper constellation. Similarly, there were also 7 points on the sigil, 7 nodes matching that of the Big Dipper constellation. However, the difference was that the soul-imprint of Insight was flipped like a mirror image to the familiar star-formation.

The sigil floated into Lars' soul-body and sunk into the surface of his incorporeal form slowly. He did not rush this process, but allowed it to happy oh-so-slowly, inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre.

Finally after roughly 2 minutes, the soul-imprint of Insight stopped in the centre of Lars' soul-body where his mana core and blood energy core would be, if his soul-body had such cores. The soul-imprint nestled snugly within him and released a stronger, more vibrant pulse, as if though it were happy and pleased to have found it's home and was eager to develop further.

Lars basked in that pleasant warmth for a moment or two before he pressed on in his soul-realm. He could not maintain this state of merging with the soul-imprint for long, not unless he could fully fuse all his soul-imprints together and then merge them once outright with his soul. If he tried to stay in this state where he only combined with one soul-imprint, he would slowly be cut off entirely from any other remaining soul-imprints and return to merely being at the peak of the Legendary realm, no longer being at the near-Mythical stage.

Lars once again sucked in a deep breath and at that moment, his brows furrowed deeply, forming a sharp valley down the centre of his forehead!

'This time!!! I will do it!!! BIND!!! COMBINE!!!!!!'

Using the fulness of his willpower and mind, Lars exerted his entire consciousness, even abandoning any sliver of awareness towards the outside world to focus on this attempt to break through to the Mythical realm!

His soul-body slowly floated towards the second soul-imprint, that of Greed. The sigil for greed took on a clearer image; a floating outline of an eye, the outline golden while the pupil was emerald green. At the centre of the pupil was the form of a set of scales with the words "I, Me, Myself" on one end, while on the other were the worlds, "Everyone else". As expected, the scales were tipping entirely towards the side with the words, "I, Me, Myself"!

Lars reached out his hand to touch the sigil representing his concept of Greed, and as he did so, almost the same phenomena occurred!

As Lars soul-body's fingers touched the sigil of Greed, the imprint of Greed pulsed with a radiant green light, one that was full of vitality and strength but tinged with a peculiar shadowy undertone to it. Then the imprint began to rotate quicker, before it started to be absorbed into his hand, just like the soul-imprint of Insight before it!

Similarly, after several minutes, the soul-imprint of Greed had reached the place where Lars' cores would be, where the sigil of Insight already was. However, this was where things stalled.

He tried to compress his concept of Greed in his soul-realm to merge into or under the concept of Insight, and it began to do so. The sigil of Greed began to merge with the primary sigil of Insight, shrinking down in size and connecting with one of the nodes on the other sigil. It planted itself in soundly at the bottom node of the rune of Insight, then glowed brightly and with a greater vitality, as if though it had found it's home!

But just then, suddenly it would feel like something somewhere had stalled; as if though something had gone wrong or was missing, before there would be a loud "Pop!" sound and the sigil of Greed would just pop right back out!

Eyes bulging in frustration at the sight, Lars strained his mind, spirit, body and soul to his utmost and tried to force the soul imprint back in, but however much Lars attempted to subordinate the more junior concept under his original and main soul-imprint, it just wouldn't work!

Repeatedly, Lars would try to use all of his soul's force to bind the two sigils together, alas, it just wouldn't happen or come to pa.s.s! Each time he tried, the same results would face him - the sigil of Greed would happily slot in to the sigil of Insight's node, glowing cheerfully - then popping right out and reversing the entire process!

He tried again and again and again, until he felt the world spinning around him, and something hit his head, hard!

By the time Lars recovered his senses, he realised that it was not that someone had hit him - it was that his head had struck the stony ground!

Lars looked up quickly and saw the wagon speeding off, still being pulled by the two high-enthusiastic war horses! Shaking off his stupor, Lars hopped to his feet then sped off after his wagon, flying quickly and landing soundly back on top of the driver's seat.

Lars stopped to give thanks that his face was unmarked from the earlier fall. It was a good thing that his body was st.u.r.dy and he had erected strong defence barriers, else the fall from the wagon at high-speed would likely have left a scratch on his beautiful face...

But quickly, he let out a breath of relief, then sucked a deep breath in and let out a sigh of dejection.

He had failed, once again...

Why??? What was going on...??? What was missing?!? What am I doing wrong, TELL ME!??????' Lars grit his teeth so hard that his teeth began to release a sickening grinding sound, whilst his fists let out a constant *crack-crack CRACK* sound as he clenched his fists so tight, the reins in his hands were compressed to become as thin as a string!

He had done all the right things, sifted through every book in whichever library he could access, formed a second soul-imprint, went through the slow and tedious process of merging them together...

And still it wouldn't work!?!

He was about to explode in rage when he saw that the sun had already set. He calmed down immediately and sucked in a big lungful of air.

And as he thought about things more, he began to cheer up. He cheered up so quickly, in fact, that he began to whistle, unnerving the horses that cast uncomfortable glances back at him from the corners of their eyes...

'Tonight... Just 5 more hours...' Lars thought as he raised his eyes to see the sun set and the moon begin to emerge - a full moon.

'...Until it's time for Online SHOPPING!!!! Ahem, I mean, Abyss Delivery Services shopping... Hehe...'

A delighted young boy in the guise of an old man smiled merrily, eyes glinting with delight as he urged the horses onward.