'Body Refinement Pavilion, Shadow Pavilion, Music Pavilion, Spear Pavilion, and Puppet Pavilion… interesting.'
Aotian pondered, a smile growing on his face, and immediately separated the elders, letting them test their abilities.
With four elders in each pavilion this time, it was much easier to discover the purpose of each ability.
At the same time, Bao Hui arrived with an outer elder and began distributing the elder items that had already been prepared beforehand.
'I need to create spears… that's a rather rare weapon, and I haven't stocked any.'
He reflected, realizing he couldn't equip the elders of the Spear Pavilion at the moment, and quickly controlled the elders of the Refinement Pavilion to forge weapons for them.
Fortunately, there was plenty of good-quality material that had been stolen from the Beiyan continent.
Looking at the elders who had taken off their rough hemp clothes and put on the beautiful robes they had received, now appearing much more majestic, Aotian began to wonder whether he should bring them out of the cave at that moment.
'Hmmm… it's better to wait until the competition starts tomorrow, and then I'll introduce them all at once. It would be far too strange for the disciples if hundreds of elders suddenly appeared working in the sect without any announcement, as if it were just another normal day.'
With that decided, he left the newly summoned avatars in the cave and began testing their abilities right there.
The easiest and quickest avatar to understand was, without a doubt, the inner elder of the Shadow Pavilion.
[Position: Elder of the Shadow Pavilion
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Nascent Soul (1 major realm above the host)
Position Skill: Shadow Manipulation
Position Bonus: Shadow Walker (Stealth increased by 4x)]
Aotian quickly controlled the shadows of the various avatars in the cave, and they immediately began fighting their owners with equal strength, only unable to cast spells.
Except for the ancestors — their shadows resisted the control fiercely, and when they were finally subdued, their combat power was a hundred times weaker than the ancestors' real strength.
Aotian identified the problem easily.
'The rule of ten times applies here as well. The inner elder of the Shadow Pavilion is only at the Nascent Soul realm, while the ancestors are Void Refiners, two entire realms above. Since he's two realms lower, the tenfold reduction happens twice, thus reducing the shadow's strength by a hundred times…'
He calculated, and although he found it a shame, he didn't mind much. After all, that elder clearly wasn't combat-oriented but specialized in information gathering.
As soon as Aotian read the pavilion's name, he had already realized that — and he was right.
When Bao Hui left the cave with his shadow being controlled by the Shadow Pavilion avatar, Aotian could see and hear everything the shadow saw and heard, which left him extremely excited.
'Damn! Another OP skill! Not even the ancestors can detect the abnormality of the dominated shadow when it's not being controlled to move or materialize. This is the best method of information gathering!'
Excited, he immediately began testing, searching for limitations — and he didn't doubt for a moment that they existed.
And indeed, he quickly found several.
'The elder must directly dominate the shadow. I can't use previously controlled shadows to dominate others, so whenever I want information from someone, I have to send the elder to that person.'
'The second limitation is that the elder's body or his own shadow must touch the target's shadow to control it. Fortunately, I can use the shadows of other objects connected to the target's shadow to create a shortcut and connect from farther away.'
'The third limitation is that if the target notices and directly attacks the shadow, breaking it with a strike, I lose the connection, but the target takes no damage, and their shadow returns to normal. That's a major weakness, so I must be cautious. If it becomes public that several cultivators' shadows are being taken over, many people will try to shatter their own shadows to feel safe — which would be bad for me. But it seems it requires ten times the shadow's power to break it, along with the need to target it specifically.'
'The fourth limitation is that I need to use my mind to process the information brought by the shadows, so I can't go around controlling the shadows of others indiscriminately, or my mind could collapse. Fortunately, I can still control them and leave them dormant, without feedback, until they're needed.'
'Lastly, only the shadows of living beings can see and hear. The shadows of inanimate objects can't, and controlling them to attack is quite poor since those objects usually don't move, so their shadow imitation isn't very effective.'
'There must also be some kind of distance limitation for the controlled shadows. They probably can still be manipulated from afar, but not from too far away — higher-level shadows might not be controllable beyond a certain range from the avatar's body, much like how Bao Wuji and his treasure radar can't detect high-level items from too great a distance.'
The limitations were many, which calmed Aotian somewhat, but he still found the ability extremely useful. There were many things he wanted to monitor, but his avatars had always been strategic resources, so it was difficult to allocate many for that function.
He then affiliated an outer elder to that pavilion to see the differences.
Ding!
[Affiliation successful!]
[Position: Outer Elder (Shadow Pavilion)
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Golden Core (Host's Realm)
Position Skill: Heart of Concealment
Affiliation Skill: Stealth Affinity
Position Bonus: Perfect Acting (4 → 8 uses per day)]
The first thing Aotian noticed was the increase in daily uses. Before, it was 4, and now it was 8 — and that applied to all outer elders. This would greatly help with the task of planting lotuses using the Alchemy Pavilion avatars.
Then, he observed the abilities and, to his astonishment, realized that the affiliated elder emitted no aura whatsoever, even without using any technique. His presence was more invisible than that of an inanimate object; it was as if he simply didn't exist. Not even the ancestors could sense that a mere Golden Core cultivator was standing before them unless they looked directly at him.
Aotian tested again and noticed that even when using abilities, the aura released was countless times fainter than anyone else's.
'Wait, this must be the Heart of Concealment, which is usually a bastardized talent derived from the inner elder, so…'
Without hesitation, he tested the inner elder and saw his aura vanish as well. It was the position bonus, Shadow Walker, and his was even more impressive than the outer elder's, for even when casting spells, he was four times more discreet than the outer elder of the Shadow Pavilion had been.
If it was just a matter of using a stealthy spell, such as one to move underground, Aotian was almost certain that even a Tribulation Transcendent, if not paying attention, might not notice the inner elder right beneath his feet. As for the outer elder, he shouldn't have much trouble hiding even from a not-so-strong Void Refiner when using spells, as long as he was cautious.
Aotian's breathing quickened, and he already had in mind the pavilion that would gain an ancestor this time.
His idea of a combat-oriented ancestor had already been thrown in the trash at that moment — now, the Shadow Pavilion was the clear winner.
He just didn't rush into it because he wanted to check out the other pavilions first. After all, he only had two chances this time, and he needed to choose carefully which pavilions to place the ancestors in.
Exploring the abilities, he quickly identified those of the other pavilions, and the next two ended up giving him a pleasant surprise.
[Position: Elder of the Body Refinement Pavilion
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Nascent Soul (1 major realm above the host)
Position Skill: Technique Derivation
Position Bonus: Body Master (Power increased by 4x)]
[Position: Elder of the Spear Pavilion
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Nascent Soul (1 major realm above the host)
Position Skill: Spear Intent Derivation
Position Bonus: Battle Beyond the Boundary (Power increased by 4x)]
The Body Refinement Pavilion and Spear Pavilion were easy to deal with and already started with an advantage.
Both abilities were basically resource reutilization. The Technique Derivation of the Body Refinement Pavilion elder consisted of taking a mastered cultivation technique and converting it into a body refinement technique. Simple, yet extremely useful.
Aotian sighed in relief at that, as body refinement techniques were becoming increasingly rare. He wasn't confident he could find enough of those at the Void Refinement realm to synthesize a superior one, even if he scoured the entire world.
He had already mentally prepared himself to spend countless years trying to create several body refinement techniques until he synthesized an almost perfect one, but that elder relieved him of those worries.
As for the Spear Intent Derivation of the Spear Pavilion elder, it was based on deriving a spear intent from a mastered sword intent, which also pleased Aotian greatly. After all, spear users were rare, and those with spear intent were countless times rarer. Perhaps even other intents could be derived into spear techniques, but Aotian didn't master any besides the sword intent to test that.
Finally came the troublesome pavilions.
[Position: Elder of the Music Pavilion
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Nascent Soul (1 major realm above the host)
Position Skill: Musical Mastery
Position Bonus: Siren's Song (Musical Power increased by 4x)]
[Position: Elder of the Puppet Pavilion
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Nascent Soul (1 major realm above the host)
Position Skill: Puppet Mastery
Position Bonus: Master of Strings (Puppet Quality increased by 4x)]
Those two gave Aotian quite the headache. He didn't have synthesized inheritances for either of them.
Before, in the Beiyan continent, even after robbing several sects, he had only managed to obtain around fourteen puppet techniques and a single musical inheritance.
'Hmmm… I guess I'll have to leave those two pavilions temporarily hidden and inactive. It makes no sense to open them to disciples if there are no inheritances to learn… well, there are some, but if I bring those unsynthesized inheritances out, the contrast with the other pavilions would be glaring. I'd simply be embarrassing these two pavilions and shattering much of the sect's mystique in the disciples' minds.'
He thought, scratching his head slightly, embarrassed.
'Ugh… going from rags to riches is easy, but going from riches to rags is hard.'
Just as he was about to decide, an idea struck him.
'Wait, the puppet inheritance is basically a mix of formation and artifact refinement… and I do have synthesized inheritances for those two, so maybe I can do something about that pavilion!'
Feeling that the probability was high, he grew more excited and decided to test it later. But for the Music Pavilion, he wasn't as lucky.
'Well, it seems I'll have to go with this — the Music Pavilion won't appear in public for now. I'll let the pavilion elders study that branch on their own and try to develop new inheritances. In the future, I'll keep an eye out for inheritances of this type.'
Resolved, he sighed.
For the first time, he would have to hide a pavilion for lack of inheritance, which he found regrettable, but it was the best course of action for the moment.
Shaking his head, he temporarily set those matters aside and refocused.
It was time to choose which pavilions to affiliate the two ancestors with.