To decide which pavilions the two ancestors would be affiliated with, he quickly assigned an outer elder to each new pavilion, seeking an estimate of the abilities the ancestral avatars could gain once affiliated.
[Position: Outer Elder (Body Refinement Pavilion)
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Golden Core (Host's Realm)
Position Skill: Berserker's Heart
Affiliation Skill: Combat Affinity
Position Bonus: Cellular Regeneration (8 uses per day)]
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[Position: Outer Elder (Spear Pavilion)
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Golden Core (Host's Realm)
Position Skill: Spear Heart
Affiliation Skill: Combat Affinity
Position Bonus: Spear Intent Copy (8 times per day)]
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[Position: Outer Elder (Puppet Pavilion)
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Golden Core (Host's Realm)
Position Skill: Puppeteer's Heart
Affiliation Skill: Combat Affinity with Puppets
Position Bonus: Soul Growth (8 times per day)]
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[Position: Outer Elder (Music Pavilion)
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Golden Core (Host's Realm)
Position Skill: Melodic Heart
Affiliation Skill: Musical Combat Affinity
Position Bonus: Musical Score Generation (8 times per day)]
Upon observing the skills of the affiliated outer elders, Aotian noticed that this time, all five new pavilions were, in some way, combat-oriented.
Although the Shadow Pavilion focused more on stealth and intelligence gathering, its combat power was far from irrelevant.
Not dwelling too much on it, he focused his mind and quickly understood the principle behind the new skills, as they were quite similar to those from the other pavilions.
For example, the Combat Affinity abilities were nothing new. They granted great battle talent, and when Aotian used elders who possessed them, his instincts and ideas during combat were far superior to those who didn't.
The variation of that ability, such as Combat Affinity with Puppets, followed the same logic as the Combat Affinity with Beasts skill used by the elders of the Beasts Pavilion. While the regular skill enhanced instinct and creativity in direct combat, the variations from those two pavilions amplified these effects when used in conjunction with puppets or beasts.
'The Musical Combat Affinity of the Music Pavilion should follow the same logic as well…' Aotian pondered, though he knew he would still need to conduct more precise tests on that pavilion, whose inheritance was still lacking.
As for the position skills, they were merely bastardized versions of the inner elders' talents, so there wasn't much to explore there.
Finally came the position bonuses, which Aotian would have to study more deeply in the future — but he already understood three of them.
'The Musical Score Generation must work like the Blueprint Generation of the Formation Pavilion's outer elders, which uses my own ideas and knowledge to instantly accelerate the creation process of something — in this case, a score.'
Aotian mused, judging that this ability would be extremely useful to improve the poor inheritance of the Music Pavilion.
Another one he identified was Spear Intent Copy, which basically copied spear intents from others, much like the Sword Pavilion's sword intent copying skill.
But the pavilion that impressed him the most, right after the Shadow Pavilion, was without a doubt the Body Refinement Pavilion.
Upon seeing Berserker's Heart and Cellular Regeneration, countless ideas came to his mind.
Controlling the elders of the Heritage Pavilion, he immediately summoned the elders of the Body Refinement Pavilion for Soul Challenges, testing battles in the illusory world.
There, he fought to the death with the Body Refinement Pavilion elders and, to his astonishment, discovered that both the inner and outer elders grew stronger the more injured they became.
The inner elder was even more monstrous — after all, he was already four times stronger than someone of the same level, and his power only increased, never decreased, the more wounded he was. Since Berserker's Heart was a bastardized version of the inner elder's talent, the boost it provided was significant, though still smaller than that of the inner elder.
In other words, the inner elders of that pavilion were absolute monsters in combat. And Cellular Regeneration was even more terrifying, allowing instant recovery from any injury.
Although the attribute boost disappeared once full health was restored, it was still a powerful life-saving ability — and best of all, it could be used on others.
Upon seeing that, a bizarre image popped into Aotian's mind.
The enormous, muscular outer elders of the Body Refinement Pavilion, wearing delicate nurse outfits and gently healing disciples on the battlefield.
"You're okay? It's going to be fine. I'll give it a little kiss where it hurts, and it'll heal in an instant…" the burly, rough man would say softly before the terrified disciple.
Trembling at the vision, Aotian quickly shook his head to get rid of the image.
'Uhhhh… get out, get out of my head, disturbing mental image!' He patted his head a few times, trying to drive the persistent vision away.
Scratching his neck, embarrassed, he ignored the strange thoughts and returned to thinking.
'Well, if I want a combat-oriented ancestor, apparently the best choice is the Body Refinement Pavilion. But is that really the best choice right now? The other pavilions are doing well, and I don't think there's a real need for a combat ancestor at the moment.'
'Perhaps the most useful would be to place an ancestor in the Formation Pavilion, because of the Feng Shui, but at the moment, the sect sits on a Third-Level spiritual vein, and the avatars are already at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm.'
'The sect's vein can't be improved further, and by extension, neither can the Feng Shui, due to energy deficiency. I've already managed to create a perfect-grade Third-Level environment using a low-grade vein of the same level. If I try to force the condensation of Fourth-Level energy, it'll completely collapse. So, the need for an ancestor in that pavilion isn't urgent…'
As time passed, Aotian became increasingly familiar with the avatars' abilities, and that was how he discovered that the outer elders' position skills were inferior versions of the inner elders' talents. However, Aotian had to activate them manually, and since they didn't appear on the panel, he hadn't known they existed.
Fortunately, through trial and experimentation, he discovered this by accident. And due to that discovery, an inner elder of the Formation Pavilion, for example, could now use the Heart of Feng Shui just like the outer elder.
Because of these facts, he wasn't in much of a hurry to have an ancestor in that pavilion, and he didn't even know whether it would have any relation to Feng Shui once affiliated.
He reflected for a long time but couldn't reach a conclusion about which pavilion to affiliate the second elder with. So, he decided on the best choice at the moment… which was not to decide.
'Well, I'll leave one ancestor unaffiliated for now. I can affiliate him with a pavilion at any time in the future, so I'll wait until the need arises or until I'm more certain of my decision.'
With the decision of making no decision, he stopped stalling and moved on to the main course of the day.
'System, affiliate Ancestor Mo Yexuan to the Shadow Pavilion,' he ordered mentally, his expression serious and expectant.
Ding!
[Affiliation successful!]
[Name: Mo Yexuan (Meaning: Shadow of the Deep Night)
Position: Sect Ancestor (Shadow Pavilion)
Cultivation: 2nd Level of Void Refinement (3 Major Realms Above Host)
Position Skill: Shadow Necromancer
Affiliation Skill: Shadow Realm
Position Bonus: Perfect Acting (4 → 8 times a day)]
Stunned by the skills that appeared — except for Perfect Acting, which he already knew from the outer elder — Aotian grew thoughtful, trying to deduce what each one did.
He had already tested Perfect Acting with the outer elder by having him use it to impersonate another elder, and realized that the ability only changed the user's appearance and aura to match someone else's. For Aotian, it was somewhat useless, since he had already created spells with a similar effect, though not as perfect or powerful as the ability.
Of course, he didn't rule out that there might be hidden functions he wasn't aware of, but his interest wasn't in that ability at the moment.
Thinking deeply about what the other two skills could do — and having some ideas about them — he knew the best way to find out was to test them.
Mo Yexuan, who already had a gloomy atmosphere about him, seemed to have it intensify severalfold upon joining the Shadow Pavilion. Even the shadows in the room seemed drawn toward him, as if wishing to bow and salute their king.
But strangely, upon a second glance, they looked the same as ever, unchanged.
Even Aotian thought he might be hallucinating, but after considering that hallucinating from hundreds of perspectives was a bit unbelievable, he concluded — rather uneasily — that it had truly happened.
The dark and mysterious ancestor suddenly stepped forward, and his own shadow moved, climbing up his feet, legs, and torso until it covered his head, forming a black, sinister cloak made of pure darkness.
[Illustrative Image]
Looking at the avatar, who now had no shadow under his feet and wore his own as a cloak, Aotian could only think two words…
'So cool!!'
Although he was no longer that young, his enthusiasm for such things hadn't died out. A dark and mysterious elder was, without a doubt, something that excited him.
Especially since, in this case, it wasn't someone merely pretending to be dark — he truly was an elder who commanded shadows. And, in fact, Aotian had instinctively created that cloak while controlling him.
Continuing the tests, Mo Yexuan controlled a thread of shadow from his cloak, extending it toward the shadow of a nearby elder. He tried to seize control of that shadow, but to Aotian's surprise, he couldn't.
'Hmm… it seems he can only control his own shadow, unlike the Inner Elder. So, how do this Shadow Realm and Shadow Necromancer work?' he pondered for a moment.
Since he didn't have much idea about the Shadow Realm, he decided to focus on the other ability, whose name already gave him a clue.
'Necromancer… looks like I need a corpse.'
He thought about going out to get one, but then an interesting idea flashed through his mind, making his eyes light up.
'Well, what if I use that?'
Aotian wasn't sure it would work, but if it did, it would be something worth seeing.
Under his command, within moments, Bao Wuji arrived at the cavern where the newly summoned avatars were.
Having the avatars move back to open a large space, the ancestor Bao waved his hand, and from his storage space emerged a massive dragon skeleton, which crashed heavily onto the cavern floor, raising a cloud of dust.
Fortunately, the cavern was enormous; otherwise, that colossal skeleton would have caused it to collapse.
Yes, it was the skeleton of the flood dragon Bao Wuji had fought earlier — an ancient beast of the Sixth-Level, equivalent to a cultivator in Void Refinement.
Mo Yexuan observed the massive skeleton, and his dark, shadowy eyes felt a strange instinct upon landing on the dragon's shadow.
Once again, a strand of shadow slid from his cloak and connected to the skeleton's shadow. The instant it touched, mysterious patterns coursed through the avatar's roots, drawing in a massive amount of spiritual energy.
'Eh?!' Startled by the absurd amount of energy being absorbed from the surroundings, Aotian broke into a cold sweat and quickly had Bao Wuji dump several spirit stones onto the ground; otherwise, he felt the sect's entire energy reserve would be sucked dry by that vortex.
The energy from the stones barely touching the ground was immediately drained and funneled into the dragon skeleton's shadow through Mo Yexuan's own, preventing the sect's spiritual environment from being completely emptied.
As the energy flowed into the dragon's shadow, channeled by Mo Yexuan, it began to move, enveloping the skeleton.
The first parts covered were the front claws — after all, as a flood dragon, it only had those.
As the shadow crept up the claws, dyeing them black, something astonishing happened: they twitched.
Just that slight movement was enough for the claws to tear through the cavern floor as if it were paper.
The dragon's body continued to be engulfed in darkness, as if the ancient white bone were being submerged in ink.
As its whole form became covered, it began to writhe, releasing a chilling and oppressive aura.
Finally, once completely shrouded in shadow, the skeleton suddenly raised its head, opened its jaws, and let out a thunderous roar.
ROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRR!!
Foreseeing the danger, Aotian immediately controlled Bao Wuji to raise a spiritual energy barrier around the skeleton.
Even so, as soon as the roar propagated, the barrier trembled violently, on the verge of shattering from the mere echo, leaving the ancestor Bao — who maintained the defense — pale.
Fortunately, Mo Yexuan took control immediately and made the dragon close its mouth, silencing it.
If that roar had leaked out, many of the avatars in the cavern would likely have died. Even some of the weaker disciples in the sect could have been at risk of death.
'Damn… that was a dragon's roar?! So strong!' Aotian was shocked and terrified, sweating just from imagining the consequences if he hadn't acted quickly enough.
A dragon's roar wasn't merely a sound — it was an innate ability, one of the most powerful possessed by their race. The black-boned dragon before them wasn't even a true dragon, but rather a Flood Dragon, an inferior species. Yet even so, its roar was terrifying.
Bao Wuji was at the 2nd level of Void Refinement, and the skeleton before them exuded an aura comparable to that of a peak early-stage Sixth-Level beast — roughly equivalent to a cultivator at the 3rd level of Void Refinement. However, since it was a beast, its power was even stronger.
And this time, it was no longer under the control of the Silent Cadaver Orchid, and wasn't limited to purely physical attacks without spiritual energy. Even the bloodline ability—the dragon's roar—could now be manifested.
Swallowing hard, Aotian looked into the dragon's empty eye sockets, from which black smoke was billowing, and couldn't help but feel increasingly fascinated by both the creature and the ancestor's ability.
Now, with a shadow undead dragon — or whatever it was — Aotian sensed the manifestation of Mo Yexuan's affiliation skill: Shadow Realm.
"Return…"
With a hoarse, commanding voice, Mo Yexuan ordered. From beneath his feet, a wide expanse of shadow spread outward until it covered the ground beneath the black dragon.
Then, as if it were quicksand, the creature began to sink slowly into the darkness until it disappeared completely, restoring calm to the cavern.
[Illustrative Image]