15 Chapter 14

Things at the institute progressed better than I expected them to as we did not raise too much suspicion upon returning so close to our deadline. In fact, the officials in charge of receiving the students returning from assignments were giving us the stink eye at our neat clothes and uninjured states. We had shown some of the beast cores we had hunted, granted they were the lowest level beast cores but they were enough as proof of completion for assignments into the mountain ranges.

"Ahem, well everything seems to be in order. Congratulations on finishing your assignment, the particulars of this will be recorded in your files. Carry on students." One of the older officials responds in a cold manner while throwing a particularly cold look towards Yale and me while also giving a disappointed glance towards Dixie and Delia.

"Is it just me or did that old man seem particularly displeased with us. Why did he look so displeased with us returning safely, aren't the staff of the institute supposed to be happy the students returned safely and encourage them?" Reynolds asks while scratching his head after we were out of sight of the gates.

"Snort, normally that would be the case but right now our situation is a little special. All of us sort of have a reputation for ditching a lot of classes and officially, our rate of progress in ranks is only around the peak of the mid-tier talents of the institute. They see us as slackers and more importantly I guess as cheaters, it is already well known that I got a cushy first assignment escorting a Dawson Conglomerate caravan thanks to Boss Yale's connection. Seeing our neat and healthy appearance their first guess would not be our capability or even healing magic, no; they would assume we spent the last 6 months lazing around outside before buying some magic beast cores just for show towards the end when it was time to return." I clarify.

""What?"" They all shout out.

"It is what it is. People are always looking to find fault with others and I assume from the old man's disappointed look towards the end, he is not happy with Dixie and Delia being 'led astray' by us bunch of hooligans." I expand for their benefit.

"I must apologise though. I did want to hide my capability at first but I certainly did not want to ruin any of your reputation in the process. You can reveal more of your ability if you wish, I only ask you keep my secrets and not reveal where you learnt some of the… special techniques you may have to show." I continue.

"Humph, if those sheep only see what they want to see it is up to them. I am not going to waste my time and efforts to pander to their egos. I've learnt far more along with all of you than the rest of the Ernst Institute combined, I have no intention to dance to their tunes just because they gave me a stern look." Dixie coldly responds back.

"Yeah, the same goes for me." Yale states and one by one all my friends voice their support for me.

"Thanks everyone, that means a lot to me. Let's get moving though, Senior Anna needs to apply for graduation. Bebe is already telling me that Arya is getting difficult to handle." I tell them.

Anna applied to graduate and completed the test smoothly; the officials did not seem all too bothered as they usually see someone apply for graduation when they reach rank 7. They were a little excited at first, hoping that Anna would surprise them and display power of the 7th rank but they were dashed as she continued to hide her strength. She still got all her documents in order as well as a writ of nobility for the rank of Earl which was given to all graduates of Ernst. She did not get any territory or anything yet, in fact the title was only a simple formality on paper for now as the officials were not that impressed with her performance and the competition was severe. She would have to wait a year or two at least before they finalised all the procedures and got around to give her the full benefits of her new rank.

That was fine with Anna though as she would correspondingly have little responsibilities for now and she no one would pay too much attention if she disappears from the public's eye in the name of closed doors cultivation. That way she could continue to try and bond with Arya and also train her new found powers in peace. All of us still decided to celebrate at the Huadeli restaurant to give Senior Anna a proper send-off though even though she would be staying at the institute for another couple days or so to settle her affairs here.

The training now for all of us started to differ as our actual power had surpassed the knowledge taught at the institute and not to mention that everyone was now a 4-way Soul mutate at least. I started to explain to everyone more about the laws themselves now as well as a few pointers on how they could better use their new found ability to cast fused elemental spells.

"Third Bro, all this… I honestly don't know where you learnt all of this and even the institute's library doesn't have this kind of knowledge. Where did you come across all this information?" George asks me with curiosity.

"Don't think you can use the same excuse of all this being a part of your Dragonblood warrior legacy Linley. As a scion of supreme warrior clan, I now know we do not have that much knowledge of magus training, you definitely have another source, so spill." Dixie pushes further.

All my friends are looking at me with eager eyes now, even Delia. Before they were polite enough to not pry too much into my personal affairs and were just grateful that I was willing to share whatever I had. Now though we were close enough to consider each other as family and if I continued to hide complex matters like this it could damage our trust in each other. That didn't mean I was going to explain the whole truth about my transmigration and all to them though, I just had to spin a believable story to them that was filled with plenty of half-truths.

"Well… Truth be told… I have a really good teacher. He's an old friend of the family and he was teaching me since before I came to the institute." I explain.

"A good teacher? Come on Linley, tell the truth. Just what kind of teacher would be so knowledgeable, even the instructors here are not that good." Reynolds does not believe me.

"Of course they won't be that good, how could you compare these small time hired instructors to a Grand Magus Saint that is over 2000 years old?" I reply back with a smug smirk.

"You mean…" Anna and Delia both ask with widening eyes. I nod to confirm their suspicion and go about spinning my tale of a Saint Magus friend of my ancestors finding me after spending centuries in solitary meditation and taking me in as a disciple.

"You mean to tell me that some of the techniques you taught is actually the teachings of an ancient Grand Magus Saint?!" George asks in surprise before continuing- "Third Bro… I don't know what to say… Thank you… Hang on, does your teacher know you have been spreading his teachings to all of us?" He asks with a little panic towards the end.

"Hehehe, he wasn't that happy with it at first and was constantly questioning me if you all could be trust worthy. He was the one that had me test all of you so long ago… you know… when I beat you all up at the start of our second year here." I expand- "Besides, I doubt he would mind all that much as long as you guys manage to reach the Saint level in the next two decades. If not… hehehe… he just might decide to personally pay you a visit to see why you have squandered his revolutionary methods with your laziness." I also give them a little more incentive to train and am happy to see them shiver a little at that thought. They were fearful of what my Saint level teacher would if they disappointed him when they had already seen some of my strict and rigorous methods.

"Oh no, I'm doomed, and here I thought I would be able to relax with my training from now on." Yale falls to his knees while clutching his head in despair. The rest of us don't pay too much attention to the drama queen and after some more discussion we return to our separate training.

Anna officially left the institute soon after but the rest of us continued our regular training, although Dixie was depressed and honestly, he looked a little like a kitten abandoned in the rain right now. Poor guy, fortunately for him we decided to return to our safe house for our next monthly rest days to meet up with Anna who had decided to stay there for secluded training for a year or so instead of heading to Fenlai City. Everyone except Yale went as he had begged off saying he had some important work in the city. While Dixie and Delia gave him a dirty look the rest of us weren't too bothered and I was especially surprised to see that he was being strangely serious, the usual sick perverted look was nowhere to be seen.

He had come a long way and his mindset seemed to have drastically changed after our return from the mountain range of magical beasts, he was more serious with his training now, in fact I could honestly say he seemed to have become just as hard working as me now. I did not bother to pry and was just happy he was taking his training more seriously so I let him be.

Whatever the case the rest of us quickly and stealthily made our way to our secret hideout. As soon as I entered the common area though I was tackled by the fuzzy bear cub that was Grandpa Doehring (Hmm, wonder if I could get away with calling him Papa Bear). I hardly had time to register anything else as I felt some pain in my right shoulder as he had decided to bite me for some reason.

"What the…?! What was that for?" I start to ask but I soon got my answer as I see a glowing six-pointed star shaped formation form before Papa Bear. The multi-coloured formation soon split into two triangles and each of the two new formations sank into me and Grandpa Doehring respectively.

"Ha, I knew I would figure out how to do that. As if such a little thing could be beyond my ability, humph. Well, young Linley, what do you think? I am officially your contracted magical beast and can accompany you without any fear from now on." Grandpa Doehring now proudly proclaims over our new mental connection.

"Linley are you alright? I don't know what came over that cub but he rushed off as soon as he saw you. Well, at least he seems to have taken the initiative to form the contract with you. You have no idea how long I had to work with Arya before she was willing to form the contract with me, I'm sort of jealous at how easy it was for you." Anna asks me.

"I'm alright Sister Anna." I reply back after using a little healing magic to heal my shoulder and glaring at Grandpa Doehring who was now looking a little sheepish. Most of the next couple of days were spent giving a few more pointers to Anna seeing as she can no longer train with us in the institute. We also decide that this base would serve as a good place to train our magical beast companions as they tend to be flashier and more difficult to hide; especially the two infant Saint level beasts, the attention they would bring on us just from being seen would be too much.

Bebe and Fey would be able to commute stealthily between the base and the institute seeing as they both can fly (Bebe is now able to use the Soaring technique). It would also give them a place where they can freely practice their own techniques and polish their skills in their own unique way. They will also have Anna and Grandpa Doehring as senior instructors and guides so it should work out.

In the following days I pay more attention to training my body as I am rushing to meet the requirement to finally start training in the Stellar Transformations technique that was gathering dust till now. Where before I found it a herculean task to reach the 9th rank with just my base body's strength, now I had the body refinement technique from the Tome of Destruction that George had found. Seeing as it used destruction essence and used the pathways of mageforce, it was not classified under Qi techniques and thus served to strengthen the base body of the practitioner. With my already insane healing and regeneration capability I had little to fear and could practice once a day without fear of crippling myself. With all this added to the mix I easily reached 9th rank as a warrior late in November of the year 9998.

I must say it felt amazing when I finally broke through the barrier to 9th rank purely in terms of my body. Not only did I feel a great deal of strength coursing through every fiber of my being, I also felt a degree of control I never thought I could get over myself. I could manipulate my muscle and bone structure to a limited but still very visible degree just by willing it, which was normally only possible for humans who had reached the Saint level.

After a little testing I finally got to practicing the techniques recorded in the Trans-Heaven diagrams which was the first step of the ST (Stellar Transformations). I was finally able to at least feel something this time and while I was not able to condense that multicoloured energy armour straight off, I knew I was on the right track. I just had to practice step by step.

I was not the only one to make significant progress though as all my friends had also improved a lot. Dixie and Delia had now reached the pre-requisites to be able to train their clan's technique and were now able to transform into the fabled Tigerstriped warriors of legend. Their physical strength increased by a whole rank after they transformed while their speed increased by two ranks. Their appearance on the other hand… they certainly looked fearsome to some as their fingers and nails sharpened to claws and the pupil of their eyes became vertical slits like those seen in cats and also seemed to glow with a dangerous light. The problem, at least according to Dixie was that they had soft fur growing over their bodies in some places that was white with black stripes and they also grew cute rounded tiger ears on top of their heads. Honestly, Delia, Anna and I did not know what the fuss was about… maybe it was due to the fact that he had purred like a very happy cat when Anna had scratched his tiger ears in front of all of us when he had first shown us his transformation…. Maybe…

While George, Reynolds, Anna, Arya, Fey, Grandpa Doehring and Bebe had also progressed a lot and gotten better at utilizing their Soul mutate conditions, the one with the most improvements was Yale. That's right, Yale had become the most hard working one now and we all saw massive improvements in his strength. We were worried about him a little at first though as this was very different from his usual behaviour, after we pushed him a bit, he finally revealed that he had gotten a wake-up call after our last trip into the mountain range of magical beasts. He also felt that he was not doing justice to all the help and support we were giving him so he had decided to finally get serious with his training. He had even gone as far as relinquishing the right to take over the Dawson Conglomerate after his father retires in favour of having more time for personal training from now on. He also confessed that he had done a little bit of divination with his newly discovered Fate affinity and it had given him a warning of dangerous times ahead, in his own words-

"I can't tell what, where or when it will happen but I just have this feeling that if we are not prepared or not strong enough… we could lose our lives. Don't give me that look, I'm serious. This danger seems to be capable of affecting all of us though and will impact a wide area so I advise all of you to train as much as possible from now." He warned us in a solemn tone. I was not sure if he was somehow warning us about the Apocalypse Day from canon or something worse but it was still in my best interest to have all my friends grow strong so I also encouraged them to train more.

After the first couple of weeks of heavy snow fall towards the end of the year 9998, I decided to make another trip to the mountain range of magical beasts. I only took Bebe and Papa Bear Doehring this time as my goal was to check up on the Armoured Razorback Wyrm in the core region of the foggy valley. I knew that the events of canon with the attack of the Saint level Violent Tattooed Bear happened around this time so I decided to move, besides now would be a really good time to make a play for fresh blood from a high ranked dragon. My strength as a 9th rank dual warrior and mage is enough to let me safely escape even after tangling with a low or even mid stage Saint level combatant so I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I made haste to get to the foggy valley as soon as possible without getting side tracked and had Bebe and Grandpa Doehring stay in the outer regions of the valley and train by fighting the beasts there. Bebe was now comparable to a peak 8th rank magical beast or even low 9th rank and Grandpa Doehring was comparable to a 7th rank beast. The only reason Grandpa Doehring was not stronger was due to the very young age of his physical body, World Bears were not known for their rapid growth like rodent type beasts after all, but still due to his experience as a former Earth Saint Magus his spiritual strength was at least progressing far faster as it was not overtly constrained by the body's limits. Regardless they would both benefit by engaging in combat training here while I explore the core regions.

The concentrations of the natural essences were getting stronger as I proceeded inwards and the frequency with which I encountered natural treasures like Blueheart Grass was also increasing. I naturally made time to harvest all the little treasures on the way like any good explorer. I soon came across the large packs of dragon type beasts in the core regions, there were hundreds of Emerald Dragons and Fire Dragons roosting on the canyon walls that were converging again and the floor of the valley was taken over by countless Velocidragons with two extra-large and fearsome specimens of their kind in their midst acting as the leaders.

Beyond this frightening sight of a dragon sanctuary, I could see that there was a cave like opening beyond where the canyon walls finally converged. There was a surprising lack of any beasts close to this cave though and it looked like even these fearsome beasts were giving the region around the cave a wide berth. Whatever the case, my target should be at the heart of this cave so I cast my stealth spells and the 9th rank flight/movement spell, Wind Shadow, to get past these door guards without raising any alarms. At my current level these dragons had no way to detect me and I made it inside the cave unhindered.

I did not deactivate my spells once inside though and continued to carefully move inside while carefully monitoring the cave system. There were numerous other tiny crevices and smaller branches of the cave system that led to dead ends that I ignored for now as I made my way deeper. I still found it very challenging to just ignore the vast amounts of precious ore veins I could detect all around the place though. I could not risk mining here and now despite knowing I would be very fast seeing as I had already touched the stage of combat with the Laws itself. My spiritual energy and physical senses that were both at the 9th rank made it very easy to observe and study the Laws and I already had quite a few techniques I could use them with. I could easily take advantage of my understanding of the Laws of Earth to quickly and efficiently mine but that could still bring the attention of the cave's resident down on me. After thinking of the pros and cons of it I reasoned it would be better for me to wait a bit to see if the fight between dragon and bear from canon would occur, if it did, I could then take advantage and loot this place to my heart's content after both of them deal with one another.

I eventually reach the end of what I assume to be one of the main passageways as it opens up into a ridiculously large cavern. I don't rush in blindly though, instead I carefully extend my senses to the maximum and peek around the edges of the passage's opening to get a better idea of the ley of the land. I instantly develop a hitch in my breath as I feel the concentration of elemental essences within this cavern is twice of what I had felt so far while walking in the caves. That was really something as the concentration in the passages itself is already 50 times of what was normal on the Yulan Plane, training in this place would be really beneficial I thought. Not to mention my treasure detection senses were going haywire here what with detecting so many precious materials, even the rocks of the cavern space were refined to a stupid degree thanks to being bathed in such high concentrations of natural essence.

For a moment I had a really strong urge to just deal with the Armoured Razorback Wyrm that was napping in the center of the cavern myself and swallow all of these benefits myself. I had the strength, not to mention the element of surprise so I was reasonably sure I would be able to kill the Wyrm swiftly. The only reason I was holding back was due to what I knew had happened in Canon, this Wyrm- Sartius- was one tough cookie, he had even killed a Saint level beast despite being only at the 9th rank. This was not like that fight between the bears I had encountered while rescuing Yale either as this Saint bear was not weakened one bit like Lana was after having given birth. Sartius had defeated and killed an honest to goodness Saint beast with his own strength despite succumbing to his injuries and dying soon after.

Taking that into consideration, I felt that the greatest treasure next to the Bloodviolet God-sword in this cavern was in fact Sartius the Armoured Razorback Wyrm. If possible, I wanted to fill up the last spot for contracted magical beasts I had available with Sartius so straight up killing him right now would be bad. With all these considerations in mind I decided to do a little oracular divination to figure out the best way forward which gave me the feedback to wait a while for the maximum benefits. I caught a brief glimpse of the Violet Tattooed Bear and Sartius fighting intensely so I figured it was better to wait for that event to pass like in canon.

I communicated my intent to stay in this place to Bebe and Grandpa Doehring through our bond before setting up a small alarm formation at the entrance of Sartius' cavern to alert me if there was any significant activity. I then retreated to one of the smaller adjacent caverns at the end of another branch of the cave system and warded that place up to the heavens so I could train in peace. I still would not be able to do any harsh training or make too much noise if I wanted to remain hidden from a Saint's detection but it would be sufficient if all I was going to do was meditate on the laws or practice the technique recorded in the Trans Heaven Diagrams.

Days passed in that manner and I was just grateful that Bebe, Grandpa Doehring and I could occupy our time training without getting bored. Bebe and Grandpa Doehring were able to train well outside as they could alternate between meditating and sparring with the valley's other beast denizens. The other beasts were not hostile to them seeing as there was no human presence with them, the others just assumed they were an odd pair that had partnered up before they had stumbled into this place. For me though, the high concentrations of natural essences helped me make significant progress in training the laws and edicts. It also helped with training the techniques from the Trans Heaven Diagram and I was now able to intermittently form the multicoloured energy armour, the ability to consistently form a stable armour was the condition of mastery for this stage so I kept at it.

It was close to two months later in late January of 9999 when I felt my alarm formation trigger. I quickly reapplied my stealth spells and as an added safety measure, I also changed my physical appearance under the spell as well before making my way to the main cavern. I took so many precautions because a Saint level combatant's spirit sense might be able to see through my stealth spells if they looked hard enough and I was not yet sure if the bear that would come to fight Sartius was the same sh*tty Gregor that had killed Lana and her cubs. If it was Gregor, there was a very high chance he would attack me the moment he identifies me due to our past grudges; shooting a high-powered explosive grenade up someone's as*e is a sure-fire way to form a grudge after all.

I thankfully made it to the main cavern's entrance while Sartius and his opponent were still exchanging the usual pre-battle banter, you know the usual- "I have grown stronger now, I shall have my revenge." Bear- and- "Yeah, not gonna happen fur butt. I would beat your ar*e once again but it looks like someone has already got to it first." Dragon.

The bear seemed to get super pissed at that last comment though as it immediately launched into attacking. On taking a better look at the bear I confirmed it was indeed the sh*tty Gregor, the same single eye radiating pure malice and a badly scarred butt confirmed his identity. Hmmm… looking at the injury, it really did look like Gregor had gotten a really good a** whooping at some point. That or he had mistakenly thought an active volcano that was about to erupt was actually a modern toilet and decided to sit on it.

The fight was intense but I was easily able to keep track of it with my abilities so none of the exchanges- physical or verbal- were missed, I could even understand Sartius despite him not speaking in human tongues. That was mostly thanks to my spiritual power and an ingenious bit of spell work to create a translation spell using oracular magic.

Just looking at the two fighters I could tell that despite Gregor having successfully broken through to the Saint rank, he wasn't all that powerful, he was what you would classify as a really low-level Saint warrior who hadn't even polished up his combat skills. In terms of pure speed and skill, Sartius still had him beat and the only reason he was even able to fight back to such an extent as to pressure the dragon was due to the innate advantages of being a Saint. If Gregor did not have air superiority and the near Observation Haki like ability called a Saint's Spirit Sense, he would be reduced to a punching bag.

The Spiritual Sense was in fact the MVP in this battle as it enabled Gregor to easily block or evade all of Sartius' attacks and counter with his devastating strength that had also gotten a massive boost after he had reached Saint rank. The damage was piling on Sartius but despite everything he showed no signs of giving up or fleeing, though sadly he seemed to have no idea of exactly how broken Spirit Sense truly was and even his sneak attacks from underground were seen through.

I winced as Gregor grabbed Sartius by the tail and pulled the latter out of the ground before slamming him repeatedly on the ground like in a bl**dy parody of a children's action cartoon. There was a sickening crack and snap not long after as Sartius was forced to sever his own tail to protect his own life, for now at least, an injury like that would normally be fatal and it was doubtful if he could live past the day even if Gregor left him alone.

Honestly, the best course of action for Sartius would have been to escape while burrowing underground and getting as far away from this place as possible. Granted Gregor might still be able to pursue if the stupid bear thought to shrink his overgrown ar*e and follow Sartius' escape tunnel, but looking at his over confident and inflated state, I doubt he would think of it. The idiot had already expanded his size to twice what was normal for his kind just to appear more intimidating, the only thing that had achieved was to present a larger target for Sartius to strike. In fact, I reasoned that most of Gregor's few injuries in this battle were due to that fact alone, that and his other careless mistakes like attacking an Armoured Razorback Wyrm's heavily armoured and spike covered back. The name was clearly not just for show but it wasn't much of a giveaway for the stupid bear it seemed as he nursed his injured left arm a bit. It honestly made me wonder where that clever bear that evaded Bebe and I went, guess with a little ego boost from stepping into Sainthood he had forgotten the basics.

Like in canon, the head strong Sartius decided to try and take down Gregor with him in a suicide attack after being pushed into a corner. In a last bid effort Sartius closed in and bit down fiercely on Gregor's injured left arm before arching his back and shooting out all the deadly sharp spikes along his spine with devastating force. One on the spikes shot at Gregor's injured eye, through his skull and into his brain proper to deal a fatal blow. With a final roar of frustration, it was all Gregor could do to bring his right arm down on Sartius' head with all his remaining might as a final retaliation.

I chose that exact moment to reveal myself by removing my stealth spells. I did not waste any time and immediately pulled the Soul of the dying Gregor into my CD ring, hehehe a Saint level combatant's Soul, all for my own personal use. Gregor could hardly put up a fight as his body had already given out and he did not have enough experience yet to put up even a token resistance, not that it would have mattered much before my skills and the hack that was a Sovereign artifact.

Sartius though was a different story and still had some fight left with him, I honestly didn't know where he was getting the strength to drag his broken body over to attack me. Judging from the fierce look still burning in his eyes, I wouldn't be surprised if someone were to tell me the cliché line that he was operating on pure strength of will alone.

"Hey, relax there big guy. I have no intention to of killing or desecrating your body. I want to help…" Before I could complete my words, Sartius lunged at me with a burst of speed and swung his deadly claws at me.

I easily parried his attacks with my Blades of Chaos that I had kept at the ready for situations just like this. "ROAR!" Sartius gives one final roar of rage and defiance before trying to bite my head off.

"Really now!" I exclaim in annoyance before infusing the blade in my right hand with a combination of the Laws of both Life and Death. I then slam the hilt into his jaw to shut his mouth before he could so much as snap at my head. The Laws of Death I had infused into the strike ensured he was knocked out while the Laws of Life were actually meant to heal him and ensure he did not die on me.

"Really now, that was uncalled for. Now be a good patient and let Doctor Linley treat your injuries." I mutter to myself before gently laying the battered and broken form of Sartius the Armoured Razorback Wyrm. I then went about using my senses to diagnose my patient to find out exactly how beat up he was and how I should go about treating him.

The damage was really extensive and if I did not have the bullsh*t healing powers of Life magic I would have written him off already. Just the suicide attack of shooting out the spikes connected to his spine would have been beyond most not to mention the severed tail, blood loss, ruptured organs, broken bones and countless other injuries. The most severe wound according to me though was the one he seemed to have struck his draconic core, that last hit to his head from Gregor seemed to have cracked and dislodged it a bit.

Right now, I was thanking all my lucky stars for all the research I had done when I was trying to re-bodify Arya and Grandpa Doehring, all the things I had learnt about the significance a magical beast's core had to do with them remaining alive and healthy was coming into play now. If my last strike to Sartius' chin was not infused with the Laws of Life to heal him, I could have accidentally completely dislodged his magic core and there would be no saving him from that as I still had no way to heal a magical beast if their cores were taken out form their proper place. I wouldn't be able to reattach the core if it was completely displaced or replace it with another, it just wasn't done. In a way the core acted as more of a vessel for the spirit than even a brain to magical beasts and breaking that connection was a 100% fatal injury to them. To summarise, a slightly cracked and jostled core I could heal; a completely shattered core or one completely severed from its place in the body I was helpless to deal with.

With the diagnosis done I started the treatment with the first priority being to stabilise his draconic core. For that I used the Laws of Life to directly encourage the growth of the connections from his core to his body. The surface of the core was cracked in a lot of places though and I had to literally scrape off a few layers in a lot of places so that all the connections between core and body could be properly and securely made once again. Even unconscious, he did not seem to like that as he let out a few weak roars and squirmed quite a bit, I had to form some heavy-duty restraints using Earth magic to hold him steady.

This act of scraping the cores surface alone would reduce his rank significantly not to mention all his other injuries, I estimated that he would regress to maybe 5th rank when I was done, 6th if he was lucky but at least he would be alive and will be able to train back up eventually. I was even nice enough to not waste the scraped off bits of his core as I carefully reduced the bits to powder with a focused pulse from the Laws of the Earth and had the powdered core mix with his blood to circulate around the rest of his body. The core being the crystallization of a magical beast's cultivation, it had a lot of refined elemental essence according to its affinity and it was carefully adjusted to be highly compatible with the beast. This charged blood would greatly help increase the rate of Sartius' recovery, even if I took away 3 quarters of the draconic core powder for myself along with a gallon of his blood. Hey, I still needed a powerful dragon's blood to awaken my Dragonblood warrior lineage and I thought it would increase my chances if there was a bit of the draconic core thrown in; Canon Linley did swallow the core whole after all.

Once I had his core stabilized (and some of his blood charged with some powdered draconic core stored away), I moved on to the next most troublesome injury, namely the damaged spine after having to shoot out the spikes along his back. Just like that I worked form the most severe injury down, I still did not completely heal his body though as I left plenty of the non-lethal injuries after dressing them a bit so they don't get worse. Even the tail I left alone for the most part as I could have re-attached or even regrown it completely if I went all out, I simply let it be after encouraging the stump to naturally regrow over time. I was not about to go all out when the dude had not even agreed to pay me back in some way let alone become my magical beast companion.

In the end I decided to set up a small med bay like formation that would slowly release Life attribute essence into anyone placed within before tucking Sartius into it and activating it. He should regain consciousness within a couple of weeks at least and then we will see how to proceed from there. I take the time to pull out Gregor's Saint beast core in the mean time before storing his body away in my inter-spatial ring.

As I was playing with the Saint core in my hand and casually studying it, I couldn't help but feel as though it reminded me of something. It certainly was very different from any other magical core I had handled before, the concentration of natural essence alone being ridiculously high, there was also another unique signature that I couldn't quite place but felt as though I had seen it before. I was unconsciously playing with the core by putting it into my spatial ring and taking it out and just as I was about to give up that train of thought and store the core away for good, my eyes stopped on the inter-spatial ring itself. That's when it hit me, this was the exact same energy signature I was not able to identify when I broke down that low quality Cult inter-spatial ring.

Wow, turns out a Saint level magical beast core is one of the components required to create inter-spatial rings and as I was comparing what I had felt when breaking down that ring to the core in my hand I figured out that a single saint beast core had enough energy to make multiple inter-spatial rings. The energy in the core was vastly greater than what I had felt from the ring after all and I reasoned if I was skilful enough, I should be able to produce several dozen spatial rings of that quality from the core in my hands at least.

I sat down to analyse the situation some more before I lost myself in planning to forge some inter-spatial rings. I tried to understand what that odd energy signature itself was and what was the common point that led to it being found in a Saint beast's core. There was a good chance it had something to do with space given that I found it to be a core part of inter-spatial rings but how exactly did that apply to a Saint level beast. As far as I was aware they did not have any pocket dimension like ability or something so what could it be?

I got my answer eventually as I remembered Gregor's body shrinking back to the usual dimensions for someone of his species after his death and was no longer bloated to double their usual size. This unique spatial energy was what gave Saint level magical beasts their ability to shrink and expand so freely, huh, who knew? With that minor mystery solved I spend some more time studying the core and with a real light bulb moment, begin to study this spatial energy and comparing it with the Laws of Wind as I knew those Laws had a Spatial and Dimensional branch.

I spent a considerable amount of time cross comparing and studying the Laws of Dimensional and Spatial Winds. In the end I spent two days lost in gleaming insights and was only roused after Bebe and Grandpa Doehring contacted me over our bond as they had grown worried when I had not contacted them in so long. Although I was slightly irritated to have my train of thought interrupted, I still calmly responded back to them and reassured them that I was fine seeing as it was not some once in a lifetime state of enlightenment I was woken from. I also took the opportunity to tell them that something had come up and I might be silent for a few more weeks as I had found some insights and would be undergoing secluded meditation for a bit. I reassured them that I had found a safe place and that I would still have my wards set up just in case before bidding farewell.

Meditating on the Laws in this cavern would greatly improve my results but before I really dived back into meditating, I thought it would be best to make a few preparations to maximize profit. With that in mind I called upon the disembodied Soul of Gregor the Sh***y Violet Tattooed Bear-

"YOU…!" Gregor bellowed as soon as I called him out of my ring. Well, how about that, he remembers me.

"Hello again, normally I would not be pleased to see you but right now… You have no idea how happy I am to see you… in such a wonderful condition." I mock greet him.

"You dare appear before this great Saint human… I will…" I don't bother listening to him anymore or wait to find out his grand plans. I immediately use my understanding of the Edicts of Death and begin refining him in the most painful way possible with the help of my CD ring. Gregor naturally begins screaming in pain but I pay it no mind, to be honest, I felt a bit of glee in being able to torment this piece of sh*t. I normally while refining Souls I eradicate their consciousness swiftly only leaving a small strand that escapes to the nether realm but for Gregor I was making an exception and completely devour him… very slowly and even more painfully.

I started to meditate on the Laws as my Soul was being enriched by the spiritual energy refined from Gregor. I started off by picking up my study of Dimensional and Spatial winds of the Laws of wind and since I had affinities for all Laws and Edicts, I freely switched between them whenever I felt that I had hit a block. I knew that all roads would eventually converge at the end so I didn't bother about feeling depressed whenever I hit a dead end on one path. Even in the early stages there were many intersections and parallels between the many Laws and Edicts so the switching over was very smooth for me.

That was not to say I spent all of that time just sitting still in one place though as whenever I felt a little too stir crazy I would get up to practice the steps of the Trans Heaven Diagrams. I would even let my mind wander occasionally just to see where it would naturally lead me, it was during one of these instances where I let my mind wander that once again led me to enter that fantastical state of enlightenment and sculpt my second grandmaster level sculpture (The first was the one in the likeness of Grandpa Doehring that I called 'Beloved Grandfather').

The inspiration for this piece came from the battle between Sartius and Gregor, more importantly, Sartius' resolve to fight it out to the bitter end and never relent despite the terrible odds. One moment I was looking around the battle torn cavern with my sight finally landing on Sartius' unconscious form then suddenly I started to recall the fight itself with great clarity. The next thing I knew I had my trusty straight chisel in hand and I was chipping away at the rocks strewn about the cavern, I was literally surrounded by high quality stone anyway.

At my current level of strength, I was naturally very fast and I would be able to complete master level sculptures in a fraction of the time that other master sculptors would need, and that wasn't even taking into consideration the natural advantages the straight chisel school of sculpting gave to speed of work. Despite that I felt slow, to completely realise the image in my head effectively before I lose concentration, I needed more speed as it truly was a grand scene of the full battle between the two powerful beasts that I wanted to immortalize in stone.

I unconsciously started to draw on the Laws themselves in a bid to speed up the progress of the monumental task that I had set for myself while also maintaining quality. I drew upon my understanding of the Fast aspect of the wind to speed up my movement, I drew upon the Slow aspect when I needed to work on any delicate component of my work and still make good time, I called on the Essence of Wind to steady my breathing; the Essence of Fire to ignite my passion and give me more strength, the Laws of Mirage and Flamebody as I danced around the stone like a flickering flame; the Essence of Water, Waterbody and Circular softness to carve out the smooth, gentle and flowing lines; the Essence of Earth and Strength to make working the stone easier, the Laws of Vitality and the World's Throbbing Pulse to add life to stone; the Essence of Lightning and Lightning Form to capture every short fleetingly minute moment of the battle as well as the sharp angular lines; the Laws of Spectrum to impart more colour to the bland stone, Essence of Light and Darkness for the byplay and contrast of light and shadow, the Laws of Evil and Devour to properly capture the darkness and hunger of the two subjects. I even drew on the four Edicts- Life and Death to show how fierce the battle was, Destruction as they caused great harm to each other and the surroundings and finally Fate to try and tie in the whole sequence of affairs of the subjects from their past conflict, the present fight as well as the end results.

I completely lost track of time as days passed by and my spiritual energy continued to grow at a monstrous pace along with my understanding of the various Laws and Edicts. All this still didn't feel like it would be enough for me though and there was a small part of me that continued to worry that I would not be finished before something interrupts me and with one final desperate push, my understanding of the Dimensional and Spatial Winds pushed me to also gleam some insights into the Laws of Wind Doppelganger that let me create half a dozen solid copies of myself and directly multiplied my speed of work 7-fold. In the end I somehow finally managed to complete the sculpture I had envisioned and I was a little out of breath as I stared at the final pieces of the last scene in the series of sculptures once all my clones disappear.

The last scene showed the defeated and fallen corpse of Gregor with Sartius' broken and dying form standing in front with his back to his fallen enemy. There was no look of relief or happiness in the Wyrm's form at having defeated a formidable foe, instead the scene captured Sartius about to charge right at me claws out, with a look promising murder. Any viewer would be excused for thinking that the Wyrm would jump at them and claw them to death as soon as they see it.

I was roused from admiring my own work by a deep growl that I was amazingly able to understand as the words- "Incredible!", it seemed as though my translation spell was still active. I turned around to look at Sartius, the Armoured Razorback Wyrm, who was very much awake now and staring at me with a look of curiosity.

"Oh, Sartius right? Nice to finally meet you, it is good to see you are finally up and about." I greet him. He was naturally able to understand me as the intelligence of someone of his rank was far higher than most humans even.

"I've been awake for a while now human. Understand that the only reason I have not attacked you yet is because you seem to have healed me… as well as the fact you were too busy in creating your statues." He growls at me. Good to know that my translation spell is still up so dialog between us was possible.

"Well thanks for not attacking me then." I thank him honestly as I truly would have been majorly pissed if anyone had disturbed me earlier.

"Humph, you seemed too busy anyway and besides… these are a decent set of statues that pay tribute to my greatness." He declares in a pompous manner.

"I dare you to call my best work 'decent statues' one more time you uncivilized worm." I fire back while rolling up my sleeves.

"Ahem, well they are the best statues I have seen… they represent my great victory over that stinking bear after all. More importantly, what do you want in exchange for saving my life human?" He back pedals at first due to the ominous aura I was unconsciously emitting, though he still manages to twist the praise for my work into boasting about his own greatness before quickly changing the topic.

"Would you believe me if I said I did it out of the goodness of my heart as I did not want a fine dragon such as yourself to die after achieving the great feat of killing a Saint beast?" I ask back with a faint smirk after deciding to just ignore his draconic pride, I might actually get what I want if I feed his ego a bit.

"I know your kind; you would never do anything if there was no benefit in it for you. Stop fooling around human and tell me what you want, if you truly want nothing then leave or I will attack." He fires back.

"Fine, there is no need to get so mad. As for what I want, well I will give you two options… don't give me that look. First option is that I take your severed tail and the corpse of the Violet Tattooed Bear as payment for healing you and leave you be after exploring this cave system some more. Oh, and I will also be taking anything I find interesting from these caves." I state my first condition.

"The corpse of Gregor belongs to me by right since I was the one to slay him. Did you honestly think I would just let you walk away with the corpse of a Saint beast?" Sartius responds with an angry growl.

"Well there is option two, though. I will still be taking your severed tail as well as any trinkets I find in these caves while you can have the bear's corpse. You can't really do anything with your cut off tail anyway and things like precious ores and other trinkets have no value for you." I go for the soft pitch first and seeing as he has mellowed down some I go in for my main goal. "I will also need you to agree to be my magical beast companion for a decade at least though."

The moment I completed that final sentence Sartius would pounce at me with a furious roar while screaming- "How dare you try to make me your mount, you pathetic human."

I easily dodge his charge as his rank and power have decreased greatly, not to mention he was still greatly injured with close to half his body missing. (AN: In my head, Armoured Razorback Wyrms look like Lindworms- wingless serpentine bodies with a single pair of powerful claw tipped arms. So naturally having their tails cut off for them would mean they would look a lot like a severed upper torso.)

"I don't want a stupid mule you twit, besides have you seen yourself, where exactly would I sit on you? If you don't calm down and listen, I will punch you in the face." I fire back but Sartius seems to be too taken over by blind rage and isn't listening and I am forced to b*tch slap him into the ground to get him to stop temporarily. It was only then that I realised that the hand I used to smack him down was covered in a shimmering gauntlet, in fact I did a quick once over and realised my body was completely covered by the multicoloured energy armour and it was stable. It seems as though I had also completely mastered the complete Trans Heaven Diagram technique during my enlightenment, I shelve that for later and focus on negotiating with Sartius.

"You are an amazingly talented and powerful dragon." I start praising him in the short gap that I have made and try to appeal to his ego. "If you listened carefully, I said magical beast companion, not mount. You are someone who could slay a Saint level beast while only a 9th rank beast yourself, I will not allow you to be used as a mount like a common mule." I reiterate.

"And what exactly do you mean by 'magical beast companion' human?" He asks after calming down some and figuring out he is in no shape to actually fight me off.

"Exactly as the name implies, you would be my partner and brother in arms on my travels. I would also help heal you faster and train you so you could get stronger than you were before." I clearly state my terms.

"… I will need to think on this Human." He responds back in a guarded manner.

"I'm not in any particular hurry and the name is Linley." I tell him.

"… Will you be taking the statues as well? If you are going to take away Gregor's corpse at least leave these statues for me." He speaks up after hesitating a bit. He would never admit it openly but he really liked my sculpture and wanted to keep them badly.

"Not a chance." I shoot him down immediately. This piece was my magnum opus at this point. No way was I going to leave it behind. The quality and aura of it was incredible and seemed to be alive thanks to the laws I had infused into the work. It looked really realistic with the colour and I seemed to have even magically drawn on the blood splatters of the two fighters to stain the 'wounds' of my sculptures for better effect.

"… How do you intend to carry it all out with you?" He asks in a puzzled manner as he was also wondering where I had hidden Gregor's corpse.

"…" I blink after hearing that and turn to the numerous large sculptures I had created and blink some more. "How the bl**dy hell am I going to carry all these?!" I cry out in frustration while clutching my head and falling to my knees.

I had honestly never thought of this point before, Gregor's corpse was already taking up considerable space in my largest inter-spatial ring and I doubt I could still fit my sculpture if all my rings were empty. The size of each individual piece was considerably large even if I had slightly scaled them down compared to the orginal subject's sizes, not to mention there were numerous pieces to capture the important battle- 36 individual pieces in all.

As I was despairing, I got a worried mental transmission from Bebe and Grandpa Doehring-

"Boss! Are you ok, I suddenly felt that you were in great distress, why didn't you contact us for 3 whole weeks?" Bebe fussed over me and complained in one single thought.

"Is everything alright Linley, you seemed awfully distressed? Do we need to come over?" Grandpa Doehring asks in a calmer manner but I could still detect the underlying concern he had for me which was no less than Bebe's.

"I'm alright, I had just experienced a moment of enlightenment which was why I could not contact you. Has it really been 3 weeks since we last communicated though, wow? I just encountered a few problems that I will have to figure out now, it's nothing dangerous, I just need to find a way to transport some of the material gains I got." I reassure them as well as brief them on what was causing my distress.

"Very well but I must see this sculpture with my own eyes at least once. I will head over there if you cannot figure out a way to transport it." Grandpa Doehring states. "Same here Big Bro!" and Bebe agrees.

After a few minutes of discussion with both of them mentally I tell them to continue with their own training for now as I ponder on the issue of transporting my magnum opus. Sartius was also quite as he had returned to resting and silently pondering over my offers. With a sigh I also decided to just sit for a while to ponder my next actions while also using the time to fully digest what I had obtained in the past 3 weeks. The sculptures weren't the only thing I had obtained as I had also mastered the Trans Heaven Diagram technique so I wanted to see what else had changed in the time.

It was a good thing I did take the time to analyse all the changes as that gave me some really good news. The enlightenment form sculpting, the insight into the various Laws and Edicts along with the vast reserve of spiritual power contained in the CD ring that was even supplemented by a Saint beast's recently all contributed to greatly enhance my own Spiritual power. My level had basically sky rocketed with even the core of my Soul being greatly refined to crystal clear perfection. I had now officially stepped into the realm of a Grand Magus Saint. I was jumping for joy and celebrating internally at my achievement, with my current personal strength it was like a load was lifted off my chest and I had more confidence in dealing with problems if sh*t hit the fan.

Riding on the wave of my personal improvement I remembered that the cultivators in the ST world had a pocket dimension within them after they reached a certain level and the Nebula stage of the ST technique should not be that different. In fact, I think that the space provided at the Nebula stage was better than that of others in the same bracket, this could solve my issue of transporting my sculptures I thought with glee. I quickly went over the information I had on the Nebula stage; I should now be able to practice it seeing as I had mastered the Trans Heaven Diagram technique which was the pre-requisite. I don't waste any more of my time and immediately begin trying to form the Nebula within my Dantian (AN: That might not be how those work in ST but hey, this is my AU so take it that ST practitioners have a 10,000+ cubic metre space in their dantian right from Nebula stage which they can use to store non-living things).