Mask On! Mask Off!

After returning, Kayson checked out from the tavern, under the cover of a black hooded robe. He unhurriedly passed through the crowded streets. Many cultivators liked to go outside dressed in hooded robes to hide their identity. So he was not scrutinized by the people.

Kayson was in need of an outfit. To other cultivators, such things might not be crucial but the Sorcerer was not a simple individual. He liked everything complicated, even if it was only an outfit, he needed it to be unique. And he lives for vanity! Of course his fabricated persona Ezra was required to be striking as possible. How could he do so without sticking out from the rest?

His next appearance on the Rock State stellar system should be brief but memorable for all the Dugu family members. He smirked at his thoughts.

After a few minutes of travel, he entered the marketplace of the Blue Giant capital. As the largest merchant operation on the planet, nearly an uncountable amount of shops existed within this region. That gave hard time for customers to find a specific type of shop. Therefore, the organizers of the marketplace had reserved streets for each type of merchant shop.

Kayson visited Blacksmith street first. After spending some time there he swung by the herb market before finally stopping at dressmaker street. All the purchased items were sent to his storage space.

Since he collected all the materials he needed, the next item on his list was a quiet and desolate place for the refinement process and he knew just the right place.

Mixed with the crowd he reached the shipyard and took the next ship to the planet Green Giant. He could have used his own ship but he refrained from using it as he knew the people of the Phoenix Hall kept an eye on the passenger registers of all the shipyards. If he disappeared from the planet without a proper explanation, they might be more vary of him when next time they would meet. He might have been over cautious but being careful was much more appealing than being regretful later. The two-hour trip was uneventful.

Soon as the ship landed he zoomed towards the forest, his destination was Cloud's Peak. The secretive underground lake was the best place to refine items in peace. None to disturb, none to spy on him, and completely void of any distractions.

This time he used the cave tunnel to enter. No need to get wet early on.

"Bang" He landed on the shore near the flame fruit field. Everything was the same. The still lake, white lake shore, and glowing flame fruits were exactly as he remembered. But before starting anything he had to clarify something. Something that nagged him since his last visit to the place.

At the sandy lakeshore, he sat in the lotus position. His mental energy poured out and penetrated the still lake surface. He pushed to his maximum capability. Fifty feet was the limit. Of course, that was not enough, so he put the special artifact, Eye of Destiny to working.

As a brainchild of his brilliant intelligence, the Eye of Destiny had many secrets hidden. One such was the space storage now Kayson regularly used. The one he was aiming to utilize now was the Mind's Reach.

Apart from those two, every single one of the other functions was locked away. And that was for a good reason. His current mental power and frail fleshly body could not handle the strain of them. That was why he was planning to infiltrate the selection grounds of the Jewels Military Academy. He needed the mysterious object that manifested in that place to upgrade himself… and break his limitations…

As for the Mind's Reach, it was a special set of formation and rune circuitry. They were embedded onto the first layer of the Eye of Destiny. On its own, it cannot do anything, but when Kayson surged his mental energy into the system, that was when the magic happens.

If Kayson decided to route his mental power through this special formation and rune combination, his mental powers would amplify by a thousand-fold. Impossible as it may seem at his peak he relied on this function to spy on everybody, his soul sense could cover more than half of the Higher Immortal Realm. Scary!

Even though he couldn't use the function to the thousand-fold amplification till he stabilized his soul by breaking into the Origin realm, he could still push for a fiftyfold easily.

Fifty… Hundred… Hundred and fifty… Two hundred…

The mental power range increased fifty feet a time.

Two thousand five hundred feet… Still, he couldn't feel the bottom of the lake which left him fascinated yet cautious. Fascinated since he never paid any attention to the seemingly normal cold lake in his last life but now it turned out to have its own mysteries hidden. As a person who knows everything, the unknown intrigued him, and he craved it.

But he was cautious. If he had the same supreme power of his past life, he might jump in without a doubt. But he was not! He was still a weakling of the seventh level of Nascent Realm, the absolute limit his sixth grade Die rank spirit root could allow him to proceed without compromising the future potential of his fleshly body.

In his last life, there was a period when he never back down from a challenge. He was as stubborn as an ox. But time and a couple of near-death experiences taught him sometimes it was necessary to be flexible and consider the disadvantages with a calm head.

And that was what he did. Thought ahead, suppressing his curiosity.

If even a surface-level alligator fish was a seventh-level Spirit beast, how strong would be the beasts when he goes further down? He didn't want to find out, at least not till he crossed the boundary to the Origin Realm. When that was achieved this lake would be the first to be conquered on his list.

Since the investigation of the lake bottom didn't go as he expected, he focused on the main reason why he was there. Which was refining.

With a mental nudge, an object escaped from his space storage, a shiny green object. It was a magnificent-looking cauldron. With a few glances, one could devise it was made from the greenish colour Imperial Jade. It was balanced on three legs crafted in the shape of soaring phoenixes. Furthermore, its outer surface was embossed with flocks of soring phoenixes creating a mesmerizing scenery.

This was the same cauldron he shamelessly borrowed from the Lee family! The cauldron of the Wang Tian.

Before starting his refining process, he wanted to find out the specialty of the item. There should be a reason why the Mistress of the Lee family looked for this cauldron as a monkey that had its tail on fire.

His mental energy leaked out. Within seconds he found something unusual about the cauldron. It turned out there was hidden storage, hidden away under a rune lock.

The rune work was nothing special. It might be half a level better than the ones he saw on the statue at the tomb, but to him, they were still trash.

"Tap…Tap…"

He knocked on a few random spots with a finger which was glowing in silvery glaze due to concentrated Qi energy.

"Woosh…"

Two items spitted out of the cauldron. One was a dark cover book which he suspected to be a diary and the other item was somewhat special. It was a delicately rolled scroll tied by a thin silk thread.

He looked into the book at first. As he guessed it was a diary. Wang Tian had written many things on it. It was basically an explanation he left behind for his future decedents. All the incidents that transpired to lose the Wang family's influence within the White Overloads temple. How he was framed… Who betrayed him… Who stuck up for him… all were described in detail, things in which Kayson had no interest whatsoever.

Next, he skipped to the scroll. Indeed, it contained something interesting. A unique cultivation art based on alchemy.

"Hmm… I get it now why the Lee family turned into wild dogs. Haha… this thing was their goal then. Too bad for those clowns I got involved with. Haha… Poor things must be fuming…" He rolled it back and threw it into his space storage along with the diary uttering. "Thanks, I'll use this well in the future."

He was already planning to use the cultivation art as a way to lure any remaining Wang family members into his giant game of power, which he was slowly setting up throughout the Lower Mortal Realm. Maybe that Wang Zimo, Dante mentioned or someone else entirely, but whoever that was they were not going to escape his grasp.

Next, he took out the herbs he brought from the marketplace of Blue Giant capital. And some flame fruits he collected there, three orange ones to be exact. He was aiming to cure a patient dying from Chilling Heart Poison. He needed to be ready.

For the next hour or so he refined pills one kind after another. The whole underground cave was enlightened with glamorous scene after another, one phenomenon after another. It was a blessing no one was around to witness the miracle, that was enough to decent the whole Mid-Plane into turmoil. None would witness such an occasion and remain unfazed.

After the refining, he put away the arsenal of pills into his storage.

"Now, the interesting stuff…" He whispered as he was bringing out all the materials he bought from blacksmith street. There were quite a few items, the most eye-catching being the four transparent crystal balls containing flickering flames, each in a different colour.

They were the beast flames all the blacksmiths used to molten materials during the blacksmithing process. These flames were extracted from fire elemental spirit beasts. They also had various qualities. As living in a desolate place, Kayson only had access to the lowest level of beast flames.

Blacksmithing was not as elegant as pill refining. It was a raw and physically draining task. Furthermore, the refiner had to use beast flames for molting the materials. The Qi flames that were used for pill refining couldn't even warm up materials used for blacksmithing. A cultivator at least had to be late Profound Realm to do the molting with their Qi Flames, till then they had to rely on beast flames.

He divided all the materials into four piles. Next, the with help of four pots each pile of materials was molten into four liquids. He flicked his hand and a special blacksmith anvil materialized. Next, he poured one liquid after another onto the anvil while having his concentration fixed on the anvil. The liquids that poured onto the anvil didn't flow away, they started to gather in the middle into separate balls of liquids. After adding all four of them he immediately started doing one hand symbol after another.

The four liquid balls began to swirl around each other getting faster by the second. As soon as their movements started to become blurry Kayson stood up, a massive hammer appeared in his hand.

"Bang… Bang… Bang…"

A smash after smash he began hitting the blurry rotating liquids. After some time, an object started to form in the middle of the anvil. It became visible within seconds. He stopped smashing, the artifact was finished. The finished product was a puzzle. Something that seemed not worth the trouble.

A mask?

Kayson did all this to create a mask?

But Kayson did not seem to be worried at all he took the mask into his hands giddily. Then he spent the next half an hour for engraving runes on the newly refined artifact.

"Hff…" He exhaled a long breath. "Now the finishing touch…" A crystal bottle filled with glowing blue liquid appeared in his hands. "This stuff cost me a fortune. Sigh…" He poured the liquid onto the inside of the mask, the side his face came to contact with. A thin bluish layer coated on the inside.

The glowing blue liquid was one of the most expensive minerals on the market, Mythryl. And they were not a material used for blacksmithing at all. It was an herb used for soul-related alchemy products. If an alchemist saw the way Kayson just casually poured this precious liquid, onto an artifact they would probably scream crime. And they should!

The amount of money he spent on the filled crystal bottle of mythryl was astronomical. Almost half of the gold he looted from the Ice Castle's fleet was gone. But it was for a good reason. Not many people would know that mythryl could increase the mental energy conduct of an artifact. Many accomplished blacksmiths used mythryl on their soul-related artifacts to increase their capability. That served Kayson's purpose just right.

"Finished."

He inspected his own creation with delight. After turning it a few times he tried the mask on. As he pressed it onto his face an unusual occurrence took place. The mask started to merge onto his face!

Within seconds it absorbed into his face. No scars were left. He didn't seem to be in any form of discomfort either.

'Mask on' He said in his mind.

Even before the finished the thought, a light blue colour mask materialized covering his face. The bluish mask had a striking appearance. Its edges were smooth and curved. It had dark blue stylish floral patterns embossed around its eye holes. On the middle of the forehead on the glabella, an intricate eye symbol was engraved. The rest was left plain and smooth.

'Next'

With the thought, the mask's appearance started to shift. Light blue was replaced by light red. The shape of the mask went through a significant change. Two white hones emerged from the top of it, curled back. The eye holes formed into a more striking and intimidating angle. Black and white shades of patterns appeared surrounding them. From the engraved mouth two curved long teeth grew out. The final appearance of the image was nothing but devilish. But the eye symbol engraved on the mask's glabella remained the same.

"Haha… it works…" The voice that escaped from the mask's mouth hole was completely different from his usual tone. It sounded chilling and haunting. A voice that could give a person goosebumps. It reeked of bloodlust and anarchy…

'Change'

The mask transformed again, this time into a complete pitch black one. If the first two were elegant and striking, this one had no words to describe it. Different from the last two this one was a half mask. It had the mouth area uncovered. The most eye-catching things were the intricate slivery patterns engraved on its surface. One glance was enough to judge they were not mere patterns. They seemed to have hidden world mysteries within them. These patterns converged into an elegant silvery eye symbol in the middle of its forehead. And that silver eye radiated an indescribable combination of mystery and power.

'Mask off' With that simple thought the mask disappeared into nothingness.

"Nice! These three faces will strike fear everywhere… haha…" He chuckled evilly.

And as he said, in the near future the whole Lower Mortal Realm would descend into complete uproar due to the appearance of the 'Three Masked Men'. But none of the Realm inhabitants will ever know that the fear striking Three Masks was nothing but a vanity project of a reincarnated egoist!

Since his little self-absorption was finished, it was time to leave for the Rock State stellar system. But he had one last task to complete before leaving.

He started placing various colourful crystals surrounding the flame fruit field. Then he continued the act using little flags which had engraved symbols. Low-level formation flags.

Yes, Kayson was setting up a formation surrounding the whole flame fruit field.

"Buzz..."

When he erected the last flag a humming sound echoed through the underground cave. He felt the surrounding energy slowly flow towards the formation and started to increase the fire elemental qi within the flame fruit field. It was an elemental energy gathering formation which used in herb gardens for speeding up the ripening process.

If they were left to ripe naturally it will take decades which Kayson had not planned to do. With the formation, he set up, all the fire elements in the surroundings would be sucked in and would reduce the ripening time down to a year.

At that time the war would be already in progress, and in war times high-quality herb prices would soar through the roof. Especially certain elemental herbs which could use against ice wielders of the Ice Castle. Kayson smirked.