Chapter 7: The Message

Waking up was surprisingly pleasant. For the first time in years Yee Rhys had had a good night's sleep. Previously, during seizures, his body was in constant pain, and normal sleep was rare. Usually he would just pass out at some point due to fatigue and fall into an abyss of unconsciousness.

The second reason for such a cheerful state was, apparently, the improvement of the body. The Roasting room was designed for people and cultivators of one and two wisps. Starting with three wisps, cultivators felt quite comfortable in it, and punishment lost its meaning. Judging by the sensation, the body had reached the equivalent of two wisps, which couldn't help but feel good. Especially since he hadn't started cultivating yet.

After stretching out, Yee Rhys took another look at his surroundings. There were five colleagues left in the cages. They seemed to be dwindling slowly. After refreshing with his pills, the young man sat down and began to analyze the situation. The nourishing pills he had consumed during his sleep had been completely absorbed, and no trace of weakness remained. It should probably be said that the Fa-Al race's main characteristic was survivability. If they managed to get out of a trap alive, they recovered in the shortest time possible, which was a huge headache for generations of enemies.

After hesitating a bit, Yee Rhys decided to look up the message in his mind first. Closing his eyes, he reached into the depths of his mind and touched the ball of information.

***

In the next instant, a picture popped up in front of him. A half-empty room and a stout man in his forties. Thick, dark, curly hair parted over his shoulders. A rough face with a smoothly shaved chin. Dark piercing eyes. Light-colored, loose-fitting robes. He looked exactly like the guardian spirit of the legacy. Apparently, he was the creator of the legacy.

- If you see this message, it means that you have successfully completed the merge with the bloodline and can now be considered one of us. Congratulations on that. - The man smiled in a friendly manner. - Allow me to introduce myself, I am Az Art, Legacy Creator. I left this message for the new members of my race to provide additional information. And, if possible, to answer some of the questions you must have had during the merge.

The man paused for a moment to let you think about it.

- The first thing I want to tell you is that you can now officially receive your legacy. To do so, you must return to the legacy area. The key will be your bloodline and the special spell enclosed in this message. You will receive it at the end of your viewing of the message.

Az Art smiled and continued in a more serious tone.

- The second one. You must have wondered why it took so long to merge.

Sure I did!

- I'll try to explain. - The man cleared his throat. - First of all, it was not an acquisition of a bloodline, but a change of race, which is an entirely different process. A full body transformation usually takes at least a year. Hence the minimum period of merge.

The man was quiet, staring at the ceiling, as if he didn't want to voice the next point.

- Unfortunately, for our race body transformation is not the most important thing. Successful merge requires the transformation of the soul. That was what took most of the time. And that was the reason why ninety-nine percent of the candidates dropped out. Not every soul could withstand the transformation.

The young man went cold. Soul transformation. That explained all the weirdness. And if he had known about it beforehand, he would hardly have risked eating a bloodline.

- Our bodies require a certain type of soul. - Az Art continued his thought. - It makes it impossible to subdue us. And even more so, it is impossible to move and possess in our bodies. We are the natural enemies of all kinds of spirits that cause possession. For the same reason, the usual mind and soul cultivation techniques don't work for us.

At least it's something good.

- Don't worry, you've already survived the transformation. - The man smiled. - The third thing I have to tell you is that you are no ordinary half-blood. If you see this message, you're the perfect half-blood.

Yee Rhys frowned. The term had never occurred to him before. Even diving into his ancestral memory, he couldn't find anything.

- You don't have to look. - It was as if the lecturer had read his mind. - It is my own term. As you must have learned by now, our weakness is our low talent for Qi. We can raise our Qi cultivation level, but we will always be weaker than ordinary Qi cultivators of the same level. I've been obsessed with solving this problem since I was a kid. The only practicable option turned out to be using the effect of normal half-bloods, where a child of two races gets the properties of both parents. If the child got the best of both races, then that was exactly what I called the perfect half-blood.

The man shook his head.

- Unfortunately, our bloodline is very strong. Even after ten generations of successive blending, children inherit only our traits. After much research, I developed a spell that allowed me to transplant our bloodline to an "artificial half-blood" while retaining the original talent for Qi cultivation. The preferred race for crossbreeding was humans - they are plenty of them, they are survivable, and many of them have the necessary potential to cultivate Qi.

Az Art stopped and sighed sadly.

- And then a problem surfaced that I had never been able to solve in my time. And to see the perfect half-blood with my own eyes. In experiments to create artificial half-blood, less than ten percent of the test subjects survived. And we're talking about simple half-bloods. The merge spell had to be much complicated in order to retain the talent for Qi. Accordingly, the requirements for the material had also increased.

From what he heard, the young man's hair began to move because of horror. There was a tremendous amount of death behind the dry suggestions.

- Creating the perfect half-blood required an initial predisposition to our race. Simply put, ordinary humans were no longer suitable. What was required was a distant descendant of the Fa-Al, one with no racial traits, but with sufficient talent to cultivate Qi. Unfortunately, all of our descendants had a low talent for Qi cultivation even after losing their racial abilities. Over the years of searching, I still could not find a single candidate who met the minimum requirements. So I decided to create a legacy, in the hope that one day a long-awaited offspring with good potential for Qi would be born.

The man smiled.

- Unfortunately, I won't be able to find out if my experiment with the legacy will be successful. I won't be able to see you or help you. The legacy is all I can leave you. You are a new branch of our race. And I sincerely hope that you can survive and once again show the world the power of Fa-Al.

Az Art exhaled and looked directly at his interlocutor.

- All I could do was maximize your chances of survival. Because the complicated spell made it a lot harder for you than it is for ordinary half-bloods. All I can do now is apologize and tell the truth.

The young man's heart ached.

- The true purpose of the first two phases of the test was to activate the bloodline. You had to feel the effects. For best effect, the bloodline should have awakened before the merge spell was used. But not completely, or you'd just end up a half-blood. The third stage was just in case there were two candidates to choose the best one.

The Legacy Creator shifted his gaze slightly to the side.

- However, I purposely chose the rewards so that they would attract ordinary cultivators. So that sects would bring the best students into the legacy. It increased the chance of finding a candidate.

The man shook his head.

- And one more thing I have to apologize for. I purposely made the winner known to everyone. - The lecturer's eyes lowered. - I could have passed on the legacy secretly, without publicity. That would have taken away a lot of problems. But it didn't solve the main one.

Az Art raised his head, his eyes burning with cold cruelty.

- In my experiments, I've found that the main factor in the success of a merge is not the quality of the body. And not even the quality of the soul. The most important thing is the true desire to undergo the merge. To become part of our race. The slightest denial could backfire. Even doubt was undesirable. And I tried to create a situation where the candidate would be forced to rely entirely on our bloodline, to wish for a successful merge.

The man sighed heavily.

- I'm well aware that you could have died immediately after leaving the legacy area. But that was part of the challenge, too. Our race is highly susceptible to the emotions and desires of others. I had hoped that the initial activation of the bloodline, coupled with the crisis situation, would be enough to awaken the instincts. The instincts would tell the way.

Yee Rhys became bitter. It seemed that the fatal moment in his fate was not the moment of obtaining a bloodline, but the first step into the legacy area.

- Sealing the cultivation wasn't really necessary either. - The lecturer continued. - But it complicated an already complicated process, so I decided to remove it, too.

Az Art paused for a moment and then spoke in a softer tone.

- That's all I wanted to say. Now you know the truth. I hope you can understand. Now go. And remember, you're the perfect half-blood. If you can live up to this moment, you can handle the rest. I created you. But your future is entirely in your hands.

The man suddenly smiled softly.

The image slowly faded away.

And a new spell was imprinted in memory - key to the legacy.