Volume 7 Chapter 3: Everything is me
Sitting on a horse carriage, Lan Shan was observing Negary with slightly narrowed eyes, she was in an exceptionally happy mood.
After becoming a Pathway Entity, Negary had been spending a lot more time with her, even if this wasnât the complete him.
After Negary achieved his Pathway and the essence of his lifeform had advanced further, he was germs, he was a living creature, he was a phenomenon, and he was also a way of thinking.
The current true Negary was so grand that it was nearly impossible to completely observe him. The current humanoid Negary in front of Lan Shan was only a manifested form that she was able to observe.
âEverything is meâ. The Negary one could observe would always only be a part of him, his behavior was merely the display of a part of his entire whole. Similar to how most people could only observe a magicianâs hands and what they were doing instead of the magician as a whole.
And so, the Negary who accompanied Lan Shan carried slightly more emotions than usual, but even that much had made Lan Shan feel happy unlike never before.
Ever since that moment when he offered his hand to her within those ruins, Lan Shan had already sensed that she was complete, but also incomplete at the same time.
Lan Shan as a person was incomplete, but the Lan Shan who served and remained by Negaryâs side was complete.
â¦
During this Age of Metal, other than the New Royas Kingdom, the other kingdoms did not have many relations to the Age of Flames, and no particularly powerful nation had ever appeared. At the moment, there were about a dozen large and small countries governing this continent.
What was surprising was that Nalaâs legends continued to be spread even today.
After Eldridge established the Royas Empire, he did not erase Nalaâs contributions and instead began to publicize her to a certain extent. Her determination and her justice had been passed down to the present day, where everyone knew it by heart.
For that reason, Nala was hailed as the Goddess of Protection within the New Royas Kingdom, where statues of her were erected. The statues depicted a young blond girl wielding a knightâs sword and armor, although the facial features werenât exactly the same.
Apparently, they were sculpted using Nalaâs younger half-sister as the basis.
Eventually, Nalaâs mother remarried. Even though Nala had given up her life for the world, the Tagula family could not end during her generation. And so, the knight Rivers and Isabella had a baby girl not too long after Nalaâs sacrifice.
After Royas conquered Interkam, most of Interkamâs aristocracy were hunted down and killed, but the Tagula family received plenty of partial treatment.
Eldridgeâs attitude towards Nala had always been one of respect, since it was her who sacrificed herself instead of him.
Unfortunately, the Tagula family ended during the Age of Turbulent, while their descendants most likely still remained, the prestige and significance of their family name had already been lost.
âSo that is Nala?â Lan Shan lifted the curtains of their carriage to look at a large statue of Nala at the center of the city.
The fact that they saw this girl almost immediately after entering the first city of the New Royas Kingdom made Lan Shan subconsciously ask.
ã Indeed ãNegary chuckled and played with Yayu who was still perched on his shoulder. He created the pure human that was Nala, and Nala also created the path for him to proceed on, but in the end, it was all in the past.
The past can be remembered but doesnât deserve any further attention. What he didnât expect was that Lan Shan still carried such a small emotion when she had already begun to manifest her Pathway, perhaps, it was only expected of the embodiment of his emotions.
âIâm just a bit regretful that the one who served you in this world wasnât meâ Lan Shan lowered the curtain back down and explained.
ã I know ãNegary consoled her, then turned his gaze away from Lan Shan.
Apparently looking through the walls of the horse carriage, he saw something and smiled: âIt seems our trip this time canât really be considered peaceful at allâ
Negaryâs return to the Flame world was to merely use it as a springboard to enter Wang Yuanâs world. He had no intentions of actually taking over this world since according to his analysis, this place was most likely an experimental site and one that the Multitudes Organization had borrowed more than once.
Because of that, he had no intentions of infecting this world. He had three goals during his return to this world: to research more about it, to build a springboard that leads to Wang Yuanâs world, and to remember the past.
And it was this part of Negary accompanying Lan Shan who was fulfilling his goal of reminiscing the past. Compared to Negaryâs relatively gigantic true self, this part of him wasnât particularly powerful.
Of course, the fact that his nature as the phenomenon of âprogressionâ had surfaced on this journey and chose to stimulate the advancement of the Age of Metal humans wasnât part of his goal. This was merely a hobby, or perhaps a part of research.
â¦
âAre you sure? Is that object truly here?â within the city hall of this city at the border of the New Royas Kingdom, the city lord was hurriedly asking a man who wore tattered and dirty clothing.
He originally had many choices among the cities he could rule, so why did he choose this border city? Of course, it was in hope of obtaining this exact piece of information.
If this information was true, then the Ashius family would be able to skip at least a hundred years of struggles, which was much better compared to throwing themselves at those aristocratic widows.
â¦
When the Age of Flames ended, it wasnât after 300 years of the Age of Turbulence that the new Age of Metal came to be. Supernatural power also started to recover during this period of time, which was also why Negary had believed that this was the experimental site of greater beings.
It was simply unnatural for a world without its own spirit to somehow increase its supernatural quality in such a short time span.
In this era, the first step to obtaining supernatural power was to use the [Bone Forge Art] that was derived from [Respiratory Art] to vibrate oneâs bone, thus training the bone and giving it a metallic characteristic.
After that, by using the blood created from this new bone, one would obtain a powerful body. This was only the first step, as one would then proceed to manifest a Pugilist Core through comprehension, enlightenment, rage, or other similar things.
This process would improve the body in a qualitative manner, allowing it to absorb energy from the environment and thus obtain supernatural power.
This made the importance of oneâs skeletal frame skyrocket, which was also part of oneâs bloodline inheritance. Since the skeleton was something everyone was born with, it was impossible to change naturally. Of course, that was only if one stuck to natural means.
[Bone Swapping], a technique that was created at some unknown point by an unknown practitioner, but it had been confirmed beyond a doubt that if one found a high-quality bone, they would be able to use this technique to improve the natural density of oneâs bone.
It was difficult to determine what would be considered the most powerful bones in this world, but if a ranking was made, the bones of giants would definitely make it to the top 3.
â¦
âOne of three Gods from the First Flame, the bones of a Godâ Dolan D. Ashius silently muttered to himself.
His ancestor was an assassin of the Sacred Valley, which had been reconstructed before it was once again destroyed at the end of the Age of Flames, and the skeleton of the giant also broke and crumbled at that time.
The mountain-like gigantic skeleton of the giant ended up with only a few fragments of skull bone remaining to produce water for the Spring of Life, while the rest had already turned into mud and rock of the mountain.
Eventually, even the skull bone fragments were lost during the Age of Turbulence, becoming difficult to track down. Dolan Ashiusâ family had continued to hold onto this secret knowledge, never once giving up their search for the remains of the giant.
And finally during this generation, when he had finally found information regarding something similar to the Spring of Life, how could it not excite Dolan?
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