Novel Full Chapter 602: Clone
Chapter 602: Clone
To understand why Jester now stood in Aurora—and why he even had a body to inhabit—one had to trace events back a few hours earlier.
*
Michael exhaled and willed the skill to activate.
His body trembled as blood essence seeped from his skin, followed by torrents of mana and, finally, a shard of his very soul. Pain stabbed through him, nearly buckling his knees, but he held firm as flesh, bone, and veins wove themselves into form from the crimson mist.
He quickly realized he could strengthen the vessel further by pouring in more essence—but the backlash was immediate. His own attributes dimmed.
Immediately, Michael stopped the reckless drain.
Michael exhaled sharply as the last threads of essence settled into the forming figure. The crimson mist solidified into pale flesh, long dark hair cascaded down its back, and faint green light flickered in its eyes—an eerie, younger reflection of his own.
But as the body stood there, Michael felt something stir deep within him. His instincts whispered that this process wasn’t fixed. He could design it.
A shiver ran through him. He could sense countless branching paths—veins to reroute, bones to reinforce, meridians to sculpt differently than his own. If he wanted, he could mold this figure into something sharper, faster, harder. He could rebuild the very foundation of a human body.
Yet it was his first attempt. Recklessness now would mean destroying the vessel entirely—or worse, harming himself.
Michael forced restraint. He let the crimson mist morph naturally, copying his own structure.
Still, he made one deliberate change.
He opened every meridian. Not just the pathways that would let the body absorb mana for physical strength, but also the vital channels that marked a natural-born mage. He carved that much into the framework with careful precision, sweat beading his brow as he worked.
By the end, though, he realized there were limits. His blood, mana, and soul he let out could only provide so much. The result was a body that stood solid, but incomplete—strong, yes, yet capped.
Its physical power felt comparable to how he himself had been when he approached level 10. And while the physique was far stronger than ordinary humans, even bearing resemblance to the durability of a High Human, it wasn’t quite the same. More like a half-finished version, a shadow of the true form.
And then there was its age. Michael frowned.
The vessel peaked at fifteen. No matter how he tried to nudge the shaping process, it refused to age further. A teenager’s frame, locked in place.
Still, when he stepped back, he couldn’t help but acknowledge it.
Even with its limits, this was no failure. Far from it.
This body was… a genius.
The meridians were open, its foundation stable, its potential far beyond what its appearance suggested. Given time, it could grow into something terrifying.
Michael wiped the sweat from his brow and exhaled, his lips curling faintly.
“…Not bad for a first attempt.”
The figure before him said nothing, but its silent presence felt oddly alive—as if it were waiting for the next command.
Michael reached out with his will, testing the bond. At once, the new body stirred. His awareness slipped into it like water into a jar—and immediately clashed.
It wasn’t the body that resisted.
The problem… was him.
His soul didn’t align with the one in the body perfectly. Each movement felt jagged, like gears grinding against each other.
What should have been a smooth reflection of himself was instead messy, raw, barely holding together.
In the end, unlike what he thought, his inexperience did end up biting him.
“This isn’t right,” Michael muttered under his breath, pulling his awareness back.
Michael narrowed his eyes. “So… does that mean you’re a failure?”
The body blinked, then spoke for the first time—its voice eerily similar to his own, though softer, younger.
“Yes,” the body answered, its tone strangely calm. “I can feel it. In an hour at most, this soul will disappear, and the body will be empty. So in that sense, I am almost a failure.”
Michael was taken aback. His lips parted, but for a moment nothing came out. The boy speaking so clearly shook him—he hadn’t expected words at all. His chest tightened in a brief surge of panic, but he forced it down, suppressing the reaction as best he could.
“What can we do, then?” he asked after steadying his breath. His mind moved quickly, already weighing options. “Though I didn’t sacrifice much and will recover what I’ve lost, it feels like a waste to leave such a good vessel to collapse.”
The boy tilted his head, faint amusement flashing in his faint green eyes. “Then why not let Jester inhabit it? Hasn’t he been begging for a body all these days? Let this one’s fading soul be cleared, and using its last fragments as an anchor, allow Jester to take hold.”
Michael’s expression froze.
And that was basically what happened.
When Jester was summoned out of the Netherworld, and heard his master’s idea before scanning Michael’s body, he nearly “died” from excitement.
Among Michael’s undead, Jester was not only the most intelligent but also the most expressive when he wished to be. Yet his greatest trait, the one that defined him above all else, was his innate evil.
Jester’s presence slithered across their bond, and his voice followed.
“Magnificent… This body,” Jester hissed with awe, the sound oddly mechanical. “Its physique could almost rival certain innate constitutions in the cultivation world.”
Michael stiffened, still unused to hearing praise from the creature that usually only dripped with malice. But the words didn’t stop there.
When Jester’s awareness brushed against the vessel’s core, it faltered. For the first time since their bond, Michael felt something that almost resembled genuine emotion slip through their connection—a sharp, raw current of shock.
“Spirit roots…” Jester whispered. His tone was soft, yet it rang in Michael’s head with an intensity that made his temples throb. “Multi-rooted… dark and water. Hah…! The dark root is heaven grade, and the water root—earth grade. This… this is absurd.”
To cultivate, one required a spirit root—those hidden channels of affinity that determined whether a body could absorb and wield the world’s energy.
And spirit roots were ranked: low, mid, high, earth, heaven… and above them all, supreme grade, said to belong only to chosen prodigies fated for greatness.
Hearing Jester’s words, Michael realized what it meant for the vessel before him.