Book 7: Chapter 286: Treasures (6)
Book 7: Chapter 286: Treasures (6)
The map wasn’t of some hidden treasure. Or, rather, it wasn’t of the kind of treasure Dyon expected.
The Death God Body had high offensive strength on its own, but what made it truly worth of the God grade were its auxiliary abilities, namely, the control of corpses.
In truth, this title of ‘corpses’ was misleading. Orcus wasn’t like those other corpse Clans and Sects who needed the minted body of a deceased. Orcus could create amazing warriors with just the skeletal remain of a beast or human if he so chose. In fact, he would often refine whatever flesh remained into bone, strengthening its durability and vitality to leave behind a black skeleton.
Not only did this give his creations an eerie and sinister appearance, it also strengthened them to inconceivable levels. Plus, some of the most powerful corpses are from ancient eras, but even the corpses of Higher Existences would last so long without decay. This gave Orcus an advantage others did not have.
This aside, the map Orcus left were actually locations where he hid his corpse armies.
After a Death God’s death, it obviously followed suit that their constitutions’ world would collapse. If this happened, then all of the corpses Orcus had painstakingly refined would disappear.
Dyon wondered for a moment why he hadn’t just kept the corpses with him, but in the next moment, he understood. Orcus didn’t want to stagnate while he was in this world. So, he left his corpse army in places where they could be slowly strengthened over time.
Although Orcus was a Higher Existence, none of his corpses had been. Refining a Higher Existence puppet was just too difficult. Even the mighty Elvin Kingdom which Orcus feared so much could only guard their tombs with peak dao Sentries.
Orcus hoped that by allowing his corpse army to be refined over trillions of years, he would eventually break the innate limitation of his corpses and allow them to enter the Half-Step Transcendent realm.
‘Is that the case?’ Dyon couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed. This disappointment wasn’t geared toward the map itself, of course. This map was a great thing. What disappointed him was the limitation of corpse puppets and puppets in general.
Dyon had been dreaming of having his clone command armies of hundreds of higher existence puppets, but clearly that was impossible. Even Orcus believed he was living a fool’s dream.
But, Dyon understood his madness. Orcus wasn’t able to transcend because he was injured while becoming a higher existence. Had he had Higher Existence puppets, would that have ever been a problem? Of course not.
Unfortunately, becoming a Higher Existence wasn’t reliant on qi absorption or strength, but rather, comprehension! How could a corpse or puppet comprehend anything?
‘So birthing a corpse spirit is the only way to break through this limitation, but birthing such a spirit is far too difficult, even Orcus never succeeded…’
This was why Orcus was so enraptured by Dyon. He believed that because Dyon’s intelligence was so high, if he paid a price to preserve Dyon’s consciousness, he might finally have a chance to birth a higher existence puppet. However, even then, he wasn’t certain. The process of refining a corpse even if the mind is protected would still stunt the growth of said corpse. Dyon would lose an unknown percentage of his talent during the process. Even if Orcus caught a Higher Existence who was still alive and refined them into a puppet, their cultivation would still fall from the ranks of Higher Existences.
In the end, Orcus left his corpse army, even while fearing they might be discovered by others, all in hopes that just one of his works would birth a corpse spirit. In order to accomplish this, he left them in the most death qi dense areas he had ever discovered, even leaving a few within the tomb of the Pride Clan he found the baby skull in…
However, even after all of this and with trillions of years having passed, Orcus was still not confident in his success.
Dyon sighed. ‘Still, it is worth it to check these locations out. Many of these universes have long since been destroyed and don’t exist anymore… If we take account of universe, planetary and star orbits, only two of these locations are within the tower quadrants. Aside from them, there are only five others, two of which are within the Ancient Battlefield and shouldn’t have moved at all, while the last three are within… The Devil Quadrants…’
In truth, Dyon should have expected this. What better place for death to thrive that alongside devil path cultivators? Dyon would likely leave the Ancient Battlefield and Devil Quadrant locations for last and try his luck with the two within the tower quadrants.
Dyon didn’t know exactly how large Orcus’ collection was, but from what he could glean, Orcus likely had countless lower dao corpses, less middle dao corpses, but still a substantial amount, while his higher corpses wouldn’t number more than a few dozen, while his peak dao corpses would be less than a half dozen.
Of the several dozen locations that originally existed, only seven remained, so these numbers were definitely far less than this.
With the map safely stored away, Dyon had gone through all of Orcus’ most prized treasures. Now, all that was left were the ominous booklets that almost hid from Dyon’s perception. He hadn’t felt this way since the hamster twins first hatched.
Dyon gingerly picked up the first booklet. A swath of death qi immediately assaulted him, but he was able to remain calm. Had he not comprehended any death will of his own, it would be a problem. But, luckily, he had.
Surprisingly, the first booklet detailed a body refinement technique. It could be considered a lower divine grade technique if stated properly. However, despite having techniques that supposedly surpassed it, Dyon was ecstatic.
Before, he hadn’t had any systematic way of refining his body. He could only put it through torturous pain and then heal it before repeating. This method was incredibly crude and inefficient, but now he finally had a hard-set guide!
The rarity didn’t need to be stated… Even the Demon Sage didn’t have such a manual and could only blindly progress just like Dyon. Yet, Orcus had a divine grade technique!