Chapter 434: Delving into Spiritual Sight

Technically Omilaena was engaged with developing their final trump card, but honestly she was barely using a fraction of her mind for that. Access to a major sect's resources didn't come every day, so she was mostly working on her own projects.

Making the agreement with the dryad matriarch had gotten her a special command medallion that granted her more access, and surprisingly a sort of chakra illusion she hadn't seen before. So long as Omilaena wore the necklace of silver leaves, she would look like a demure little Cloudfire woman. Her official identity was a new outer sect member who was a soil specialist and thus needed to help the dryads.

That got her into the sect headquarters, and most importantly, she could access the archives. Omilaena was enjoying absorbing all the information, because it was proving more useful than expected. She had learned some interesting cultivation tricks back in the Pureflower sect, but they were so dedicated to purity and feminine arts that it had been somewhat redundant with she already knew.

These archives, however, contained scrolls from a great many sects under the Masterful Crown clan. The Purple River scrolls had interesting thoughts on Cloudspire poisons, the theoretical counterpart to the practical experience she'd already earned. Lots of arboreal techniques from the Verdant River sect, physical manuals from the Deepriver sect, and flashy qi techniques from the Heavenly River sect. The only thing absent was information on presence techniques or the deepest secrets of the Masterful Crown clan.

How long had it been, a week? Omilaena reluctantly spent a while figuring out the next step in applying her poisonous essence to a disease, then left the archives to return to the garden. At first she had been concerned about the illusion, but none of the cultivators gave her a second glance.

"Took you a while," Nymidria said when she returned to the garden. "Having trouble?"

"This is complex work," Omilaena told her. "Your use of chakra is distinctly different from how it's done on Rosemount, so-"

"There's no need to lie to me. I know you're going on tangents." Nymidria smiled lazily. "And I don't blame you. Given access to a resource like this, what cultivator wouldn't take advantage? Since the young masters will take a long time to notice any of our distractions, we're not in a particular hurry."

"Ah. If there's no need to pretend..." Omilaena sat down in a chair and propped her legs up on the nearest tree. "I think I can do what you need, and it won't be particularly difficult. The real issue is making the disease transfer from tree to tree, even over the barrier wall."

"I can handle that. Believe me, I've been working on it for a while."

"In that case, the only potential problem is if our disease isn't strong enough to harm the sacred trees. I could tell the trees inside the barrier are qi-rich, practically medicinal herbs on their own, so surely the trees growing from the Loam of the Gods are even stronger. Not just any disease could touch them."

"Actually, I'm not sure that's true." Nymidria lounged against one of her branches and watched her idly. "The Verdant River sect has actually been extremely defensive in the past when it comes to arboreal diseases, suggesting that they have reason to be afraid. Maybe the Loam can make them grow fast and concentrated, but not necessarily immune to threats."

"Mm, maybe. You'd be the one to know."

They were silent for a time, Nymidria cultivating in her strange tree-like way while Omilaena considered all her different projects. If she didn't have to fake working on the disease all the time, she could actually dedicate more time to figuring out some other details. The Deepriver Physique texts weren't particularly shocking, but she might be able to figure out a little more for Zin Nim. Or, if the plan was to exploit her present resources...

"That spiritual sight of yours is impressive." Omilaena took her feet off the tree and sat back up. "We're used to people being terrible with shrouds here, and I don't think you learned that on Deadwaste. So where does that come from?"

"It's my own creation, but I was inspired by some techniques from the Dark Crown sect." Nymidria didn't seem upset by the tangent and looked over at her with interest. "Did you know that spiritual sight, as we use it, is actually unnatural?"

"Not to get too philosophical, but unnatural in what sense? People who become strong enough all develop some spiritual senses, even if they don't train them. Hell, some sacred beasts have something like spiritual sight."

"Ah, but that's the unnatural part. Yes, anyone with real power begins to sense the strength of others, but that isn't the same as a refined spiritual sight. You've no doubt seen how some cultivators mostly just see someone's cultivation stage, with only a vague sense for the rest of their power. Many cultivators can't even see Soul Level at all."

That last detail was actually fascinating, and Omilaena sat forward and began focusing fully on the conversation. She'd known that Nymidria was curious, otherwise she never would have left Deadwaste for another continent. But it was good to find that there was a scientific, systematic mind inside that tree... given some of their conversations, Omilaena had begun to hope.

"This natural sight is different from the more precise version," Nymidria continued. "You could think of it as learning an entirely different way to see. People who are born in particularly energy-dense areas, or fed a lot of power from birth, can actually have more difficulty developing spiritual sight. It's like they've already learned the broad instinctual methods and can't re-teach themselves how to use their eyes."

"I guess that accords with what some groups on Rosemount do," Omilaena said. She began tapping her fingernails against her thigh, barely aware that she was doing it. "So you've managed to exploit this fact to... sharpen your spiritual sight, somehow?"

"Now you're making me wish that I'd written things up properly. I could show you to the scrolls I mentioned earlier, the ones that inspired me. It'd be interesting to get your opinion, actually."

"I'd like that."

A day later, Omilaena had read an enormous number of scrolls and grasped the new techniques. It was as if power was light, incredibly easy to see but sometimes washing out details. Lazy warriors just roughly judged how bright the light was, while most methods of spiritual sight could resolve that light into the symbols that their mind then interpreted as different components of power.

The revelation, which she had to thank Nymidria for, was that you could go even further. Filter out more of the brightness and refine your vision. For seeing through shrouds, it was just a bit like squinting, ignoring the light to peer beyond. Beyond that, however...

Omilaena quickly realized that she wasn't going to grasp that technique in a few days. It was one of those annoying abilities that was less about intellectual knowledge than building up spiritual muscles through repetition. Later on she'd force herself to go through with it, but for the time being she was working on a new pair of goggles. Not to see more, but to see deeper.

When she finally pulled them on over her eyes, for a while she was almost blind and the world was rendered as murky blobs. All she could make out was Nymidria, who was fortunately her primary test subject. As she examined her, Omilaena saw not her obvious strength, but the soul underneath...

<

Name: Nymidria

Physique: Arboreal Mortal (500 year lifespan)

Soul: Mortal

Supremacy: None

Talent Capacity: Unawakened

Elemental Capacity: Iron Bark

Essence Capacity: Dryad

Cultivation Capacity: Path of Cloudspire

>

The result was so much like Omilaena's theories that for a moment she was afraid she was deluding herself, only seeing what she wanted to see. Using her spiritual sight like this, the symbols in reality were even vaguer and less formed, so there was some interpretation involved. But over time, she managed to convince herself that she really was seeing what she thought.

Just like the alien source had said, there were seven different aspects of the soul, from the mysterious "Supremacy" to the obvious capacities for power. Nymidria had fully awakened her Essence and Cultivation capacities, whereas she wasn't using her Talent capacity at all and the Iron Bark filled up her Elemental capacity.

That suggested that she had developed the Iron Bark enhancement by continually refining some substance, either something related to bark or her own nature. That was clever, yet Omilaena felt like it wasn't really optimal. She had seen many cultivators who had enhancements that didn't fill up their Cultivation capacity, so there were multiple ways of doing this...

"If you keep staring like that, I'm going to get self-conscious." Nymidria regarded her with a wry smile. "Looks like you finally figured it out, though you had to make a magical item to do it."

"Just a tool." Omilaena took the goggles off dismissively. "That Iron Bark of yours is impressive. How did you do it?"

"We can talk about that in great detail later, if you really want, but I'm more interested in talking about your Azure Core."

"Ah, so you had an ulterior motive for all of this."

"Of course." Nymidria gestured at the sect around them. "I came here to attain greater power, and for a time I thought cultivation would be my path upward. But when I realized they would never give me enough qi to reach Sky Soul, I searched further. I've had great success with finding new paths for the physical body... but the soul remains beyond me."

"Seems like we both want an exchange." Omilaena laced her fingers together over her knee. "I should be direct with you and say that I developed my Azure Core relatively recently, based on new theory that doesn't perfectly match yours. But this can likely be a fruitful relationship."

"Good to hear. What does your new sight tell you about yourself? Any new insight there?"

That was a good question. Omilaena put her goggles back on and tried to look at herself, only to see nothing but her familiar soul.

<

Name: Omilaena

Total Power: 1326

Heart of Poison: Level 85 (340)

*Prana Jewels: Level +5 (20)

Lethal Artisan: Spinel Rank (295)

Ice Refinement (102)

Path of Venomsteel: Step 9 (135)

Physique: D-9 (245)

Soul Level: 8 (64)

Azure Core (+125)

>

No, that was her old habits taking precedence. Omilaena tried to push past that, through the raw light of her power, to the shadowy symbols underneath. The goggles weren't quite enough, and she needed to lean on the new techniques she'd been learning, but eventually she made herself out.

<

Name: Omilaena

Physique: Enhanced Mortal (200 year lifespan)

Soul: Enhanced Mortal (250 year lifespan)

Supremacy: None

Talent Capacity: Path of Venomsteel

Elemental Capacity: Heart of Poison

Essence Capacity: Lethal Artisan

Cultivation Capacity: Ice Refinement

(Azure Core)

(Prana Jewel Bond)

>

Her capacities were exactly what she had expected, and just as she'd hoped, she was perfectly balanced with all four in use. There were several fascinating new pieces to the puzzle, such as the longevity numbers she saw listed. Apparently her Physique and Soul were both still mortal, but she was on track to live for a couple centuries.

Curiously, her soul was listed with a higher number than her body... what did that even mean? Nymidria had a high physical lifespan but a normal soul lifespan, so it couldn't mean a person died as soon as either number was up. For now, Omilaena just interpreted it as how much the parts of their nature had been strengthened beyond normal mortals.

Fuck, she really needed to use this technique on more people, especially immortals. It would be fun to use on Zin Nim, and Kai... actually, sight like this could be a concern for Kai. It didn't seem like Nymidria had been able to see through to his monstrous soul or she would have made a bigger deal about it, but it was possible that someone else in the future might. They were very fortunate that he'd spent so much effort covering that side of himself with other powers.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Nymidria was still watching her, with an odd smile on her face. "The cultivators think this is all foreign superstition, so you're the first person to actually delve into this with me."

"It's definitely interesting," Omilaena said, "but I'm not sure it's completely right. I think this is a true angle on the soul, but it can't see everything. The real soul is even more complex, with other facets that aren't fully captured by the seven aspects. For example, these jewels I'm wearing are a magical artifact and they have a bond with my soul."

"Well then... sounds like we could have an interesting conversation."

"Yes, yes I think we can..."