Julian found a quiet spot in the dense forest to regroup. Surprisingly, he encountered no further bone-wraiths or rival students from the House of Garrows. It seemed the foreign races had either been thinned out or were gathering elsewhere for the coming collapse.
Leaning against an ancient tree, Julian turned his consciousness inward to survey his haul:
The Spirit Bone Tower (A Grade-9 Building Artifact)
A Mysterious Grey Pouch
A Blank Jade Slip
An Unknown Palace (Grade-9 Building Artifact)
Inside the Hallowed Realm, things were progressing rapidly. Garrett had successfully mastered the first layer of the Way of the Pure Mind and stepped into the first stage of cultivation. Following his lead, the Brass Horizon Soldiers and the elite members of the Gear-Heart clan were deep in meditation. Their steam-vented, mana-fused armor hummed with a low frequency, their auras sharpening by the hour.
'A realm is only as strong as its people,' Julian mused. 'Once it expands, I'll need an endless supply of talent to fill the ranks.'
He pulled up his attribute panel to see where he stood:
Name: Julian
Race: Human
Realm: Mortal Level 9
Cultivation Technique: Nova Sovereign Technique (0/30,000)
Architecture: * Lotus Hallowed Realm (Grade 8) - 0/10,000
Green Cloud Palace (Grade 9) - 0/1,000
Gear-Heart Manor (Unranked) [+]
Iron Sage Statue (Grade 9)
Spirit Bone Tower (Grade 9)
Unknown Palace (Grade 9)
Destiny Points: 2,450
Julian's eyes landed on the Spirit Bone Tower.
Spirit Bone Tower (Grade 9) > Introduction: Crafted from the remains of high-level entities. Absorbs skeletal remains to forge Bone-Plated Exoskeletons and specialized bone weaponry.
A grin touched Julian's lips. "A mobile munitions factory." For any Master of a Hallowed Realm, logistics was the greatest hurdle. With this, he wouldn't just have soldiers; he would have an army clad in the literal remains of his enemies, fused with mecha-fantasy engineering.
He decided to hold off on the Iron Sage Statue; that would be his bargaining chip for the Moon Well back at the Royal Academy.
Next, he opened the grey linen pouch. His spiritual sense swept inside, revealing a mountain of glowing crystals. 500 Low-Grade Mana Stones.
"With these, I can finally establish a Spiritual Spring," Julian whispered. While 500 stones were a modest start, they were enough to create a permanent font of mana to power the reactors of his followers' gear and accelerate the cultivation of the 500 villagers he had just saved.
Finally, he pressed the white jade slip to his forehead. A complex, shimmering blueprint flooded his mind.
[The Mystic Soldier Pool]
Julian's heart hammered against his ribs. To turn a follower into a true Ascendant Soldier, a cultivation technique wasn't enough. You needed a Soldier Pool—a ritualistic structure that used Earthly Essence and rare materials to temper the body and soul.
He had heard of the legendary "Iron-Blooded Battalions" and "Yellow-Scarf Phantoms" in the Academy's archives, but the methods to create their respective pools were closely guarded secrets of the Great Clans. This blueprint gave him a foundation that even the House of Garrows would envy.
While Julian was organizing his gains, he arrived at the outskirts of an ancient city—Brass Horizon City. The air smelled of ozone and iron. Fresh blood coated the battlements, and the mangled, mechanical husks of bone-wraiths littered the killing fields below.
Inside the City Lord's Manor, the atmosphere was suffocating.
"Ben, have the monsters retreated?"
The speaker was a young man sitting in the high chair of the hall. He was calm, but his knuckles were white as he gripped the armrests.
Standing before him was a burly commander wearing heavy steam-powered plate armor. Piston-driven joints hissed as he moved, and his face bore a sixty-percent resemblance to Garrett. This was Ben, Garrett's elder brother.
"The ghouls have pulled back into the fog, my Lord," Ben reported, wiping gore from his visor with a rag. "But they aren't gone. They're waiting for something."
The young Lord looked out the window at the flickering sky. "What is happening to our world? First the sky cracks, then these... things appear."
"Sir, the people of Brass Horizon City are panicking," Ben said grimly, his voice echoing through his armor's vocal resonator. "And we've had no word from Arthur or the scouting party. They are likely lost."
He looked at the young Lord with desperate loyalty. "Sir, if they return with more of those giants, we cannot hold. What are your orders?"