Chương 127: Leaf Storm OR Rootbind?

I stood there in my inner world staring at the array of incomplete runes floating in front of me. The Symphony Shield formation had been a huge breakthrough for my formation studies but there was still a ridiculous amount of work for me to get done.

"Azure, let's review the runes we need to weave now."

"You have a couple body runes planned out, the Scorpion Tail, the Tracker, and the Shockwave runes."

"Those can wait for now. Body runes are useful and all, but they are dependant on which vessel I'm using. The inner world runes..." I waved my hand at the array floating in front of us, "these will follow me across different worlds so they are the priority." Azure shifted and brought up ghostly images of rune patterns in the air in front of us.

"First up is Hawk Eye," I mumbled while I leaned in to take a closer look at it.

"It gives enhanced vision and the ability to zoom in on targets that are far away, plus it gives improved spatial awareness, so putting all of that together should let me predict how my opponents are going to attack me."

"And then we have Overclock." I pointed over to the next pattern, which was a dizzying array of lines intersecting that looked like a computer circuit board.

"It gives me a temporary boost pushing me past my normal limits. It's useful but it's definitely the most dangerous one out of the bunch if something ends up going wrong."

"Which is why you aren't going to use it unless it is a last resort... Master?" I gave him a nod because I honestly had zero intention of accidentally injuring myself to get a temporary power up.

"Rootform," I kept going and examined this earth-toned pattern.

"It will let me transform my arm into a giant mass of roots and branches…" Yggy instantly perked up when I mentioned that one, and its little tendrils started forming this enthusiastic shape.

"And then finally, we have our two candidates for the fourth slot." I looked back and forth between the last two patterns floating there.

"Rootbind versus Leaf Storm." Yggy immediately twisted its body up into something that looked like a 'vote' pose where it was pointing straight at the Rootbind pattern.

"Why am I not surprised by that?" I let out a chuckle while reaching my hand out to pat the closest tendril.

"What do you think about it, Azure?"

"I believe Leaf Storm offers you a lot more tactical flexibility," Azure said, sounding thoughtful.

"Rootbind would enhance the abilities you already have, whereas Leaf Storm opens up new possibilities for both your offense and defense. Being able to create and control thousands of sharp leaf-blades all at the same time could be invaluable during group combat situations." Yggy vibrated hard to show it disagreed and it formed a bunch of shapes that roughly translated into saying roots are stronger and they have more control and make better traps.

I couldn't stop myself from smiling at how they had opposite viewpoints on it.

"You both make some good points. Rootbind would enhance what I can do using the Primordial Wood Arts. But the big problem is..." I took a pause trying to figure out the best to explain it to a vine.

"That's the reason why I am leaning more towards doing Leaf Storm." Yggy deflated a little bit, so I quickly kept talking.

"Look buddy, I already have some decent control over roots by using the Primordial Wood Arts. Yeah, I know they are stubborn and I need to practice more, but that is my point. I need to practice using the stuff I already have before I start adding more complexity on top of it. Plus, with the Rootform rune I can transform my arm into a root anyway." I pointed my finger over at the Leaf Storm pattern.

"But leaves? Sure, I can technically manipulate them using the wood arts, but they are so different from using vines or roots that I never found a good use for them in a fight. This rune could change that." The pattern shifted around a tiny bit while I was examining it and I could almost see all the crazy possibilities, like having thousands of leaves flying around like razor-sharp blades to form shields or attack people from a bunch of different angles at once.

It reminded me of this anime I watched before, the one with the guy whose sword turned into cherry blossoms, except this would be leaves instead of an illusion.

"The versatility you get from it would be a game changer," I kept explaining.

"Especially if we combine it with the Symphony Shield formation. We could set up layered defenses and use the leaves to probe around for weak spots or launch big synchronized attacks." Yggy looked a little dejected with its tendrils drooping down sadly.

"Hey," I told it softly while reaching out to stroke its main stem.

"We are definitely going to do a lot of work with roots too. The Rootform rune is one hundred percent happening, we just aren't doing it this second. We have to prioritize whatever is going to be the most useful thing for the team training coming up." That seemed to perk my vine buddy up a little bit.

"So which rune should we start off with, Master?" Azure asked me. I studied the glowing patterns again.

"Overclock can wait since I won't need anything like that for team training. Let's start things off with Hawk Eye and then we can move on to Leaf Storm after. Both of those are different from any of my current abilities. Rootform sounds amazing but I seriously doubt we will have enough time to inscribe it before my training starts."

"Very well." Azure brought the Hawk Eye pattern up to the front and expanded it out so we could clearly see every tiny detail on it. The rune was made out of all these curved lines that intersected with some straight lines, and the thing was wrapped up inside this circular pattern that kind of reminded me of an eyeball's iris.

"It almost looks like a camera lens," I murmured while I studied how all the different elements connected together.

"Except it looks organic. The outer ring is what handles the focus, and then these curved lines probably deal with the light sensitivity, and these straight sections sitting..." I traced them using my finger.

"They have to handle the processing and enhancement part."

"That is correct," Azure confirmed it for me.

"The pattern is designed so it works naturally with your own visual processing systems instead of trying to override them. Which is what makes it a lot more stable than a lot of the alternative options." I ended up spending the next few hours sitting there studying the pattern, trying to understand how every line connected up and what its job was supposed to be.

This was always the most crucial part about doing rune crafting, because rushing in without having a proper understanding of it was a guaranteed recipe for causing a massive disaster. The inscription process took up most of the next day. It was incredibly delicate work because making the slightest mistake could easily ruin the pattern, and though working inside my inner world was a lot safer than inscribing it onto my physical body, it wasn't something you could be careless about doing.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Finally, after hours of trying, the last line clicked into place. The pattern gave off a brief glow before it finally settled down into a steady and subtle luminescence.

"Well done," Azure congratulated me.

"But we should test it out in the physical world to be certain it works." I gave a nod and shifted my consciousness back into my quarters sitting on Azure Peak. The small room wasn't much to look at, but it did have a window that gave a pretty decent view looking down at the training fields below which made it perfect for testing out my new enhanced vision. Taking a deep breath, I activated the Shroud rune first so I stayed hidden, and then when I activated the Hawk Eye rune, the world shifted around me.

All the colors instantly became so much richer and deeper which revealed subtle variations that I never knew existed before. Distant objects that were already pretty clear to my cultivator vision suddenly showed off microscopic details, I could count the individual barbs sitting on a bird feather from hundreds of meters away, I could easily spot these subtle patterns of wear and tear on the roof tiles all the across the training grounds, and I could even track how the tiny dust motes were moving through the air.

"This is amazing," I murmured while focusing my eyes on a group of disciples who were practicing off in the distance. Their movements were already clear before but now they revealed new layers of detail, like the minute little shifts in their balance and the positioning of their fingers, and the way their robes were rippling through the air whenever they did a technique.

"The enhancement is seriously remarkable, I can predict their next moves now but..." I winced a little bit because a dull ache started building up behind my eyes.

"It's going to take me a while to get used to using this."

"Master, without having a strong constitution, trying to process this much additional visual information all at once is taxing on the brain. I suggest you limit your initial uses of it to short little bursts until you can build up a proper tolerance for it." I nodded while I experimented with a few different aspects of my new enhanced vision. Switching my focus around between extreme distances was instant, there was no need for that usual little moment of adjustment that my regular sight always required.

My peripheral awareness, which was normally sitting around 120 degrees thanks to me being in Qi Condensation, was now extended all the to nearly 180 degrees and it had the same crystal clarity as my forward vision did. The sheer level of detail was honestly almost overwhelming, because I could simultaneously track a random leaf falling off a distant tree while reading some disciple's practice manual from fifty meters away at the same time.

After about thirty seconds of doing that, the mild headache I had grew into something more insistent, so I had to deactivate the rune. The world instantly returned to my regular vision, which was still beyond mortal limits but now it strangely felt incomplete after I got to experience the rune's crazy enhancements.

"Right," I said while rubbing on my temples.

"I definitely need to work on my stamina with that one. The physical enhancement is incredible but the energy drain from it is proportional."

"So that is one down and one more to go." Azure murmured when I returned into my inner world. This next one was significantly more challenging to do. Where Hawk Eye had been all about doing enhancement and processing stuff, Leaf Storm was about creation and control. The pattern for it was a complex spiral made out of intersecting lines where every section represented a different aspect of manipulating leaves, like creation and movement and hardening and coordination.

"Well, this is going to be fun," I muttered, while studying the ridiculously complicated pattern. Yggy, who was apparently over its earlier disappointment now, formed this encouraging pattern sitting beside me. It took me nearly two days just to wrap my head around all the pattern's complexities. And then the inscription process ended up being more demanding to do than Hawk Eye had been. I literally lost count of how many times I attempted to make it work.

Every failure managed to teach me something new at least, but it was still frustrating having to sit there watching pattern after pattern collapse or destabilize in front of me. Azure stayed there providing me steady guidance the time, pointing out all the potential improvements and catching my mistakes before they could turn into critical failures. Finally on the night before team training was scheduled to start up, the thing all came together perfectly and the pattern stabilized.

"We are cutting it a bit close here," I murmured while watching the completed rune with a weird mixture of satisfaction and exhaustion.

"But you did it," Azure pointed out.

"Would you like to try testing it out now?" Returning my consciousness back into my physical body, I activated the Leaf Storm rune after I made sure the red sun's energy was masked by the Shroud Rune. First, I tried creating some leaves by using the red sun's energy, and suddenly leaves began forming out of the air, they were translucent at first but then they solidified into proper solid shapes.

"This is interesting," I murmured while I kept creating more leaves until I had around forty of them hovering in the air all around me. They moved around smoothly whenever they responded to my thoughts, and they formed all these various patterns and tight formations.

"The control I have over them is a lot better than what I was expecting."

"The rune acts like an interface for you," Azure explained.

"It provides a proper framework for your energy to naturally follow, which makes the creation and control of the leaves more efficient. Although trying to maintain this many of them still requires a significant amount of concentration." He was right about that. While I could easily keep all forty leaves moving around, trying to execute complex maneuvers with every leaf individually would be pushing my limits hard.

Still though, I managed to create a nice defensive spiral pattern and then I shifted it straight into an attack formation without losing my control over any of the leaves.

"Alright, let's try working with some existing leaves," I said while reaching my senses out to the potted plant sitting on my desk. This part was tricky. The natural leaves resisted me at first because they were clinging to their own usual patterns of movement. When I finally managed to lift a few of them up into the air, their movements were a lot more erratic.

"That is as expected," Azure observed.

"Natural leaves have their own inherent life patterns that you have to overcome. They require less energy to manipulate because they exist in the world, but you need a lot more finesse to control them properly." I gave a nod while I gradually worked my way up until I was controlling about twenty of the natural leaves alongside my created ones.

The difference between them was obvious, the created leaves moved around like they were extensions of myself, while the natural ones required me to give them constant adjustments and extra attention so they didn't fall.

"The energy cost is significantly different between them too," I noted, feeling how much more red sun energy it took for me to maintain my created leaves when compared to the borrowed ones. I did a quick mental calculation and realised that I could probably maintain around forty created leaves for several minutes straight, or I could manipulate a larger number of existing leaves for longer, assuming I could keep all of them under my control.

"Maybe using a combination of both would be the most effective," Azure suggested.

"You could use the created leaves to do precise attacks and defense, and then supplement them using the natural ones whenever it is needed." I went ahead and tested this theory out, using my created leaves to form up a tight defensive pattern while I used the natural leaves to do broader and sweeping movements on the outside. It worked surprisingly well, although trying to keep track of both types simultaneously was mentally taxing on my brain.

"That's good enough for now," I decided, carefully dissolving all my created leaves and returning the natural ones straight back to their places on the plant. The desk ended up having a few new scratches on it, but it was nothing too noticeable.

"I can get some more practice in tomorrow." I looked up at the sky outside which was pitch-black now and I let out a sigh. Like I had expected before, there wasn't enough time left for me to inscribe the Rootform or Overclock runes, but that was fine. Those could wait until after I properly tested out these new additions first.

"I think it's time to get some rest," I decided, feeling the mental fatigue from days of intense concentration hitting me at once.

"Tomorrow's team training should be fun."

"Do you plan on testing out your new runes during the combat, Master?"

"Yeah, along with the Symphony Shield," I confirmed.

"Instead of me playing the support role this time, I want to see how Wei Lin and Lin Mei handle supporting roles while I take on something a bit more challenging. It's the best to test if everything is working together properly."

"That is a very sound strategy," Azure agreed.

"Though perhaps we should wait until the morning comes to plan out the specifics." I let out a chuckle because I was already feeling my exhaustion rapidly catching up with me.

"Yeah, that's wise. Goodnight Azure. Goodnight Yggy."

"Goodnight Master," Azure replied back to me while Yggy formed up this sleepy-looking spiral pattern.