Chapter 34 - Mana Cultivation Stages, An Appearance For Domination

Numerous ranged attacks were blasted, aiming at the armored titan skeleton that was on its knee in the opposite direction.

Those barrages of high destruction were deflected by the magic shield of the Avalanche Bringer.

After the dust settles, the giant skeleton hurled its left arms to punish the attacker with a concentrated dark energy, branching into thousands of seeking murderous lines that could break through a dense mana shield from an Early Alcazar Foundation stage cultivators.

One of the savage warriors with a gunlance and shield managed to rush deep into the heart of the Calamities ranks. He was in his Peak Alcazar Foundation stage, slicing and gunning down Calamities with a ground breaking force.

To start with the stages—a cultivator started from the 'Mana Gathering' phase, a phase that began when a mortal managed to train their consciousness strings to perceive a wavelength of raw mana, hidden in space where they took the shape of fragmented tiny strings.

Those tiny strings were referred to as 'raw mana', they won't do or affect anything in its original state in which a cultivator will connect three or more of them to create a mini reactor that acts like a fusion energy.

The shape and the string's amount will determine the quality and quantity of the mana it will produce, too many and complex will force it to go through an unstable phase where it would literally explode and kill any reckless amateur, too simple will give a low amount of mana.

After gaining enough mana to nourish the barren miniature depository realm or athenaeum, a cultivator will begin to create a shell to be a vessel for their golden orb, this phase is called 'Hollow Orb'. There were many rules and laws that could be followed for this orb's vessel creation and each path will give different benefits and demerit to their user.

When the hollow shell is done, it's time for them to form their golden orb. This phase is called the 'Golden Orb' stage, at first it was called the Golden Orb Construction phase but because there were too many new cultivators in this stage and it's too long to be worded, the early pantheons shortened it instead.

Numerous cultivation laws have a very different method for acquiring and constructing the Golden Orb core. Mana have their own quality and it could be nourished and enhanced further, by streaming them through a Golden Orb.

But all of this needed one essential material for their miniature realm cultivation.

It's called 'Elemental Essences'.

Elemental essence is the unnatural byproduct from the elements available within reality and out, there are thousands of them but most cultivators were majoring on the basic elements like fire, water, soil, wind, darkness, light and lightning. Some of the unusual elemental essences were divine essence, which could be gathered from the ashes and remains of the Angels.

And another example if unusual elemental essences are 'void'. To harness these harmful substances, they need to adapt their biological vessel to atomic level. This breakthrough in knowledge was still being kept by MF for numerous years, clenching into it tightly for her to abuse it alone.

'void' is rich in nature but it serves no purpose for MF as she couldn't even access her athenaeum.

Although a cultivator could also create a golden orb that is dissimilar from their cultivation law's path, if it matches with the attributes of their mana realm.

Example, Elon's Fire Magnet Orb allowed him to extract fire into pure elemental essence and use them to fuel his fire based spell, elevating it further together with his mana.

And then we have Foel's Encapsulating Storage Orb where instead of nourishing, it coated the streamlined mana into a capsule so that it won't get absorbed by the numerous and parasitic black holes inside her athenaeum.

When the miniature realm stores a massive amount of mana, they will begin to replicate the real world equivalent of the cultivation law they took. From barren wasteland into a mountainous domain of volcano, a high stone windy cliff, a sea world or even a world of gold. As the sea began to develop and continents arose, unique cultivation plants, mystical beasts or even an anomaly could appear.

After creating their golden orb, finding the center and grasping the entirety of one's own current miniature realm, they will gain an enlightenment.

Then they will pass through a 'Nascent Realm Enlargement' stage. Where they will gather an insurmountable amount of mana to push their miniature realm and expand it using the World Catalyst, allowing more land and places to be utilized for both storing energy, and facility construction.

But this phase isn't simple.

To breakthrough, a cultivator must need to reach a bottleneck in the expansion speed. Many failed at this stage due to the premature development of their golden orb that couldn't nourish enough quality mana and material to fuel the World Catalyst.

A cultivator could enter their consciousness into their miniature realm at will. A good cultivator would try to grow numerous materials inside it and create numerous facilities and defenses to protect their athenaeum.

Why? Because a miniature realm could be invaded and most cultivators store their resources and spell circuits schematic within their miniature realm for them to utilize, nobody wants their hard worked, developed unique spell and formation to be stolen.

This led to the next stage, 'Alcazar Foundation' where cultivators strive to strengthen their miniature realm defenses by constructing a word-size structure of numerous inner devices to passively convert mana and all kinds of possible tools of imagination that could be conceptualized.

And the fact that an established miniature realm could spawn numerous hostile beings, a cultivator needs to conquer its own self. The process of conquering this vast and expanded world will be divided into Early, Mid, Late, and Peak.

This conquest didn't really need to build a world-size infrastructure as a requirement but it was deemed as the most efficient way of expanding while also researching their own athenaeum.

One could even tame the mystical beasts within to act as a guard or athenaeum nourisher, or even creating an autonomous servants, and split their consciousness to multitask with the real world and their miniature realm.

The path to usurpation has indefinite amount of branches!

Just like the burly man with no armor, only gunlance and shield charging into the heart of his nemesis siege. Because of numerous passive mana shield catalysts within his Peak Alcazar, he could even shrug off the attack from the weak bionic cannon variant with ease.

"HURRAAHHH!!"

But the dark branching lines of destruction managed to break his regenerative mana shield. With his strong shield artifact, he was able to deflect those deadly attacks into the ground, in the exchange of his shield being broken.

It left this warrior with no protection. The mana shield within his Alcatraz was still recharging, the feeble protection wasn't able to defend the incoming cannon's shell from the side.

With just one attack from the Avalanche Bringers, numerous great Usurpers were kissing their end without ashes and sackcloth. Mangled, barely had any comprehensible form.

MF changed her appearance again, she darkened her hair into an abyssal void and grew her height into a tall and dominating woman, together with massive assets.

To gain psychological advantage—domineering aura, MF dared to use everything at her disposal to make sure that her plan came to fruition.

"Are those giant tits even needed for our next step?" asked Foel with a deadpan voice that was tired of this body shaming. Her eyes are fixated onto those mountains at the height of her own gaze, they were barely contained within her short cloak, giving her a mixed feeling.

"A woman with big breasts signifies her maturity and wisdom." MF grinned sneeringly, with both of her wrists holding the weight of her assets. "Ever knew of a honeypot?"

MF's crimson eyes became redder as the base of her red eyebrows were hued to black from the middle to edges, enhancing the wise but aggressive glare with a devil grin.

Stroking her own head, Foel's lips felt extremely sour from hearing that word. "Is it needed for the next phase?"

"First impressions are everything." MF shrugged. "The Avalanche Bringer will tramp forward to instill fear, but a dead civilization was useless. That's where we come into play."

Unusual to MF, Foel eerily smiled as the pupils of her eyes shrank. "Fine, I'll let this slip. I'll just need kill everyone who oogles at you."

'Huwaa, she is scary, I hope she doesn't kill too many.'

With a sharp killing gaze, Foel commanded her gargantuan lackey with the titan's tongue, "For your first mission, you shall rain carnage upon those ants. Spare the massive infrastructure, but make sure you decapitate the lives outside of that fortification."

"As thee wisheth, master."

With the horde of never ending Calamity in their control, MF and Foel stride briskly into the heart of Citadel, unknown to many Usurpers with the use of a high concealment spell using the power of 5 of high-rank mana crystal. Basically, the power of money.

They pierced through the battlefield without being noticed. The Avalanche Bringer opened its jaw to gather dark energy, then hell was unleashed like no massacre ever done. Numerous Peak Alcatraz Foundation cultivators survived, but the weed had been shredded into dust.

Like hungry predators, MF and Foel were coming for the Director of Gaia Citadel.