Chapter 124: Upgrades

Y took the two chainsaw-edged swords and pressed on the accelerator, the inner workings of the swords smoothly worked together to create a rotation force and the chains began spinning to an incredible degree.

"Press the accelerator again," I said. And when Y did as told, the saw teeth spun even faster causing the whole sword to vibrate.

"The sword's balance is off, the motion makes it slightly hard to control." Y said.

"Good, that's all I needed to know, now give them back, I'll adjust them and give them back to you for further research," I said.

Once Y handed down the swords, I began inscribing more stuff on them, mainly the saw teeth katanas, they needed some sort of inscription to tone down the vibrations. As for the first two swords, a few inscriptions to manage the weight increase and stagnate it at certain levels was enough to make them perfectly usable for Y.

I gave the swords back to Y and we did several tests, and until I and him were perfectly satisfied with the swords did I finally moved to my next project.

X needs a bit more love. He has good powers but like I've seen back in the Celestial Realm, he had a hard time fighting against the Silver Back Ape. Since the Silver Back Ape was considered on par with a first-grade Soul Formation cultivator, and not Even X could beat it, this would mean that X is actually barely above Nascent Soul level and slightly less than Soul Formation level unlike what I first believed.

So I'll need to fix and adjust.

I made a copy of the same reactor that was in Y's chest and placed it inside X, though this went against my idea of separate minds, placed in each of X's limbs, this reactor will enable X to use even more power than before. His speed and attacks will increase exponentially.

I then restocked his almost depleted explosive canisters and upgraded his arsenal. His guns were made of good material, but the bullets were made of Meteorite Steel which was far too low in quality to actually cause any real damage to anyone above the Nascent Soul also, the bullets though I hate to admit this were just too slow.

And using the reactor, I could pump in more power into the rotation and propulsion inscriptions to increase their speeds instead of using the High-Grade Spirit Stones to do everything.

I also reinforced X's fists, knees, and elbows. Though I didn't teach X any martial arts, he was using his fists to deal most of his damage, and with sturdy reinforced fists, X's blows would carry more power.

I also removed a lot of redundant inscriptions and replaced them with Master Rain's inscriptions, as Master Rain's inscription, though they were complex, he was able to use one single inscription to do several functions. Though I'm still not on the level of creating sub-space inscriptions like Master Rain, I'm able to mimic the feat to great success and was able to release much space to add more improvement later on X.

Once everything was done and my puppets were upgraded, I started to work on myself. First things first, my Sea of Consciousness.

Zhang Tian had said that I needed to set up defensive measures, lest I end up with a foreigner easily accessing my sea of consciousness and causing harm there.

And since I didn't know how to do this, I headed back to the library to search for more materials regarding the Sea of consciousness and how to set up proper defenses.

The Lord of Lord's library was full of books regarding this very problem, and I began reading through many of them.

"Blade and Soul…" hmm sounds familiar.

I opened the book and began reading.

"… For the consciousness to gain power, one must use their mind like a honed blade and cut down any who tries to desecrate their mental space…"

Lots of words, but the meaning was obvious, it's basically imagining that you have a 'guardian' inside your mind and it will protect you. Well, let's see what the other books have to say.

I continued reading and realized that most of the books here actually spoke about the different ways they shared to do the same thing.

For example a book coming from a sword-oriented sect will have you learn how to use swords to protect your mind, while one coming from blades will have you see how blades can cut down your enemies inside your sea of consciousness.

Another related to inscription masters urges the reader to use inscriptions and formations inside their sea of consciousness to protect themselves.

The basic idea was that one had to use one's own imagination to create something that they have complete confidence in, then use it to break the attacks of enemies. But there was a huge problem with this method. Say a man who cultivates the sword created a sea of consciousness protected by swords, and a sword user who is on a much higher level invades them, the invader will easily fend off the defenses and be able to control the sea of consciousness.

So one's understanding of their own ability to use certain skills needed to be top-notch and above anyone who dares invade. This will push people to polish their skills and hone them…but.

I grinned as I laughed like a mad man.

"If understanding is required for one to invade and break defenses, then what if I make something that no one can ever understand even if they enter?"

I smiled and continued reading. Basically, everything in the sea of consciousness needs to be mentally created and mentally saved up, it's like splitting your mind in two, one on the outside and a portion on the inside to keep your imaginary world active and alive.

It shouldn't be too difficult, my mental strength is frighteningly high. All thanks to the tinkering I've been doing with formations, alchemy and formation creation. These side projects had slowly built up a powerful mind and with it I'm more than capable of multi-tasking. So creating a world inside my sea of consciousness shouldn't be hard. So, let's start.

I sat down in a meditative state and began imagining.

It felt like an author given a pen and paper, or a painter given a canvass and a brush. As I hovered over my sea of consciousness, I willed the Core to rise high until it was symbolic to a green sun.

Then I had the green sea turn darker, as if it had an endless depth. Then I began imagining a circular platform that floated over the sea of consciousness. Along the platform, high walls made of powerful concrete rose up and surrounded the whole platform. And withing the walls, massive factories rose up.

Then along the walls eight towers rose, and above the towers eight anti-flight rocket launchers manifested.

The factories constantly pumped up puppets that looked just like Y and X and along the walls of the platform, submarines and ships, even massive Carriers moved about.

And in the center of the platform rose a single tower that oversaw the whole creation. The tower had a single chamber at the top and in that chamber were dozens of screens and a single throne.

I teleported into the throne and began overseeing the creation of the whole fortress.

I added more and more details and began manifesting ships and fighter jets. 

Swords and blades and all that crap are good and all, but if the enemy knows what he is facing, he will have an advantage, but if he is assaulted with a modern army worth of destructiveness. He will have no idea what's going on and this will cause him to be warry. An advantage I cannot let go of.

Put a cultivator in a modern setting and you'll see him racking his brain trying to understand how rockets bullets and machine guns work. And I've set up all of that.

But this was not enough the moment I thought about creating offensive satellites I coughed as I was forced out of my mental fortress.

My head was going blank, it seems that I overtaxed my spirit trying to shove in more than what my Sea of consciousness can handle. 

I ate a couple of Soul Strengthening pills and went back to my Sea of Consciousness, thankfully everything was still there, but it seems that I'll be using about a third of my mental energy to keep this up. This is not bad, though it'll lower my ability in crafting and alchemy, on the long run, this will also empower my mental fortitude. This is like training.

Waking back into reality, I began my final preparation, I've upgraded my puppets, upgraded my mental state, and even managed to subdue the Heart Flame, but my cultivation level is still slightly low. As I'm barely at the fourth level of Core formation, and I'll be facing Vitra'Ghoul who is a nascent Soul cultivator. Since I still have about a month, I'll need to use it to create pills and eat them to increase my cultivation level.

Now, It's time to improve myself!