Chapter 1618 Mantras

Leonel nodded to himself and spent some time explaining his thoughts to Aina. When she understood this, she, too, frowned.

This would be especially difficult for Aina. That's because Aina was inherently an instinct-first kind of fighter. Too much of her strength was reliant on the subconscious. Bringing these things to a state of conscious thought would be many times more difficult for her.

"It's still not set in stone," Leonel said. "I know too little about this and there may very well be a different process depending on the Force in question or even the person themselves."

"Mm…" Aina nodded, falling into her own thoughts.

As she did so, Leonel looked toward the other items related to his Scarlet Star Force. Unsurprisingly, a large majority of them were designed to defend against it. There was even a technique that boasted to have such strong defense that even Scarlet Star Force wouldn't be able to make a path through it.

Leonel's eyes landed on a tattered sword. It had lost its tip and it was cracked in several places, and yet it had a price tag of over ten billion.

Leonel wasn't a swordsman, so the weapon itself was meaningless to him. And, even if it had been a spear, his Spear Domain ring would have shattered it. He might have only had some interest if it was a bow or arrow… At least initially.

But Leonel still gave it a second look for one simple reason: why would a broken sword appear here? He got his answer the moment he read the description.

According to what was here, this sword used to have a core formed by a small vein of Scarlet Star Force. Apparently, this vein shattered and ruined the integrity of the sword, making it incredibly weak. Now, it was barely as strong as a Silver Grade weapon.

The description was benign, but when Leonel read this, his brows shot up.

This description seemed to imply that the sword was just fine despite having such a vein within it, and Leonel found that very difficult to accept.

When Leonel tried forging with Destruction Runes, the weapon in question didn't even last a few seconds before disintegrating. But this sword had survived with a Scarlet Star vein inside of it?

A Force Vein in this context was essentially a piece of Force Crystal. This meant that this sword had been able to conjure Scarlet Star Force and avoid damaging itself in the process. In its prime, it had been a Life Grade item. But now, it had been destroyed.

'… Interesting…'

Leonel added the sword to the list. He had a feeling that if he studied it, and Dream Sculpted it, he would be able to get a peak at exactly how the sword managed to retain its integrity. In addition to that, he might also fight out some secrets that would help him deepen his understanding of his Scarlet Star Force and help him to further progress.

Leonel swept his gaze over the items once more just to check if he would find anything interesting and his eyes landed on a tattered beast cloth that made his eyes pop out of their sockets. This wasn't because of what was written on it, but rather the price tag.

It was double the price of anything he had added to the list until now and sat at 200 billion. That would eat away another 10% of the funds the two of them had.

'So it's a Mantra fragment… I see…'

Leonel didn't expect the Mantra fragment for Scarlet Star Force to be so absolutely ridiculous. It was just a small piece of it and it only had the complete method for the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Dimensions, a level Leonel was already at, yet it cost so much. Wouldn't he go bankrupt if it was the full thing?

Leonel shook his head and began to go through his Forces one by one and added the partial Mantra to the very bottom of the list. It would be the easiest to ignore by far.

Once he was done, he moved on to his other Forces.

He looked through the items for Dream Force, Emulation Spatial Force, Vital Star Force, Void Star Force, Aurora Star Force and Ethereal Star Force.

He found another fragment for Void Star Force which also cost 200 billion, but this time Leonel knew he couldn't afford to miss out on it. He had his Innate Node for Scarlet Star Force, and although the Mantras might hold the secret to Force Manipulation, there were simply too many other useful things here.

His Void Star Force, though, didn't have an Innate Node he could rely upon. So although this was just the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Dimensional layers, it was far too useful to ignore.

He added it to nearer the top of the list, but he was also prepared to give it up if it really came to it.

As for the other Forces, they were far cheaper, relatively anyway.

Leonel wasn't sure why, but Dream Force items were exceptionally cheap. It didn't make much sense since Dream Force was an exceptionally high level Force, no less than a True State Force. But for whatever reason, there were a large amount of items and they were also inexpensive.

The only unfortunate part was that most of them required one to be able to manifest Dream Force outside of their bodies, something Leonel could not do before.

The good news was that Leonel should finally be able to do so at least through his new Emulation Spatial Force Innate Node.

In the end, though, most of the techniques here could have their function replaced by Leonel's ability to project his Dream World.

With Emulation Spatial Force and his Dream World, he would finally be able to give his projections a real form. And, with his high Dream Force affinity, he should be able to use it to a better degree than Thaela… should he catch up with her Force Manipulation abilities, that is.