Chapter 120

120 Magic circle

Shi Chen felt a chill, a chill far greater than he had ever felt before, it was one that seemed to penetrate deeply into his very soul, although he had done simulated practice numerous times but this was the first time he had condensed the whirlpool so strongly, there was no going back success or failure depended on this moment.

Shi Chen fully understood the chill he felt was as a result of his proximity to the state of death, the loss of vitality and the instinctual fear of the body of death contributed to this extremely realistic illusion of a biting chill. Shi Chen did not bother struggling he just kept calm experiencing this rare feeling, He was aware that this phenomenon was one of the tools that would help him grasp his will.

The will was a very metaphysical concept and as a martial artist although he had become vaguely aware of its existence, he was nowhere near exerting its power or controlling it but that was about to change, although Layton was not an expert when it came to the connection between the body and soul but he could be considered fairly knowledgeable and he knew for a fact about a peculiar phenomenon which occurred in humanoid lifeforms in times of crisis or near death, a phenomenon in which the energy that makes up the soul is agitated and the information or memory of the individual is absorbed in order to unveil and strengthen the will, this peculiar phenomenon was one of the core reasons that allowed a sufficiently strong soul to exist without the body, the will strengthened by the memory and energy in the soul acted as the core and kept the soul’s integrity even after death.

Of course, not all souls had this opportunity as if the will to live was broken, the obsession lost, the grievance resolved then the soul would naturally collapse as the core which was the will was lost and unable to ensure its integrity.

Shi Chen as a genius martial artist had naturally made preliminary contact with his will and the breakthrough process was to ensure he was in this near death state in order for him to fully grasp this will and instil the will and the energy making up his soul into his body making them merge tightly together.

To fully come in contact and control your will was something that would naturally occur after one’s breakthrough to legend, the slow perfection of one’s domain and the attempt to understand the laws were all processes that would lead to one attaining full control and sublimation of will, the strength of the control of the will and the sense of laws were the factors that lead to different combat power in the legendary stage. The breakthrough method provided by Layton was one that was enabling Shi Chen to prematurely attempt to fully control his will, although the will was impure at this time but the completion of the breakthrough method and the emergence of the sacred flame would purify and sublimate his will enabling Shi Chen to possess immense combat power even though he had just become a legend.

This was one of the main reasons why Shi Chen wanted to use this breakthrough method to become a legend, the method would save him a lot of time and reduce the difficulty of the breakthrough to a deity and mastering of various laws.

Shi Chen soon came into full contact with his will and quickly drew it into his half dead body, although his body was in shambles but an extreme feeling of control and power came over him, he was instantly aware of all the hidden corners of his body, his vague perceptions about some aspects of the whirlpool and array he had constructed with them were instantly clear.

Gazing upon the numerous bright points filled with swirling vitality that were still spinning on their own individual axis, Shi Chen simply penetrated these whirlpools with his now abundant will and simply reversed them continuing his breakthrough.

.....

Layton who was observing all these quickly noticed Shi Chen’s actions and so he quickly brought out a gem from his pocket and threw it over Shi Chen. The thrown gem suspended itself in the air as a magic array rapidly emerged around Shi Chen.

The magic array was in no way simple, as countless complicated lines, runes and shapes emerged connected together shrouding the cross-legged martial artist, this complicated masterpiece was something that had taken Layton months to put together and deduct, it wasn’t a way to help Shi Chen complete his breakthrough but it was one which made use of his normal rune as a primer to copy all the information in its range, which meant the numerous whirlpools that were being reversed spewing out the sublimated basic runes hidden in Shi Chen’s blood were being copied, the profound changes as the met and collided together their evolution, adaptation and destruction being copied and pasted upon the expensive blank soul crystal gem that hosted the array. Of course, just copying and pasting would not require such a complicated magic circle but Layton required the circle to copy the information silently without disturbing Shi Chen and also the circle silently eliminated the imprints in the rune.

Runes most of the time were idealistic things which meant that they were influenced by who perceived and wrote them down, and Shi Chen was fundamentally a martial artist which meant the way he perceived and understood the runes would be slightly different from that of a wizard, this minute difference would normally mean nothing but since he was now in a breakthrough process, these differences would be enlarged. Layton’s magic circle using the peculiar nature of his psionic strived to eliminate this influence as much as possible.

The information being scanned and kept in the soul crystal gem was of vital importance to Layton, his ideas for his second rune were almost completed and this information was the last piece of the puzzle, all that was left now was simply experimentation. Apart from this, the gem filled with information could serve as a sort of magic implement allowing Layton to easily create and deploy various magic arrays within a moment’s notice.

Layton beckoned to the gem once he noticed the conflict within Shi Chen’s body had reached the final stage, sure enough a minute later a roaring blue white flame emerged from the martial artist body enveloping the surroundings and propelling his cultivation towards the legendary stage.