“A potential Brave is found within Hartina Kingdom. Initiate project [Wild Hunt], you can decide what to do with them at your own discretion…” was the original timeline’s message.

It was short, but full of content. Hiding a telepathic message inside someone’s will across multiple timelines is already pushing it. It was almost a miracle that it got delivered successfully. In fact, the lump of light also contains traces of messages from the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th timelines, but they are swept away in the river of time.

“Even if you say that… I don’t know who the fuck is the potential Brave…” Shion muttered in disappointment. She got her hands full in taking the Combat Exosuit Minor Inheritance at the moment, she could not start project [Wild Hunt] without sufficient information regarding the potential Braves. 

Though, her disappointment does not make her lose her objective. Any potential Brave is an enemy that she could not ignore. It is best if she could kill or convert them into either her allies or a weak enemy. She did not blame her future self for not elaborating further.

Because he must’ve tried to work around the world’s karmic retaliation.

Planning across timelines is a hassle, karmic retaliation from the world could somehow make things worse. And so, Shion’s future self could not elaborate his plans in a detailed fashion. However, knowing that there’s a potential Brave in Hartina Kingdom itself is already a good start. There are a handful of countries in the Land of Autumn Rain, it made things easier for her to know her target is in this country.

At the very least, Shion should be able to reduce, convert, or even steal karmic luck of the potential brave, allowing her to be more aggressive later when she breached the dimensional walls of this world and invite other Magus of Holy Terra. 

This reminds her of the 4th generation Braves. There were supposed to be 10 Braves in total, including the hero. The ‘Great Archmage’ Mordred made 2 Brave into his wives and made himself into a Brave by stealing 2 Brave-worth of karmic luck. Basically, he killed two original Braves and stole their karmic luck with secret methods to make himself one.

And so, Shion wanted to replicate the success of her previous self. If she could identify the Hero, that would be even better.

But, that’s merely a pipe dream. Knowing the Hero before they become the Hero is impossible, even for the Dragon God of time. That’s simply how ‘fate’ works. The karmic luck of the world is screening the potential Hero from the manipulation of time-path users, because the World’s Will hates them the most, second only to Otherworldly Invaders.

Shion sighed at the heavy workload she’ll have to do soon. She put project [Wild Hunt] in the highest priority after taking the Combat Exosuit Minor Inheritance.  `

She gazed at Xi Ling’s fresh corpse. ‘The corpse of a late-stage rank 1 time-path battlepriestess who is also a light-path martial artist… I can make use of her.’

In the point of view of a refinement-path expert, a human corpse, especially elite ones, is a precious resource. Also, Shion is an expert of necro-path (because it is an extension of soul-path), therefore she could make best use of Xi Ling’s corpse to the fullest.

“What a pitiful legend you are… Xi Ling.” Shion muttered as she extended her telepathic will to invade Xi Ling’s dead sea of consciousness. 

As a rank 1 time-path battlepriestess, her age progression is slower compared to other humans. This was because the blessing of the Dragon God allowed them to have an extra 100 years of lifespan. That being said, it also meant her corpse decomposition rate is slower than normal. Furthermore, as a light-path martial artist, her skin is still glowing healthily as if she was still alive.

If not for the piercing wound that penetrates her heart and being absolutely motionless, this beautiful Xi Ling would be like a sleeping fairy, an object who ignites the lust of men… but Shion is not interested in her for that at the moment as she lacks the necessary organs… and also because she’s a corpse. 

Shion retracts her telepathic will from Xi Ling’s dead brain, frowning. Most of Xi Ling’s lifelong memories regarding her life have already dissipated following the destruction of her truesoul. What’s left of it is her recent memories, which were also disappearing at a rapid pace.

“Due to the manipulation of telepathic fake will from my future self, she immediately went here in fear of being ‘late’. Having a late-stage rank 1 cultivation base is insufficient if she wanted to travel to other countries due to the environmental hazard and beasts. Yet, the fact that she could arrive here in great condition meant she is truly elite amongst elite. Her body rune alone is an expensive set, her bloodline is from a rank 4 light-path desolate beast, Feathered Lightfox… She has the potential to be a Paragon. If not for her lowered intelligence and mentally blocking herself due to future me’s telepathic fake will, she would’ve been able to ambush me in the first hit with her light-path martial arts...”

“Soon, ‘I’ will receive a self-replicating battle puppet from Combat Exosuit Minor Inheritance micro-plane, allowing ‘me’ to create a troop consisting of 4 battle puppets highly effective in killing mages…” Shion frowned as she continued reading Xi Ling’s memory.

“But… There’s no self-replicating battle puppet there! My future self must’ve released the fake rumor so that others won’t be able to determine that they are personally hand-crafted by me.” Shion denied the validity of Xi Ling’s future knowledge.

She continued, “If I successfully took Combat Exosuit Minor Inheritance, it would be a focal point in my ‘fate’... Time-path users wouldn’t be able to change this ‘event’... Then, doesn’t that mean I would be obstructed by my own bad luck?” She cursed at herself.

“Tsk. The worst thing that could happen is…” Shion pondered seriously for a few moments. “Of all contingencies placed there, the creature sealed within Combat Exosuit Minor Inheritance, the [Dragon’s Shadow] should be the most dangerous one… The seal confining it should’ve been able to confine the creature for five hundred years, but… it’s possible that something happened to the seals at this very instance.” Shion sighed at her own speculation. 

Due to receiving messages from other timelines and knowing a bit of information regarding the future, her normal luck has become bad luck, but this was already a good outcome. Worse things could happen if Shion’s future self sends back a detailed plan directly instead of using Xi Ling as a courir. 

For example, she could find a Troll army wearing Exosuits when she reached the inheritance grounds. Just the thought of that possibility gave Shion a migraine. Though, the karmic backlash shouldn’t be that severe since ‘future Shion’ tried to work around it.

“Then, I will have to prepare a plan based on the fact that [Dragon’s Shadow] has been released… It seems like I have to empower Kenji.” Shion decided. 

But first, she has to treat Xi Ling’s corpse and collect her original goal of going into this cave. Kasumi has worked hard to find the Giant Kararan Serpent’s nest, after all. 

Shion clasped her hand as she activated a ninjutsu towards Xi Ling’s corpse. 

“Rank 0 Retsu Kuji-in (dimension seal) ninjutsu, [Timeforce Extraction]!”

Retsu Kuji-in or dimension seal of the nine seals is responsible for time and space. It is the best method to gather time-path resources.

Time-path is different compared to nine elemental paths because time-path methods require timeforce as energy source. Even if a person has an infinite amount of mana, they could not activate time-path methods. It was like seawater cannot be used in exchange for oil. 

Timeforce is usually stored within a person’s body like how one stored internal energy. And so, any time-path user must cultivate a special technique in tandem with their original cultivation method so that timeforce could coexist in their body. That being said, if Shion ignored the timeforce in Xi Ling’s dead body, it would slowly dissipate. 

Golden timeforce slowly gathered on Shion’s palm as it crystallized into four golden crystals with the unequal size of around a person’s distal phalange. The first three contain 10 units of timeforce, while the last one 6 units. For a late-stage rank 1 battlepriestess, Xi Ling’s timeforce capacity is merely slightly above average compared to other time-path users. Her true talent lies in light-path, but she became dysfunctional after receiving contaminated telepathic will from her future self.

After the timeforce is completely extracted, Xi Ling’s corpse loses its slow decomposition property and its ethereal beauty. She is now just a normal corpse of an attractive woman.

“Hmm….” Shion suddenly got an idea. The corpse is a high quality one, and there’s also the materials from the Giant Kararan Serpent. “Light-path and dark-path… maybe I can actually make it?”

She had a crazy idea stemming from her intuition. 

Shion’s nine elemental path attainment is at [Exemplary]-level, with the exception of lightning-path which is [Quasi-Transcendent] and dark-path which is at [Quasi-Apex]. 

A person’s time is limited, so one usually has one or two paths that they excel at, but Shion could literally devour souls which allow her to absorb memories and experience. While it isn’t the only method in her arsenal, it was still an effective one in gaining attainment levels. After killing countless numbers of cultivators in Morgen World, it isn’t strange for her to have high attainment in all elemental paths. 

“The souls I need to produce a necro-path lifeform which have a growing property will be great. I don’t need another split soul at the moment, but to deal with [Dragon’s Shadow], it seems like a powerful undead split soul or a durable combat puppet is necessary…” Shion touched her chin in ponderation.

As time passed while Shion was thinking deeply, she noticed an approaching figure infringing on her senses.

“Main Soul, I feel our connection disconnected a while ago. What happened.” It was Kasumi who was acting independently to search for large dark-path beasts. 

“Oh, it’s you.” Shion lowered her guard as she sent her a telepathic will, explaining what happened. 

Kasumi received the telepathic will, “I see. Another split soul is currently unneeded right now, but [Dragon’s Shadow]... is extremely problematic. Perhaps, you can work things out with a new type of undead.”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been thinking but to do that I need to spend a few days refining it, which is unfeasible at the moment. Do you have any ideas?” Shion asked.

“What you lack is more souls, right? I’ve found several other nests containing dark-path beasts. Perhaps you can make full use of them?” Kasumi produced a telepathic will.

Shion received the message, it was a mental map of the area. There are several dark-path small resource points containing a large amount of beasts that ‘coincidentally’ in the path of the Vanguard team. 

“Excellent. You can return to your original mission for now. Go scout the situation of the Ruined Wood Palace.” Shion said.

Kasumi wordlessly slithered out of the cave room.  

“Well then… I need to save Xi Ling’s corpse for now.” Shion took her gunlance and pulled out a Cryo Shell. She used the liquid nitrogen contained within the shell to freeze Xi Ling’s corpse before going up to the surface to get Kenji.

“Boss is back!” Kenji said as she saw Shion’s figure. The vanguard team’s temporal campsite is located on the mouth of the cave, but this isn’t the only entrance. 

“Excellent.” Shion praised Kenji. This man’s decision was truly excellent. He knew Shion needed some time to dismantle the Giant Kararan Serpent’s corpse just as the rest of the vanguard needed some to harvest the male serpent’s corpse. “Kenji, I want you to make a detailed telepathic combat report while I’m away. Don’t try anything funny to check up on me, I will return when I’m ready. Warn the others.” Shion took the Mobile Furnace from Kenji and left him alone.

“Understood, boss!” Kenji nodded as he knew what she wanted.

When Shion returned to the underground cave, she immediately took out a vial of lightning-path metal essence and a few cubic fuel cells. She gulped down the liquid metal as it was repair material for her body. Then, she replaces the depleted fuel cells on her body with new ones. After extracting the energy of three sets of fuel cells to recharge her internal battery, she stopped.

The dimensional storage of the mobile furnace is limited, it is almost full of ammunition and some essentials. However, even if it’s empty, Shion could not store Xi Ling’s corpse.

Xi Ling is at the late-stage rank 1, even as a corpse, her body is considered as a rank 1 material. Under normal conditions, the mobile furnace’s dimensional space would collapse if she forced herself to stuff Xi Ling into it. The dimensional storage’s spatial stability could not handle such a ‘heavy’ load. After all, it is made from rank 0 space-path material. Its spatial laws are extremely simple. 

However, Shion knew this would happen. She activated a compound killer move of time-path and refinement-path to reduce the ‘complexity’ of Xi Ling’s corpse, which cost her 10 units of timeforce. Although storing it within the dimensional storage will eventually crumble it’s spatial structure, it’ll take around 7 to 10 days for it to happen. Thus, it wouldn’t be a problem in the short run.

“Come out, Dark Mist.” Shion beckons her quasi-Soul Armament out of the gunlance and ceramite shield. She manipulates the swarm of nanomachines to help her dismantle the serpent’s large corpse. 

Self-replicating nanomachines contain refinement-path profundity. After it was bestowed with Violent Desecrator, it became a soul-path nanoswarm who can devour souls to refine itself further. 

With Shion sending out countless bits of commands to the Dark Mist, it became an excellent tool for assisting in any refinement process. After all, two hands could not beat a hundred thousands or even millions of small hands working together.    

The serpent’s hardest bone, eye, small horns, scales, and some other organs are kept, while the rest of unusable flesh and bones are left for Dark Mist to consume. The giant serpent has a large amount of blood that the Dark Mist did not devour because Shion has uses for them. She purified and refined it into essence blood that she can use in the future. 

After the Dark Mist consumes most of the serpent’s useless parts, Shion orders it to fix the gunlance and shield while she works on refining a set of combat armor from the serpent’s materials.

Each scale of the serpent is as big as a palm. Shion refined the strongest and undamaged ones with electric soulfire refinement method as it shrunk into the size of a nail. From there, she cut the scales into small hexagonal plates and kneaded them with the serpent’s steel like tendon. 

The clothing’s non-reflective black surface has some area that does not have scales on them but the flexible serpent’s tendon which was used as the primary material has experienced multiple refinement processes so that it is harder than steel while maintaining its flexibility, there’s no problem in defending from most rank 0 slashing or piercing attacks. 

The end result was a tight bodysuit that hugged Shion like a second skin which has great defensive and stealth capabilities. If Shion activates a dark-path method, she can achieve better stealth than when not wearing it. Despite prioritizing function over fashion, the bodysuit is super erotic when worn by Shion. And so, she wore her shinobi apparel over the serpent-scale bodysuit to cover it up.

“I’m in a bit of a rush, but it will suffice for now.”

When morning comes, the Dark Mist which has been fed with leftover flesh, bone and souls (serpent and goblin souls from previous battles) has grown significantly. It now has a sufficient nanomass to fully saturate the gunlance and ceramite shield with liquid concentration while having a 11-man soul strength. The Dark Mist has sufficient power to augment an infected creature or weapon with an additional 1 transparent star energy level as long as it is not higher than late-stage of rank 0. 

“If not for this world’s crazy power level and gods interfering with the material plane, grey goo would be an excellent tool of war. I’ll need to wait for Intelligent Metal to come here physically to find a solution for this, she’s the master of von Neumann self-replicating machines after all.” Shion shook her head as she gazed at the nanomachines working efficiently. 

Although Shion has some conflict with Intelligent Metal, she’s still a Sovereign Magus of Holy Terra. She’ll eventually come when Shion breaks the dimensional walls in the future.

Shion concentrated the dark mist into a drop of super-viscous liquid. Half of the nanobot units who possessed souls are concentrated in this drop of black liquid. 

“This will be the nanoswarm liquid core, and as long as I have it, Dark Mist will not be destroyed no matter how many nanobot units get destroyed.” She swallowed Dark Mist’s nanoswarm liquid core while sending the rest of the nanobot units towards the gunlance and shield once more.   

She looked at the leftover serpent corpse that the Dark Mist left. There’s almost nothing left except a pocket-watch artifact from Xi Ling’s belongings. 

“How extravagant. He gave me this time-path investigative artifact to accelerate project [Wild Hunt].” Shion sighed as she opened the pocket watch. Although it is a time-path artifact with the shape of a pocket watch, it was actually a compass. “Now I’m sure the [Dragon’s Shadow] is out with absolute certainty.”

Before she left, Shion activated a few ninjutsu, which costed crystallized timeforce, to destroy murder evidence. She left satisfied after most of the harvested timeforce had been used up to create a time-path trap for those who will investigate in the future. 

The trap was specifically made to mislead the clues and put the blame into the Sacred Alliance. 

Ater finishing everything that she needed to do, she went back to the surface and gathered up the Vanguard team. “Let’s continue our journey.” She declared, ignoring the expression of surprise on everyone’s faces since she wore a new bodysuit made out of serpent material.

“While we march, tell me about how the vanguard team killed the male serpent.” Shion asked Kenji. 

The man had already compiled a telepathic report last night. He secretly transferred his Telepathic Martial Will to Shion.

Telepathic martial will is not specialized in transfer of information, it is usually used in the activation of martial arts or combat. However, it can still do it despite the bad efficiency. After all, Kenji is not a wisdom-path cultivator. 

“I see. Their performance is very disappointing. It seems like… I need to get some benefit from those lazy bastards.” Shion glanced at Klauss and the others.