A/N: There won't be a chapter tomorrow. I have a good bit written but it needs editing.
External observations of the transformation line up with early stages of the Supreme Path of Blazing Fires, but the underlying principles are clearly different in operation, more akin to a new type of arkatek power generator known as a “reactor”, wherein two or more destabilized essentia are made to react with an azothic catalyst to produce a greater quantity of energy than is input. How the Sage of Fog came upon the principles behind this technology are unknown, but his suspected transmigrator origin likely has to do with it.
I have observed seventy-three subjects in my expedition, thirty-six of which exhibited varying degrees of what I have dubbed “Paralysis Stage”, while thirty-five exhibited early stages of the “Victory Echoes” stage, but two appear to have made tangible progress beyond this - a promising start, considering the novel nature of this branch.
Subject SV has shown a surprisingly crude grasp of the Victory Demon state considering his status as the longest-term practitioner, and relies on alchemicals to stabilize it despite being among the most powerful users. While I have not witnessed it first-hand, Counter-propaganda Bureau records show that he can consume a highly toxic cocktail of heretofore unknown composition to produce a heightened version of the Victory Demon dubbed “Hellfire Mantle”. This state appears to be a high-taxation, high-output Ignis-aligned transformation that enormously amplifies the subject’s physical and Sonomantic capabilities, comparable to “The Third Incarnation of Blazing Fires: Furious Destroyer’s Armor”.
Without alchemical stabilization, it appears even the baseline Victory Demon state imparts considerable side effects, including pain and physical self-damage.
Contrastingly, Subject SG displays superior control of the Victory Demon state and psychological progression in line with one who has passed the Gates of Conceit, Trauma, and Contrition. He enters the Victory Demon state on a regular basis during physical training, and in my short time observing him, he has made quick progress towards what I believe to be a breakthrough in his specific branch. By my estimates, I suspect Subject SG may achieve a state analogous to “The Second Incarnation of Blazing Fires: Serene Blaze of the Incandescent One” in the immediate future.
Satisfied with this rough first draft, he filed the tablet away for review and editing by his personal scribe golems, his pride and joy, built around the preserved bodies of ravens that he had taught reading and writing before imbuing them with his own knowledge.
Despite being fluent in most contemporary, archaic, and dead tongues of note, the White-robed Brother chose this finicky blend of writing as a way to express his supreme calligraphy skills, and to create the veneer of being more timeless and unchanging than he truly was, on the infinitesimally tiny chance that someone actually learned of the manor, scaled the mountain, and survived the ordeals.
In truth, the White-robed Brother was just as much a person with whims, vices, and pride as anyone else. Even with multiple different means of averting death, he still aged in the sense that he changed over time - for to become truly unaging was to become just as far from the living world as the dead, just as the Immortal King upon his eternal throne.
The White-Robed brother had not known any of these wisdoms when he first grasped existence beyond death, when he built this eternally young body of his, piece by piece. Even in the century-long labor he had not glimpsed such truths, solely focused on defying the disease which had doomed his birth body to wither away in a way not even the Great Immortalization could counteract. This body, whose artifice he was so proud of, a perfect living sculpture of flesh that he had thought a unique until recently.
First the False Emperor, and now her… So similar, and yet so different.
The White-robed Brother moved on, calmly taking a long drag of his pipe, holding the herbal smoke in his mouth while setting it down, taking a similarly long sip of his tea, and only then swallowing as he set the cup down. Then, he prepped the next tablet and took up the stylus once again while his editor-golems scuttled off with the finished draft.
Still so many reports to draft up, from cultivation methods, to techniques, to technology and potential upcoming events in this grand churning of history’s fertile soil… It gladdened his old heart that mankind was becoming better as a whole over time, even if those who lived in the moment thought their trajectory the opposite.
Tags: Metabolic Modification, Pyrokinesis, High-energy Internal Alchemy, Physical, Humors-as-Fuel, High-risk Initial Bottleneck, Psychological Advancement, Semi-Novel Branch
Year of His Glory, the Architect, 4713
Cultivation Branch UX14 Report No. 1
Monikers: Stormsurge, Storm Engine
Cultivation Tier: Class 4
Observation Report:
An outsider form of Storm-soul Cultivation, derived from the semi-synthetic Fulguric Deiforms making up the “Living Storm” environmental weapons system, used exclusively by Subject ZN.
What I find most intriguing about this case is not the method itself, but the specific subject’s circumstances and the fundamental application of the method in resolving issues that have long been solved in different ways.
Subject ZN appears to have utilized the ability to override natural nerve impulses to invent an otherwise inaccessible, high-tier breathing method, accompanied by intentional self-induction of extreme heart-rates and full-strength contraction of musculature. In my most recent, close-up observation of the subject, I did not observe any of the aforementioned traits; upon gathering further intel from Subject AK - whose Clan was currently present in the locale - I learned that Subject ZN somehow came upon and put into practice the foundations of a scroll detailing the “Walking Way of the Despot of Self”.
How said scroll made its way into her hands is up to debate, though her acquisition of it coincided with her takeover of the former. Therefore, considering the fact it had not surfaced in the centuries of operation prior to the present, it is safe to assume that it was likely contained within the Willowdale Sect’s sealed libraries, or, more likely, a vault contained within and thus obscured from scrying by Xiuhtaca’s Hanging Gardens.
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I’m guessing the Red Lady is the “her” he spoke of when mentioning those who made their own bodies. Also explains why the Emperor looks so unnecessarily “perfect”.
Correct.
Nice summary chapter into all of the important casts