Wisdom-path governs three core aspects: thought, will, and emotion. It is also known as telepathic thoughts, telepathic will, and telepathic emotion.
Thoughts are like grass, they are easy to produce, light, and numerous.
Wills are made out of intertwined thoughts, they are like trees, heavily rooted and independent.
Emotions are intense feelings, they are like the forest itself, extremely tough, intense, and heavy. Of all three, emotion has the greatest penetration, permeability, and durability.
Numerous telepathic thoughts can be refined into telepathic wills, and telepathic wills can be refined into telepathic emotions, but that doesn’t mean telepathic emotions are the best for all situations. Each has its uses, so cultivating wisdom-path means having control of these three aspects.
Undead lifeforms like Mordred typically lacked the ‘Sea of Consciousness’, the metaphysical organ that usually overlaps with the brain to produce thoughts, will, and emotion, due to various reasons. For example, a zombie had their brain rotten, a skeletal undead has no brain to speak of, ghosts are also the same, et cetera. To compensate for this, undead feast upon the emotions of other beings, typically the negative ones, so that they can ‘dilute’ them into wills and thoughts.
“Hssss~” The reptilian hiss of a kobold’s cry can be heard as Mordred forcefully descales the kobold child’s forehead in the kobold village’s square. The process wasn’t clean as he revealed his ‘inexperience’, so there was blood splattering everywhere. Being bound to a pillar tightly, the immature kobold, barely a meter tall, tried to struggle, but with a punch to the gut, the resistance softened.
In his Wyverian form, Mordred focused his bloodline ability to produce a blastscale. It looks almost no different compared to the blastscales he produces during combat, but it took him ten times the focus and effort before it was finished. When he plucked it out of his right hand, the blastscale’s edge had thin hair-like appendages, with some as thick as a needle, wailing about erratically as if the scale was alive.
The blastscale had the same size as the kobold’s scale that he had removed, but it had a darker red hue compared to the kobold’s original. When Mordred was about to put the blastscale over the kobold’s wounded head, it woke up, so another round of trashing began.
Mordred didn’t want to deal with this. In Wyverian form, he is stronger than usual so he simply held the kobold’s head still while his free hand placed the blastscale on its forehead. It was like putting a piece of a puzzle, the blastscale had the same size as the kobold’s scale. It fits like a glove, with the hair-like appendages immediately taking roots to the kobold’s skull, making the kobold child suffer even more.
This pain, added with hatred and despair, is like a delicacy to Mordred. He extracted a cloud of telepathic emotion as he savored the pain and anger until the filaments couldn’t advance in drilling the skull any further and the telepathic emotion generated by the kobold had been depleted. Shaking his head in disappointment, he sighed. “The tendrils are 400% stronger than the previous build, but it seems like I have failed to penetrate the skull yet again… I should switch to version 3.0.”
Mordred moved on to the next wooden pillar where a kobold who had seemed to have just laid an egg was being bound. “Maybe I should start with the spine…”
Since the female kobold is even weaker than the child, it was easy to remove a scale located on her nape. He had revealed a slightly better descaling method than the previous one, but blood still leaked and some of the scales underneath got scraped off by the knife he was using. “Version 3.0 doesn't have the necessary length to reach for the brain, I need to make a variation… this shall be version 3.1…”
Then, he refined another blastscale, but when he pulled it out of his arm, the filaments were far longer than the one before. It was like a jellyfish, but instead of a soft jelly body, it was an explosive scale.
Before putting the blastscale to replace the one being extracted, he allowed the long tendrils to intrude the kobold’s neck through the wound. The pain of an external object drilling through one’s neck and stabbing one’s spine is not something that can be endured by a weak female kobold. She woke up from her unconsciousness and began thrashing about in retaliation.
As the blastscale’s tendrils get deeper, the pain it produces intensifies. It is, after all, trying to hijack her nervous system while drilling a path to her brain.
Mordred’s mouth seemingly made a slurping motion as if he ravished the telepathic emotion that the kobold generates. “Seems like… this is the correct way.” Mordred began to release the rope binding the female kobold’s body as she fell.
The real Blastscale Wyrflake wyvern is a true Tyrant Wyvern that could not only fight but also enslave other wyverns through overwhelming brute force. Its explosive scale isn’t limited to only attacking, but also a vector to dominate. Since Kobold is also one of the lesser races designed by the Dragon as their slaves, in theory, its bloodline ability should be able to extend to the Kobolds.
That point was proven correct when the female kobold suddenly took a kneeling position in fear of Mordred.
Most enslavement methods are spirit-based, but the Blastscale Wyrflake’s method is body-based, specifically, using a highly modified blastscale that could root itself onto a wyvern or a kobold’s body. The genes of the Blastscale Wyrflake wyvern impose extreme dread on other lesser dragon species. Of course, it isn’t as simple as it seems. The blastscale needs to have some ability to hold Mordred’s telepathic will, otherwise, the victim wouldn’t be able to comprehend that they are under the threat of death.
The nature of telepathic will allow it to somewhat survive from the exposure of the external world, but it wouldn’t last long. Instead, the blastscale served as some sort of storage for telepathic will. However, this is a problem in itself. Telepathic will is a consumable resource. When it is used to influence the victim, it is consumed.
And so, with Astaroth’s help, Mordred was able to design an Enslaving Blastscale which has been revised multiple times.
The original one was very similar to a smart explosive. In some capacity, the blastscale could process thoughts and will, but it will require a lot of bloodline energy from Mordred when it is generated.
The second design has a reduced telepathic will storage capacity, but in exchange, it can generate some by siphoning the victim’s telepathic thought. It was similar to a brain parasite because, at this stage, the blastscales began to have appendages that could bury into the skull. However, due to having an insufficient cultivation base, Mordred can’t refine the blastscale’s appendage with that kind of hardness or penetration ability. So the solution is to change the vector. Instead of drilling through the skull so that it can connect to the victim’s ‘brain’, or ‘sea of consciousness’, it went through another route: the spine.
Currently, he is in the third generation of Enslaving Blastscales, and it was somewhat of a success. Even though the Enslaving Blastscales need to be buried in the victim’s nape, it is usable.
The appendages will find a way to the victim’s brain, siphoning energy and a small number of telepathic thoughts to the blastscale. In exchange, the blastscale will use the energy to sustain itself and recycle the victim’s telepathic thoughts into Mordred’s telepathic will that could be used to influence the victim’s emotions, such as dread in his presence, or happiness when performing Mordred's order. Through this reflux method, Mordred isn’t spiritually ‘burdened’ by the weight of suppressing the minds of his slaves.
However, the weakness of this is the limitation of the Enslaving Blastscales that he can produce at any given time. Due to the complexity, Mordred can only generate four times before his bloodline energy is exhausted, forcing him to get some rest. Also, the Enslaving Blastscales, at least in the current design, can’t be accumulated like any other blastscales because they'll soon die without a supply of energy from a host.
< It’s not ideal, but at the very least, you can enslave lesser dragon species, including kobolds. > Astaroth, the one who designed the Enslaving Blastscale ver.3, commented. < Shall we use this chance to accumulate more kobolds? >
Mordred inwardly shook his head. < I can only generate four [Enslaving Blastscale] per hour. Even if you use [Blutopfer] to support my bloodline energy recovery rate, the number of kobolds worth enslaving in this world is too few. I can find better kobolds in higher-difficulty Secret Planes. For now, I’ll be collecting their souls. > With a telepathic thought broadcast, the fourteen blastscales that had been embedded in various kobolds that he had experimented with exploded.
It was a shocking spectacle. Fourteen kobolds had their head, neck, or chest explode, instantly killing their host and splattering blood all over the place.
With a swipe of his hands, all the souls in the area are quickly gathered into his soul phylactery, condemned for eternal torment of the Magus of Death's machinations.
