The Primeval Era-Chapter 83: The Second Doctrine! II

He could decide himself where his cultivation proceeded.

But...

It was actually difficult to come up with your own ideas on how to proceed.

"Hmm..."

He sat on a stone as he looked at the Tribesmen continue to build up and extend the wall around the tribe.

As he looked, a thought formed in his mind that he couldn’t shake.

If a Bone Tempering Warrior came over, that wall would be absolutely nothing. They could crash through it with a single charge. They could jump over it without even trying. And one didn’t even need to think about what would happen if a Primal Beast charged into it.

They would destroy the wall like a flimsy set of sticks stuck together.

This defensive wall truly felt more like a symbol to just make the Tribesmen feel safer.

"If only it could be strong enough to actually protect... but unlike the human body, mere logs can’t..."

He blinked.

He didn’t finish his thoughts.

Unlike the human body?

He felt his mind buzzing as he remembered how just yesterday he had reinforced logs and used them as spears chucked across the skies to decimate Bone Tempering Warriors.

At that time, the hardness of the wood had been altered and changed so much that it felt like stone when it smashed into his enemies. He had poured his Mana into those logs, and they had become something more than they were.

Could that effect be made into a permanent thing?

He found himself rising up as his thoughts churned and churned.

And he asked himself a question that made his pulse quicken.

When it came to cultivation, why did one have to focus only on their own body?

Could he...not decide and define what cultivation represented?

The body and all the internal components were nice and all. Flesh and Bone and Blood and Marrow and Organs. These were the accepted foundations of power across the Lands of Stone.

But was that all there was?

Why not make external things part of power?

Why did power have to only mean personal power?

If one had a spear or an axe, that weapon could become part of their strength through skill and familiarity. Warriors bonded with their tools over years of use.

But what if he could do something even wilder?

What if not just weapons...

But he turned his very environment into a part of what could be called his power?

...!

HUUUM!

The moment this thought came, he couldn’t shake it out of his mind.

The only reason he even had it was because due to the letter of the Primordial Tongue, his Mana was unique enough that he had been able to change the very quality of a wooden log to have the hardness of stone.

If he could apply this and strengthen the surrounding environment to make that part of his power...

Even as he thought of it, he felt like it was crazy.

Because how would it fully and truly work?

He couldn’t just do something like strengthen the walls and then call that part of his power.

It had to be truly connected to him.

It had to...

HUUUM!

His mind buzzed again as he thought about the faint connection that had established itself between him and the Holy Daughter.

If he had the capability to establish a connection between himself and his surrounding environment...

Could he then truly not have a methodology where his power was not just contained in his body, but also spread out onto his surroundings?

The Lands of Stone were vast, and the methods of even shamans and the truly powerful Warriors were mystical.

Why could he not do something mystical as well?

---

His feet were already moving before he knew it.

They carried him to a portion of the already completed wall, logs that had been entrenched and lashed together and packed with mud until they formed a solid barrier taller than most men.

He placed his hand on it.

The wood was rough against his palm, its grain weathered by exposure to the elements. He could feel the faint traces of Mana that the log had absorbed during its years growing near the mountain, weak currents that pulsed through its fibers without purpose or direction.

He began to infuse it with Mana from his body.

The energy flowed from his palm and into the wood, sinking through bark and fiber until it reached the core. He pushed more and more, concentrating his power into this single log until he felt it begin to change.

The wood hardened.

Its texture shifted beneath his fingers, becoming denser, more resilient. Blue Mana crackled across its surface in faint arcs that faded as quickly as they appeared. The log took on a quality that spoke of greater durability, greater weight, greater strength.

But even as Damian did this...

He hit the log with his other hand.

It felt thicker and heavier than before. The impact sent a jolt up his arm that confirmed the wood had genuinely changed.

But he didn’t feel any form of connection with it.

It was stronger than before.

But he didn’t have anything linking him to it.

He removed his hand, and the Mana he had infused began to slowly dissipate, bleeding back into the air like water seeping from a cracked vessel.

He couldn’t just utter out the letter of the Primordial Tongue to reinforce every single log, right?

When he thought of this, he came to a stop as if he had stumbled upon an issue.

But a moment later, his eyes lit up.

And he looked at the palm of his hands.

In a matter of seconds, he made a decision that would have horrified any normal Warrior.

He focused his Mana on the flesh and skin of his palm, controlling it with precision that came from days of simultaneous cultivation across all his systems. He commanded the skin to split. The flesh to part.

And it obeyed.

A line of crimson opened across his palm, and blood began to flow.

But this was not ordinary blood.

His blood was lined with stellar particles of blue Mana, each droplet carrying concentrations of power that exceeded what most Flesh Awakening Warriors held in their entire bodies. It gleamed with an inner light, crimson and blue swirling together like liquid fire.

He let it flow from him and splash onto the logs in front of him.

The blood hit the wood and began to sink in immediately, absorbed by the grain as if the logs were thirsty for what he offered.

And as it sank in...

He still felt it.

HUUUM!

He still felt his blood!

He felt a connection establish itself with the logs, a thread of awareness that linked him to wood that was no longer entirely separate from himself. His blood was a critical part of him. It carried his dense waves of Mana. It was saturated with his essence in ways that simple infusion could never match.

And now it was inside the wall.

And he could feel it.

He was astonished as what he was envisioning, what he had thought might be impossible, was actually coming to fruition.

Yes!

Who decided that one had to only cultivate their body to consider that their power?

Why could he not extend his power to include the surrounding environment as well?

His blood was the key.

His blood was the connection.

After he seemingly found a way, his eyes burned with a zealous light of ingenuity and madness.

Droves of blood released from his palm.

He waved his hand and splashed it across the completed section of the defensive wall, crimson and blue painting the logs in streaks that glistened wetly in the morning light. He began to run, moving along the perimeter of the tribe as his blood flowed freely from the wound he kept open through sheer will.

It looked like he was sacrificing his very lifeline.

His very blood.

Painting the walls crimson with sparkling stellar blue as if performing some ancient ritual that demanded everything he had.

The moment his blood landed on the logs, they began to shine with a crimson hue sprinkled with stellar blue. They visibly became slightly larger. Slightly grander. The wood absorbed what he offered and began to change in response.

But the volume of blood that was leaving him was truly too much.

The nearby Tribesmen who had been working on construction looked up from their tasks. Their expressions shifted from confusion to horror as they saw what the Tokoloshe was doing.

"Tokoloshe, no!"

An older worker raised his hands toward Damian, his weathered face twisted with dismay.

"You’re killing yourself!"

To them, it looked like he was sacrificing himself to strengthen their walls. Giving his life so that the tribe might have better protection. A noble gesture. A terrible gesture!

And as he was doing it, Damian truly was giving off a part of himself.

His body only had a limited amount of blood.

Even if it was blood that he had reinforced with Mana, even though he had his Marrows which produced blood rapidly, he was releasing an output of rivers of crimson that his body couldn’t sustain.

But he felt more and more connection the more he did it.

It was actually exhilarating!

Because even without extending his senses, he now felt like he had eyes on every single part of the wall that his blood painted over. He could feel the grain of the wood. The gaps between logs. The mud that filled those gaps. All of it was becoming part of his awareness.

But...

"Hoo..."

His body nearly fell down moments later.

He felt like his body was almost devoid of blood, the rate that he was releasing nowhere near what his Marrows could produce. His vision swam. His legs trembled. Even his heart struggled to pump with so little left to circulate.

It felt like everything in his existence was thinning.

But at such a time...

"Persevere."

HUUUM!