"Well... I definitely feel more mentally stable but I guess that's not saying much..." Ares could tell he was safeguarded against mental attacks, his head felt like its flesh and skeleton were made of impenetrable steel even though nothing had changed structurally. The mental realm lay behind the brain, consciousness, and anything physical so it really was more like a placebo change than anything but Ares could tell he had a firmer grip on reality. Though the Omniscience already pretty much defied any and all illusions he would be even less susceptible to them now than he was before. His pain tolerance, willingness to endure pain to begin with, and resilience in the face of mental stress was also far greater. If he randomly woke up in the middle of an expansive desert with no end in sight, and failed to acquire food or water for days, he wouldn't collapse and break down in worry and would instead be able to keep marching on. Of course he wasn't so weak willed he would do that anyway but it was impossible to stop doubt from creeping in once things got a certain stage with no hope on the horizon. It also wasn't that the Mountain made him unfeeling or emotionless, just that it could calm down irrational or overly-anxious states and permit Ares to see a clearer picture amidst the chaos of his mind. For instance, in the previous case, waking up in the middle of a desert for no apparent reason was nonsense. Either someone put him there with no intention of killing him, as they would have been able to do that and more if he was so unaware he couldn't stop them from abducting him without even realising, or it was a mental attack that he fell victim to even in spite of his Moongate which meant it was strong and needed to be dealt with. This gave him a different perspective on how to deal with his current issue without getting bogged down in the bodily reactions like hunger and thirst that were seemingly more pressing to him in the moment even if they weren't in the grand scheme of things. This was all theoretical, though, and it would need to happen not in practice, but in reality, for Ares to really understand just how the Mountain worked. Until then, all he knew, thanks to Dominus' assurance, was that a soothing, refreshing wave rolled over his brain in times of great disillusionment and gave him unparalleled clarity.
Ares was content to leave matters with the Moongate as they were for now and move on to everything else he needed to take care of. First of all, One With The Universe... Ares wasn't going to touch this just yet, actually, as he was still debating which part of it to learn first. There were plenty of other things he could actually finish during his remaining time here in Isaz and dealing with them would give Ares a cleaner conscience and smaller list in his head which he preferred. There was no immediate need for One With The Universe as he already had budget versions of what it provided via the Nyxian Prowler's stealth and Visitation's presence nullification. It's not that Ares wasn't hyped to make himself an invisible menace, not the pervy 'ogle women in the shower' kind, but objectively it wasn't as readily beneficial as other tasks were. Filling up Visitation, for example, would put underway a series of events that led to the creation of a devastating, eternal ally. As such, though this art was extremely tempting to start learning, it was benched until maybe Akarala. Ares would have time for it then. Also, as an aside, Ares really wanted to learn the Scroll Screening art. Back in Xasca he was extremely courageous for opening the One With The Universe scroll so brazenly. He felt confident in his conclusion regarding what it was, and Sevorus had no reason to lie about it, but even still what he did was a recipe for disaster and not something he should ever do again. If he could find someone to teach him how to check scrolls in advance it would potentially be life saving in the future. The good news is that, thanks to One With The Universe, he had a phenomenal scroll to practice on. Some scrolls were harder to peek into without actually opening than others, typically based on the contents within, so this art's scroll would be hard to Screen and thus result in high quality practice. Starting with something so difficult would make easier scrolls he came across later a breeze to decipher. The only real problem was tracking down someone who knew the art... Though, actually, Ares was quite lucky in that regard because such a person was already on their way to Red Sun right this very moment.
That aside, though, there were other matters Ares was going to finally sit down and tackle with his full undivided attention. First of all was improving the Backfire Bindings. They'd done great work for amplifying his pressure and pressure control, they came into use pretty much every time pressure did, but they was still ample room for improvement and Ares hadn't improved his understanding of nothingness for... Well, nothing! He could and would mess around with the treasure until it was capable of shaping and manipulating annihilation properly via annihilation pressure. This was step one and, thanks to the the spatial passageway leading to the Lowe domain and Ares bloodline awakening, ought to be relatively easy. The annihilation pressure tether Ares thought up when using the Protection Racket, to tie his arm down and rapid fire against the fairies, was sort of a rough first look at the kinds of things he could do with annihilation if he really worked hard on it. Shaping annihilation was important in its own way because Ares really didn't have any sort of free form magic at his disposal unless he utilised physical pressure. This was fine, it worked, but physical pressure should be one day outclassed by raw annihilation once the Extinction Converter gorged on enough souls. At that point, pressure would mostly be a way of weighing people down, announcing his presence, and creating a few highly technical and niche arts like Esoteric Compression. It's not that all of that wasn't sill incredible, it was territory nothing else Ares had could impede on and would remain a critical part of his arsenal, it's just that physical Pressure was never going to compete with raw annihilation magic. Ares would much rather learn how to shape an annihilation sword that blew up rather than a physical pressure sword with traces of annihilation in it that didn't explode. A simple comparison but one that proved the point. Physical pressure was a temporary means until something better came along, Ares was in the unique situation in which he had a direct improvement within his grasp so he would be foolish not to take it. Also, as an aside, physical pressure would still find use whenever mana wasn't accessible for whatever reason, or in Garmr form as pressure was still usable to him there, so it's not like it would disappear forever or anything. The right tool for the right job.
After that came the reason Ares was even doing this all to begin with, Visitation. The little guy had been playing around with Old Light and taking many cosy naps in the Blade all this time. Ares had brought him out once or twice to play, and help him clean up fights as a test run for what his tiny ghost meeper pal could do in the future, but Visitation was about to undergo puberty! Today would only eb the start of the long process but it was an important step nonetheless. Old Light would guide Ares and he would follow along carefully to make sure nothing went awry. It wasn't a difficult process but an intricate one and so defaulting to someone else's expertise on the matter was wise. Ares had also decided on what mana types to pump into Visitation once and for all, the internal debate was settled. Destruction and disintegration. Reducing the quality of these two aspects to add in nothingness just wasn't worth it when considering all the innate talents Visitation already had that were similar enough in nature. Were they as good? No, of course not, this was a fundamental aspect we're talking about here. Was it worth toning down two other aspects to include a minor improvement, however? Definitely not.
On the flip side, why not only one of the two aspects? Why not heavily specialise Visitation in one or the other, disintegration or annihilation? Simply put, there was no need and doing so only really restricted Visitation's potential. Only annihilation was a big mistake, Ares would basically be creating a tiny version of himself that was inferior in every way and could nothing he couldn't already do himself. Annihilation was big explosions, Ares could make the biggest explosions, having Visitation make small explosions was a silly waste of talent. Aejaz could do that too and it just wasn't that helpful. The reason annihilation was so strong was actually because there were other tools backing it up through the rest of the destruction pillar that covered its weaknesses. Annihilation was not the correct tool for assassinations or single target warfare, both of which were Visitation's real specialties as a light elemental. So why not only disintegration? It synergised well with his race and was perfect for what he did. Well, being a light elemental meant annihilation would also benefit him as he would have access to... A rather violent form of light to manipulate and that wasn't a small benefit at all. Also, being a one trick pony was a quick way to get yourself killed. Visitation wouldn't be weighed down by having large area destruction magic, it just shouldn't be his one and only focus. Giving him both aspects meant he could be a threat against anyone, or any group, and always be versatile and ready for whatever came his way. Ares could send him on just about any mission knowing full well he had the tools needed to be successful and return safely.
Disintegration by itself was Ares second pick for Visitation, it was close too, but according to Old Light elementals could take on two different aspects without really watering them down much and it was pretty much always worth it to do it that way instead of going solo. If that weren't true then Ares may have honestly changed his mind. It had been quite close, and this was an extremely important decision, but it was a settled discussion now and all that had to be done was imbuing Visitation and making him grow up to be a big strong boy! This was the bare minimum Ares had to do today as starting this process was long overdue. Granted it wasn't really Ares' fault, he couldn't avoid being busy or having lacking knowledge on how to facilitate this, but there was no longer any excuses and so it was about time he dedicated his efforts towards it lest Old Light come and talk his ear off and pick a fight with him over it. It shouldn't take too long and he'd have plenty of free time afterwards to continue working on other tasks that weren't as important but could be pursued or finished before he left Isaz tomorrow.
These extra tasks included all of the following: pressuring his treasures a bit more, the Blade and the Backfire Bindings weren't going to pressurise themselves so, even if it took a while, Ares should really stay on top of it. Also the Moongate Mountain could be pressurised so there was no reason not to do that. Passive cultivation, although perhaps it would be best to do this after leaving Isaz when crossing the ocean using Voidwalk. Ferocious fish, large in stature but not in intelligence if they were picking a fight with a flying cultivator, would leap at him constantly and distract him from his cultivation which was good training. Practicing his transformation into Garmr to improve its speed. It had already improved significantly since his first transformation but anything over three seconds was unacceptable. Barely below that still wasn't great but it would be a start at least and so Ares would just spend a bunch of time transforming to and fro his human form. He had it harder than other revenants, because his wolven form was bloody massive and naturally took longer to become, but what needed to be done needed to be done and sitting around wishing things would change on their own wasn't going to work unfortunately. Training with Garmr's movement by using the Mutated Mountain as a personal obstacle course was also a good idea, Arse wouldn't get a chance to practice in a place as perfect as this often. He was decent at controlling Garmr, like how birds knew how to fly intuitively Ares was in the same boat, but measuring leaping distance was still something he needed to brush up on. When hunting the Throne disciples earlier he would occasionally jump past them and, while it didn't matter much then, it might matter in the future. Accuracy needed to be improved when jumping at key targets! Trying out the Moongate Mountain's bestowal art which probably had something to do with summoning the moon and empowering Garmr. The treasure's original purpose wasn't to benefit revenants so the moon likely did more than just that. It was Ares' personal treasure now, he needed to know more about it and this was as good a time as any. And last but not least, reconnecting with the pagoda clone and trying to communicate with it again now that Arse had more tools at his disposal. Bloodline awakening, and the Moongate Mountain, meant forming a mental connection with his own clone ought to be doable via nothingness shenanigans either in the void or the blade. This way they could stay up to date with each other's happenings permanently and the clone could become version 2.0 with all of Ares newfound knowledge and treasures. If it wasn't beatable before, it sure as hell wouldn't be beatable now. Also Ares could indirectly communicate with people outside the Blade barrier if he was aware of his clone meeting them so it would be highly beneficial to set up proper connections.
That was a lot to get through, especially only in a single day, but Ares had already partially broached each individual topic at least once before in some manner or another. Anything he was unsure about he could simply check in with Dominus or Old Light for advice on so, really, one day was plenty actually... Provided he didn't get bored and give up. Cultivation really wasn't Ares' strong suit which was strange considering the fact he was likely to become the strongest cultivator in the history of the universe at the rate he was going. but sitting around like this and thinking for hours on end was a special kind of torture. He and Bellona were alike in that sense as they were both currently wracking their brains over ways to enjoy their boring solitude. Bellona at least had Sandy and Nibbler but Ares... Unless he was willing to go and play 'I-spy' with the iciclops outside, he was pretty much on his own here. The realisation was a sad one but he had no say in the matter and buckled down to get to work. Time flew by and his only real break was whenever it came time do some Garmr practice as he could freely move his limbs and get some stretching in after hours of constant lotus position cultivating. He made sure to space out Garmr practice, dotting it throughout the rest of his regime, and that managed help him stay sane until he finished. It was morning of the next day by the time he'd been through every task he'd listed to himself yesterday and, though tired, he felt accomplished at having successfully tackled basically of it. He'd given up on a day of sleep but the end result meant it was justified as he really solidified himself and and his tools regarding making sure nothing was left behind or underexplored.
First up, the easier changes to make note of. Garmr could come and go in under two seconds flat. only barely, his record time was about one point nine seconds total, but that was pretty great consider how long it took him prior. The real difficulty would start now as it was always easiest to make progress at the beginning of self-improvements such as this. Just like how Ares had to fight for every last millisecond back when he was learning how to draw out pressure in the initial stages, he could do it instantly now with he help of the Backfire Bindings, transforming into Garmr in the blink of an eye would be a gradual learning curve he was sill only at the foot of. He found that visualisation helped but just sheer repetition was the ultimate key to speeding it up. He would be lying if he said he even really knew what he was doing, to him it was being asked to explain how to breathe. The simple answer was that he 'just did it' and he wasn't really wrong either. This was pretty much every revenant felt. Again, the size of Garmr was what was really troubling him and if his revenant form was normal he might even be able to transform in about half a second a his current rate. it's not like he'd be willing to trade speed for size though so he just had to keep labouring away over the years and working on it the hard way. That or maybe having Allie concoct him a pill that aided him in transforming, supplementing his talents, such things did exist after all. Also, just to tack this on at the end because it was hard to quantify or qualify at great length, Ares felt more attuned to Garmr's erratic bursts of speed and floaty movement. He could climb the Mutated Mountain fully in under a minute now which was much better than he initially assumed he could ever do. it required more so a shift in how he viewed Garmr's movements rather than trying to change them to suit his own preferences. Plus he was getting used to it anyway so it didn't feel as odd as it used to when he was trying to make things work his way. Garmr had great aerial mobility, thanks to his ability to manipulate gravity with his raw strength, so abusing that with every leap was the key to combining it with his speed without sailing off into the distance accidentally. As for controlling the speed, the correct answer just to not do it at all and learn to keep up. Just balls to the wall, go fast and pay attention fast. That was really all there was to it. Aers hadn't trusted Garmr's senses to be able to keep up with the speed but it was possible if he put faith in his body and removed those subconscious limiters. Again, an attitude shift was all that was needed to correct the problems he faced.
Garmr aside, passive cultivation made zero progress but that wasn't surprising, it barely did so at the best of times anyway. Saving it for the journey back across the ocean was still the best idea and so Ares waited for that instead of continuing here in Isaz. Pressurising treasures, Moongate included, was coming along smoothly. No hiccups to report, just boatloads of progress. Only the Moongate, Blade, and Backfire Bindings remained unfinished and the latter two would take years anyway so it was basically only one treasures remaining, the one Ares just got his hands on. He could maybe even finish it by the time his journey across the ocean was complete if he was fast about it. Pressurising was supposed to happen slowly, over the long course of a set duration that couldn't really be sped up... But the Backfire Bindings, thanks to Ares' nothingness testing, had improved drastically and this functionality changed. Now Ares could pressurise based on dedicated effort and not sustained effort. Essentially, there was no upper limit to speed when it came to pressurising any longer. If he spent all of yesterday on the Moongate he could have pressurised it already which was an insane rate compared to his other treasures that took days and occasionally weeks to finish. This change to the Bindings meant Ares could pressurise weapons, artifacts, and treasures the second he received them if he was capable enough. It might have seemed like an uninteresting change but actually it would do him a lot of good in the future as he acquired more treasures on his journey.
As for how Ares improved the Bindings, Ares finally learnt how to fold objects in on themselves like pretzels with the power of the void. He knew the Primordial Blade utilised this trick but he never grasped how to do it precisely, he could only haphazardly merge and then try to delicately balance the merged objects. A process as fine and delicate as this was hard to grasp but he got it in the end. It served no purpose right now but would make a world of difference if he ever got into forging one day. Also, it helped the Bindings become even tighter which then improved their overall strength. Ares' pressure improved, his merging talents improved, and he could now pressurise objects without a limiter in place to slow him down. All very great changes for about four hours of deep contemplation and work but it didn't end there! Ares had really managed to accomplish a fair bit after putting his mind towards it. For someone who really didn't like cultivating he was oddly good at it! He'd done pretty spectacularly, even if he did say so himself. Visitation, especially, was a project that was looking to produce incredible results...