Mastering the extraction of talents-and even raw cultivation itself-took me only a couple of days. Translating that into my grand design, however, required over a month of meticulous research, cross-referencing every conceivable variation of talent and the methods for acquiring them.
Finding test subjects proved disarmingly simple. A single search query into the browser sufficed: «Provincial small-clan atrocities.»
Naturally, recent incidents yielded no results-the government was adept at suppressing current scandals. Yet a thirty-year-old cold case slipped through the cracks. It detailed how the Lei clan, a burgeoning house established barely seventy years prior, had maintained a subterranean lair in the provincial city of Jinyang, holding two dozen young men and women in bondage as flesh-slaves for their unnatural appetites.
Of course, the official narrative framed it with convenient retrospection: «Look at the barbarism of the past; such depravity is unthinkable under current rule.»
The Lei clan was a petty house specializing in Lightning magic. Counting barely twenty members in total, it seemed every adult had secured a personal captive. They possessed not a single High-tier mage among them-an impeccably suited target for my needs.
I shifted to their compound without a trace, rendered their strongest combatants unconscious from the shadows, and bound the rest. Then, the real experimentation began.
The initial attempts were disastrous. Dear Lord, if there exist beings who inflict such abominations with joy, let them be reincarnated as livestock. I came near to vomiting multiple times. It was a thought I never anticipated entertaining, but even the drooling Wu Tu seemed wholesome by comparison. Soon enough, however, my hands acquired the requisite dexterity.
To cleanse my karma of the gruesome spectacle, I transferred the harvested cultivation from the surviving mages-those not yet reduced to inside-out, shriveled husks-into the liberated captives, before departing back to my own reality.
By sheer stroke of fortune, one individual among that wretched brood possessed a talent, albeit a meager one: an ability to amplify outgoing elemental magic by a factor of 1.1. At least I was spared the necessity of hunting down further living specimens to refine my technique; the sight of those inverted mummies was enough to sour my stomach for a year to come.
As for the harvested talent, I intended to bestow it upon someone as compensation for whatever talent I stripped from them. Exposing myself for a mere ten percent boost in magical output was a foolish risk I had no intention of taking.
Subsequent evaluations revealed that only two viable targets were within my immediate grasp: Heidi's Three-Aperture Heart and Dongfang Ming's Star Amplification. The remainder were guarded by retinues far too formidable for my current strength.
Furthermore, revealing surplus talents before the conclusion of the World College Tournament was highly inadvisable. I needed to select precisely one talent per magical level to maintain an airtight cover.
After careful deliberation, I selected Heidi's Three-Aperture Heart for my Intermediate level; its growth potential far outstripped the alternative. Dongfang Ming's Star Amplification could wait until I achieved High-tier status.
I was poised to set off and claim Heidi's talent when my dormant conscience unexpectedly stirred. Reluctantly altering my itinerary, I first shifted to the location of the sixteen-year-old Dongfang Ming. I ambushed him on his journey home from school, rendered him unconscious, and extracted his talent, implanting the Lei clan youth's minor amplification talent in its place.
Only then did I travel to the small Alpine town where the poor orphan Heidi resided. Intercepting her after her classes at the Church School, I put her under gently, harvested the Three-Aperture Heart, and substituted it with the Star Amplification taken from Dongfang Ming. Only then did that troublesome inner voice finally fall silent.
With the matter of talents temporarily settled, I could at last direct my focus toward the Summoning element. The two-week window preceding the upcoming assignment with Tang Yue would afford just enough time to acquire a Lightning-elemental creature.
That was assuming my theory held water. Should it fail, I would be forced to postpone the body-tempering technique until achieving a breakthrough to High or even Super-tier status.
The objective was to utilize the Law of Reversal to rewind my physical state whenever the volatile Lightning energy strayed from the pathways prescribed by the technique. Relying on blind luck was a gamble I refused to entertain.
My concept involved modifying the standard Primary-level Summoning spell, «Dimensional Summoning,» by integrating Fusion Magic to infuse it directly with Lightning energy.
Through this method, I hoped to replicate the phenomenon Mo Fan achieved in the original timeline-summoning creatures tailored to a specific element at the Advanced Summoning tier.
Yet a crucial question remained: where was I to source the Lightning energy when I possessed no innate affinity for the element? It was precisely for this reason that I had reserved the mastery of Summoning for last.
I intended to draw forth the cultivation of a Lightning mage using the Element Transfer talent. Rather than assimilating it into my own spiritual core, I would siphon the raw energy directly into the spellcasting process. Since the feasibility of such a feat remained entirely unproven, I treated it as a tentative hypothesis rather than a definitive plan.
To begin, I paid a visit to the parallel world's Lei clan, forcibly extracting the Lightning cultivation from the first mage who crossed my path.
Holding the condensed magic in my palm, I returned to my native realm and cast the Primary Summoning spell, attempting to weave the siphoned Lightning cultivation directly into the spell matrix via Fusion Magic.
Under the governing influence of the talent, the energy proved remarkably compliant, flowing without resistance. The seamlessness of the process caught me off guard-it felt no different from merging two elements of my own origin.
My consciousness plummeted into the Summoning Plane, my spiritual projection materializing beside a Thunder Python of peak Servant-class stature.
It appeared that the caliber of creature summoned was directly proportional to the strength of the Lightning cultivation infused into the spell. The energy I had siphoned belonged to a Primary-level, Third-tier Lightning mage.
Further experimentation was required, yet the core premise was validated: the acquisition of the body-tempering technique would suffer no delay.
Now, it was merely a matter of calibrating the exact ratio of siphoned cultivation to locate a true Lightning elemental creature. I was confident I could accomplish this before Tang Yue summoned me.
A week elapsed.
My spiritual projection hovered within the Summoning Plane, suspended near a Lightning Spire Tree. The botanical anomaly owed its name to its nature as a ultimate natural lightning rod; should lightning strike within its vicinity, it was invariably drawn to its branches.
This particular specimen was situated atop a massive crag surrounded by a vast sea… or ocean. The precise geography of the Summoning Plane eluded me.
Nothing but endless water stretched out around the solitary rock face protruding from the waves. The landmass itself was small enough to be classified as a minor islet.
My presence near this solitary tree in the middle of an ocean was dictated by an extraordinary spectacle: the natural genesis of a Lightning elemental creature.
Furious tempests evidently ravaged this maritime zone with great frequency, subjecting the tree to endless lightning strikes over uncounted millennia. Perhaps thousands of years had passed to yield this singular result.
How the seed had found purchase on a barren rock mid-ocean remained a mystery. Had it been dropped by some migratory beast? There was no telling.
Yet thousands of years of ambient electrical bombardment had finally borne fruit. Suspended from one of its boughs hung a azure fruit, woven entirely from crackling arc energy. By all appearances, it was the elemental counterpart to the Flame Fruit that had birthed Mo Fan's Flame Belle.
Sensory feedback confirmed that the fruit was on the verge of ripening, its elemental occupant about to emerge. Had it been otherwise, the spell matrix would not have guided me to this coordinate.
As I waited for the creature to hatch and form a contract, an absurd thought crossed my mind. Yet the sheer novelty of it was so appealing that I decided to put it into action.
Without hesitation, I began projecting my mental thoughts into the lightning fruit, focusing intensely on a specific visualization.
Why bother? As far as I knew, elemental creatures were amorphous entities in their primordial state, adopting purely random physical forms upon birth. Why, then, had Mo Fans Flame Belle manifested as a human child?
The logic seemed undeniable: the Flame Witch who nurtured the Flame Fruit considered the unborn creature her daughter. Given that she was a Spirit-element mage, she had likely broadcast those maternal thoughts directly into the fruit.
I was attempting the exact same principle-sculpting the emerging creature into a shape that appealed to my tastes.
Two minutes later, a small, furry blue paw ruptured the fruit's outer rind, closely followed by a second. Pushing back the glowing membrane like a pair of curtains, out crawled… a furry rodent immensely famous in my previous life, albeit sporting an unfamiliar hue.
«Pika-pika-chu!» it squeaked, its thoughts projecting as: I am born! And soon I shall travel to Earth!
Indeed, I had concentrated on the mental image of Pikachu. However, owing to its current weak state, its fur had defaulted to blue rather than yellow.
It certainly made more sense than trying to manifest a human girl. I had no interest in sticking my dick into a bundle of living high-voltage electricity; let some other fool attempt that.
«Well, hello there, little guy,» I projected softly. «Would you like to forge a contract with me? Survival out here in the middle of the ocean won't be easy…»
«Pika-pika-chu-chu!» it interrupted brazenly. I agree, Master! It is time to embark on an adventure!
I had intended to explain that this barren rock offered zero resources for its future development, and that I could provide the necessary materials if it bound itself to me.
Evidently, the mental images I had broadcast included snippets of the original animated series, instilling the creature with an insatiable longing for grand journeys. A welcome turn of events, nonetheless.
«Accept the contract then, Pikachu. Countless adventures await us!» I sent the contract request, which the creature accepted with boundless enthusiasm.
Now came the practical problem: figuring out what it actually ate.