Lesser Dao of Rain - Comprehension: High. Attributes: Constitution +40, Endurance +40,

  Maximilian read the notification twice before he let it sink in. He wanted to say that Heaven or the Network had listened to him. He wanted to say that, but he knew better. He had changed his dao. It lost all references to Intelligence and Strength. Which should mean it lost its connections to offense. At least he assumed it worked that way. Fortunately, the attributes weren't taken away from his stats. He also confirmed the boost was additional, not total. He only got the differences between 40 and 10 for Constitution as an example. He conducted a few tests and confirmed he was correct. He could still hit someone with his dao of rain, but it didn't seem very powerful. Maybe if he fought something made of fire, it would be a good weapon, but other than that, he wouldn't rely on it. Unfortunately, that would weaken his attempted skill. He would likely need to use all three for that until he could rework the blueprint. On a more positive note, he was pleased to see that the healing was better. Everywhere his dao passed felt refreshed as if it had been caught in a rejuvenating rain shower. Altogether, he had no complaints. He had accomplished his goal; now he needed to plan his next move.

  His previous fears were still problems. Even though he felt like he could fight better than before. He felt full of life. If he had this level of power, he would've dealt with Silas. Part of him wanted to do that as well, but he doubted it would be wise. The imperials no doubt knew one of their own was dead by now. If they worked like royals from old Earth, they would likely send a force just to keep up appearances. He could probably kill those people, but he didn't need to, nor did he want to. He wanted to say he wasn't a murderer, but he was pretty sure that wasn't the case, at least not by that standard. He shook his head and turned his attention toward something odd. He hadn't noticed it when he first arrived due to the situation, but now it was obvious. There was a false wall in this shop. The room was unassuming, but he could feel the dao radiating from the wall. It was faint, almost to the point of being imperceptible, but he could still feel it. At first, he thought it was because of its aura or something. Now that he focused on it, he realized that was wrong. It had no aura. It had no discernible qualities at all. He flexed his fingers. He knew it was his physique that allowed him to feel the dao like this. He just didn't understand why or how it worked. Regardless of the details he had it, which meant he should use it. He made his way over to the wall and searched for a lever. After a few seconds, he found it. A symbol carved into the wall as part of some sort of array. He activated it with a trickle of energy, and the wall disappeared. The magic made him grin. As much as this was a fucked up situation, it was still so much fun.

  When the wall had disappeared completely, it revealed a staircase. One that led down into the dark. Maximilian formed two balls of bluish-white electricity and sent one in front and kept the other by his head. He considered leaving one behind him, but didn't want to risk anyone seeing the light. He looked for a way to seal the path behind him, but failed. Either there wasn't one or he didn't know how to do it. Either way, there was nothing for him to do. He expanded his two dao fields a few inches away from his skin and started down. The darkness was uncomfortable to say the least. His light wasn't perfect, and he wondered if a dao related to light would be better for this kind of thing. Not that he planned to do that. Fortunately, the walk down wasn't very long. The staircase opened into a large stone chamber. The chamber reminded him a bit of the tomb on Earth, only it wasn't as grand. It was circular and was ten to twelve feet high. The room was simple but detailed. There was a table in the middle with two chairs, one across from the other. On the right side was a small library. Maximilian hesitated a moment as he looked at the handful of genuine books. He had assumed stone slips replaced paper in the multiverse, but that wasn't the case. His eyes scanned the rest of the room, but there was nothing of note. There was a door that led to another staircase. He ignored it for now and turned his attention to the bookcase. He withdrew his dao fields, not wanting to risk damaging the books as he grabbed the first. All of them were handbound and lacked a title. They were bound in thick leather. The collection was small but felt personal.

  He gently opened the first one and was pleased to see that his translation skill worked. His eyes danced across the page as he read. It didn't take long for him to start piecing things together. The writer was an array master in the city. One of little renown but of some skill. The man had written about Nystal City's final days. According to him, the problem began a year before they were attacked. When a strange crystal fell onto their planet. The crystal was "as green as emeralds" but filled with dense spiritual energy. The crystal fell a short journey away from the city. Naturally, the city lord ordered it recovered. As the city was only considered Rank 3, it had no one besides the lord at "Revolving Core". They sent a trio of Pillar Formation elders along with a large group of Foundation Realm cultivators. At first, things had gone well. The expedition reported monsters that were stronger than expected, but nothing they couldn't handle. They had a few casualties, but altogether, the city lord considered the price worth it. Which only made the following year stranger. After studying the crystals, it was determined that they were the equivalent to spirit stones, only much denser. They were perfect for cultivation and for arrays. The city lord kept the majority of the crystals. Naturally, the elders took their share, and the rest were divided amongst the disciples. The writer, a man named Hooshal, was one of the array hall elders. He hadn't taken the crystals. Maximilian took a moment to memorize the new details he had learned. He now knew what the next two realms were called. If he assumed "Revolving Core" was the third one. He had no idea what it was about, but it sounded fun. Same with "Pillar Formation". He wasn't sure if it was literal or some metaphorical thing.

  He wished Hooshal had gone into more detail about that, but what he had learned was interesting. His initial assumptions were mostly right. The city had come across something it wasn't supposed to have. That item, or in this case, items, led to a battle. The details of the crystals were weird. The way Hooshal wrote about it made it sound like they were the problem. There had been plenty of stories on Earth about corrupting crystals, but if that was the case why weren't there crystals here? He hadn't seen a single sign of anything Hooshal described. He took a seat at the table. Half afraid that it would collapse under him. When it hadn't, he laughed at himself and then opened the book again. He picked up where he had left off and paled. Hooshal had clearly described Nystal's fall. He once again wondered if the Network had brought them here to die. According to him, the crystals possessed a sort of will. It wasn't enough to be considered sentient, but the pieces wanted to be whole. They first noticed the problem amongst the outer disciples. Those who had chosen to directly absorb the energy experienced a boon to their cultivation progress. At first, they were considered a miracle. It wasn't until one of them had been injured that they learned the truth. The crystals had damaged the child's foundations. It wasn't a large problem at first, but repeated absorptions were devastating. Further, the crystals had an addictive component one that targeted the subconscious. They would drive you to absorb more of them. By the time the city had figured it out, it was too late. Paranoia and greed festered in the dark. It began with the outer disciples. They fell on each other in hopes that more crystals would undo their damaged foundations or allow them to advance further. The fighting spread from the outer to the inner disciples like a flame until even the elders were dragged down.

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  The story was terrifying. It answered several important questions, but not all of them. The disciples likely lived in the outer city, which explained the destruction he saw. It didn't explain where the bodies were. Or where the crystals were. He thumbed through more of the book but found nothing. His gut told him the answer, though he didn't like it. The city lord likely joined the fray. If his understanding of the cultivation realms was correct, he would have been too strong. It would have been easy for him to kill everyone and take their stones. This would explain why the city was abandoned, but where did the leader go? In his view, there were two options. The first was that the leader was somehow trapped in the center of the city, probably in his palace or something. Second, was that the leader left. He gained so much power that he was free to advance or do whatever he wanted, so he continued. The first option was the more game-like option. As if the enemy sat there waiting for him to come along and deal with. The second felt more realistic. Hooshal didn't say anything about the man being in the city, which seemed like an important detail. Of course, Hooshal didn't write about what happened to them, so it wasn't as reliable a narrator as he had hoped. Maximilian took each of the other books and continued reading.

  Several hours later, Maximilian paced the room. He hadn't learned much more about the situation from the other books. Those were older than the first, which was more of a personal journal than a proper book. The others were much more interesting. They were notes and theories about array creation. Hooshal wasn't anything special when Nystal fell. He was barely at the level of an elder and was qualified only to maintain the existing arrays. Despite that, he was much better than Maximilian. His notes served as a primer on the subject. A primer that made him want to learn more. Maximilian's gaze shifted to the staircase that led down. He doubted the man had survived this long, but if he had left something behind? Perhaps more books or even a slip or two. Stuff that would help him start on the path of an array master. If that was possible, then he had no choice. He had to continue downward. He grabbed the stack of books and sighed in relief when his bag accepted the items. He wasn't sure why he could choose to put those in the bag or not, but he wasn't going to dwell on it. He had something far more interesting to look into. He paused a moment and then collected the chairs and table. He didn't need them, but he wanted them. He doubted he would ever use them again, but furniture was furniture.

  He released his dao field same as when he entered, and started down the next staircase. Despite how much stronger he was, he still felt like the darkness was reaching for him. As if some murderer hid just out of view, and as soon as he looked away, he would get attacked. He knew that was unlikely. He hadn't seen any sign of a creature, person, or puppet. He stopped his wandering thoughts when he reached the bottom of the staircase. He wasn't sure what he had expected to find. An army of crazed fighters or perhaps Hooshal haunched over an old desk. None of that was true. There were two rooms. One was a workshop. The other was a cultivation chamber, not that different from the houses in the city. Houses, he assumed, belonged to either defenders or the rich. For a moment, he wondered if there were any treasures in the chamber, but he knew there weren't. Neither his instincts nor his body warned him of danger or fortune. He would go into the chamber later to wait out the night. For now, his attention went to the workshop. He entered the room and sighed. It was about the size of the upper room, only it had a central stone table. One that was obviously meant for crafting. It reminded him of the tables people would build Lego and dollhouses on top of. Of course, this table was empty. On a shelf to his right were a group of flags. Like the ones you'd buy with your favorite sports team. They were about as long as his arm and were in surprisingly good shape.

  He wouldn't call them high quality, not by a long shot, but he figured they could still be used. He held off on collecting them. Instead, he turned his attention to the rest of the room. The instruments were either decayed with time or completely foreign. The decay was the strangest part. His eyes told him they were fine. They were all made out of stone and looked like anything you'd find on Earth. Maybe ancient by modern standards or a fantasy novel, but still "normal". Yet the other part of me said they were useless. The part that had awakened with the Network. These tools lacked "spirituality". The inherent spiritual energy and spiritual aspects. In other words, the stuff was mundane. He collected them anyway. He hoped they could use them to learn more for the future. If not, they could be scrapped or maybe reimbursed? He wasn't sure if you could add spiritual energy to things, but he felt like you could. After all, he could push his own energy into his own body and other things. That's how he activated some arrays. He saw no reason he couldn't do it to an object. Regardless, it was a distant project. He would need to survive everything here and wait for everyone else to catch up. He doubted it would directly help him learn arrays. At least not in comparison to just buying the information. It also wouldn't help him. He turned his attention to the last piece of furniture in the room. A desk in the back right corner. The search took less than five minutes and revealed something startling. The bottom-most drawer held four slips. One was made out of dull grey stone, while the other three were made out of a green jade-like stone. He gently placed the slips onto the desk and reviewed them. He started with the grey one. As soon as his energy entered the stone, he received a stream of information.

  The more he understood, the wider his eyes got. Hoosha had left behind an inheritance. Or rather a sort of inheritance. Hooshal had either believed the city would fall or at least that it would lose some of its history, so he decided to hide away some of its array and formation lessons. He wasn't able to get the good stuff due to his status as an outer elder. That said, Maximilian was a far cry from what Hooshal would have access to. These three slips would and could form the foundations of his education. A foundation that was more than enough for the immediate future. He wondered if he could find more information in the core of the city, but he wasn't sure it was wise. On the off chance that there was an ancient insane warrior in the middle of the treasury. He knew that this life was built around risk and reward, but this might be a bit too much. There was also the chance that someone else would get their first. His options were myriad, but none of those options mattered for now. His current plans didn't change. He attempted to study the other slips, but they were absorbed into his bag. He wished he could say he was surprised by that, but he wasn't. The trial had made its rules pretty clear. He gave the room another look over before he left. He headed straight into the cultivation chamber and braced himself. He wasn't willing to put his full faith in his instincts to warn him of danger.

  When nothing happened, he sighed and moved to the middle of the room. Unfortunately, if there was a mat here, it was long gone. He doubted he would get too far in this cultivation session, but every little bit helped. It would give him more firepower for the rest of the trial. Every little bit helped. The solitude would also give him a chance to reflect on what he had learned. He sat on the stone and started his cultivation manual. Energy was dragged into his dantian as he closed his eyes. He focused on the energy flow for a few moments just to make sure there were no problems. After that he let himself slip deeper into his meditation. Tomorrow he would need to get back out there and find something to do.