Discipline

Both remnant spirits thought. Umi was the first to reply, "why would you care about anything like that? Focus on being the best Lightning Imperialist. Nothing else matters. Everyone else and all other disciplines are inferior and irrelevant. I did not even bother to remember their names. But I know Artificers are decent. Their job is important as they make the lives of everyone else easier with their artifacts." Alexi was shocked at how arrogant the little remnant spirit sounded.

"I agree with Umi. I know of Artificers and even wanted to be one at a younger age. All the knowledge about etching was what I learned as an apprentice in my youth. Real Articers are extraordinary and can do unimaginable things. I was not talented enough to qualify. Neither are most of you, so forget about it. I met a martialist once, he was strong. I suppose those people are too tragic. The amount of pain and anguish they go through to keep up with us Imperialists. tsk." Xandria spoke in the same arrogant and pitying tone as Umi.

"As for other disciplines, the rest are either too weak or too strong for me to have direct knowledge of. There are dozens of them practiced by different races of people on the continent. If you make it that far, you will learn these things with time... oh, is that a fantasia?" Xandria floated over to the green egg with shining eyes.

"I've never seen a premature fantasia before. I hear it's a powerful cultivation resource. You guys are quite lucky to find this here." She could hardly contain her curiosity.

"Do you know the method of extracting and assimilating with it?" Xasha walked over and inquired. Like everyone in the room, his mind was still adjusting to all this new information, but his curiosity was always his strongest emotion.

"What do you take me for? I'm an imperialist, not an alchemist. What do I know about this?" Xandria seemed annoyed.

"An alchemist?" The familiar name caused everyone to pause.

"We're wasting time." Mylyn cut in. "Xasha, think of a way to extract Imperium from the fantasia without removing it from its source."

"That is easy. I can set up an old-fashioned energy chamber to extract the Imperium and mana pools to store it. It's like you said, there will be a lot of wasted Imperium... wait. What if we don't extract all the Imperium from it but siphon off a constant amount over time? Based on what you said, it has to have a certain amount of Imperium to mature. So what if we can siphon off Imperium so that it never matures and turn this place into an actual cultivation chamber?" Xasha's eyes were shining.

Everyone to feel a shudder down their spine. "Are you crazy? Ari flared in anger. "That thing is an Aqua Sage going to an Earth Sage. What happens if it wakes up and finds out we are treating it as a mana vein?"

"It can't wake until it's matured, and it can't mature without sufficient Imperium. It can't have sufficient Imperium if we are stealing it." Xasha became more confident in his plan as he spoke.

"It could work," Mylyn stated. Xandria nodded in agreement.

"Are the two of you sure?" Ari had calmed down, but her concern did not fade.

"Yes, I believe it could work. But I've seen no one do something like this before." Xandria chuckled, "go for it Ash, I haven't seen something new in a long time."

Everyone looked amongst themselves with nervous smiles. They had to admit they were also curious to see something like that being pulled off.

Xasha smiled brightly and waved his hand, disintegrating the octopus. He then took out his Golden Peacock feather, "let's get to work."

A day later, the insignificant mountain now had four towers surrounding it. The mountain got hollowed out and turned into a tower itself. He covered the walls in glowing etchings.

Xasha stood confidently as he looked at his handy work. In the center of the chamber stood a giant obelisk stretching from underground to the ceiling of the cavern. Inside was the glowing green egg, resting peacefully in the trunk of a tree. A stream of green gas floated from the egg, the tree, and its roots to the peak of the obelisk. Xasha placed a dozen cylinders around the room on top of the roots.

There was also a constant flow of Imperium coming from the tower above to the chamber. Xasha stared at the green cylinders slowly filing with viscous Imperium.

"I wish there was a nature mage here to see how much they would improve from absorbing this much high-quality Imperium," the fervor in Xasha's eyes has yet to subside.

"Is there something else you want to do? You still have that look in your eye." Ari walked up from behind.

"Nothing. I just want to turn it on and see it in action. I guess we'll have to wait a few days until the others adjust and enter the basin."

Ari looked at everything in amazement. "The only regret I had is not being able to practice enchantment with you. None of your children can learn from you and take on your legacy. Lili is an alchemist, and I'm."

"It's not too late. You now have Imperium flowing through your body and inside your Valdis. You can start learning today if you want to."

Ari's face lit up with unadulterated joy. She cared little for the art of etching, but she wanted to march in her father's footsteps. "I would love that. I really would. Can you tell me how this chamber works?"

Xasha smiled brightly. " I'd be happy to. This is a kind of magic tower and pillar in one. Except the pillars funnel the Imperium inside those cylinders. I used all those cylinders because I do not want to collect mana to become too viscous."

"Why are they placed on all the major roots?" Ari pointed out.

"Oh, that's just for redundancy. The cylinders also pull Imperium from the roots," Xasha explained patiently.

Ari's face turned to one of horror. "But, but... but isn't this? Don't the roots absorb Imperium? Did you not put cylinders full of Imperium directly on top of them?"

"I... oh no," Xasha rushed forward. He entered the obelisk and turned off the main formation. The cylinders disintegrated, and it dispersed all the Imperium in the chamber.

Xasha breathe a sigh of relief, but this did not last long. The Imperium in the room all rushed in the tree's direction. Xasha immediately panicked. His first thought was to reactivate the formation and trap the Imperium back inside the cylinders.

The runes lit up; the cylinders reformed, and another sigh of relief echoed off the walls of the obelisk. But another sound echoing off the obelisk walls made all that relief disappear.

It was the sound of something cracking, and Xasha's heart stopped.