Chapter 592: DiY
Northern stood in a training ground in the tower; the training injuries that were left there by Jeci had fully healed-the place was as good as new.
He grounded his feet to the floor, his eyes fixated on the wall in front of him, focused and rigid. They bore an awareness of not just what was before him, but even behind.
His entire body stood as a singularity even with his sword. Only when he was finally, internally satisfied with his stance and basis of grounding did he move.
Northern began to execute a series of slashes, swinging his sword delicately. There was a magnificent air of control that trailed the path of the sword each time it divided the air.
Northern's eyes remained as focused as before he moved, even as he flowed from one strike into another. With the same amount of swiftness, power, and precision, the sword flowed from one movement into another, not increasing or decreasing.
That was what he had noticed Dante do, and that was what he had admired.
Dante was so in control of his sword that from the first linked attack to the last, the speed of his sword and precision did not reduce or increase.
It was as if the Lieutenant had a perfect proportion of power that he calculated to put into the strike and maintained it from beginning to end.
Northern did not see anything greater than this; that act itself spoke for a level of control he had never witnessed in anyone.
And it made him very exhilarated. He didn't think he could have such control, thanks to the immense strength he now possessed as a Sage.
But seeing Dante do it lit up a spark in him. While he pretended to sleep in the surface world, The slipped into the Limitless Void and began to practice.
Northern continued to practice each strike with a certain amount of dedicated control. He would put a certain proportion and swing in linked strikes, flowing from one attack into another.
When he used an enormous amount of strength, usually, it resulted in the walls of the tower suffering for it. And it was difficult to reduce it.
It was also difficult to control the amount of strength he put into a strike mid-battle. But he continued at it, practicing.
He didn't need to get it yet; all he was creating right now was a foundation.
A foundation which he would use to create his own unique style using the abilities of Chaos Art as raw material.
He didn't know if the system would appreciate it yet. But the new ability [DIY] allowed him to do these things.
Aside from the fact that when he absorbed talents they were tailored to suit the nature of his void and Chaos, Northern, thanks to DIY, could now also create new abilities explicit to him alone as long as he understood the principles.
Being able to bend certain principles and create constructs of Chaos, as long as his understanding was flawless, could have contributed to it.
And it would also make it easier to do. Another thing Northern was glad about that DIY brought to him was:
[Talent Merge], [Talent Weave], [Talent Erasure]
With Talent Merge, he could join two talents together to create something never seen.
Talent Weave allowed him to bring out the abilities of some talent and put it into another talent or even remove them from each other to create a unique soul talent that had probably never been seen.
Talent Erasure: he could delete a talent he deemed useless.
But the magnificent thing about these abilities was that as far as the system was concerned, they didn't just work with talent-they worked with abilities. It was the reason why what he did with Black Flame and Black Lance was possible.
And the reason why he was able to achieve the unachievable. Because of DIY.
Usually, revealing Chaos' true form should not be something that he could dare with a minimal amount of Chaos in him.
And it was why it was regarded as a tremendous achievement even by Chaos itself.
The essence of DIY was that he could now tailor anything to suit his nature and also create his own unique abilities from scratch, by deep knowledge and understanding.
That was why Northern was swinging this hard and training despite the ball of sweat that rolled down his face and soaked his black shirt.
The Dark Mortal swung in his hands with a cold intensity, whistling through the air with a dark and eerie thrill.
Northern stopped for a moment and focused on the sword, narrowing his eyes as he considered a few things.
He loved swords very much, maybe because they were the first kind of weapon he ever used or because they were easy to use, but he loved them and had grown attached to using them.
However, this was bad for him. He carried an essence of formless; his identity lay in not having an identity. This made him a very volatile and versatile existence.
An attachment of such could limit his explosive potential. Northern felt the need because of this to discard the sword for a while, or so that it wouldn't go to waste, give it to someone
else.
Northern dropped to the ground, leaning his back against the wall while thinking about it.
"I guess it's time to create another void summon."
As he spoke, his scenery switched before his eyes, transitioning to the ethereal vicinity of the Void Palace, with Northern sitting cross-legged on his softly glowing white throne.
"This time it shouldn't be too difficult..." he muttered and summoned.
"Hentu."
The shadow instantly appeared before him; it was like dark smoke molded into a humanoid shape but unstable and emanating some of its properties into the air.
"This is going to be so easy and fruitful, I believe..."
Northern licked his lips as he spoke then summoned a clone.
A perfect appearance of himself appeared before his eyes. Northern stared at the clone for a while and smiled.
Then he pointed to his forehead, where opened a vertical eye-[Mind Eyes]-that he had received thanks to Revant's awakening.
Upon becoming a Savant and a Sage, Northern's cloning had gained two more abilities.
The first one-[Clone Durability]-could increase the durability of several clones drastically, but this was also in proportion to numbers.
For example, how durable a hundred clones would be could never be compared to how durable ten clones would be.
The latter would be able to take so many damages and still retain their numbers, while the former would disappear instantly.
The second one-[Conscience]—this was the best thing ever that had happened to Northern regarding this cloning ability.
With Mind's Eye, he could now share a part of his memory with a clone, giving it a unique memory and sense of self.
From there it awakens an identity and goes on to develop continually, to its own person while still having a link to Northern.
The downside of this new ability, however, was that when the clone returned to nothing, all that progress disappeared; when he created a new clone, it would have to start from the
beginning.
Of course, that could now be fixed thanks to the knowledge of void he employed in creating
unique void summons.
With that, his void summons would develop a sense of self not left to chances.
The memory he gave them had the most important role to play in what personality they
turned out to have.
And thanks to Mind's Eyes, he could choose the exact memory he wanted to give the clone.
Northern thought for a while about what memory to give it.
Then a big, wide, wicked grin spread on his face.
"Raven. I will be preparing a damned gift for you."