Chapter 7 - Dao Imprinting

In the test room of the Sining Pillar Pavilion the Venerable Estimator, a Dao Imprinting expert of the pavilion and Falven were waiting. The youth had used all of his crystals to acquire Dao Imprinting materials, and now many Dao imprints were stockpiled, ready to be sold.

“Venerable Estimator, young friend, sorry for the wait” Unbroken Fang greeted them upon arriving with his most loyal men, a new face among them. “This Knight here is my right hand, the strongest expert among my companions. He was gathering intelligence in another area of the country and has just come back”.

“It’s my pleasure to meet you, young seer. Unbroken Fang has spoken golden words about you” The knight politely greeted the youth.

In Falven’s eyes the big gap between the knights was as clear as the sunny sky. This new expert was an early knight, his foundation was pretty good although not as solid as the one of his leader, the arts he practiced were also inferior to his.

“Here you are phase 2. I will provide to one of your lieutenants a basic Dao Imprinting so that it can be assessed. If the result is satisfying, he will be acting as a model in the coming auction, in order to showcase the quality of my imprinting”.

A middle aged man come forward, he was one of the skeptical lieutenants, a peak Veteran Soldier. His talents were bad, the arts he practiced were basic and his background had to be common and poor. His low cultivation stage had been built upon many bloody battles, gaining the tiniest cultivation resources risking his life. He was a tempered war veteran, skeptical of anyone who has not lived dangerous situations, trusting only his comrades and his judgement. Now he wasn’t doubtful anymore, deep respect could be seen in his eyes. “It will be my honour to try your Dao Imprinting, young seer. As long as you say the words, no matter its actual quality, I’ll showcase it wherever you want”.

Approvingly, Falven gave him a Dao Imprinting “I can feel the sincerity of your words, I appreciate it. Imprint these runes on your sword, activate your arts and circulate chi in the weapon circuits”. The mercenary followed the instructions and imprinted the Dao runes on a one hand and half sword. Then he swinged the weapon towards a mark placed in the middle of the room. The circulating chi of the sword activated the newly imprinted runes, giving birth to a raging chi sword full of blood-thirst, which flew against the mark ravaging it.

This basic Dao Imprinting gave a skill to the weapon it was applied to, a skill based on the Asura Bloodthirst. Asura was about surviving and thriving through any obstacle, no matter the difficulty you must go on. Limits are meant to be broken, life to be suppressed and death to be postponed. Rage against the tempest that falls upon you, resist it, dominate it, become the tempest yourself, before entering in a greater one. This was another chapter of the Asura Art, and the first steps of this chapter were Asura Bloodthirst and Asura Rage. In order to advance in the tempest, don’t let anything break you, you need to annihilate everything in your path. Thirst for blood, raging fury, feel them, control them, make them your allies.

This basic Dao Imprinting contained these profundities of the Asura Law. The newborn weapon skill, that can be activated while lunching an attack, charges this attack with a raging chi full of bloodthirst, wanting to annihilate anything. In the attack the mercenary had lunched just now, fragments of the profound concepts of bloodthirst, annihilation and death itself could be felt.

Even if the consumption of chi increases exponentially activating the skill, it is completely worth it. The fragments of the annihilation law help in suppressing inferior laws and arts, in order to annihilate and break them. The bloodthirst law increases the amount of damage inflicted to the enemy and the most profound of all, the death law, would reduce the enemy vitality.

Of course just fragments of these laws could be felt, therefore their effect was not too great and would not be effective against superior arts or much higher ranked experts with a good foundation. But this was already more than enough, it couldn’t even be classified as a basic imprinting. The design complexity was the same of the basic imprints, but the profundities of the laws inside were on a completely different level.

Silence, everyone was holding his breath. The Venerable had a gloating expression. He didn’t need his expert’s opinion to know this auction would bring enormous gains.

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The day of the Auction had finally come. The Shining Pillar Pavilion used to held a great auction every year, where rare and precious good would be contended by the participants. Not only all the major characters of the kingdom would join, but also renowned experts from other powers in the South Region would take a trip to the auction.

In order to join the auction an entrance fee had to be paid. A couple of days before the auction day a list of the goods on trade would be released from the Pavilion. In each auction there would be two secret objects, positioned in the middle and at the end. The final object would usually be the most precious one, the queen of the auction, while the item in the middle would often come as an ever-changing special event.

Additionally, goods whose auction was committed to the Pavilion by other organisations and experts could be missing on the list. For this reason the list would have a strong appeal, enticing everyone who found something he was in need of and also the experts who were not attracted by the items on the list because of the mysterious ones.

The largest auction room of the Pavilion was finely decorated, many columns with golden carvings and golden statues on top surrounded the audience seats. The middle area seats were comfortable armchairs, placed in long rows before the stage. The elite seats were private balconies, that would guarantee the privacy of the experts inside upon the activation of their runic patterns. These balconies were placed higher than the middle seats, sustained by the statues below. A higher fee was required to access these elite seats balconies, but not always. The fee was not applied to esteemed collaborators of the Pavilion and to the experts that had commissioned the auction of very prestigious items.

At each Auction the balconies would always be fully occupied, it was a symbol of great status to assist the auction from there. Many experts were willing to pay more to sit in them and if there were some spots left, the Pavilion would invite powerful figures for free. This was useful both for increasing their goodwill and loyalty to the Pavilion and to make sure that there would be no vacancies in the balconies, so that these prestigious seats would never suffer a reputational crisis.

When all the participants were seated, external light was prevented from entering the room, substituted by flaming torches all around the stage, where a charming young woman appeared “Esteemed and venerable guests, the Shining Pillar Pavilion welcomes you. I am Lady Fatal Moon and I will be your host. Let the auction begin!”