We all have greatness inside of us, but what most lack is resolve.

~Belenus, the Sun God

Stone shifted, and small pebbles slid through the gaps of the vines, pelting Crow’s head. It wasn’t painful but enough to bring him back to consciousness. Checking over his body, he found that other than a few superficial wounds, he was intact.

The problem was he was under a pile of rocks and wasn’t sure what to do about that. The vine dome protecting him had to stay, or he might get crushed instantly.

Reaching through a gap in the vines, he sent out thousands of tiny hair-like tendrils, seeking gaps in the surrounding stones. A situation like this made him feel regretful that he didn’t find some type of beast core with tunneling abilities. While it wouldn’t add to his physical Body, he could still use the beast’s basic skills.

Once he found a significant enough gap above, he cut the tendrils from his hand. A singular vine came from his pointer finger and turned spectral as it went straight through the stones to reach the gap he found. He did so to find the distance and determine if he could ghost through the stone. After it reached the destination, he let it solidify and sensed several stones shattering. In contrast, others were porous enough that the pulp from the squished vine filled those holes. It was an interesting experience, sensing all that happening to the vine while it was still attached to him.

There was no pain, just sensation. Ghosting a vine intimidated him, and Crow even shivered thinking about those things solidifying inside his body. Something like that would be destructive, but that didn’t mean he could just do something like that so easily. Living things had a resonance that made it so even genuine ghosts couldn’t pass through them without issue. If he tried to ghost a vine through someone, they’d sense it, and their body would naturally repel it.

It was still possible. Crow just had to act faster than his opponent. Like any attack, speed and decisiveness were the keys to success.

The other thing he noticed with his little test was that the mana usage was reasonably low. Ghosting a vine through a solid object wasn’t as taxing as sending himself, giving him many ideas. Ideas to get past the limited nature of the Wood nature of his vines. If he could incorporate the concepts of the Blood Thorn into his Ghosting aura, he could create his own version of the technique.

Crow shivered thinking about his intention and couldn’t tell if it was excitement or fear. Ghost Vines sounded sinister, but the more he refined his Ghostly Aura, the more it rid itself of the ‘dirty’ mana. He knew that the more he evolved his technique, the purity of the mana approached that of Origin Energy.

He had these thoughts because he felt that the mana drain would be insignificant if those vines started as incorporeal. Well, until he wanted to solidify them, but when that occurred, he realized he didn’t need to use Wood Mana to achieve its solidification.

Right now, the vines were powerful because he was on the Wood-based floors, and there was an abundance of Wood Mana. The upper floors wouldn’t have this abundance, so modifying it now could make Blood Thorn a mainstay of his current power set. Truthfully, he loved this technique. The seven years inside Wistman’s Woods might be the reason. Still, all the creative thinking he gained using this technique made it one of his defining methods. Between this and his Myriad of Beasts and Ghosting, he didn’t want to muddy his current build unless he found something that meshed with those three things.

These three things covered most of his weaknesses. Physically, his defenses weren’t the toughest, but he could ghost most attacks. He relied mainly on speed and utility as an archer, and his other abilities augmented that. If he could not take down his opponent, there was little that could prevent him from escaping if necessary.

Add in the Druid Circle spell—Crow felt no one at his level was his opponent. While he thought that, he wasn’t about to get arrogant and assume no one was his opponent, but as long as he didn’t meet a higher Shield, he was confident.

While he sat there meditating, he contemplated what he needed to do. The central debate in his head was how to break apart his current techniques. It was Seeding versus Aura that was giving him the biggest headache. He adopted the circle method for designing techniques instead of tiers. This broke down the different aspects of a technique and allowed him to advance each circle independently. He’d already started to do this with Ghosting and Myriad of Beasts, but his method was crude and not as elegant as Blood Thorn’s circle method.

Seeding had one major drawback, and that was internal resources. While Crow could introduce an infinite number of Seeds inside his Source, once one of those seeds took root and became a tree, it’d take most internal resources. Like all tower trees, it’d stifle the surrounding saplings preventing their growth. This felt counterproductive unless he focused on one or two similar techniques that could utilize the same Seed.

Auras were different. Crow had long contemplated turning his Aura template from a flat construct into something three-dimensional. The current setup was like a coin that he could imprint an Aura on either side, but he felt that was just the beginning. If he could expand that coin into a cube or die, he’d be able to attach up to six Auras. It required finding the correct meridians, acupoints, and chakras to convert it, but he didn’t think he’d have to change the two Auras he had already formed.

Not long ago, he had a breakthrough in his thought process and realized the key to creating his Aura Cube was if he used his Source as the central point of the template. No matter how he looked at his current thoughts, he knew this wasn’t something even geniuses could manage because of its complexity and intricateness.

The reason was that he needed his Sage’s Mind to track all the changes. Not to mention, creating the pathways between all the nodes in his body was extremely painful. Trial and error were the only methods to see if his thoughts were practical. It meant his route was a lifelong goal, and he’d have to suffer for every gain. Creating mana paths through his Body while destroying old ones wasn’t something for the faint of heart.

This line of thought led him to believe this was more conducive than Seeding. The upside was that he already had two Auras developed, so he didn’t need to redo those. Even better, based on his current thoughts, two sides of the cube were technically already formed, so he just expanded the flat form and added four sides.

Like the original two, those four sides overlapped with other nodes, but the pathways needed to be carved out. The complexity came with wanting the sides to be dynamic enough that any Aura he developed could connect to any side. The problem was that he didn’t see how the additional four would have that capability unless he designed the new sections to complement the opposite side. It would be fine if the two Auras on opposing sides weren’t in conflict. For example, since light opposes dark, creating a Light Aura and Dark Aura, he wouldn’t be able to add them to a complementary pair.

Crow thought of adding elemental Auras but felt his head near his limit. The reason was that elemental auras made him also rethink his techniques. The Myriad of Beasts obviously wasn’t elemental based, so it couldn’t be modified by this current thought process. However, the beast abilities could have elemental augmentation. So that technique he could ignore for now. The Ghostly Aura and related skills should remain, but Blood Thorn made him second guess.

If he used a Wood Aura combined with Ghostly Aura, Crow wasn’t sure he had to recreate it. Most of his ghost spells required the Ghostly Aura, but the Aura augmented the spells related to the technique. Phasing wasn’t necessarily a ghost ability. In theory, phasing was a Space ability. Following that same thought process, vines were a Wood-Based manifestation of tentacles. If he stripped away the ‘element’ of a technique by using Auras, the behavior might not change, but its usage would.

He spent so much mana turning a Blood Thorn Vine into a Ghost Vine because he was converting Wood Mana into Ghost Mana. Chasing that thought down, he knew he’d have to analyze each technique and spell and see which could fall into an Aura-neutral technique.

More than that, he would need to define each Aura’s salient features. Beastly Aura was self-explanatory, but Ghostly Aura wasn’t as clear-cut. It had spectral or incorporeal aspects, but that didn’t feel like the core of what that Aura represented.

Is it Astral? Crow pondered.

Astral was a concept he didn’t understand previously, but his Soulverse gave him a lot to think about. He knew his Body remained behind when he entered his Soulverse because it was an anchor. That didn’t mean he couldn’t fully enter the worlds in his Soulverse, but he couldn’t do it through his Soul because his body was the channel between two points. What appeared inside his Soulverse was something that the books he read called an Astral Body or consciousness.

Sage’s Mind was also a mental plane; technically, his Astral Body also entered that place. There was also a spirit plane, but Crow didn’t have enough experience with that to understand how to connect to it. The point of those thoughts was that Ghosting was most likely an Astral-related ability that had to do with his Body and his physical connection to the physical plane. Transitioning his body into the astral plane would make him incorporeal—similar to a ghost. And as he thought of this, he shuddered, wondering if ghosts became physical entities while he was Ghosting.

Crow felt this was still confusing.

The theory was that there were five planes: physical, mental, spirit, soul, and astral. Astral was the most mysterious because it didn’t feel like a plane but a transitional place. If he went with that, it made some sense. Ghosts were in a transition phase, unwilling to leave the physical plane. Still, if they wanted to enter the cycle of rebirth, they’d have to enter the spirit plane. They had to give up their mortal husk or Body if they wanted to be reborn. And in the process, their Mind was wiped until their Soul regained enough energy to recall previous lives. It was the thought of forgetting that made ghosts resist the transition. Especially those who died with resentment.

If he assumed that the focus of his Ghostly Aura was to enter the astral plane, many things made sense. It fits the greater thought process of how to manipulate techniques. However, he didn’t want to change it to Astral Aura because that sounded horrible, and he’d be embarrassed to say that out loud. Ghostly Aura sounded more intimidating.

Crow wasn’t a vain person, but he had gained a knack for showmanship ever since the arena and his Golden Mouth days. So he wasn’t about to suffer indignation over a horribly named ability. He knew if Hooligan was here, she’d make fun of him endlessly for his shamelessness, but that was fine.

Either way, his ideas were coming together, and he felt his plan was feasible. Subconsciously, he set Sage’s Mind to work on breaking down his techniques. In the meantime, he didn’t feel safe on this floor and knew he had to leave as fast as he could.

Namely, the Python’s Tongue seemed to react to something here, and he knew Unhulde Sect was aware of his existence. It was a matter of time before they realized he was on their turf. This was the place where the tongue would open that mysterious place, but he didn’t want anything to do with it. Anything related to the Hex Vodou would not end well.