Chapter 181 Battle of the Mind
Battalda was a 120-year-old cultivator at the 3-Life Stage, reaching the latter half of his lifespan. He had dedicated his life to gathering intelligence for Ellora City. Since young, he had looked into the minds of Slump Lizards, various Ravaged Tribesmen that had been captured, and dissidents of the city.
The mineral his Human Avatar was made from was called Brahasp and was very valuable. It was equivalent to Beginner Silver Grade, but in terms of rarity, it exceeded even Haddlyok, the mineral used by the Ganrimb Kingdom Royalty to forge their Human Avatars.
It was available only in discrete amounts and had to be mined judiciously. Hence, the number of cultivators part of the Intelligence Team barely numbered five, with the cultivation of everyone at the peak of the Body Stage.
Only he, the head of the Intelligence Team, holding the title of Intelligence Officer received enough Brahasp to reach the 3-Life Stage. And at his Lord, Hanya's orders, he entered Inala's cell. He was accompanied by two of his Intelligence Team members.
"Anything I need to know beforehand, My Lady?" Battalda asked Hanya as he stared at the crushed limbs of Inala.
"He's an Empyrean Tusk." Hanya said, "You need to extract all information from his mind within two years. It's fine even if his mind breaks, but his body shouldn't be harmed. We need him to birth more of his kind. But first, we'll wait for your information."
There were differences in mating strategies for every race. And if not done correctly, a progeny wouldn't be birthed. Besides, Hanya didn't even know if a human woman could bear Inala's child. Hence, it was best to wait until Battalda got the required information.
They could always make the decision accordingly.
"I got it," Battalda nodded and calmly took position behind Inala's head while his subordinates positioned themselves on either side of Inala's legs.
"This will hurt," He spoke to Inala and activated his Human Avatar, transforming his body into a glass-like humanoid, sporting his previous stature. Faint rings of information churned through his body, accumulating Prana as they condensed in his hands.
Battalda placed his hands on Inala's temples and asked, "How old are you?"
In response to his question, a ring in his hand seeped into Inala's head, causing the latter to grunt in pain once. A couple of seconds later, the ring returned to its original position in his hand.
Battalda opened his mouth and uttered, "Seventeen years old."
The moment he talked, the respective ring in his hand shattered, dissolving into his body. He expended one Prana to extract that information.
One of the Intelligence Team members took out a crystal and coded the information into it. This crystal was the Bone Slip equivalent for their cultivation technique.
The Mammoth Clan only used the Bone Slip for information exchange as the only cultivation technique they practiced was the Mystic Bone Art.
But in the Ganrimb Kingdom where people practiced dozens of cultivation techniques, the devices used to store information varied accordingly, too numerous. As a result, information exchange took time, done so through cultivators practicing the same cultivation technique.
If a third party wished to access that information, the respective device would have to be taken to an institution where the cultivator practicing the same cultivation technique could access it and manually record it into a book.
Following that, another cultivator would access the information in the book and encode it into a different device—which could be accessed by the third-party cultivator.
Every single time someone wanted that piece of information, a cultivator in that institution practicing the same cultivation technique would have to manually inscribe the book's contents into a Bone Slip equivalent for that cultivator.
As a result, information exchange took a lot of time in Ganrimb Kingdom. It was the same for the Intelligence Team too.
At present, they were recording all information in their Bone Slip equivalent, since that was instantaneous. After this, they would have to manually print the information on a book and store it in their database for public access.
By public, it was limited to the Royalty and people of power who gained permission from the Royalty.
Battalda stared at Hanya, "Is there any information I need to prioritise?"
"Find out what he knows about the changes in the Angan River," Hanya said.
"Okay," Nodding as such, Battalda seeped another ring into Inala's head, asking the latter, "What do you know about the changes in Angan River?"
His power worked by sending an energy packet into the target's mind. Following that, he would ask a question. Even if the target was unwilling to answer, his brain would think up an answer automatically, since thinking was what the brain did.
This energy packet captured all the thoughts generated by the brain in response to the question. Of course, there would be a lot of accompanying noise, since no human would have a streamlined thought process. There would be information jumbles, parallel thought processes, etc.
Battalda had gone through extensive training to filter out most of the noise and capture only the essence of the information he wanted. Experience played a crucial part in his abilities. As a result, the older someone was in the Information Team, the greater they were valued. And Battalda was valued across the entire Ganrimb Kingdom.
But now, that same person was experiencing a state of puzzlement. The energy packet he sent to Inala's head was destroyed for some reason. Even the Prana infused in the energy packet was absorbed by something, confusing him.
'That hurt, but it's good since I can understand its mechanism.' Inala thought, 'I want more experience regarding this, but not at the cost of leaking sensitive information that might fuck me up.'
Mystic Bone Art—Prana Domination!
This was the Skill he got from Granny Oyo as a bribe in advance of what she did later in the night. Forgetting that incident, the Skill of Prana Domination allowed Inala to exercise sovereign control over his Prana.
Prana was an energy created through the fusion of energies from the Body, Mind, and Soul. Therefore, Prana Domination allowed Inala to have complete control over his Prana, and in extension, his body, mind, and soul. No third party would be able to go against that, unless they knew the Skill and were vastly stronger than him.
Offensively, Prana Domination Skill could only be used on Mammoth Clansmen. When used, he could make the target's skeleton into his Spirit Weapon and also influence their Spirit Container.
Defensively, it prevented others from influencing his body, Prana, Spirit Container, etc.
The moment he used it, Inala realised that Battalda didn't have enough power to overcome the defences of his Prana Domination Skill. Upon arriving at the conclusion, he grinned, 'Now, I need to evolve this Skill to be effective on targets other than Mammoth Clansmen.'
Prana steadily surged through his body as Inala controlled his mental defences, only allowing Battalda to get what he wanted the latter to receive. As Battalda continued to obtain useless pieces of information from him, Inala recorded the process happening in his head, activating another ability.
Mystic Bone Art—Mystic Skill Creator.
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