Druid Secret Technique

Following the narrow neck of the small bottle, one could see it contained a liquid. Leian leaned in to sniff the opening; there was no scent, yet after taking a light breath, he felt as if he had consumed some miraculous elixir. His entire body felt refreshed, as if all negative states had completely vanished from him.

"Is this the Spring of Life?"

Leian pursed his lips, his face filled with pleasant surprise. In truth, this was his first time seeing the liquid in the bottle; he had only just read its name in a book.

However, this Spring of Life was the key to the "beast-transformation" of the Cleo Family. Hidden within this was indeed a great secret.

The matter must be traced back to the ancestors of the Cleo Family. In fact, the true surname of the Cleo Family was not "Cleo," but Joyce, which was also the name of their family's ancestor.

This Joyce was a Saint Realm warrior from six thousand years ago who had inadvertently saved an elf from the Elven Continent, thereby earning the favor of the elven leader.

When the elven leader asked Joyce what reward he desired, Joyce requested the "Spring of Life."

This Spring of Life was a unique treasure of the elven race, nurtured by a divine tree known as the Tree of Life.

As for why Joyce chose the Spring of Life, it actually stems from a secret technique within the elven race.

There were certain special members of the elven race who could fuse with magic crystal cores to become a special type of warrior known as a "Druid."

After fully fusing with a magic crystal core, they could not only transform into the appearance of a magical beast but also gain corresponding enhancements, and could even raise their cultivation to the level equivalent to the magic crystal core.

For example, if they fused with a Saint Realm Magic Crystal Core, they would possess Saint Realm strength once the fusion was complete.

What did this mean? It meant that a single Saint Realm Magic Crystal Core could create a Saint Realm warrior. To outsiders, how great of a temptation was this?

Countless years ago, when this secret technique spread, although the Elven Continent had god-level powerhouses guarding it, they could not withstand the combined pressure of human god-level powerhouses from the other four continents.

However, when those god-level powerhouses obtained the secret technique, they realized they had overthought it; this technique was only suitable for the elven race, and even within the elven race, it was not applicable to every member.

Of course, those god-level powerhouses did not give up entirely. Even if they couldn't use it, what about their descendants?

There would always be one or two favored descendants who needed this technique to improve their strength.

After a period of research, these god-level powerhouses eventually modified the technique, creating a compromise that allowed humans to use it.

Of course, the conditions were also extremely harsh.

First, it required a portion of the Spring of Life!

However, the quantity of this Spring of Life was limited; even the elven race didn't have enough to go around, let alone outsiders. Furthermore, if humans could use this compromise, couldn't other elves do the same?

After all, who would complain about having too many Saint Realm warriors in their own family?

Therefore, in the end, the various god-level powerhouses established a contract:

Every hundred years, the elven race would provide one bottle of the Spring of Life, which would then be contested by Saint Realm warriors recommended by the god-level powerhouses of the entire Yulan Plane, with the winner taking possession of it.

Across the entire plane, although there were not many Saint Realm warriors, the total across the five continents exceeded a hundred. With so many people fighting for one bottle, the intensity of the competition can be imagined.

Secondly, a powerful physique.

According to the research of the god-level powerhouses, to fuse with a Saint Realm Magic Crystal Core, one's physical body needed to be at least at the level of a seventh-rank warrior.

However, the limit for a normal human was the sixth rank, unless it was some genius born with a powerful physique who might be able to train their body to the seventh rank.

But the latter were few, and a sixth-rank body could at most fuse with a ninth-rank magic crystal core.

Finally, there was the magic crystal core itself.

Of course, it wasn't just any magic crystal core that would do; the person fusing had to choose one that matched the attribute of their own battle qi.

Of the three conditions, the last one seemed the easiest, but for those who cultivated the laws, it was actually the hardest, because rule-type magical beasts were extremely rare throughout the entire Yulan Plane.

Returning to Joyce, relying on the precious status of the elf he had saved and their good relationship, he eventually obtained five full bottles of the Spring of Life.

Coincidentally, Joyce was born with a powerful physique and a seventh-rank body. In the end, he hunted a Saint Realm Thunder Dragon and used the Spring of Life to fuse with the magic crystal core of this Thunder Dragon.

About two thousand years ago, because Joyce was unable to break through to the god-level, he finally decided to go to the Supreme Plane with a group of friends to seek his fortune.

Before leaving, he divided the remaining four bottles among two Saint Realm descendants, while making them swear an oath that they could only be used by descendants with a seventh-rank physique.

However, life is full of unpredictable events. About a hundred years later, the secret that the Joyce family possessed the Spring of Life somehow leaked out, subsequently attracting the covetous eyes of many powerhouses.

After a great battle, the Joyce family suffered heavy casualties, and the two Saint Realm warriors were severely injured. In the end, they could only have their clansmen scatter and flee, hiding their names in hopes of a future.

These two Saint Realm warriors also knew they would have a hard time escaping. Before separating, each secretly handed their two bottles of the Spring of Life to a descendant with good talent.

Clearly, the ancestor of the Cleo Family was one of them!

After this person escaped with his life, he changed his name to Cleo and rose as a commoner, eventually reaching the level of an eighth-rank warrior and receiving a fief from the Byron Empire due to his military exploits.

Regrettably, this person never managed to break through to the ninth rank before he died.

Of course, while he was alive, Cleo had considered using the Spring of Life. Unfortunately, he had fled in such a hurry that the only Saint Realm Thunder Dragon magic crystal core he had prepared in advance was in the hands of the other Saint Realm ancestor.

Although he still had a ninth-rank magic crystal core in his possession, its attribute did not match the battle qi he cultivated, and it was not from a Thunder Dragon.

Here, one must mention the drawback of that "compromise."

Because it was a compromise, even if a human successfully fused with a magic crystal core, they could not fully transform into a magical beast like the elven race, but rather underwent "beast-transformation"—that is, transforming into a human form possessing the characteristics of a magical beast.

In a word, it was just like the "dragon-transformation" of a Dragonblood Warrior.

Of course, because the magic crystal core used was only Saint Realm or below, rather than the essence blood of a Chief God, their strength would not increase after the beast-transformation.

It would not be like Linley, whose human form was seventh-rank, but who became ninth-rank once he underwent dragon-transformation.

Come to think of it, this was just the imperfection of the "compromise." Its true drawback was that for a warrior who had fused with a magic crystal core, their descendants, if they wished to fuse with a magic crystal core again, could only choose the same type of magical beast as their ancestor.

If the chosen magical beast is different, bloodline conflict will lead to the collapse of the body.

Therefore, even if Cleo had the heart to fuse with that level-nine magical beast core, he dared not attempt it.

After Cleo died, the family he founded only maintained its prosperity for a short time before beginning to decline, and his descendants gradually forgot the family vendetta and began to indulge in pleasure.

Less than a thousand years later, they reached the point of relying on selling family treasures to make a living.

By the time the family reached Elvis and his father, Elvis had an extremely strong yearning for the Saint Realm due to frequently hunting magical beasts with his father.

Thus, the plan to fuse a magical beast core gradually took root in his heart; in his view, since the family had passed down for so many generations, the Thunder Dragon bloodline in his body must have become extremely thin, so if he chose a level-nine dragon core, he might just succeed.

Of course, the dragon race is generally powerful, and even a level-nine dragon is not that easy to kill.

Normally, Elvis would not have had much of a chance, but luck is a hard thing to predict; half a month ago, when Elvis and his father went to the Youquan Mountain Range to hunt magical beasts, they unexpectedly encountered two level-nine magical beasts fighting each other.

One of them was a level-nine Thorny-backed Armored Dragon; this dark-element dragon was a perfect match for the battle qi Elvis cultivated, and it must be said that his luck was extremely good.

As for the other magical beast, Elvis and his father did not recognize it; its appearance was similar to a lion, but its head, tail, and four claws were similar to the dragon race, and it even had a layer of dragon scales on its back.

This strange magical beast was the owner of that destruction-attribute magical beast core, and the fact that it could fight the strongest level-nine magical beast, the Thorny-backed Armored Dragon, and kill it, shocked Elvis and his father greatly.

However, at the time, this powerful magical beast had also been beaten into a near-death state by the Thorny-backed Armored Dragon's final desperate move.

On the other side, looking at the ready-made level-nine magical beast cores, greed inevitably arose in Elvis. In the end, amidst the tragic situation where his father died in battle and the guard team was wiped out, he successfully obtained the two magical beast cores.

After returning to his territory, Elvis could not wait to fuse with the magical beast core, so as soon as he finished his father's funeral, he took action.

However, the process was not as smooth as he had imagined; although the Thunder Dragon bloodline in his body was extremely thin, it still clashed with the Thorny-backed Armored Dragon, which caused irreversible damage to his body.

Fortunately, perhaps because they both belonged to the dragon race, Elvis luckily managed to save his life in the end. Afterward, it was to treat the injuries caused by the fusion that he set off for the county city in the middle of the night.

The reason Leian knew all this was because Elvis had recorded the process of obtaining the magical beast cores and the experience gained from the fusion in the family genealogy.

The former was his father's experience, while the latter was likely a mix of satisfying his own vanity and providing experience for future generations.

However, with Elvis dead, none of that mattered anymore; for Leian, the most important thing was that he now met the three conditions for fusing with a magical beast core:

A portion of Spring of Life, a level-nine magical beast core of the same attribute, and a level-six warrior's physical body!

In the bedroom

After pondering for a long time, Leian did not immediately choose to fuse with the magical beast core, because he had been very lucky to find a top-tier destruction battle qi cultivation technique in the black wooden box—the Destruction Codex.

Since this technique dared to use "Destruction" as its name, it was likely of a high level. Leian intended to successfully switch to cultivating this codex before fusing with the magical beast core, so that the process of refining the core would be smoother.

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PS: The Druid belongs to the original setting; when Linley went to the Ocalan Plane to snatch the Red Diamond Crystal in the original work, the defender of the Ocalan Plane mentioned this method.