Druid Secret Technique

Through the narrow neck of the vial, he could see that it held a liquid. Leaning close to sniff it, he detected no scent. Yet after taking a light breath, Leian felt as if he had swallowed some miraculous elixir. Comfort spread through his entire body, as though every negative condition had completely left him.

"Is this the Spring of Life?"

Leian pressed his lips together, his face filled with delight. In truth, this was also his first time seeing the liquid in the vial. He had only just learned its name from the book.

However, the Spring of Life was the key to Cleo's "beast transformation." It truly concealed a great secret.

The story had to begin with the Cleo Family's ancestor. In fact, the Cleo Family's true surname was not "Cleo," but Joyce. This surname was also the name of their family's ancestor.

This Joyce had been a Saint Realm warrior six thousand years ago. After accidentally saving an elf from the Elven Continent, he earned the favor of the elves' leader.

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

The Spring of Life was a unique treasure of the elves, nurtured by a divine tree known as the Tree of Life.

As for why Joyce had chosen the Spring of Life, that had to do with a secret technique among the elves.

Among the elves were certain special clansmen who could fuse with magic beast crystal cores and become special warriors known as Druids.

After completely fusing with a magic beast crystal core, they could not only transform into the appearance of a magic beast, but also gain corresponding enhancements. They could even raise their realm to the same level as the magic crystal core.

For example, if they fused with a Saint Realm Magic Crystal Core, then upon completely fusing with it, they would possess Saint Realm strength.

What did that mean? It meant that a single Saint Realm Magic Crystal Core could create a Saint Realm warrior. How great a temptation was that to outsiders?

Countless years ago, when this secret technique spread, the Elven Continent might have had god-level experts guarding it, but even they could not withstand the joint coercion of the god-level human experts from the other four continents.

However, once those god-level experts obtained the secret technique, they realized they had been overthinking it. This technique was only suitable for elves, and even among the elves, not every clansman could use it.

Of course, those god-level experts had not completely given up. Even if they could not use it themselves, what about their descendants?

There would always be one or two favored descendants who needed such a technique to increase their strength.

After a period of research, those god-level experts ultimately modified the technique and created a compromise method that humans could use.

Naturally, the conditions were extremely harsh.

First, one needed a portion of Spring of Life!

Yet the Spring of Life existed only in limited quantities. Even the elves did not have enough for themselves, much less outsiders. Besides, if humans could use that compromise method, could the other elves not use it as well?

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

Thus, in the end, the god-level experts of every side established an agreement:

Every hundred years, the elves would provide one vial of Spring of Life. Then, Saint Realm experts recommended by the god-level experts of the entire Yulan Plane would compete for it, and the victor would claim it.

There were not many Saint Realm experts across the entire plane, but the five continents together still had more than a hundred. With so many people fighting over a single vial, one could imagine how fierce the competition was.

Second, a powerful body.

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

However, the limit for ordinary humans was the sixth rank. Only certain geniuses born with exceptionally powerful physiques had a chance of training their bodies to the seventh rank.

But such people were few, while a sixth-rank body could fuse with no more than a ninth-rank magic crystal core.

Finally, there was the magic beast crystal core.

Of course, not just any magic crystal core would do. The person fusing with it had to choose one with the same attribute as their battle qi.

Of the three conditions, the last seemed the easiest, but for those who cultivated the Laws, it was actually the hardest, because magic beasts aligned with the Laws were extremely rare throughout the Yulan Plane.

As for Joyce, relying on the precious status of the elf he had saved and their close relationship, he ultimately obtained five whole vials of Spring of Life.

By coincidence, Joyce had been born with a powerful physique, his body already at the seventh rank. In the end, he personally hunted a Saint Realm Thunder Dragon and used the Spring of Life to fuse with that Thunder Dragon's magic crystal core.

Around two thousand years ago, because Joyce had never been able to break through to the god level, he finally decided to venture into the Supreme Planes with a group of friends.

Before leaving, he gave the remaining four vials to two Saint Realm descendants and made them swear that they could only be used by descendants with seventh-rank bodies.

But disasters were unpredictable. Roughly a hundred years later, the secret that the Joyce Family possessed Spring of Life somehow spread. After that, it drew the covetous attention of many powerful experts.

After a great battle, the Joyce Family suffered devastating casualties. The two Saint Realm experts were severely wounded, and in the end could only have their clansmen scatter and flee, concealing their identities in hopes of rebuilding one day.

Those two Saint Realm experts also knew that they would find it difficult to escape. Before separating, each secretly gave the two vials of Spring of Life in his possession to a talented descendant.

Clearly, the ancestor of the Cleo Family had been one of them!

After escaping with his life, this man changed his name to Cleo. Rising as a commoner, he eventually cultivated to the level of an eighth-rank warrior and was granted territory by the Byron Empire for his military achievements.

Unfortunately, he failed to break through to the ninth rank before his death.

Of course, while he was alive, Cleo had considered using the Spring of Life. Unfortunately, he had fled in too much haste back then, and the only Saint Realm Thunder Dragon magic crystal core prepared in advance had been held by the other Saint Realm ancestor.

Although he still possessed a ninth-rank magic crystal core, its attribute did not match the battle qi he cultivated, and it did not come from a Thunder Dragon.

This was where the drawback of that "compromise method" had to be mentioned.

Because it was merely a compromise, even if a human successfully fused with a magic crystal core, they could not completely transform into a magic beast like the elves. Instead, they would undergo "beast transformation," becoming a human form with the characteristics of a magic beast.

In short, it was like a Dragonblood Warrior's "dragon transformation."

Of course, because the magic crystal core used was only Saint Realm or below rather than a chief god's blood essence, beast transformation would not increase one's strength.

It would not be like Linley, who was at the seventh rank in human form but became ninth rank once he transformed into a dragon.

That was merely an imperfection of the compromise method. Its true drawback was that once a warrior fused with a magic crystal core, if his descendants wanted to fuse with one again, they could only choose the same type of magic beast as their ancestor.

If they chose a different magic beast, bloodline conflict would cause their bodies to collapse.

Therefore, even though Cleo had wanted to fuse with that ninth-rank magic crystal core, he had not dared to try.

After Cleo died, the family he had founded remained prosperous only for a time before beginning to decline. His descendants gradually forgot the family's hatred and began indulging in pleasure.

After that, in less than a thousand years, they had fallen to the point of selling family treasures to maintain their livelihood.

By the time the family was passed down to Elvis and his father, Elvis had developed an extremely strong longing for the Saint Realm because he often hunted magic beasts with his father.

Thus, he gradually began considering fusing with a magic crystal core. In his view, after so many generations of inheritance, the Thunder Dragon bloodline in his body had surely become extremely thin. If he chose the magic crystal core of a ninth-rank dragon, he might succeed.

Of course, dragons were generally powerful. Even ninth-rank dragons were not so easy to kill.

Normally, Elvis would not have had much of a chance. Yet luck was truly hard to predict. Half a month ago, when Elvis and his father went to hunt magic beasts in the Youquan Mountain Range, they unexpectedly encountered two ninth-rank magic beasts fighting each other.

One of them was a ninth-rank dragon, the Thorny-backed Armored Dragon. This dark-element dragon happened to match the battle qi Elvis cultivated. It had to be said that his luck was exceptionally good.

As for the other magic beast, Elvis and his father did not recognize it. It resembled a lion, but its head, tail, and four claws were similar to those of a dragon. A layer of dragon scales also grew along its back.

That strange magic beast was the owner of the Destruction-attribute magic crystal core. It had been able to battle the Thorny-backed Armored Dragon, the strongest of ninth-rank magic beasts, and even kill it, greatly shocking Elvis and his father.

However, at the time, that powerful magic beast had also been struck into a near-death state by the Thorny-backed Armored Dragon's ultimate move before its death.

Meanwhile, seeing the ready-made ninth-rank magic crystal core, greed rose within Elvis. In the end, despite his father dying in battle and the entire guard squad being wiped out, he successfully obtained both magic crystal cores.

After returning to the territory, Elvis could not wait to fuse with the magic crystal core. The moment his father's funeral was over, 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 rejected the Thorny-backed Armored Dragon, causing irreversible damage to his body.

Fortunately, perhaps because they both belonged to the dragon race, Elvis ultimately survived by sheer luck. Later, in order to treat the injuries caused by fusing with the magic crystal core, he set out in the middle of the night for the county city.

The reason Leian knew all this was because Elvis had recorded both the process by which he obtained the magic crystal cores and his experience from fusing with one in the family genealogy.

The former was part of his father's experience. As for the latter, Elvis probably wanted both to satisfy his vanity and to provide experience for future generations.

But with Elvis dead, none of that mattered anymore. To Leian, the most important thing was that he now met all three conditions for fusing with a magic crystal core:

A portion of Spring of Life, a ninth-rank magic crystal core of the same attribute, and the body of a sixth-rank warrior!

Inside the bedroom

After thinking for a long time, Leian did not immediately choose to fuse with the magic crystal core, because he had been fortunate enough to find a top-tier Destruction Battle Qi cultivation method in the black wooden chest—the Destruction Codex.

This cultivation method dared to use "Destruction" in its name, so its rank was surely not low. Leian planned to successfully switch to this codex before fusing with the magic crystal core, making the refinement process smoother as well.

PS: Druids were part of the original setting. When Linley went to the Ocalan Plane to seize the Red Diamond Crystal, the guardian of the Ocalan Plane mentioned this method.