Dimensional Descent

Leonel tossed another aside, his expression indifferent. He felt by this point that maybe his enlightened self had created a blueprint that used such cheap materials anticipating that he would fail so often. Even though he was only working on a Fourth Dimension blueprint right now, even Fourth Dimensional materials when piled up to a high enough degree would make him feel a pinch, especially since he was in a stage where he was completely focused on saving as much material as possible for the coming battles he planned to fight.

Leonel tossed yet another aside, not even bothering to continue it. He already knew that it was a failure.

The design of this spear he was attempting to Craft was ingenious. It used the simplest elemental ores, sticking to the basics and using them to create something new. Their power would only show when they came together as one, entering the true Life Grade Realm.

Often, ores like these ones were used in amplification Force Arts, ones that could increase the concentration of certain Forces in a given area. This was something that the Void Palace had quite a lot of. In fact, they had so many that they wouldn't even bother with Fourth Dimensional materials like this one, or even Sixth Dimensional ones. They directly began at the Seventh, which was why these materials were seen as so cheap in Leonel's eyes.

Thinking back to how many of his points he had wasted back in the Cataclysm Zone, gathering the most expensive of materials, Leonel realized that he had been going down the wrong path of Crafting, or at the very least, Life Grade Crafting.

Life Grade Crafting was meant to create new life from the materials that forged it. The more dominant the material, the more resistant it would be to change. Using high class, high-level materials was actually the antithesis of what he really wanted, and he was actually holding himself back.

That wasn't to say that you weren't allowed to use high-class materials, but the issue was that he had overstepped his bounds in some respects and underappreciated himself in others.

He had overstepped his bounds in the regard that he had only just entered the Life Grade; he could be considered a fledgling to the discipline. What right had he earned to already be working with the best materials already?

As for how he had underappreciated himself, one only had to ask one simple question. What point was there in using the highest class materials of the Fourth Dimension? What about the Fifth? Or the Sixth?

It had to be remembered that the entry of the Life Grade by many was seen to be the Eighth Dimension; this wasn't a coincidence.

After one entered the Gold Grade, it didn't matter how great the materials were, even if one used Ninth Dimensional materials-of course, only if you were able to refine such materials despite only being in the Gold Grade-there wouldn't be a qualitative leap in terms of treasure strength unless one understood the concepts of the Life Grade.

This was to say that materials less meaningful at the lower level of the Life Grade. How could it matter much whether you used a low class or a high-class Fourth Dimensional material when your aim was the Life Grade anyway? It was a waste of effort.

It was better to simplify things, to go back to the basics, to choose materials one comprehended to their very roots and bring out the best in each and every one of them.

'... Go back to the basics...'

*Bloop

Leonel's fingers flickered, and Little Tolly went into action, moving with swift speed. Leonel's action seemed far sharper, and his True Spear Sovereign Aura towered.

He thought back to what it would take to forge a wooden spear... carefully picking out a branch, checking its sturdiness, letting it dry, then carefully beginning to carve it with a knife. Each one of your strokes would carry your intent, the thought of forging a spear. Was it long enough? Was it sturdy enough? Was it flexible enough? How did it feel in your hands?

When using a Metal Spirit to forge an item, it was easy to forget these things. You were detached from the material, the spirit becoming the medium of your efforts, and disconnecting you from the process of the spear's creation. In such a situation, how could you gain access to its truest strength? How could it feel the dignity of a Sovereign?

At that moment, Leonel understood. He was trying to form a Life Grade Spear. The Life Grade represented new life, a new creation. If he just threw the materials together, following the blueprint, would this new Life Grade spear even have the understanding that it was now a spear? Or would it feel that it was a rod? A glaive maybe?

Leonel had always had this question in his mind. There were many so-called spears in the Spear Domain Ring that looked a lot more like other weapons, some looked like glaives, some could be separated into two pieces and wielded like twin swords, some looked like tridents, even his favorite spear in recent memory looked like nothing more than a long black rod until its foggy blade took shape. So... what was the separation? What decided what was a spear and what wasn't?

The answer was obvious now that he thought about it... It was the intention.

If he wanted to create a Life Grade Spear, he had to have the intention to do so from the very beginning.

But that begged a question. Why were there Bronze, Silver and Gold Grade Spears within the ring, then? There were even Black Grade spears as well.

But Leonel felt there was an answer to this too, and it was related to the reason why the higher in quality one went, the further one traveled into the Spear Domain Ring, the more spears of these higher caliber could be found!

Leonel retrieved Little Tolly, and a pulsing light radiated. The roar of a tiger and the proud prance of a deer king echoed, flashes of light and dark piercing outward.

He had succeeded.