Sumatra's Greatest Fan

Chapter 207: Chain Of Minds

Standing before a mound that reached a height of twenty metres was a squad of 200 Wean Clansmen, all at the 10-Life Stage. They all looked to be in their early twenties, since their strength had been boosted by their Ancestor rapidly through the Life Stage.

Primary Nature–Empyrean Boar Transformation!

And upon activating their transformation, they will obtain access to their Secondary Nature.

Secondary Nature–Voracious Nature!

It allowed an Empyrean Boar to accumulate the Nature of any creature it consumes. This Nature will accumulate on the Empyrean Boar’s skin, occupying the surface area of the body according to the potency of the Nature.

The higher the Nature’s Grade and potency, the larger the surface area it occupies. There was no theoretical limit to the number of Nature an Empyrean Boar can accumulate. As long as it has enough surface area left of its skin, it can keep accumulating.

Of course, this was a double-edged sword, with the second edge, extremely polished and sharp to the extreme, pointed towards the Empyrean Boar instead. After all, every Nature it had accumulated unleashed all its influence upon the body, mind, and soul of the Empyrean Boar.

Once a Nature in its reserve is activated and deactivated, it’ll vanish. However, Empyrean Boars were omnivorous. And generally, when they were born in the Varahan Enclave, as long as they survived for four days, they no longer had a predator in the region.

There were four Pranic Beast races native to the Varahan Enclave–Empyrean Boar, Razor Rat, Yoked Wyrm, and Petrified Geese.

Other than the Empyrean Boar, which was a Gold Grade Pranic Beast, the remaining three Iron Grade Pranic Beast races. And in a mere four days since the Empyrean Boar’s birth, its physique reached a level of scale where the three other native races could no longer threaten its life.

However, the Empyrean Boar race was born hungry, with a voracious appetite. They tried to eat as much as they could. And instinctively, when they ate a Pranic Beast, they used their Primary Nature, which accumulated the consumed Nature upon their bodies.

An Empyrean Boar, in a single gulp, consumed hundreds of Yoked Wyrms, which meant obtaining hundreds of Iron Grade Natures, whose combined influence is enough to make even it go mad.

This was the pitiful fate shared by all Empyrean Boars.

Towards the end of Renduldu’s Era, the Era of the Mystic Empyrean Tentacle, the Mammoth Clan chanced upon the Varahan Enclave and captured all Empyrean Boars as livestock.

That act led to the birth of Brangara, who witnessed the slaughter of his brethren, and ended up being the last of his race to be alive on Sumatra.

As he grew in strength, and eventually reached a level where he could have children with an exceptionally talented Free Human, the Wean Clan was formed.

He had a total of six children, the youngest two of whom were killed by one of the Mystic Seven. The remaining four became Wean Clansmen, and served as the forebearers of the Clan’s legacy.

Everyone part of the Wean Clan descended from these four children of Brangara.

With the creation of Mystic Sumatra Art, Wean Clansmen didn’t suffer from trying to store Natures on themselves, and instead stored them in Vara Spirit Weapons. As they continued to develop and created the Vara Lanterns, their lives became insanely simpler.

The lifestyles of Wean Clansmen, as compared to the original Empyrean Boar Race in the Varahan Enclave, could be described as day and night. One suffered for the entirety of their existence while the other smoothly reached the heavens through exponential development.

The Nature of Voracious Nature, whether it be the version held by the Empyrean Boars or the Empyrean Boar Branch part of the Wean Clan, allowed the respective user to mature faster by consuming the flesh of stronger Pranic Beasts.

Consuming any regular Gold Grade Pranic Beast didn’t result in a noticeable level of maturity. However, consuming a Deity was different.

Even Brangara, as a Mystic Grade existence, matured by ten percent when he consumed an Empyrean Snapper, and around fifteen to twenty percent worth upon consuming an Empyrean Tusk.

He rapidly matured at least a body and progressed through the Life Stage every time he fought against the Mammoth Clan and consumed a handful of Empyrean Tusks.

And now, when he was preparing an expedition to Nusantara Continent, Brangara enacted a plan whereby he fed pieces of his flesh to his descendants.

When a Wean Clansman at the Body Stage consumed a couple hundred kilograms of the Celestial Boar’s flesh, he rapidly matured, and in a matter of hours, not only reached the peak of the Body Stage, but even ended up entering the 2-Life Stage.

His second body was that of a baby, which would begin growing slowly. But as he consumed another meal of the Celestial Boar flesh, he reached the 3-Life Stage.

Typically, even though the Wean Clansmen could abuse this method to rapidly reach the 10-Life Stage, the higher they proceed through the Life Stage, the greater their foundation gets tested.

How developed are their different bodies? Were they all trained equally? Were their muscle definitions the exact same across the bodies? How was their brain, and most importantly, the experiences stored in the brain’s neurons. Were these experiences the same across the bodies?

A variety of differences existed, since every body had to be built up from scratch, from the state of a baby to maturity. Each body was bound to exercise differently, have slightly differing muscle definition, fitness, mental experiences, etc.

At the 2-Life Stage, it didn’t matter. But starting from the 5-Life Stage, the stack is high enough that the slightest muscular differences make the stack unstable.

From the 6-Life Stage onwards, even the mental differences will start to affect the stability of the stack. Around the 9-Life Stage, unless the bodies part of the stack were perfect clones of each other, it will straight up implode.

Using Mystic Sumatra Art, a Wean Clansman could imprint the physical and mental accumulations of one body, recorded in their blood, onto their Prana. Then, they could rely on their stack to transfer this Prana into another body.

And then, by relying on Mystic Sumatra Art once again, the data within the Prana will be imprinted upon the blood of the second body. This blood will then imprint upon the Prana of the second body.

Eventually, the Spirit Container of the second body will be imprinted with this information. Its influence will gradually change the second body to be more like the first.

Now, the second body will also use the same method to influence the first body, so that its accumulations could be added to the first body.

The topmost body of the stack interacts with the real world. It’s the one accumulating life experiences. Therefore, in real time, the Wean Clansman has to keep using Mystic Sumatra Art to keep the growth of his newest body in sync with the rest of his stack of mature bodies.

The greater the Wean Clansman’s skill level, the better aligned their bodies in the stack, which meant a higher chance of them reaching farther through the Life Stage.

Brangara, upon planning the expedition, gathered everyone with enough skill level to reach the 10-Life Stage, and then fed them his flesh, allowing his talented descendants to reach the 10-Life Stage.

Those selected to be part of the vanguard in the expedition were the group of Wean Clansmen first to reach the 10-Life Stage through this method.

They were called the Spear Squad, and consisted of 200 Wean Clansmen in total, all at the 10-Life Stage.

Standing before the mound, all of them split their stacks, leaving behind one body each at the mound’s entrance while the 9-Life Stage stacks entered the mound.

The width of the space in the mound was barely three metres, creating a tunnel path that diagonally zigzagged for six kilometres.

"Put it down!" One of the Wean Clansman at the entrance lowered a Vara Pipe through a hole drilled by the rest of the squad members.

This pipe had joints, similar to the bendy portion of a straw, allowing it to be twisted in any direction. Slowly, it moved down the drilled hole, which accompanied the team moving through the winding path, steadily connecting across the zig-zag stretches.

"Split here," After walking down the path for a length of 180 metres, one of the squad members left behind a body, and walked forward with an 8-Life Stage cultivation. And after every 180 metres the squad progressed, he left behind a body, until his stack had dropped to the 1-Life Stage.

As long as a Life Stage cultivator was within Spirit Weapon range of his split bodies, their minds will remain synchronised in real-time. This allowed for instantaneous sharing of information.

"I’m done here." After falling to the 1-Life stage, the Wean Clansman with a thin goatee uttered.

"I’ll accompany you." Another Wean Clansman, sporting a rare moustache, said and left behind a body next to the one with a thin goatee.

The 8-Life Stage Wean Clansman with the moustache continued to travel with the squad, proceeding further down the path.

"Can you keep up with me?" The Wean Clansman with the moustache said as he held a block of Vara.

"Obviously," The Wean Clansman with the goatee rolled his eyes and touched the block of Vara. Now, both of them can transfer memories to each other by using the block of Vara as an Information Slip.

The block of Vara was a metre in size, resembling a sphere. It was this large to house enough bandwidth for the level of rapid information transfer the two intended to do.

The man with the moustache paid attention as the rest of his bodies accompanied the Spear Squad, leaving behind a body after every 180 metres. The information perceived by all his bodies instantly synchronised with his brain, which he recorded in the block of Vara.

This was then accessed by the Wean Clansman with the goatee. And as he accessed the information, the rest of his bodies gained the information in real time, including the body he left behind at the entrance.

This body then communicated with the Spear Squad camping at the entrance. With this level of information relay, even if the Spear Squad within the mound gets annihilated, they’ll obtain extremely detailed information about their enemy.

The Spear Squad, left with only a body per each, would retreat to their base at the border, and obtain their Ancestor’s flesh to rapidly progress through the Life Stage. Then, they’ll return to the mound and continue their exploration.

To them, they were only losing extra lives, which can be quickly recovered. However, every Pranic Beast they kill in the mound is a permanent death for the enemy.

The squad continued to maintain a chain of minds while facilitating the Vara pipe to drill forward, which served as a backup means of information relaying.

As part of the vanguard, the Spear Squad had prepared plenty for the expedition. And steadily, they traversed the length of six kilometres without any loss in extra lives.

At the bottom of the path, was an expansive space endlessly extending outward, forming an underground biome. Crouched there, in large numbers, were powerful creatures, all of whom were individually stronger than the members of the Spear Squad.

The moment the two sides eyed each other, a battle erupted.