As to how to connect to the Soultide, it was clearly written in the tome.
With Djall’s help, Lin Sheng quickly collected all of the details of the communion ritual and started to test it out.
The location and materials were available, and the only thing he needed to consider now was safety.
He, of course, could not rely on the Demonhand clan that had just submitted to him. So Lin Sheng decided to find a gap with the domain of the Demonhand before using the soul link to get Tenko Kasumi to perform a ritual on the other side, to open a spirit gate.
After returning to the research center through the spirit gate, Lin Sheng started to experiment with the Soultide communion within the isolation chamber.
*Huff!*
An orange candle slowly lit up, one after another, surrounding the triangular ritual matrix. All of the candles were on the nodes within the matrix.
Oddly enough, of the ten candles, each one had a different flame. Some were curved, some were straight, and some were even coiled. When arrayed out, they looked like a series of hymnal wordings.
Lin Sheng stood before the candles as he used his dark power to manipulate all of the flames into the shapes he needed.
Over at the door behind him, two crimson-armored warriors carefully brought in living purple-red plants one after another. These plants may look no different than your usual flowers, but every one of them was a powerful Three-winged Gluttonboom.
These Gluttonblooms had mostly been destroyed by the patrol team, with the remaining few were beaten up to the brink of death before being processed and brought over here.
The crimson-armored warriors carefully placed the Gluttonblooms that had shrunk at least ten-fold smaller to the edge of the ritual
With a salute to Lin Sheng later, they turned and left the room. Following that, Tenko Kasumi carried a shining fist-sized light orb into the room.
“The heart of an Axian Thunder Serpent. Catch.”
She threw the light orb toward Lin Sheng.
“Thanks.” Lin Sheng kept it short.
He knew that the Axian Thunder Serpent was a very mysterious six-wing beast, and among the various monsters that had appeared, the thunder serpent could claim a spot at the apex position.
The heart of this beast had the special attribute to enhance a ritual and was one of the best ingredients to increase the success probability of a ritual.
Soon, all kinds of ingredients were sent into the room through various channels to fuel the ritual.
The next day, all of the preparatory works were done.
Lin Sheng stood in the middle of the ritual as the dark and holy power within his body slowly started to churn.
A white and a green flame started burning all over his body as they fused with each other. And very quickly the green flames were being swallowed whole by the white flames, leaving it burning even brighter.
This showed that Lin Sheng’s training of his dark powers was meant to stimulate the growth of his holy power.
After the white flames had burned for some time, Lin Sheng suddenly growled.
“Commence the ritual.”
*Baamm!!*
A faint red light suddenly erupted all around the ritual matrix as a massive electric current rose from the ground into the matrix, and at the same time, each of the ritual materials placed beforehand started reacting as well.
Within a blink of an eye, all of the rituals turned into dust and converged over Lin Sheng’s head into a spinning black orb.
“Let’s start.” Lin Sheng looked at the black orb above his head, and with a calm face, he slowly closed his eyes as his spirit started to merge with the black orb in the air.
The orb was the true core of this ritual, and its usage was to allow the caster’s spiritual awareness to increase by a hundredfold. Every spirit had its own attributes, like strength, speed, perception.
Awareness was one of the attributes, and this ritual was akin to installing a massive sensory amplifier to the soul.
At that moment, materials after materials rapidly burned at every corner of the ritual as they started an energy circulation that was different from the main matrix.
This engraved secondary matrix was purposely made to provide direction to Lin Sheng once he had merged into the matrix.
Its use was to tell Lin Sheng where the Soultide was to his enhanced spiritual awareness.
With the passage of time, the black orb above Lin Sheng’s head quickly shrunk. If the basketball-sized black orb totally disappears, that meant that Lin Sheng’s attempt to open the Tidal Gate, and to connect with the Soultide had totally failed.
At that moment, however, Lin Sheng’s spirit was already following the enhanced guidance of the matrix toward the direction as he coalesced his power, and was ready to unleash it all in a single go.
…
Red, white, yellow, green.
Four different colors quickly spun around before Lin Sheng’s eyes like a kaleidoscope.
The four of these colors represent the four different type of powers Lin Sheng have at the moment.
White denoted holy power, yellow for the dragon blood, green for the dark powers, and red, on the other hand, denoted his most basic form as a human.
All of the powers with different colors burned within Lin Sheng’s body as they tried to guide him in his quest to rush to the direction of his own Rimtide.
However, the guidance was, in fact, very weak, and if any interruptions were to happen, he could totally lose his way.
If he were to solely use his power as a guidance, the one that he finds would usually be the closest one.
Such Rimtides had the advantage of location as they could simply forcibly pull anyone attempting the breakthrough via sheer gravitational pull. So, if one were to compare the strengths and weaknesses, they were far less effective than finding a Rimtide that was best suited to a person.
So, Lin Sheng sharpened his focus as he tossed everything in his mind back. This was the key moment where he breaks through to the level of the Palatinate, and he could not afford any distractions.
He sensed that the power of the ritual around him had a very gentle pull in it. And very quickly, he focused his mind as he amplified the guidance of the ritual, and making the faint pull clear.
“That way!”
*Hiss!!!*
Lin Sheng heard a weird noise as the colors before him disappeared, and in place of them was a dimension with a sea of cracked glass.
He looked down and saw himself sitting still in the middle of the ritual, as everything around him had turned into black, white, or gray.
Only the red rift that was writhing outside the ritual was the only other color there.
Very quickly, Lin Sheng found the gap the matrix had guided him to.
Without any hesitation, he controlled his spirit and turned it into a stream of gray light as he charged into the gap.
He had to be fast, or else the gap’s position would change, and the black orb above him would be consumed as well.
His time was limited.
Within the gap, it was an endless passageway painted in blood red.
The passageway was at times wide, at times narrow, sometimes bright, and sometimes dim. But with the propulsion provided by the matrix, Lin Sheng’s speed was extremely quick.
Soon, his soul was slowly losing control of the speed as it started to elongate or shorten under the power of the matrix as he adapted to the various sizes of the tunnel.
At the same time, he was gaining even more speed.
The four powers within his soul were now unleashed with Lin Sheng’s control at that very instant, increasing the speed of his soul to a whole new level.
This was the normal condition when a Palatinate breaks through. Using the power of the ritual alongside his own powers, and to unleash it in an instant, propelling the soul breaking through to the maximum velocity to find the Eventide as fast as possible.
