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When Rino returned, something strange happened in his shadow realm.

The womanticore he killed earlier dropped a beast core, but when he put that in his shadow sack together with the living crystals and other miscellaneous objects, they started to attract each other.

Rino was too busy trying to avoid the deadly sun rays on his way back, and by the time he noticed what was happening in his shadow sack, it was too late to stop the crystals from merging with the beast core.

Dismayed but also intrigued by the new fusion reaction, Rino wondered what they were doing.

Over the next few days, Rino searched for the best wood to carve Staff Zeraphina with. Gold and silver ornaments were created to Rino\'s design by the most skilful pair of tendrils. Ubel was thrilled to work with precious metals and gemstones that Rino gathered for him. The wraith king made a majestic staff, and the only thing missing from it was the place where the beast core was supposed to fit.

The womanticore\'s core started to merge with the magic crystals, some gems and glowstone. The power that the monster core absorbed from these stones grew stronger, and Rino personally sourced specific gems to feed it while keeping an eye on the changes. The beast core was originally a sick greenish colour that wasn\'t very vibrant. However, over the next few days, it transformed from a sick green shade to a beautiful rich emerald shade.

The glowstones that Rino added in his shadow sack were quickly consumed, and the more glowstones the core assimilated with, the more mana it emitted. Yet, the core showed no signs of awakening as an artificial soul. Something was still missing, and Rino did not know what it was.

Maybe cultivating an artificial soul was different from forging one. Rino heard about an ancient eastern art in his previous world known as nascent soul cultivation. However, those techniques were considered forbidden in his empire. They were related to dark arts, and Rino did not research much into that.

He regretted widening his horizons and learning from other civilisations. The soul cultivation techniques that he heard of from frequent envoys sounded useful in creating an artificial soul. Instead of believing in gods, the eastern continent believed in something called karma. They had no gods who would pass judgement in the afterlife. Instead, they believed in the cycle of life known as reincarnation based on the choices made in their current life.

The fight between good and evil told by the church in the empire was portrayed differently as a philosophy in the east. The angels and devils did not fight with each other in the eternal war of good versus evil. Instead, good and evil both reside within a human when they were created. 

The concept of yin-yang to balance each other out was very similar to the concept of harmonic elements and dissonant elements. When there was light, there would be darkness. If there was water, there must be fire. It was the reason why magicians who wield dual elements usually had harmonising elements instead of clashing ones.

Those who were gifted with clashing elements usually favoured one over another. If both elemental attunements were equally strong, a variant magician with unique powers would be born.

The gemstones that the womanticore\'s core consumed and merged with were all considered harmonic in nature. Rino did not know what kind of mana core the monster he defeated had. However, it preferred air elemental gems to water and earth. Quartz and sodalite disappeared fairly quickly as the monster core merged with them quickly.

Slowly but surely, the green beast core transformed into something closer to white. The mana energy within it also started to change patterns. Rino detected a breath of mana flow within the monster core and felt excited. Perhaps this was the start of an artificial\'s soul awakening.

The next few days passed with Rino meditating most of the time, trying to guide the monster core\'s irregular flow of mana using the help of the black stones that absorbed mana. He called them darkstones, which were the opposite of glowstones, limiting the monster core from amassing too much mana from the consumed gems and living crystals.

The character of this beast core started to take form, and while it wasn\'t an artificial soul yet, Rino could sense the change. It became more obedient to the change in its environment within the shadow sack that Rino manipulated.

When Rino deemed that it was not at risk of exploding the moment the core left his shadow sack, he locked himself in the study to see if he could create mana pathways within the core.

Core attunement and chakra attunement were very similar. In the eastern cultivation arts, a human could attune their meridians in their bodies and control it with their minds to achieve unique abilities that superseded what ordinary people could do. They could use energy consumed to create heat that would cover their body like an aura to burn enemies, smash rocks like tofu by focussing energy into a palm strike or even walk on water by channelling a condensed layer of energy at the sole of their feet just above the water\'s surface.

There were many miracles that could be created just by training the body meridians, and the mind. However, true masters went beyond and touched a subject that Rino was more familiar with. The spiritual network, also known as chakra, was where mana was gathered in the body and transferred to a medium as a spell.

Normally, a person\'s chakra is sealed and blocked because that was how it was for humans. However, in the case of the more gifted humans, they were born with the ability to receive mana from their surroundings, making them good magicians. Depending on which chakra channel they had unsealed, the magician could only use magic limited to that chakra network.

Rino was someone with six out of seven chakra points unsealed. He had no idea how it happened, but it was not something that happened overnight.

A chakra point that was sealed tightly shut could not be tampered with. However, a loose chakra seal could be pried open by attunements from a master. Rino\'s master in the magicians\' tower pried four more chakra seals loose over the years, and he was a living legend when he learned what having six out of seven points open meant. Yet, nobody ever fully understood what would happen if all seven chakra points were unsealed. Some said that a human could reach godhood if that happened.

The eastern continent trained both the body and mind to achieve a strange combination of meridian martial arts and chakra soul arts to frightening degrees. Rino did not know what they did, but not many who forcefully sought progress lived past the age of forty. Yet, the masters who succeeded lived for over three centuries without any signs of physical deterioration.

For this beast core, Rino wanted to try attuning the chakra flow using the concept of the eastern continent. Creating a chakra path in a mana core was something nobody ever attempted before. However, Rino had a feeling it was not impossible. Artificial cores could be created by intense concentration due to the continuous exposure of an energy flow on the mana storing object.

Rino did not have that kind of mental stamina to forge a will in an object. Hence, he could only do it the other way and cheat with the glowstone and darkstones.

Attunement for magicians was a strange thing. The teacher or attunement master would force their flow of mana into the student\'s body. At times, this process could take many days and feel painful. The teacher\'s mana would probe at different chakra points in a student\'s body and shake the seal loose by pumping mana through the chakra circuits. The student receiving attunement must not fight against the invasion, or the backlash could harm both master and student. For that reason, attunements are not done unless a magician apprentice has undergone tampering training for the mind and body.

If there was something Rino was good at, it was his immaculate control over mana. It was also why many people preferred him over other senior attunement masters in the tower. His attunements were precise, short and effective with the least amount of discomfort. Carving chakra paths using glowstones and darkstones should be simple.

For nearly a week, Rino persevered in his chakra creation operation. The monster beast core initially rebelled against Rino, but the lich did not allow it to misbehave, removing the mana it stored up with the darkstone whenever it lashed out at Rino. Then, when the core was depleted and close to exhaustion, he would pump it with mana through a controlled path, slowly making the core familiar with the flow of mana within.

Two long months passed just like this, and Rino had no idea what season it was when he re-emerged from his study, holding the artificial soul in one hand.

It was finally time to put everything together and claim his long daily quest\'s reward.