176 Rosetta
“How about we call it a tie.” Rip who had appeared next to them said in a leisurely but unquestionable tone.
With Rip’s words Layton and carl completely ceased their movements Carl’s qi was quickly introverted as he regained his regular human form and Layton simply gently released the radiation he had previously gathered, through the short battle they both could easily understand that it wouldn’t be easy to decide a winner between them in a short time plus they had already destroyed the arena fighting out in the open like this made their battle easily watched by spies, although Layton was confident in himself he wasn’t arrogant enough to think he was invincible and didn’t want his trump cards to be shown to his future enemies carl was also thinking the same, unlike Layton he was aboriginal and possessed a morbid hatred for foreign races, it was this that spurned him on to take his present path even though he knew it was a doomed one. The qi he created was slowly eroding him with each strenuous use soon enough his soul and form would be lost in the massive qi waves making him nothing but a dangerous unconscious mass of energy floating in the cosmos.
“Although time is limited there should be enough for you to use the Rosetta” Rip said as he tore space like a curtain opening a channel back to the camp.
The Rosetta was a peculiar type of stone slab unique to the plane, it was mainly used to record the user’s insights, laws and path, the record need not be made by any existing language but by any markings drawing even random scribbles could be effective as a record. It wasn’t just the ability to record one’s path that made it precious what truly set it apart was that the Rosetta especially high quality types would help during the inscription process to perfect and remove tiny flaws one might have, its process allowed one to easily grasp and understand the complexities of the path they walked on, not only that it also ensured that the inspiration and gains from other individuals who took the initiative to comprehend the inscription left by the original owner would be copied and sent to the original inscriber helping their growth.
Stepping through the spatial gap they left the vast cosmos and came to a peculiar building in the camp it was the building that housed countless Rosetta stones available, the simple building not only connects this camp but other camps scattered around, it wasn’t Layton’s first time here as he had been here earlier to comprehend rip’s moves, the building was set in a peculiar way that the space automatically responds to your thoughts taking you to the stone you want to view immediately or the stone that best fits your requirements much like the peculiar spatial environment in school city. Taking a step, the space immediately changed bringing them to the inner part of the building where blanks Rosetta were stored, they weren’t the only ones there as a few other humans could be seen placing their palms on the blank Rosetta and leaving their imprints as they were either immortals or individuals who possessed immortal level combat prowess. Apart from the blank Rosetta there were also numerous imprinted Rosetta around, the imprinted ones were majorly those that had been imprinted not long before, gazing around casually Layton saw numerous different depictions on various stones, the one that caught his eye however was one that looked like it had been hacked by a weapon, looking at the gash across the stone one couldn’t help but smell and hallucinate about a huge sea of blood filled with boundless killing intent, the aura it exuded was one Layton was familiar with. It was that of zero’s brother, he could easily match the auras because he vividly remembered it was his first taste of being backlashed by perceiving divinity.
Oh that’s from immortal bloodlust, he is a new immortal king that just emerged some years ago” rip stated as he followed Layton’s gaze, Carl who was beside them said nothing and indifferently walked up to a nearby blank stone, qi gushed out of his fingertips as they made contact with the stone. Pictures began to emerge, the first was of 2 simple circles the smaller one drawn inside the bigger, next a yin-yang diagram emerged but instead of there being a circle enclosing the diagram, the diagram was left open and surrounding it were different blots of coloured lights and lastly a simple dot appeared marking the end of the inscription, the three pictures were placed vertically with the double circle diagram starting from the bottom and ending with the weird dot at the top. Layton could faintly feel the drawings were outlining carl’s path to create his ‘qi’, the first section probably talked about the connection between body and soul, the second should be the intertwining of body soul and the power of the outside world and as the for the picture, Layton guessed it should be about qi but he really couldn’t make sense of it from just a glance. Layton gazed at carl who had his eyes closed apparently digesting the gains he had received, even rip was gazing upon the inscription apparently gaining something from watching its emergence, removing his gaze Layton walked towards an empty slate he couldn’t help but feel slightly excited anticipating what his gains were going to be, the slate did not need to be imprinted with one’s whole cultivation path, it could be a simple move, or just one part of the cultivation process, the gains one received was naturally dependent on what one chose to engrave. Layton didn’t think about fully imprinting his current cultivation path, the path he currently walked was too dangerous and imperfect, even with his unique conditions he could feel his emotion and soul activity slowly diminishing, it was only by absorbing more information and soul activity from the outside world that he could delay this phenomenon. Layton’s thoughts turned rapidly as he set his palm on the slate deciding on what he was going to imprint.