Wizard: Starting from the Skill Tree

Chapter 864: Chapter 774: Elemental Holy Body (Part 2)

Seizing the moment while he was still conscious and not yet too badly injured, he guided his Spiritual Power to touch the badge, and golden light swallowed him whole.

Three streaks of golden light flared one after another, and three people vanished from the battlefield.

Duke continued forward, and along the way he ran into more people.

Some didn’t even dare look at him; they triggered their badges from far away and left on their own.

Some formed small groups of two or three, trying to band together against him, but as expected, all of them were personally sent away by Duke.

Duke stood at the center of the battlefield, sending his Spiritual Power outward one last time.

Across the entire Ancient Battlefield, only he remained.

He lifted his head and looked toward the sky.

The lead‑gray clouds slowly parted, revealing a sky he had never seen before.

It was not the gray‑white firmament of the Broken Land, but a deep, shadowy blue, as if dyed through by some unknown substance.

As the clouds dispersed, countless fine specks of light appeared upon the dark blue vault of heaven. They were like stars, yet brighter than stars; like diamonds, yet more brilliant than diamonds.

Those points of light slowly converged, forming a vast vortex above his head.

A gentle white radiance lit up at the vortex’s center, not dazzling, like the first ray of sunlight on a winter morning.

The white light descended from the vortex, falling to the ground and condensing into a cloud ladder.

The ladder was not solid, but formed of congealed light; every step was half‑transparent, with tiny specks of light faintly flowing within.

Duke raised his head to glance at the cloud ladder, then looked once more at the Ancient Battlefield he had cleared beneath his feet, fell silent for a moment, and then stepped onto the first stair.

The instant his foot came down, a warm current surged up from his sole, spreading from his leg through his entire body.

The energy was very gentle, as if soothing his weary body, and as if confirming his identity.

No resistance, no rejection—the cloud ladder accepted him.

He walked upward step by step, and the scenery around him began to distort.

The gray‑white canopy of the Ancient Battlefield gradually faded, the leaden clouds dissipated, and those shattered Weapons, withered corpses, and ravaged earth grew ever more distant and small beneath his feet.

In their place was a stretch of void—no up or down, no left or right, only the cloud ladder and the white light ahead.

He did not know how long he walked—perhaps the time it took to drink a cup of tea, perhaps an hour—before the cloud ladder finally reached its end.

Duke crossed the final step, and his view suddenly opened wide.

It was a mausoleum, a true tomb that had slumbered for untold years.

He stood upon a broad stone platform, hewn from a single massive slab of bluish‑gray stone, its surface smooth as a mirror, reflecting his image.

Around the platform stood twelve stone pillars, each soaring into the clouds, their shafts carved with intricate reliefs—battle scenes, sacrificial rites, diagrams of the stars’ courses, the veins of mountains and rivers.

At the very center of the stone platform lay a gigantic grave. It was not a mound of earth, but carved from a single whole megalith, rectangular with rounded edges, its surface devoid of ornament, bearing only the mottled traces left by the erosion of time.

Before the grave stood a stone stele, roughly the height of two men, jet‑black throughout, its surface as smooth as a mirror.

The stele was densely inscribed with characters, as ancient as those on the main gate, but this time Duke needed no translation to understand them.

They branded themselves directly into his consciousness, as though someone whispered in his ear.

"My name is Aelderon, creator of the Elemental Holy Body, first of the Six Sources Returned to One."

"I was born at the dawn of creation, when elements were chaotic and heaven and earth without order. From childhood I was attuned to all six elements—earth, fire, water, wind, light, and dark all answered to my call. The world deemed me heretical, a monster. Alone I walked the earth, probing the mysteries of the elements, braving a thousand perils, surviving nine deaths for one life, and at last forged the method of the Elemental Holy Body."

"This Secret Technique tempers the flesh with elements, fusing the powers of all elements into one, so that the body surpasses bloodline, surpasses true form, surpasses every mundane vessel under heaven. With this method, I roamed the Planes unchallenged, never knowing defeat."

"Yet only when my lifespan neared its end did I realize how vast heaven and earth truly are, and that what I had achieved was but a drop in the ocean. Though I exhausted my lifetime, I could not take that final step; this is the regret of my life."

"Now I leave the Secret Technique of the Elemental Holy Body in this place, awaiting one with fate..."

After reading the message left behind, Duke roughly understood.

This was the mausoleum of a powerhouse from some unknown Plane. His strength in life was unspecified; he merely said he never took that final step, but what exactly that step was, he left no information.

The Elemental Holy Body left by Aelderon was an extremely special body‑refining Secret Technique, capable of making the flesh incredibly powerful, even more formidable than the true forms of the vast majority of bloodlines.

Moreover, anyone could cultivate this Secret Technique: as long as you could perform Energy Absorption of free‑floating Energy Particles, or knew how to wield these Elemental Energies, you could use this method to strengthen your own body.

The only difference lay in effectiveness. Duke inferred that the higher one’s Elemental Affinity, the stronger the body forged through cultivation.

No wonder the Wizard Council treated this as the ultimate reward here. Any Wizard could make use of this thing; it was just that Elemental Mages were more compatible with it.

The characters on the stele began to glow the moment he finished reading the last line.

The black script rose from the stone, turning into countless tiny motes of light that spun and converged in midair, finally condensing into a fist‑sized orb of light.

Duke raised his hand, and the light orb fell into his palm.

In an instant, a vast stream of information poured into his mind—not words or language, but something more direct, like instinctive understanding.

Images surfaced in his consciousness, each one a cultivation step, every step accompanied by detailed explanations and cautions.

Duke closed his eyes, quietly digesting the flood of information in his mind.

He did not know how long it took—perhaps a few breaths, perhaps the time for a cup of tea—but he finally sorted out all the cultivation steps.

When he opened his eyes, the orb of light in his palm had already dimmed by more than half, leaving only a final faint glow, as though its mission was complete and it was slowly dispersing.

He watched those motes of light slip through his fingers and vanish into the air.

Duke pondered in silence. According to the description of the Elemental Holy Body, this body‑refining Secret Technique could, in theory, draw all Elemental Energy into the body. Taken to its extreme, one’s flesh would become as solid as a Plane barrier, such that without absolute extreme force, not the slightest damage could be inflicted.

And the Plane barrier it spoke of was that of a High Plane; but this was only in theory—Aelderon himself might not have cultivated to that level.

The Elemental Holy Body was divided into nine stages, each corresponding to a complete Life Level.

The physical strength of the first stage was equivalent to that of bloodline creatures renowned for their powerful bodies among Level 1 Life forms.

The second stage corresponded to Level 2 bloodline creatures, and so on, with the ninth stage matching the bodily strength of a ninth‑level bloodline creature.

Unlike ordinary Wizards, cultivators of the Elemental Holy Body did not need to choose between Spiritual Power, Magic Power, and the flesh. Instead, they directly fused Elemental Energy into their blood and bones, making their bodies themselves the strongest Weapons.

In this regard, they were indeed similar to Bloodline Mages, except that Bloodline Mages gained powerful bodies by drawing on mighty Bloodline Power.

After obtaining the inheritance of the Elemental Holy Body and confirming that there was nothing else of note around him, Duke bowed to the tombstone before formally taking his leave.

As he stepped out of the ruined mausoleum, the gray‑white light of the sky once again fell over him.

The wind of the Broken Land was as ever dry and scorching, carrying fine grit as it whipped across his face.

The distant horizon was a hazy gray, with no sign of living things.

The assessment was nearing its end; few people remained on this land. Those still alive were either hiding in some corner waiting for it to be over, or still desperately searching for the last resource points.

Duke was about to head off into the distance when he suddenly halted.

In the shadow of the ruins ahead stood a figure—it was Morris.

Morris wore a dust‑gray robe, his face bloodless and pale. Those empty eyes of his were fixed on Duke.