Cultivation System/Inscription Techniques

Overview
In the Mortal Lands there are various methods for adding to, augmenting or even giving new effects entirely to the natural physical or magical abilities or inherent traits of certain items including (But not limited to) ; materials, personal effects, clothing, furniture, jewellery, tools, weaponry, vehicles, animal rearing paraphernalia, areas of space, various defensive structures or even entire buildings. Spells themselves too are, in-fact, a form of inscription.

Herein you will find a list of the different methods and schools of teaching regarding Inscription Techniques. As well as the methods you will find a list of the known innate traits or lifestyle choices of cultivators that either help or hinder their ability to perform well in these areas.

Schools
In the world of BotDS there are several different schools each of these with their own methods and approaches to the practice of Inscriptions.

Attunement School
"Attunement with the Breath" is the most commonly used of all schools because it is the safest, this particular school hinges upon the practitioners ability to read fluctuations in the "breath" upon the performance of certains action by either magical beasts or just by the environment and then copy them into a physical material form. This representation of breath fluctuations given material form (here-after referred to as a "Rune") then entices the "Breath" in the surrounding environment to recreate the exact copied fluctuations regardless of any non-magical interferance or circumstances when charged with breath from the cultivator wielding it.

The speed of a cultivator learning this particular skill depends on various factors that are universal, how in-line with Heaven and Earth's laid out plan they remain being the largest one. Thaddeus Elbas describes the fluctuations as "Speech" and describes to the Grayshade class how he once had to spend 5 years in complete isolation in an environment with a higher density of Breath than normal in order to attune himself with the flow of the Breath and then had to learn to translate that etheral language into the format of Runes used in inscriptions.

The factors that affect this particular school are rare in both in terms of the frequency of those gifted with an innate ability to sense the Breath fluctuations and those to whom the intentions of the Breath are completely indecipherable and will remain so forever, the rarity of these conditions leads to many cultivators who have an affinity for the school, but will never have full mastery over it's applications. One such person that we know to be especially strong with this particular inscription technique is Ruth Eeggi who is asked by Thaddeus Elbas to become his disciple specifically because of her innately high attunement level with the breath.

Thaddeus would later go on to state that due to her innate attunement Ruth would only train in the art of translation. One of the more minor uses of this innate sensitivity is the ability to predict certain events before they occur. When we witness this during the entrance exam for the academy it presents itself as a sense of the power of an area holding more or less danger, this feeling of trepidation led to her and her brother Ford being able to react more quickly to the appearance of the Rank 4 Yeti that appears due to Noah having hunted to the Rank 3 Yetis to near eradication on the mountain.

The opposite end of that spectrum, however, is reserved for those who's nature conflicts too heavily with that of the will and fairness of Heaven and Earth. The most apparent example we have of this is the infamous Noah Balvan, he from the very first moment of his Cultivation had begun to stray from the expected intentions that Heaven and Earth had for him. This put him immediately at odds with the will of Heaven and Earth, and as the Breath is intrinsically linked to those two omnicient entities in the world of BotDS, this hindered his capability to ever understand the language of the Breath only ever having a basic knowledge of it's existence during his time at the academy and never being able to truly understand the intentions behind it.

Elemental School
"Elemental Forging" is the second school we are introduced to during the course of the events during the years Noah spent at the academy. There is no known point of origin for this method as yet, due to the master that taught Noah being the very last practitioner of this skill barring the inclusion of Noah, this being due to the danger it presents to cultivators. This method is extremely dangerous as it relies entirely on the strength of a cultivators mental sphere for the very first step, one single mistake or moment of greed can cost a cultivator their life and even then those are the people who are considered lucky, for if you survive the first step but do not succeed there are grave consequences.

The method of Elemental Forging itself is quite unlike the Attunement that so many other cultivators have practiced, as it relies on the will of the cultivator themself in order to give meaning to the Breath rather than the Breath's fluctuations remaining the dictator of the cultivators limitations. In this way it surpasses the Attunement method in it's ability to produce powerful or even possibly varied effects, having less limitations due to the the nature of the potent material used in it's practices.

The Elemental Forging prcedure consists of three stages; theft of the Breath from Heaven and Earth from within the sea of cosnciousness, the subjugation of Heaven and Earth's control over the Breath and the replacement of that particular will with that of the cultivators, and then the imbument period.

The first step is to take the Breath of Heaven and Earth in the physical world, transfer it into the sea of consciousness and to subjugate it's will from within the mental sphere, this consists of the cultivator entering their sea of cosciousness, approching the wall of the mental sphere and piercing that mental vale with their hands to reach into the physical world and take that Breath back with them into their sea of consciousness, next they will attempt to subdue the Breath. The sea of cosciousness will immediately attempt to impose it's will over the Breath and restrain it, this is the most dangerous part of the entire procedure as the Breath will fight and struggle and will eventually self detonate if it cannot be subjugated in time but cannot escape. This is due to Heaven and Earth's will in the Breath as they consider this stealing the very power that gives them meaning and they will do all in their capabilities to stop a cultivator from commiting this theft.

Throughout the period of fighting the actual danger is not to the physical form of the cultivator, it is to their mental sphere, because once a detonation happens, the walls of their mental sphere are the only place such explosive force can go to, and being one of the centres of power of a cultivator this is obviously catastrophic if anything should become permanently damaged. A prime example of this being the Master Ivor, Ivor was a practitioner who's most recent attempt at Elemental forging would also be his last as he must have failed in subjugating the will of the Breath he was attempting to steal in time. This led to a detonation which damaged his mental sphere permanently but left it intact enough to not kill him allowing him to try to find a successor for this technique. However his mental sphere would go on to cause him great great pain causing him to fall into disrepair and semi-functioning alcohol dependancy.

The second step is the most important as it is the one in which the material itself is rendered into a an ink and then given a function, this happens through the process of refining the Breath into an either liquid or solid form as you accumulate and condense the Breath from it's natural gaseous state of matter, depending on the strength of the actual enhancement you wish to make. The next step is to give the stolen and refined breath a meaning or intention, but for this you need a memory that relates to the effect that you wish the imbument to impart to the item you are modifying. For instance, when noah was in the Ordrea nation he used his memory of his first failed attempts at Moon Needles to imbue the Breath he stored for the Instabilities with the meaning of an explosion.

The third and final phase of the process is to take the prepared pre-existting magical material and place the stored and imbued breath into it, shaping the breath to modify the form of the original material into something more appropriate for the intended use of the final product. The final form of the material must be something in line with the actual memory used to imbue the breath and replace it's meaning and will. When in the process of selecting the actual materials you must ensure that the materials are suitable for inclusion in the end product. The example we are given of this is that the material for a whip must not be too sitff or you would simply end up creating a long stick of whatever material you wished to turn into a whip, but at the same time it must not be too malleable or you would end up creating something too soft to be of any use in causing damage to your target.

The third phase of this procedure ends with the stabilization of the finalised product, however it starts immediately after the shaping process is halfway finished. As the cultivator imparts their stolen and re-willed Breath into the item, the cultivator will need to form a membrane around the item in order to better control and feel the fluctuations and changes within the items form so as to produce a better end product by being able to notice and control even the most minute details from the shape of a blade down to the grain of the weapon's grip, for instance. This membrane also allows a cultivator to be fully aware of any and all issues during the shaping process as Noah is able to notice when the Moon Needles are about to detonate in his habitation's re-inforced room within the academy, this allows the cultivator to be safer during the procedure when dealing with forces beyond their level. The membrane also serves a tertiary purpose to act as an incubator, seemingly for the item inside the membrane in order to allow the item to change, mature and be created without un-expected or unseen outside influences. It is unclear as to whether or not the incubation membrane also provides any level of protection to the practitioner should the item being forged detonate from within.

Once an item is fully forged the potency of it's effect can and most probably will surpass that of the cultivators own capabilities. However the exact degree to which it will surpass those capabilities depends entirely upon the cultivators proficiency with this method, for instance Noah's master, Ivor, was capabale of creating a knife sharp enough to cut a bed in half and leave a mark on the wall from the opposite side of a room by only being very slight and briefly drawn from it's sheath. The exact power of this item is un-known however we are told that it has power up to the fourth rank meaning that Ivor was a human cultivator capable of damaging heroic cultivators with the use of this knife.

In the known history of the Mortal Lands there has only been one recorded case of a cultivator having an advantage in this field. That cultivator being the infamous Noah Balvan. Due to his status as a transmigrator Noah was born with the mental faculties, life experiences and the thought processing speed of someone who was in their mid 20's. This led to his Sea of Consciouness Being on a higher level than the rest of his centres of power for a long time, the adavantage that this gave him is that he is able to pull the Breath needed for his forging directly from his Dantian eliminating the need to pull breath from the outside world and the need for him to condense the breath he would otherwise pull from the outside world, vastly increasing his ability to practice in the art of elemental forging and allowing him to mass produce the disposable items he did create, for instance he was able to forge thousands of his instabilities in mere months for the Ordrea nation's fight against the Shandal Empire.

Applications
In the lands of the Utra nation their most well-known accomplishment is their advantage in the inscriptions field over the other nations. As the Utra nation has been led by the Elbas Dynasty for the last two millennia, it should come as no surprise that the patriarch of the Elbas family is specialist in the inscriptions field. As the leading force in the mortal lands for the application and development of the field they are the most prominent users of the field, this does not mean however, that the inscriptions we are first introduced to are commonplace in the world of Birth of the Demon Sword.

There are countless possible applications for this field but as this is a lore page we will be focusing solely on what we have seen so far. Throughout this section of the page we will be listing all of them with short descriptions of each.

“Formations”

Formations are groups of inscriptions laid to an area of space, land, or large equipment or to a piece of architecture that affect the way that it works in conjunction with things either outside or inside of it’s effective area. Typically formations are far more complex than most other applications of Inscription, this being in-part due to the fact that the vast majority of effects have to have a trigger of some kind either a higher concentration of breath or a specific event happening in the world. The actual trigger can be anything, from the presence of a certain bloodline, person, creature or even a credible threat to the inhabitants of the area of influence of the formation. The effects are where things get a little more varied for, if you consider the Formation a gun and the parameters the trigger then the effect is surely, in most cases metaphorically, the bullet.

One of the most prolific uses of this application is the Formations around (the now derelict if at all intact) Balvan mansion, which appeared to be used to repel both the flying and presumably ground-dwelling fauna of the mortal lands that are naturally attracted either by instinct or instruction to the areas where either the Breath concentration is higher or a higher ranked beast or entity is commanding it's subordinates to go. The actual activation happens at the appearance of a dragon, which is repelled by the formation placed upon the walls which halts the dragons trespassing of the family grounds but does not, however, prevent it from attempting an attack upon the mansion all the same, which tells us that this formation was meant to keep the physical form of magical beasts or aggressors out but does not or cannot thwart or negate their attacks, spells or projections.

In many cases a formation will be used to reinforce the outer or inner walls of a structure with either magical or non-magical effects, an example of the former being the outer walls of the Balvan mansion and an example of the latter being the various reinforced training rooms Noah has used throughout his lifetime while experimenting with various routes to power. In other cases however formations can be laid as traps, a collection of spells to be activated in order to move masses of material through the air or underground or even to completely move it from its current space.

There is also the matter of Remote Formations. Mass formations can be created in order to allow cultivator complete control over a space or area as long as the rune for what they wish to do is involved in the formation the activation points for these formations can then be tied to a specific space relatively nearby to the formations. This creates a sort of central hub for the formations allowing a cultivator to affect many things at once from one place while barely lifting a finger. In the Novel it is referred to as a Control Centre for a formation and an example we see of this is that upon exiting a seperate dimension Noah and his companions are attacked by an unseen group from quite some distance away. The aggressors make use of one of these "Central Hub" style formations in order to attack from a distance so as not to get too close to the targets of their assault, this plan allows the aggressors to inflict great damage to Noah's group, showing the efficacy of the use of a Control Room as a method of attacking or ambush.

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