Ares realised he should probably give a full rundown of what he knew about the scroll''s contents so he shook his head, dispelling the temptation to go whoop some C.O ass (via Calla), and explaining everything from the start. "This is supposedly, as far as I can tell. and based off what it''s describing in the scroll, some manner of lost, legendary technical that was used back during the ancient times. It was extraordinarily powerful and measured up to even my No Fear art in terms of overall strength. Few people were capable of using it at the time and it gradually died out as cultivators became increasingly incapable of chanting it so it was preserved in scroll form for future generations. There were a few of these floating around but, unfortunately, the people''s who''s hands they fell into didn''t always have the best intentions and so various experts took it upon themselves the shred the remnants of this art and remove all scrolls of it from existence. Erasing the history of the art in full was a shame but a price people were generally accepting of to prevent anyone troublesome learning such a potent art.


    These expert cultivators of old worked tirelessly and eventually rounded up the last of these scrolls but there was a pretty major clash between them and the exact people they''d been trying to keep it from. During the scuffle, five cultivators managed to tear apart one of the scrolls and escape in five different directions, agreeing to hide each of their pieces until further notice. When everything settled down, they would come together, combine the pieces, start transcribing the art anew, and repropagate the art through society. This never came to pass as they managed to successfully hide the pieces, yes, but they were killed shortly after in various ways by various people. They''d picked dangerous hiding locations for the most part so some never survived the trip back out of the hiding places they''d picked while others were eventually hunted down by the expert cultivators who wanted the technical gone. In short, this piece of scroll is one of those five pieces and God only knows how the C.O got their hands on it. I don''t know where they found it but it was likely a result of the force of the round going on an expedition to some remote location and discovering it by chance. Anyway, there are four more out there and they could be literally anywhere in the entirety of this dimension... Which is an absolute fucking nightmare..."


    "Language!" Enyo tapped Ares on the head with her finger. He usually swore but apparently that wasn''t acceptable anymore in this mini form...


    "Ahem. Anyway, the art on this is mega mighty but I''d need to get lucky enough to find the other four scrolls. Fortunately the contents of the scroll aren''t lost when someone looks at it, unless all five pieces are joined together, so even if someone else beats me to the punch in finding another scroll there''s still a chance to get it back. Still, the main issue here is that finding the other four scrolls will be like finding a needle in a group of ten thousand haystacks. There''s absolutely zero information to go off and it seems like the kinda thing that''s just never going to happen. You could spend a million lifetimes and never even find a single one of these scrolls, let alone all five. I don''t see why the C.O gave me this other than to mess with me. How am I supposed to make use of this damn thing!? Plus if anyone knows I have it then they''re only going to come and try stealing it off my corpse. All in all, not good... Unless I do find the other scrolls... Then very good! It seems like the kind of thing that would take countless thousands of years even if I were lucky, though, so I''ll just shove this in the Primordial Blade and forget about it... Although I might as well pass it around to all of you so you can keep an eye out for these things too if you want to."


    Ares tossed the scroll around and everyone gave it a quick peek. Sure enough, the letters remained on the scroll after each person viewed it so that was handy. That was how scrolls worked though as, until the contents were fully absorbed by an individual, the writing would stay etched onto it. As for how the C.O viewed the contents of the other scrolls, Enyo and Aejaz'' for example, without absorbing them, there were various methods devised to do so. In the early days of cultivation people used to prank others by putting passive pillar arts onto scrolls that the reader would learn and be stuck with all their life. The last thing an assassin wanted was an alarm clock magic that rung aloud every hour and could never be turned off, for instance. It was due to deviousness like this that people invented arts / artifcats capable of reading scrolls without the user having to absorb the contents. Most large organisations had such measures at their disposal as scrolls could become valuable assets for the org even if nobody was planning on using it for whatever reason. Bargaining chips or auction items, that was how most organisations treated scrolls unless they were hyper valuable to somebody high up in the pecking order. It wasn''t uncommon for most groups, orgs, companies, clans, etc... To have a whole bunch of piled up scrolls waiting to be sold or gifted to talented individuals within their ranks.


    Comparatively, individual cultivators tended not to have such measures, the ability to read a scroll before acquiring whatever was on it, very often. It was usually a hassle to learn and was only really a useful skill one in every couple of thousand years. Unless you were hired specifically to make use of this skill by a large company on the regular it wasn''t usually worth it... And yet Ares decided he wanted to. Part of why an art like that was rarely used is because it was dependent on finding scrolls in the first place. They typically only existed in highly competitive and / or dangerous areas so few people ever got their hands on one out of sheer luck. Someone like Ares, however, would be capable of consistently winning his way through such combative locations so his scroll acquisition rate would be higher than other people on average. He didn''t want to find one of those prank scrolls as getting rid of the resulting prank would be a nightmare. Maybe his destruction pillar magic could rectify it but coming up with such a countermeasure was more of a hassle than just getting Scroll Screening, the most common art of this type, learnt ASAP. The last thing Ares wanted was to read a scroll that taught him self-destruct magic that was going to forcibly activate in three, two, one, boom! This had happened before to a poor fellow and it was not a pretty sight according to the records of it... Sure Ares was a revenant and would come back to life after but dying in such stupid fashion would irk him to no end. Fortunately such prank scrolls didn''t really exist much in these lower domains, as only experts with infinite time to kill in the higher realms usually bothered with such antics, but it was better to be safe than sorry.


    Now, as far as learning Scroll Screening went, the real kicker here was that the most common way to find the art... Was through a scroll... Oh the irony. It wasn''t the only way but finding somebody who was proficient in the art, likely because they found it trough a scroll themselves, and then convincing them to teach you, or write out another scroll for the technical, was probably even harder. Ares might be able to finagle such a condition out of the C.O, having their Scroll Screener teach him, but he''d already taken a lot from them as of now and they would be reluctant to give him more. Technically this scroll''s value was higher than anything else they gave out even if it was currently useless, so Ares asking for more was a bit of a cheek. Once more, they got him good with this crap! The scroll was practically worthless in its currents state but Ares couldn''t possibly have the gall to look them in the eye and complain! Was this that damn strategist''s fault?! They were a real piece of work giving him two useless gifts like this! Well whatever, there was no use crying about it now that all was said and done. HIs magic and fundamental champion status would allow him to venture into remote and dangerous areas that others would typically avoid so his chances of finding the rest of the scrolls were decently high. That being said, whether there were anymore in these lower domains was anyone''s guess. One of the five with the scroll pieces going with the reverse psychology route, and hiding it somewhere accessible in a lower domain, was already coincidental enough and Ares doubted it would happen more than once. The only exception to this was if there was anywhere dangerous enough in these lower realms that even immortals and Gods dared not tread. This was a rarity but could very well happen if such a location had existed since ancient times and the domain structure sort of just formed around it. It wasn''t impossible to wind up in a place that killed even the greatest of cultivation society in a lower domain if you were truly unlucky and stumbled into such a death trap.


    Of course, at the end of the day, this was all still hypothetical. Who''s to say the scroll pieces were hidden in dangerous environments? They could be buried underneath a random rock in some rundown domain off in the middle of nowhere. This was why this situation sucked! The C.O knew damn well they weren''t ever gonna find the other scrolls and they must have clearly believed Ares wouldn''t either! Unless Ares was willing to recruit everybody in this dimension to search, finding these things wasn''t a guarantee. It didn''t help that unveiling the fact he had one would paint a massive target on his back which was probably why other people wouldn''t do it either. Ares could walk past billions of people during his cultivation journey and who''s to say some random shmuck amongst them wasn''t just clinging to a scroll in their spatial ring and never letting it see the light of day?! This might honestly be the hardest collectathon ever created!


    Still, Ares wasn''t one thousand percent sure of all the details regarding the finer aspects of such a task as this scroll only contained the briefest of descriptions. This chunk of scroll still had to function as a part of the art so a lot of space was taken up by that instead of a proper description. Maybe there was more to finding the other scrolls that Ares wasn''t aware of because it simply didn''t fit on this damnable scroll. Often times, in situations like this, the other pieces would reverberate and point to each other if they were in close enough proximity. Sort of like how Dominus had pointed Ares towards the Celestial Prisms back in Baja. If Ares was lucky, he would be able to locate other scrolls through such a measure and that would narrow down his dimensional search by a considerable amount... Although he would still have to search high and low across an entire dimension so it wasn''t exactly a guarantee he was going to succeed...


    In fact, little did Ares know, but nobody had ever held onto more than one piece of the scroll at the same time. Some people had openly owned them before but died however long later and, thus, the piece of scroll was lost once more. Sometimes it would change hands to the killer or sometimes it would be hidden in yet another impossible to locate hidey hole. It was a massive cluster fuck of an easter egg hunt that basically everybody and their mother was aware of. Currently, only one scroll piece''s location was known definitively but it was so heavily guarded that even looking at it would maybe cost you your life. It existed in a higher domain, very near to the Gods, and was owned by a museum of sorts that had ties to Dingo. Some of the strongest cultivators around protected the thing day and night and, though many had tried, nobody had ever even gotten a touch of it before getting massacred on the spot by the guards. And, yet, this was still considered the most ''accessible'' of the scroll pieces. Truly a nightmare this hunt would be!


    Still, if the art was as strong as it claimed and appeared to be, then it kinda made sense. Now did Ares need such a thing when he was the destruction champion? No, not really... But he couldn''t deny that owning it would be cool! Ares didn''t just own destruction magic, he enjoyed it too so if there was a way to replicate it, even if it wasn''t destruction itself, then why would he ever turn it down? More mayhem, more joy! Plus stuff of that calibre tended to have long cooldown periods between uses, or serious drawbacks, so having multiple to throw out, whenever one wasn''t available for whatever reason, wasn''t a bad thing either. Ares wanted it but he also knew how much of a hassle getting it would be. For now he''d just forget about it and start caring whenever he got his hands on more than one... Although that was equally problematic. Although it had never been discovered, whenever anyone owned more than one at any given point, there would be essentially a worldwide notice that somebody was getting closer to combining the pieces... The notice only grew more and more unmissable based on the amount owned and so hiding would become more and more challenging if anybody knew you were in possession of even one at the bare minimum. If people were essentially committing suicide to get the one scroll in the museum, what lengths would they go to in order to hunt down an individual who was likely to possess two or more?! At that point, everybody, regardless of whether they believed the art should continue existing or not, would be breathing down your neck and never letting you get even a single second of sleep. So although not on purpose, the C.O had really lumped something quite dangerous onto Ares here! They''d chucked the hot potato at him and ran for the hills! Treacherous, conniving punks!


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Ares'' atrocious ''gain''s'' aside, all the scrolls had been checked now and so it was time to do some testing. Checking how much mana was burned via Enyo''s holy fire, checking how strong she was when receiving the holy buffs, checking how efficient her treasure was, testing Aejaz'' treasure, and testing how Odds On Me affected his success rate. All of it needed to be explored in depth because there was some stuff here that was relevant and useful not just to Enyo and Aejaz specifically but also to everyone else they regularly fought alongside. Ares wanted to test the Stalker and Blo Blo wanted to receive some mana from the Decompiler. As this was a fairly long process, it was roughly time for dinner when they were done but the group also felt like they had a much better grasp of everything these new gains offered.


    Enyo''s treasure, when combined with the mana burn of her holy fire, allowed her to outlast everyone else''s mana reserves with plenty to spare. Bellona had fairly limited mana capacity so she chugged through hers incredibly quick but even Aejaz was running out of mana while Enyo was still roughly half full. Plus the more people that attacked Enyo at once the more efficient the Decompiler became, at which point the only limiting factor in how long she could defend herself for was her physical state. If she wasn''t tired she could probably just maintain a barrier forever with this treasure present and active. This was a series of benefits that really amped up her defensive prowess once again and evened out her skillset to be equally as good at offense as it was at defence once more. The various other mutations and pressure additions to her barriers had catapulted her into a surprisingly aggressive fighter but, now, she had the tools to do basically whatever she wanted with no option being superior to the other. She could pick and choose based on the scenario she found herself in and that made her a very versatile cultivator who was destined for success. When exploring a tomb, for example, she could use her barriers to defend against traps or kill ambushing monsters, sometimes even both at the same time. She had the perfect skillset to thrive regardless of whatever conditions she had thrust upon her.


    As for Aejaz, he''d become completely insufferable. He could just hide in a bush with the Concealed Serpent, mark you with the Stalker, and everything you possessed would be long gone even if you were aware he was targeting you thanks to Odds On Me. Even Ares struggled to deal with this obnoxious strategy and would have suffered heavily if it wasn''t for his Primordial Blade acting like an impenetrable storage... Although even that wasn''t completely safe. If Aejaz had stolen Ares'' affiliation for the pillar then he might actually be able to use nothingness to remotely access it... This guy was becoming something truly disgusting in his own way and Ares did not appreciate the potential annoyances Aejaz was going to bring to the table! Soon enough this dolts would be able to steal from him and all and then Ares would never see the end of it. He''d laughed at everyone else suffering at the hands of this thief but, if he wasn''t careful, he would be next in line! He seriously had no ideas right now how to stop this punk and his only option was to blow up the entirety of his surroundings and fish the bastard out but, even then, he could just go invisible and run off to hide somewhere else. Plus destroying the immediate area was a no go to begin with as Ares was in the sect currently and Rud would harangue him to death if he even so much as thought about it.


    As much as Ares hated to admit it... Aejaz won this time.... NOT! Ares turned his back, pretending to walk away, but then he suddenly disappeared and a yelp was heard from a nearby tree as mini Ares booted his brother out of it! Ares had shifted to this peeping tom''s location and booted him in the backside! As for how he found Aejaz in the first place, despite the odds being massively stacked against him, Ares had combined his divine sense with Echo to feel Aejaz'' physical presence via Echo location much like he''d discussed with Lizzy. Also, Ares'' pressure was strong enough that he could throw it out in a wide net and locate the troublemaker if he really tried. In other words, Aejaz wasn''t getting the upper hand on Ares just yet! He''d still need another few billion years of training if he wanted such a paltry trick to work on his elder brother! It was impressive though as Ares actually had to work for his win in this game of hide and seek... Although that was mainly because he was still a child and had to borrow mana from Enyo''s Decompiler... That aside, Ares had various means at his disposal but the average cultivator did not so Aejaz was much stronger than he appeared against Ares who''d trumped him soundly. If it weren''t for the fact that Ares was still able to use divine sense despite his miniature status, which was likely a result of some fuckery with the revenant regeneration clashing with the Training Field, he''d have been in a rough spot. Hell even Enyo would find it impossible to track down Aejaz and, even then, he could easily escape by summoning a maze of barriers behind him as he fled. Aejaz was strong in a rather twisted way but that suited him to a tee and he seemed to be having fun, pretending to be some kind of infiltration unit with night vision binoculars, smearing himself with mud and covering himself in leaves. He was getting into the spirit of it and enjoying his new art / treasure so Ares left him to his own devices but not before borrowing the Stalker temporarily.


    This was the prize from the international that Ares was the most interested in as he could maybe even devise an art that would work brilliantly in tandem with this thing. His first though upon seeing this was a disintegrating laser beam that shot out in a straight line, had incredibly long range, and pierced through everything in its path. This concentrated disintegration art would take a long time to cast, given the amount of power Ares wanted it to pack, but if he used it as an assassin''s tool, combined with the Stalker, then where was the issue? Who cared how much time it took to charge if the art would pierce through every wall in its path anyway? It''s not like Ares would lose sight and miss either thanks to the Stalker! Ares put that on his to do list, as such an art was pretty useful here and there regardless, and decided to create something similar with physical pressure for now. Physical pressure was something he''d been under-utilising but it was incredibly valuable none the less. The frog had proven its usefulness multiple times now but Ares didn''t want to needlessly stick to summoning it over and over when there were more options available to him. It was a relatively free form ability that let him mostly cast what he wanted so, even if it wasn''t as strong as destruction magic for the most part, it could be used as a more versatile tool in its place. Using physical pressure to create an annihilation pressure beam that mimicked what he wanted out of the art he''d yet to devise not only gave him access to it early, even if it would be weaker, but it also enabled him to experiment with methods of mana manipulation that would later aid him in creating the art in the first place.


    Anyway, the point here was that the Stalker was good and Ares had a lot of fun messing with it. No wonder Aejaz felt tacti-cool using it! Regrettably, Ares didn''t really have anything over than pressure that could be used directly on a person through walls so his experience messing around with it wasn''t quite as satisfying as Aejaz'' was. Still, he did manage to spook his brother with an Echo through a wall at one point. That was something! Also, if he''d used Annihilation Echo (in his normal state) he would have obliterated his brother''s head with an impossible to prevent surprise attack so Ares'' theory about how good this thing was had already been proven. Aejaz, overall, had been the big winner here just because of the treasure alone. His scroll art, currently anyway, was worse than Enyo''s cultivation manual snippet but the treasure... It was seriously way too good! Had the Stalker been literally any better, and come with an activatable art, it might have been possible to consider it a Nyxian Prowler tier treasure despite not even being an enabler. In fact, the Stalker might even potentially sell for higher then the Prowler in an auction because of its general all-purpose nature. The darkness pillar wasn''t going to be useful to everyone so the Stalker would maybe have a fiercer bidding competition overall. Not that it mattered, this thing wasn''t ever getting sold.


    Ares tossed the Stalker back to Aejaz who then disappeared off somewhere to no doubt go toy with the elders of the sect and steal some more of their lunch money... Did this classify as elder abuse? Not Ares'' problem! Ares had other stuff to go do, such as make dinner, so he headed back inside now that the testing was done. He was going to cook, eat, and then pay a visit to sect master Yulo. He wanted to get the discussion about the sect''s future, in relation to Ares'' plans, over and done with but first he needed to get Yulo to bring everyone together. As such, Ares was going to finally pay a visit to the inner most depths of the sect! He would get to see where he was going to one day live! Even just thinking about it made him excited because he would finally have some damn spare room! As things were currently, every room in the house was typically occupied by somebody at any given time and so Ares never really had much storage space for miscellaneous crap. He himself didn''t really need it but he would rather not store things like clothes in his Primordial Blade just because he had nowhere else to put them. He didn''t want to become Aejaz V2 and have a spatial storage system clogged with random garbage. It would be way worse in his case because Ares would have an entire dimension of the stuff! More space = more good and so Ares wanted to get a feel for roughly how big his new abode was going to be. Plus just having more room for guests was always a good thing.


    Knock Knock


    A visitor? Ares assumed it was maybe Sadie? She would be done with her training right now and, under the guise of returning Rox, could get some grub in her stomach... Ares really knew this woman''s tricks too damn well! Ares shook his head and opened the door but was surprised to find somebody else here entirely. "Yulo? What brings you... Never mind. Wanna come in?" Ares didn''t bother finishing his question because the answer was obvious. Yulo saw Ares come to him in the future and so cut out the middle man, as it were, and just came here directly himself to get the conversation over and done with. This guy''s prophecy magic was damn strong! Yulo nodded and entered as he figured he may as well get some food for free while he was in the area. Plus there was a decent amount of stuff to discuss with Ares so there was no point standing out in the cold throughout it all. Ares let Yulo in and was about to close the door but Yulo interrupted him from the hallway.


    "You might want to wait a few seconds, the others will be here soon."


    Ares turned around and, sure enough, there was Sadie and Rox arriving outside the house just in time to be let in. Man, being around Yulo was weird! Weird but helpful and convenient! Ares wondered if he''d be able to see the future too one day with his nothingness magic. Timeline Splice hinted at yes so maybe if he worked hard enough? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not.