Aksai kept the Heretic Talismanic Dao jade slip aside and picked up another jade slip that caught his attention.
This one was different from the typical jade slips used on the mainland. In fact, he hadn’t seen such a jade slip in Haan Di as well.
“Hmm. This slip doesn’t look like it was owned by that old demon from the beginning. It might be something he got his hands on later on in his life. Seems like that old demon had his own adventures somewhere.”
The old jade slip was smaller and had an encrypted barrier preventing his Spirit Sense from entering it directly. He scrunched his nose, pondering how to access its contents.
Determined to find a way, Aksai rummaged through Mao’s personal belongings, eventually coming across an old notebook with a leather cover. He opened it and quickly scanned its pages.
The notebook turned out to be Mao’s diary, filled with entries detailing significant events and personal musings. Ignoring the bulk of the information, Aksai focused on finding a way to decrypt the jade slip.
His persistence paid off when he discovered a passage describing a method to unlock the encrypted slip. The key was a password in the form of a profound phrase that needed to be spoken before sending one’s Spirit Sense inside the jade slip. Aksai carefully noted the phrase and followed the steps outlined in Mao’s diary.
“May the shadows of truth reveal the hidden light,” Aksai whispered, sending his Spirit Sense into the jade slip immediately after. The barrier dissolved, granting him access to the slip’s contents.
The information inside was astonishing.
“Hmm? A bonafide soul-related technique in Dadangar?”
Aksai’s eyes widened as he delved into the details. The jade slip contained a peculiar technique named the Consciousness Creation Art.
This technique allowed for the imbuing of objects, both organic and inorganic, with a synthetic consciousness using specialized talismans. The jade slip had a detailed description of how one can make use of it.
This synthetic consciousness wasn’t merely imparted into the objects but was birthed within them, turning it into a natal spirit for the item.
Aksai read through the content carefully, absorbing every detail. The Consciousness Creation Art described how to use specific talismanic patterns and infusions of Spirit energy to instill life-like awareness into objects. It included various Essence Equation runes that could be used for a variety of scenarios and situations.
For example, a weapon could be given a synthetic consciousness that allowed it to adjust its weight and balance according to the user’s needs. A defensive artifact could adapt its protective measures based on the type of attack it encountered. The applications were vast and revolutionary.
This natal consciousness wasn’t very smart or capable. It was not sentient like a human or beast, but it could follow commands, adapt to certain stimuli, and enhance the functions of the object it inhabited. However, it was capable of evolving after being exposed to certain stimuli over time.
This was an advanced way of imparting consciousness. One could even use this technique on plants to birth synthetic consciousness into them. Or rather, the technique would allow its users to awaken the almost insignificant plant consciousness. This would enable the plants and trees to expedite their natal spirit creation without having to turn into 4th-order treasures.
Of course, the plant spirit obtained by such a method would not be as sentient and capable as the plant spirits born in the 4th-order plants. They would have some deficiencies.
“So the creation of singing plants, talking utensils, and angry swords is possible with this technique. Interesting.”
Aksai had heard that the 4th-order artifact creation techniques involved imparting spiritual consciousness into inanimate objects. However, he had never heard about a technique that could allow someone to do something similar with 2nd-order cultivation resources and above.
What was interesting was that the Consciousness Creation Art didn’t rob someone else’s consciousness. There was no soul-related robbing or soul-splitting technique involved.
One just had to create a friendly environment for a figment of consciousness to naturally born inside a target. This consciousness would then slowly develop itself and get smarter as the time passes, becoming more and more capable as it levels up.
The Consciousness Creation Art had versatile uses. One could use it to cultivate consciousness inside their artifacts. They could use the technique to make the plants produce more yields than before. One could even grant synthetic consciousness to pills and elixirs to enhance their efficacy.
Of course, the use of the Consciousness Creation Art did not come cheap. If one was not careful with their target, it was possible to have a bigger loss on hand compared to potential gains.
There was also a chance of failures and producing half-baked consciousness. Sometimes, the produced consciousness would be so insignificant that it would not improve the object’s functionality at all. There was also a chance in which a synthetic consciousness was born with its upper limit fixed. Meaning it wouldn’t be able to level-up past a certain extent.
However, the Consciousness Creation Art allowed Foundation Building Experts to have a preliminary capability in soul-related matters. This was the first time Aksai had seen a technique from Dadangar that was genuinely related to souls that wasn’t meant for Nascent Soul Kings.
Aksai found many of the concepts mentioned in the technique overlapping with the principles he found in the Aether cultivation technique. One could say that the Consciousness Creation Art was very suitable to be used with Aether energy.
Of course, since this technique was made for a Spirit cultivator, it had a few key differences from the techniques usually found in Acarnis, which was filled with Aether practitioners. It had a different set of governing principles.
And instead of using the Aether energy as a soul source for the creation of the synthetic soul, the technique involved additional use of the Spirit essence as well, which complicated the whole procedure.
“Hmm. I can probably optimize this technique using some of the principles of Acarnis. I’ll remove the principles of Spirit essence and focus on using Aether energy as a sole energy source for the technique,” the Spirit farmer thought to himself.
Aksai would need to modify the technique a bit to make it suitable for his use with Aether crystals and Aether energy.