Chapter 1076: Start of a New Era |
Mutated Advanced Silver Grade Pranic Beast—Parute Viper!
With a Prana capacity of 3000 and a Lifespan of 540 years, it was a semi-decent Pranic Beast at best, when compared to Iron Grade Pranic Beasts.
Even at maturity, its body barely reaches a length of three metres, with a defensive strength so little that two Mud Vipers could gang upon it and sever its body into pieces. Its offensive strength wasn’t anything worth mentioning either.
It had a small dental cavity, filled only with molars, for the sole purpose of crushing into pulp Parute Fruits, the only food it was capable of eating. Its digestive system wasn’t built to consume anything else.
Its regeneration capacity, despite using Silver Grade Prana, paled in comparison to other Pranic Beasts. It was barely better than most Iron Grade Pranic Beasts.
The Parute Viper, as a Pranic Beast, wouldn’t have been fit for survival if it had been a bloodthirsty creature. However, its helping nature was what gave it a small chance for survival.
Primary Nature—Bank!
It’s a Nature that, with a set of conditions, can lend anything belonging to the user to a designated target. The scope of what could be lent ranged from Skills, Prime Skills, Cultivation Techniques, to even Natures.
Of course, when he’s lending something, Orakha could decide how much of it he’s exactly lending. Suppose he’s lending 100 units of Prana. Then, during the lent period, his Prana capacity will fall by 100 units while the borrower’s Prana capacity will increase by 100 units.
Since Prana can is fragmented into units, the lowest Orakha could lend Prana was fundamentally its smallest amount, which is a single unit of Prana.
In terms of a cultivation technique, such as Mystic Kinesis Art, its smallest version is still the cultivation technique itself. Therefore, it can only be lent as a whole. And when it is lent, Orakha would be unable to use it, even if he gains knowledge of the cultivation technique from an Information Slip.
After all, he has lent ’his’ Mystic Kinesis Art. The rules were strict and brutal, with no loopholes to exploit. After all, that was the essence and fundamentals with which the power was created.
And it is these fundamentals that make the build’s potential seemingly infinite.
The Nature of Bank can take effect only after Orakha explains all the rules of the agreement to the borrower. He couldn’t just explain it casually and bounce. The borrower needs to understand the agreement fully and voluntarily sign it. Only then can Bank take effect.
This condition was a necessity, for what Bank could achieve was limitless. After a target borrows something from Orakha, they will have to pay interest. Moreover, the agreement will be backed against collateral pledged by the borrower.
This collateral will be equal in value to the borrowed entity. This value wasn’t ’perceived’ but ’absolute.’
The Nature of Bank would naturally analyse and give value to everything. Orakha would have to follow these values while making the agreement.
Moreover, the borrower cannot borrow power greater than their capacity to pledge collateral.
For example, suppose the Empyrean Boar King intends to borrow Spirit Weapon Range from Orakha. It only has Voracious Nature and Astral Chart. Thereby, its Spirit Weapon range is limited to 180 metres.
Theoretically, it could borrow a maximum of 180 metres in Spirit Weapon range from Orakha, by pledging its own Spirit Weapon range as collateral. Of course, to borrow more, it could pledge some of the slots in its Astral Chart. That only makes the example too complex, so it is ignored for now.
The interest rate, among the conditions, can be set as Prana. Not Prana capacity, but just Prana. Maybe for every day the Empyrean Boar King borrowed 180 metres of Spirit Weapon range, it needs to pay an interest of 10 units of Prana.
If the agreement lasts for 100 days, then the interest reaches 1000 units. However, the effects of Bank aren’t limited to the Spirit Weapon range.
Therefore, the counter starts from the moment the agreement is signed. And at the end of every day, the Empyrean Boar King loses 10 units of Prana, which Orakha gets.
This isn’t anything worth mentioning to the Empyrean Boar King, since it only needs to eat a mouthful to spontaneously generate as much Prana. At the end of every day, 10 units of its Prana will be paid to Orakha as interest, irrespective of the distance between the two.
However, issues appear when the Empyrean Boar King is in a state where it is unable to pay the interest.
The agreement will have conditions on what would happen when the Empyrean Boar King defaults a certain number of times. If this condition isn’t set, it could default as many times as it needs without fear of repercussions.
All the conditions are set by Orakha. Bank only gives value to the conditions to ensure the agreement is fair. If Orakha wants, he can just have a single condition or hundreds. It is all up to him.
If the condition is set as three for default on interest payment, and the Empyrean Boar King reaches it, then the conditions are met for the activation of the Parute Viper’s second Nature.
Secondary Nature—Predator Drive!
Like Bank, Predator Drive also takes effect irrespective of distance. When activated, it takes control over the pledged collateral and turns it into Orakha’s property.
In the empyrean Boar King’s case, since its pledged collateral is its Spirit Weapon range, Predator Drive will claim it. The Empyrean Boar King, from that moment onwards, will lack a Spirit Weapon range.
Orakha will be able to use the Empyrean Boar King’s Spirit Weapon range as his own, without any influence issues. However, there’s a condition here.
The Nature of Bank’s interest is typically something that can be regenerated. Therefore, it’s always Prana.
Similarly, whatever ability Predator Drive obtains is a part of Bank. Therefore, to use it, a currency is required. This currency is Prana, gained as interest from the borrowers.
If there’s no Prana received as interest, then Orakha wouldn’t be able to use any of the abilities stored in Bank. The only reason he’ll be free from influence is thanks to the abilities being stored in the Bank.
This rule comes up with its set of conditions, which is the need for the use of Prana gained as interest from the borrowers.
Here came its biggest risk. Suppose Orakha lent powers to ten borrowers, all Silver Grade Pranic Beasts, and all had conditions to pay him 10 units of Prana daily for three days. That means, the total interest that Bank is supposed to receive at the end of three days is 300 units of Silver Grade Prana.
If suppose, after the end of two days, five of the borrowers died. This means, five of them haven’t paid a day’s worth of interest, which in this case, is 50 units of Prana.
Therefore, the Bank received 250 units of Silver Grade Prana in place of 300 as interest. If this number ever goes into the negative, the Bank goes bust.
To sustain it, the Parute Viper would have to feed in its Prana. After Orakha takes over the Parute Viper as a body, this reserve will expand to encompass his reserve of Prana too.
If even that reserve is unable to negate the negative interest, the Nature of Bank will collapse and disappear. As it vanishes, it’ll take with it everything of value from Orakha, from his Natures, Prana, mind, memories, soul, etc.
He will be erased from existence. This was the biggest issue.
Also, Bank had an upkeep cost depending on how much ’collateral’ it had gained. This upkeep cost came from the interest collected.
Therefore, to maintain the Bank, Orakha would have to mostly lend to existences who could repay everything without dying suddenly.
And in the remaining cases, it was a calculated risk where Orakha wants them default, so that Predator Drive could lay claim to their pledged collateral. Every single moment, Orakha would have to maintain a spreadsheet and keep tallying everything so that his Bank doesn’t go bust.
He didn’t have enough skills and experience as a merchant to harness the ability as much as possible. Also, he originally planned to calculate the associated risks too and have high-worth customers solely for the purpose of paying interest, such as Gold Grade Pranic Beasts.
However, he didn’t have to worry about all that, as in his possession was the Iron Empyrean Tentacle. Starting from the Iron Empyrean Tentacle, once it consumes the Silver and Gold Empyrean Tentacles, it will become the Mystic Empyrean Tentacle.
And its State of Harmony, future Sight will allow Orakha to perfectly select targets for his purpose without any risk and constantly gain benefits.
Future Sight was the perfect ability for this build. "And..."
Orakha said, his tone emotional, "It seems Sumatra is aware and hence has bestowed upon me the Iron Empyrean Tentacle."
He had already fused with the Iron Empyrean Tentacle, which had now become his body. And as he stared into the horizon, he uttered, "I can feel their positions. It’s not far."
"The other two variants have also been spawned in the Ennoudu Plains." He chuckled, slowly bursting into laughter, "If this isn’t absolute favouritism, then I don’t know what else to call it."
"Uncle..." Ruvva uttered, watching Orakha’s figure turn into a flash and vanish from her view. Her gaze fell to the body of the Parute Viper before her, growing silent.
A few hours later, goosebumps appeared on her skin as she felt an overwhelming presence burst out in the distance, one that covered the entirety of the Ennoudu Plains.
"Aah!" Instinctively, she shielded the Parute Viper with a bone cage and then noticed a shadowloom over her. And then, she lifted her head slowly, her eyes widening as she stared at the same face as before, but one that seemed to have gained salvation, "Uncle...?"
"You know, with the timing, and the excessive care given to me," Orakha said, having returned after consuming the Silver and Gold Empyrean Tentacles, "I wonder if this is what Sumatra seeks of me,"
He uttered, his tone low, but resolute, "To claim the Seat of Transcendence."
The orange radiance began to flicker faster in his eyes, "The timing is rather impeccable, don’t you say?"
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