After wandering around the Inner Layer for a day, Dai Yaun finally found a place where he could take a rest. It was a relatively safe spot within a grove ringed by densely grown trees that allowed him to conceal himself while taking care of any possible ambushers.
It was already six hours since he entered this layer and the forest had begun to heat up. The sun hung atop the sky, casting bright shadows over the treetops, lighting the previously dark surroundings. The distance was filled with the sounds of animals' cries, carried away by the wind that blew across the horizon.
Cao yaun was relieved that he did not have to fight any beast, as he almost fainted when he woke up under the banya tree where he spent the whole night. He felt his heart pound in his throat for several seconds before realizing that there were no immediate threats around him. Only after checking twice did he calm down enough to pat his chest and hurried away from the tree.
As he entered the grove, Cao Yaun tossed the five corpses of the Human-Faced Insect to the ground. He had marked them all during the battle, and among these, two had survived and had more recognizable human features with a silvery tint to their shells.
Dai Yaun quickly laid out the five insects in the order he had in mind, according to the instructions he read in the Shamanic Scripture, on the grove's floor. He intended to combine all five corpses into one shamanic rune, though he was not sure whether it would be effective or not. He felt that the human-faced insect would be a decent replacement for the blackscale tiger, but he could not deny that the more, the better.
"i think...I have prepared everything for this rune refining," muttered Cao Yaun, preparing the ritual. This time he used a bowel big enough to fit in his two hands as he sliced open the Human-faced insect's joints on its lower legs with his dagger. He collected thick grey blood from all six human face insects, proceeding to the next step.
As he continued, the green blood dripping from the insects' legs created strange patterns on the dry forest floor. Curiously, this time the patterns were slightly different.
Not noticing the difference, Cao Yaun kept chanting the scripture as he walked around the five beast corpses in a circle. Suddenly, a huge circle of light burst from the middle of the ring, surrounding Cao Yaun and the five corpses as he stopped walking around them. It expanded outward, encompassing the entire grove before stopping abruptly at a radius of twenty meters.
As the shamanic rune circle appeared, Cao Yaun's heartbeat synchronized with the light's flickering, like the pulse of a heart. The ancient shamanic rhythm flowed from his mind, and he raised his palm above the ground. Slitting his palm and letting his blood drop to the floor with the other beast's blood, it mixed and glowed even more intensely despite the sunlight.
"str*********..." as he uttered the word, Cao Yaun's blood flowed faster across the complex patterns on the floor, dyeing the initially green paths red.
When the pattern was completely red, Cao Yaun sat cross-legged in the middle of the design. He dipped his index finger in the remaining blood essence and traced rough patterns on the other side of his chest. With one stroke, blood ran down his chest, outlining a circular pictogram of an unknown symbol with the head of a human-faced insect in the center and strange shamanic markings filling the space within the circle.
The moment the pictogram appeared, a crimson haze flooded his vision, and he lost consciousness.
Like the previous ritual, an instinctive shamanic dance took over his body. This time, however, his movements were much smoother. He clapped his hands loudly, spun gracefully, and flowed through the ancient steps with surprising ease. After several minutes, the dance ended, and he returned to the cross-legged position.
Strange energy ran through the five corpses, drawing out the essence from all of them into the center of the circle. Cao Yaun's five human-face insects' blood now poured out from his incisions, rushing toward him down the paths of blood as they climbed up his torsos. Their essence turned into runic energy, binding the weak outlines of the runes, condensing the forms of it making it appear clearer.
It was more tedious and painful than the last time as he combined more beasts, but it was not as bad since he did not pass out like last time, although his body occasionally convulsed from the pain.
Regardless, Dai Yuan did not scream or stop chanting the old Shamanic Scriptures, while the five beast's blood continued flowing from his body onto the pictogram on his chest.
After nearly two hours, the ritual reached its climax, as flashes of light burst in front of Cao Yaun, and the five corpses withered away, turning to dust. A new pictogram appeared on the left side of his chest, and a surge of vital energy ran through him as he shook, taking in the new information while his body recovered from the last exhausting ritual.
Cao Yaun sat for a while, getting used to the changes within himself. Mentally he felt much sharper and more focused than before. The constant exhaustion from the last few days had reduced immensely after this ritual. From the new information in his memory, he realized that the human-faced insect rune was also a grade 3 rune like the first one, luckily for him, Combining multiple insects had strengthened it.
As expected, the new Grade 3 Shamanic Rune did not give him an additional increase in muscle density, but rather expanded his cognitive abilities, permanently raising both his mental and spiritual potential.
With the new improvements in his mind, the new Grade 3 rune gave him two additional bonuses. First of all, it increased his mental power by twenty-five percent. Unlike the previous black scale tiger's Grade 3 rune that raised his muscle power by twenty-five percent, this one buffed his mental and spiritual energy. This change was particularly remarkable as it allowed him to perceive the world around him more clearly. His mental focus had become so powerful that he could hear the distant clicking of the birds' nests miles away with ease.
Not only that, but this improvement also made him much more resistant to external mental influence and attacks. Moreover, the second rune gave him an additional overall bonus to his cultivation energy, stacking on top of the previous one, allowing him to consume more energy with each absorption.
Furthermore, Dai Yuan realized that the new rune gave him an additional active ability called the Sonic Scream, unlike the first ability, the Tiger Roar, which required a complete expenditure of the rune's power. With the second ability, he could channel the rune's power in different parts of his body to produce targeted sound waves.
By releasing some of the power through his throat, he could produced a powerful sound wave that traveled several meters before breaking a small stone. Cao Yaun was quite satisfied with the additional ability as he could use it to attack either in a wide area or at close range like a shockwave with his punches.
Dai Yun tested it a little, shooting a narrow beam of sound from his mouth, breaking a tiny stone. He was quite impressed by this new ability, especially since it was much easier to use than the first ability. Not only that, but it could be useful in large-scale fights against groups of enemies or those with weak minds.
Since the human-faced insects were mentally strong creatures, their rune perfectly complemented with the black scale tiger's one, as it gave him an equal boost to his mental power on top of increasing his overall cultivation energy.
The Human-Faced Insect rune complemented the Blackscale Tiger rune perfectly. The two Grade 3 runes stacked without weakening each other, giving him a balanced boost to both physical and mental power.
Having familiarized himself with the new abilities, he got up and stretched his body. With two Grade 3 runestones, he felt much stronger than before entering the Inner Layer. Not only that, but now he had a much wider overall potential for his cultivation, along with additional mental stability.
Still, he realized that two Shamanic runes limited him in one regard, as he could only perform one major devouring ritual daily with the current knowledge he had before going into this layer. If he tried doing it more than once, then, for the next day, the additional effects from both runes would decrease greatly.
Looking around at the clearing,Cao Yuan noticed the sun had already begun to set, casting long shadows from the trees. It seemed that the ritual took much longer than it actually was. With a tired sigh, he leaned against a tree, ate some dried meat, drank some water, and took a short nap.