Chapter 6669 Dangerous Legacy Qi Cultivation Method When Melkor looked for qi cultivation methods that he could use to complement his existing job as a mech commander, he sought for an alternative that did not have the intellectual requirements of a formation master. This was the main reason why he was still reluctant to commit to this path. While he had already exchanged a hefty sum of merits to gain access to the manual of the Combat Spell Array Master Cultivation Method, he became intimidated by the fact that he still could not escape the necessity of spending lots of time on book learning if he wanted to reach the advanced stages. The further he progressed as a formation master, the more essential higher math and comprehension became! If he did not make enough progress in these essential areas, his qi cultivation would eventually hit a bottleneck and slow his growth to a crawl. Another disadvantage related to becoming a formation master was that it required a lot of setup in order to produce results. Melkor had an advantage in this aspect because he could command his subordinates to place the formation anchors at the coordinates he specified. He did not even have to enter the battlefield in person in order to make it happen! It would be even better if he was present. A spell array master specialized in controlling active qi formations. Letting a spell array run by itself was like letting an autonomous battle bot fight. The bot could only follow its own programming and was not able to make flexible and unpredictable decisions. A spell array controlled by a formation master that knew his business belonged in a different category. Melkor would be able to use his own judgment and perception to employ more advanced tactics, make correct adjustments on the fly and even inject his own power into the spell array in order to boost its strength and prevent it from breaking! While Melkor liked the sound of that, the requirements to control a spell array were not light either. The starter spell arrays that he had exchanged from the Red Collective were deliberately simplified to allow beginners like him to control them at a decent level. What he was worried about was that the difficulty ramped up quickly if he wanted to make use of qi formations that were powerful enough to affect phase lords! "Aside from that, it is not safe to remain too close to an angry phase lord." Powerful individual combatants such as ace pilots could resist the attacks of most phase lords unless the latter wielded Saint Piercer arms. Even then, most ace mechs were fast enough to escape the reach of those deadly weapons. A spell array master lacked those conveniences. The Formation Master Series might. be able to make him a little stronger and extend his lifespan and such, but it would not save him if a nunser phase lord physically trampled his mech with his gigantic hooves! This was why he sought a qi cultivation method that could offer him a bit more self-protection ability. It was not necessary for him to become a budget high-ranking mech pilot, but he should at least be able to survive the battles to come. The native aliens continued to grow stronger, and there may be even greater threats on the horizon. This was why he delved into the more obscure sections of the Repository and tried to find a way to grow powerful that may be able to do a better job at meeting his admittedly demanding requirements. Perhaps he was being too picky, because he failed to find a superior choice. The best result he came up with was a qi cultivation method that was arguably just as promising as the other two options into consideration. Different from signing a contract with a design spirit or deploying spell arrays into battle, the one he found in the least popular section of the Repository was derived from an ancient cultivation method. The collies merely translated the ancient text into standard language and edited it so that it became more understandable to modern people. Despite its murky background and mysterious elements, it promised amazing benefits to a practitioner that possessed the talent, perception and perseverance to practice it over the long term. Since t was an ancient cultivation method, the requirements to get started with it were much harsher. Not only that, but the translations could lead to misinterpretations that could cause Melkor to make a mistake in his progression. Since few people had begun to practice this expensive and obscure qi cultivation method, there was no one around who could teach him. There wasn't any mature community of practitioners and cultivation scientists that were working together to figure out its secrets and demystify its more abstruse instructions. To put it in another way, Melkor would have to rely on his own efforts in order to master this ancient qi cultivation method. If he encountered a problem that he could not overcome, then he could either remain stuck and make no further progress. or improvise and hope that would allow him to go forward. This was an exceedingly dangerous decision that could lead to cultivation deviation. Once that happened, Melkor would become compromised and suffer from a range of maladies, ranging from violent mood swings to complete changes in personality! Despite all of these well-deserved warnings, Melkor could not help but consider it anyway due to the promises it made. This was because practicing the Clockwork Hollow Sect Timestream Magistrate Qi Cultivation Method might ultimately allow him to manipulate the property of time! Yes, time! According to the extensive analysis by the cultivation scientists of the Red Collective, the qi cultivation method was originally created to form mid-level 'timestream magistrates' for the Clockwork Hollow Sect. Timestream magistrates were essentially qi cultivators that specialized in the concept. of time. More specifically, they were trained to manipulate how time affected themselves at first and subsequently everything within their range. This had many different uses and applications! A timestream magistrate could speed up the passage of time on himself, thereby allowing him to move faster and spend more time on thinking and working. He could also slow down the passage of time on projectiles or even enemies so long as they were not strong enough to resist the effect! Naturally, Melkor did not need to think about accomplishing the latter in the short term. It took serious attainments in the refurbished cultivation method before he could attempt such a magical feat onto others. While Timestream magistrates weren't powerful by themselves, their ability to manipulate time to this degree could allow them to produce a lot of favorable results, especially if they were mech commanders! That was not even the main highlight of this legacy qi cultivation method. One of their most powerful and costly abilities was to turn back the clock! By winding back their clockwork artifact, timestream magistrates could effectively travel back in time! Even if they could only go back a number of seconds or minutes, this was already enough for Melkor to change the course of a battle! What he found odd was that timestream magistrates were actually not meant to wield all of these abilities. The Clockwork Hollow Sect apparently developed much more powerful qi cultivation methods that could allow practitioners to mess with time to a much stronger and more dramatic degree! the Cultivation Method Department claimed. In any case, the aforementioned abilities were actually supplemental to their main purpose, which was to monitor the passage of time and ensure that was not being manipulated by unauthorized parties! Timestream magistrates were equipped with a number of effective techniques that allowed them to track down and counter any time manipulation shenanigans performed by third parties! It made sense for an ancient organization like the Clockwork Hollow Sect to raise their own version of law enforcers in order to prevent abuse of the same techniques they taught. When Melkor grew curious enough about the qi cultivation method that he decided to exchange it outright, he encountered several explicit warnings about the consequences of abusing time manipulation. Different from what he expected, the Clockwork Hollow Sect did not put so much effort into regulating the passage of time because they were afraid that spinning time into a messy yarn would cause the universe to collapse or whatever. The real danger came in changing time to the point of attracting the unwelcome attention of mysterious but exceedingly powerful god-like entities! These were beings who surpassed time and space to varying degrees! It was never a good idea to become known by them, because many of them were utterly alien and unpredictable! Another danger associated with abusing time manipulation was adversely affecting the futures of those who would eventually become one of those very same unfathomably powerful god-like entities! While these terrible gods could not manipulate their own past to undo their own natural 'fate, they were still able to protect themselves against unnatural changes! There was no way that Melkor would be able to withstand the wrath of such a powerful god-like powerhouse! This meant that even if Melkor did everything correctly and turned into a perfectly normal timestream magistrate, he would still be playing with fire every time he manipulated time and affected the lives of a lot of people. Small changes to the timeline were relatively safe as they were too weak and lasted too short to get detected. It was only when a timestream magistrate ceased to guard the timeline and started to resemble the criminal that he was supposed to watch out for that the risks would begin to rise. practicing the Clockwork Hollow Sect Timestream Magistrate Qi Cultivation Method right away. He couldn't let it go, however. Even if he chose to turn his back on it, he couldn't help but recall it and read through its descriptions and his own notes. The Larkinson Clan might have more use for a timestream magistrate than a spell array master. The latter was awesome and all, but the former could guard him and his fellow clan against threats of a much more hidden and nefarious nature. The only question was whether any time cultivators would show up in the future that might pose a credible threat against the Larkinsons and the rest of red humanity. If not, then a timestream magistrate became partially redundant. Another problem associated with this qi cultivation method was that it was not easy to get started with it. Any cultivator of the Clockwork Hollow Sect had to possess the very rare affinity of time. This was actually a nearly impossible condition to meet. Even during ancient times, the Clockwork Hollow Sect struggled to recruit naturally talented seeds! This was why the sect came up with numerous ways to bypass or substitute for these harsh requirements! Melkor managed to negotiate a deal with the Cultivation Method Department about this subject. He borrowed special cultivation resources from the Red Collective that could theoretically allow any human to meet the starting requirements of the qi cultivation method and become a timestream magistrate straight away! The caveat was that he could not complete this transformation at his leisure. The unorthodox method involved 'stealing the time' of others, which meant that he had to conduct a ritual centered around his enemies in order to properly practice this method! Suffice to say, the Legion Commander was not sure if he could get his enemies to cooperate. Perhaps it was better to consider the other two options instead. "It's too difficult to make up my mind." Melkor did not intend to procrastinate any longer. The time for battle had almost come, and he could not keep himself from holding back while the war progressed. One way or another, Melkor intended to start a new chapter in his life.