"How does one create a dream realm?"
"First you need to accumulate qi and once you gained enough, you should be able to put it together and by shattering your inner world again, either a new spirit can form a dream realm or one of your spirit wills will form another"
"How can I get better at conquering the dream realms, what are they like?"
"Normally they are not your own memories, they will be a totally new scenario and to better prepare yourself you need more spirit wills, spirit wills are continuous throughout the dream realms. However for you, you only have one spirit will so you have no advantages other than training your skills"
"Okay by the time Hamar finished his swordsmanship and I learn it I should have enough qi to try right?"
"Yes you should be fine by then, even though he is a genius, it should still take a few months or years."
Yue and Hou wrapped up their conversation and Hou focused on absorbing qi to prepare to shatter this inner world and reform it stronger.
After a week, the leather had all done. Hou came out his tent and offered 50 contribution points for the construction of a main pavilion tent.
Immediately two seamsters raised their hands and offered to make it, splitting the points.
Penn wrote out a slip and gave each seamster one, once the job was done and inspected, they would hand in the token and get contribution points written up on a public board.
This was the system made by Penn to drive competition, a public board showing everyone's contribution points.
Hou looked upon his settlement and thought that it was nearing time to start moving,
'I should get a carriage made for Da to pull, but such a large undertaking will take time'
Hou let everyone get back to work and set up his blood formation, obscuring the camp's actions from the outside.
Over the week he had gotten used to the feeling of controlling his body manually while his inner world was away from him. He was not quite as agile as normal but fairly under control.
Hou felt his control was enough to be safe when hunting, so he flew far away from the camp in order to find new parasites, soon he would give more parasites to Hamar and Penn.
Hou had to travel a good distance away until he found any parasites, once he found one he did not take any in but used a blood formation to neutralise it and keep it for later.
Hou placed it into his robe pockets and continued to fly around collecting another few. All in all, he found 5 parasites before he started turning around and taking a long route back.
On his way back Hou found a symbiote!
'Finally another one! I'll take this one myself, but where should I apply it?'
The parasite was a long tulip and once it saw Hou, it sprang into action. It uprooted itself, flying through the air and piercing Hou's head and drilling itself into his mind.
Hou was initially blocking it until he knew it could do little harm and let it in but controlled it's spread using his blood formation to control it. It's petals grew and formed over Hou's brain, shrinking and forming over the wrinkles so that it was almost imperceptible to even Hou.
He activated it and felt a a peculiar sensation, it was very much like his inner world, he could feel a force that he could control outside of his body.
Hou could feel the force and he could move it with his mind, it formed a sort of amorphous shape which could change it's nature based on what Hou thought of.
It could become sharp and more gel-like, it could stretch far or become compressed and solid. He moved it into the ground and depending on his thoughts it could be solid or phantasmal. It was not visible but Hou could innately sense it's shape and location in his mind.
When it was solid it could create a hole. It hit the ground and with mental exertion, the ground shook and the dirt underneath compressed. The ground split casing a loud bang to be heard.
In his small testing time it consume more than half of his sunlight reserves, the symbiote from before would not be able to absorb enough to power it continuously, this would have to be rarely used.
'Symbiote powers are so much more powerful than parasites, just this one symbiote could easily take out hordes of monsters quickly but also it was almost a death sentence to anyone who would normally use it. Without his other symbiote to quickly regather sunlight, he could only use it once for a minute max.
'this will be my trump card from now on, I can see it's extreme power that was hard to rival. With this I also should ask master if use it has use in the blood dome formation, considering it's nature of changing form'
Hou was thinking about how with this ability he could protect and fight all from above without needing to put himself in unnecessary danger, this power could be used from afar and be used for offense and defense.
Hou shook off his contemplation and flew back and on his way only found two more parasites which he again neutralised. Once he got back he ordered everyone to convene near the center where the new leather pavilion tent was being constructed.
"Hello everyone, from now on for 100 contribution points you may get an ability to become stronger physically, for more unique powers it will be 150 contribution points. That is all, you may go see your points, as you may have seen, on the public board in the center of town." Hou told everyone then gestured towards the center of town and asked if anyone who was eligible wanted.
All in all there we three people who wanted an ability and had the contribution points, 2 got enhancements on their arms making them stronger than any average man. This was especially helpful for the blacksmith who could now work metal much faster.
The last was Penn who got a special parasite ability, which was in the form of a sapling which he placed on his spine. The sapling grew into a wooden structure which then split into two and formed a second pair of arms!