Patelocke

Patelocke is an ancient Chief Arcana Master whose imprisoned consciousness becomes Su Chen's teacher, research partner, and long-distance adviser. His knowledge of biological modification and Ancient Arcana Techniques accelerates Su Chen's work, while successive embodiments in a tablet, a Soul Armament, and a transmission puppet turn him from a captive relic into an independent researcher and communications intermediary.

Biography

Imprisonment in the Goldwater Ruins

Patelocke's surviving laboratory records present a gifted but brutal researcher whose work consumed the people around him. He investigated how memories and information could be inherited through bloodlines, hoping to create replacement slave races that could be controlled from birth and perhaps extend that control to Arcana newborns. The related Beast Spirit Controller could command groups of modified beasts, but those creatures reached an early growth ceiling, while exposing his own body to the process caused progressive organ failure. Repeated failures and his lethal treatment of test subjects and assistants finally drove his staff to revolt. (Chapters 325 and 332)

The assistants killed Patelocke but trapped his spirit inside a tablet, leaving that object as both prison and life support. He responded by moving the laboratory into a hidden void and sleeping through most of the following thirty-six millennia rather than aid the assistants who had betrayed him. When Hidden Dragon Institute students entered the ruins, he projected the identity of “Ilaine Lamburn,” claimed to be Patelocke's jailor, and invented a monster called Patelocke's Nightmare to persuade them to release him. Su Chen exposed contradictions in the story and forced him to reveal himself as an elderly Arcana specter. (Chapters 330–332)

Patelocke then tried apology, promises of servitude, threats, and consciousness illusions in turn. His position was weaker than his display suggested: as a specter he could not attack physically, his mind-control studies had progressed slowly without books or experimental resources, and destroying the tablet would destroy him. Su Chen used those limits to compel the binding procedure Patelocke disclosed, permanently establishing ownership through blood, a chant, and an Origin Energy Pattern. Institute officials nearly confiscated the tablet afterward, but Su Chen concealed Patelocke's true rank and consciousness expertise and retained him. (Chapters 331–336)

An unwilling captive becomes a research partner

The relationship soon became intellectually productive. Patelocke explained Origin Particles, the way bloodlines absorbed them, the limits of bloodline medicines, and the theoretical possibility of Origin Seeds. He supplied an ancient method for creating Hemolytic Swordsmen, which Su Chen combined with Ferocious Race totems to produce the Hemolytic Totem. Patelocke's knowledge sharply shortened investigations that might otherwise have wandered for years, but Su Chen treated that knowledge as material to reinterpret rather than doctrine to obey, a habit that earned the ancient scholar's respect. (Chapters 338–340)

In Clear River, Patelocke served as a portable library and a demanding technical adviser. He taught concealment through Cloud Cover, explained microscopic consciousness control, identified the principles behind the Bloodline Extraction and Consciousness Converter Instruments, and transferred the True Spirit Technique directly through memory. That technique strengthened analytical clarity and calculation rather than combat, consumed consciousness during training, and could not redirect a consciousness already developed along another path. Patelocke also admitted practical limits: without a body he could not inspect artifacts physically, and his historical expertise did not make him automatically familiar with every later invention. (Chapters 344 and 353–355)

Their collaboration broadened from instruction into joint invention. Patelocke warned that Su Chen could not simply transplant an eye, helped externalize the Hemolytic Totem into an Origin Tool, and analyzed Whitetower Teleportation as a limited form of Void Jumping whose distance and physical burden constrained its use. He and Su Chen reconstructed the Origin Energy flow needed for the Shadow Flame Glove after Patelocke explained that inscriptions supplied pathways rather than power by themselves. When Su Chen called them friends and promised to find him a body, Patelocke accepted with open happiness after millennia of confinement. (Chapters 354, 414–420)

Patelocke also became useful against other nonphysical beings. After Su Chen defeated the Spirit Race member Silence, Patelocke swallowed the exposed spirit and absorbed part of its memories, including research and illusion knowledge. The process did not grant complete recall: he had to digest and filter fragmented memories, and only a spirit he could first overpower was viable prey. Later, he helped identify a breeding box and reasoned out how to wake its poison-consuming microorganisms, again contributing interpretation and consciousness control rather than performing the physical experimentation himself. (Chapters 444–446 and 475–476)

From spirit tablet to Soul Armament

Su Chen eventually fulfilled the first form of his promise through Spirit Substantiation Medicine. The medicine temporarily condensed Patelocke's consciousness so it could be moved out of the tablet and into the Mountain-Beheading Blade, whose inscriptions reproduced and improved the environment that had sustained him. Patelocke could animate the weapon, form eyes, a mouth, and wings upon it, and speak and act with his personality intact. He celebrated the blade as a body, though it remained a vessel for his spirit rather than the living biological form he originally desired. (Chapter 556)

As an autonomous Soul Armament, Patelocke could fly, maneuver independently, emit blade light, and defend himself with both the weapon's material durability and his own Origin Energy. He fought beside Su Chen against Sand Race enemies and could exploit angles that an ordinary wielded weapon could not. The form was not invulnerable: heavy weapons and overwhelming force were effective counters, and the blade's performance still depended on the vessel surviving. Later Soul Armaments generally erased the resident personality to obtain obedience, making Patelocke's fully preserved mind both unusual and a major reason for his weapon-form's superiority. (Chapters 558 and 587)

The new body changed Patelocke's mobility without ending his dependence on an object. Su Chen could hand the blade to allies, as when Patelocke delayed a powerful spider through Death's Shadow or later accompanied Iron Cliff as his Ancient Arcana instructor. A consciousness crystal might have reconstructed Patelocke's spirit body more directly, but Su Chen declined to spend it that way. Patelocke nevertheless continued teaching, advising on dangerous memory research, and showing genuine concern when Su Chen injured himself, evidence that their bond had moved beyond the coercive ownership established in the ruins. (Chapters 641–642, 663, and 773)

A body of his own in Harpy territory

Patelocke's desire for independent experimentation remained unresolved by the blade. While developing a consciousness technique tailored to counter insect swarms, he briefly guided Su Chen's body with permission so Su Chen could form the skill immediately; even voluntary possession provoked strong bodily rejection. Patelocke therefore wanted a purpose-built puppet rather than a living host. His historical knowledge pointed the group toward an ancient transmission puppet buried near a Gold-Devouring Ape, although he repeatedly warned that knowing what had once been there did not guarantee what had survived. (Chapters 777–792)

The recovered transmission puppet had been adapted to accommodate two consciousnesses, allowing Patelocke to enter it without the violent rejection produced by a living body. It could walk, carry objects, survive dangerous conditions, defend itself, and communicate at roughly ten times the range of contemporary transmission devices. For the first time since his imprisonment, Patelocke possessed a mobile vessel in which he could pursue his own research. Su Chen refused to experiment on the puppet without consent, while Patelocke offered limited access in exchange for compensation, formalizing an independence that their original master-prisoner arrangement had denied. (Chapters 792 and 796–807)

Patelocke remained a remote adviser as the expedition moved through Harpy territory. He identified valuable materials and artifacts, reorganized parts of Su Chen's tactical approach, and used the puppet's communications capability to maintain contact across separated groups. During the crisis around Sky City, he warned Su Chen that his direct link did not automatically extend to everyone, then attempted contact through Zhu Clan intermediaries. By the rescue operation he could communicate with Su Chen, Zhu Xianyao, and Zhu Chenhuan while positioned outside Origin Light Castle, carrying information and orders between parties who otherwise could not coordinate. (Chapters 796, 800, 831, and 881–908)

The Boundless Sect's distant adviser

During the sea campaign, Patelocke's value shifted from traveling companion to strategic communications hub. Although his puppet remained physically with the Zhu Clan in Liaoye, he could contact Su Chen across an effectively unlimited distance and relay a warning to the Boundless Sect in under a minute. Transmission disks improved under his guidance allowed their holders to reach Su Chen through Patelocke as an intermediary, linking dispersed forces and turning information speed into a battlefield advantage. Su Chen also used that channel to contact Lin Chenyuan and uncover the political conspiracy surrounding the campaign. (Chapters 958–968)

His scientific advice remained important at the same distance. Patelocke interpreted Arcana research into life evolution and inferred that the Deep Sea Sorrow's transforming substance had been artificially created; later observations confirmed his prediction that it accelerated growth and power at the cost of intelligence. His accumulated construction knowledge also contributed to keeping the sect's Titan puppets tactically relevant, including their flight formations and use of Whitetower Teleportation. These interventions show his late role as a specialist whose judgment could influence campaigns without requiring his physical presence. (Chapters 958, 970, and 977)

The puppet did not turn Patelocke into an ordinary living being: he remained a Spirit Tool in essence, a fact that helped Su Chen recognize similarities in Diomedes. When new Void Crystals permitted additional transmission puppets, the network no longer required Patelocke to remain fixed in one location, expanding his freedom and the reach of the system built around him. His last recorded appearance is a remote consultation in which he and Diomedes answer Su Chen's questions about ancient Astral leaders, leaving Patelocke active as both researcher and networked adviser rather than resolving whether he can ever obtain a truly living body. (Chapters 981, 1007, and 1039)

Appearance and personality

Patelocke's original living body is not described in surviving narration. As a tablet-bound specter, he chooses the appearance of an old, white-haired and grizzled Arcana figure, can float as a smoky apparition, and can alter his projected form for deception. The robes, deep blue eyes, and three-headed serpentine staff shown by “Ilaine Lamburn” belong to his false identity rather than a reliable portrait. In the Mountain-Beheading Blade he manifests facial features and wings upon the weapon; the later transmission puppet is clearly mechanical and mobile, but receives no comparably detailed physical description. (Chapters 330–331, 414, 556, 641, and 796–807)

He is proud, manipulative, and intensely self-interested when first encountered. His old laboratory history shows ambition unchecked by concern for subjects or assistants, while his attempted deception in the ruins combines theatrical confidence with fear of destruction. Time with Su Chen does not produce an explicit confession or full moral reckoning, but it does make him more candid about uncertainty, more willing to protect and teach others, and capable of genuine friendship. His defining constant is intellectual curiosity: he delights in new research, respects unconventional reasoning, and seeks an independent body chiefly so that he can experiment rather than merely survive. (Chapters 325, 330–335, 338–340, 420, 641–642, 780, and 796)

Abilities and cultivation

Patelocke's strength comes from expert knowledge, a powerful surviving consciousness, and the properties of whichever vessel houses him. The corpus identifies him as a Chief Arcana Master but does not give him a human cultivation realm or Arcana ring count, and his available techniques change substantially between the tablet, blade, and transmission-puppet phases.

Arcana scholarship and biological research

Before his death, Patelocke specialized in biology, life energy, bloodlines, and the inheritance of information. His Beast Spirit Controller research could impose coordinated control on modified beasts, but the alteration restricted their growth, and applying the method to himself caused radiation-linked organ failure. His deeper plan to encode memories and obedience into bloodlines never reached the controllable civilization-scale result he sought. These failures, and the violent rebellion they provoked, are central limits on treating his ancient expertise as automatically safe or complete. (Chapters 325 and 332)

As Su Chen's adviser, he can identify principles behind ancient biological devices, analyze life processes at microscopic scale through consciousness, catalyze biological growth, and reconstruct techniques from incomplete mechanisms. He warns that accelerated development can produce stillborn offspring and rejects biologically impossible shortcuts such as a simple eye transplant. His skill is strongest when paired with Su Chen's experiments and modern methods; the absence of a physical body initially prevents direct inspection, and on unfamiliar technology he frequently offers hypotheses rather than guaranteed answers. (Chapters 353–358, 414–420, 475–476, 780, 881–882, and 958–970)

Spectral existence and consciousness techniques

Patelocke survives death because his assistants bound his spirit to a tablet. In that state he can project illusions, transform his visible appearance, speak through the projection, release a shrill consciousness attack, and surround targets with deceptive darkness. He is intangible and cannot attack physically, and the tablet is simultaneously his prison and anchor: destroying it would shatter his spirit. Leaving it without another compatible vessel would also kill him, while ownership of the tablet can be permanently bound through blood, a chant, and an Origin Energy Pattern. (Chapters 330–335)

His consciousness attacks are dangerous to ordinary minds but are not universal control. The Purple-Scaled Demonic Beast and Su Chen resist him, and Patelocke admits that mind control was not his original specialty; attempting to develop it alone as a captive specter, without books or subjects, produced slow progress. He can briefly guide a consenting body well enough to impart the formation of a new technique, but even willing flesh rejects the foreign consciousness violently. The corpus therefore distinguishes mental influence, instructional transfer, and temporary guidance from stable possession. (Chapters 332–335 and 777–778)

Patelocke can also consume a defeated spirit and recover portions of its memories. Swallowing Silence gives him research knowledge and insights into the Illusion Realm, which he filters for Su Chen. The transfer is incomplete rather than a perfect copy, requires time to digest, and presupposes that the target spirit has already been overcome. The story demonstrates no equivalent ability against an intact physical opponent and does not establish how much power, rather than information, he retains from a consumed spirit. (Chapters 444–446)

Teaching and collaborative invention

Patelocke can transfer structured knowledge directly when a willing recipient lowers their spiritual defenses. He uses this to give Su Chen the True Spirit Technique, a research-oriented consciousness method that improves clarity, analysis, calculation, and fine control. Training consumes consciousness, Spirit Sobering Medicine can support its practice, and an established consciousness-development direction cannot simply be replaced with another. Patelocke later teaches Ancient Arcana to Iron Cliff and designs a consciousness technique specifically around Su Chen's need to defeat insect swarms. (Chapters 354–355, 641–642, 773, and 777–778)

His instruction also covers Cloud Cover, Winding Thorns, Whitetower Teleportation, Origin Energy conduction, and numerous biological and artifact principles. Knowledge does not erase the need for practice: Su Chen cannot master every ancient technique merely by hearing it, and an unpracticed Winding Thorns only delays a fleeing opponent briefly. Patelocke is particularly effective as a collaborator who explains mechanisms while Su Chen supplies physical experimentation and novel synthesis. Their joint reconstruction of the Shadow Flame Glove and development of an externalized Hemolytic Totem illustrate that complementary division of labor. (Chapters 339, 344, 414–420, and 444)

Soul Armament embodiment

Spirit Substantiation Medicine allows Patelocke's consciousness to be moved from the tablet into the Mountain-Beheading Blade, whose inscriptions provide a stable spirit environment. In that form he can fly and steer himself, attack with blade light, defend with Origin Energy, converse normally, and fight without a wielder. His intact personality gives him judgment and adaptability that later Soul Armaments lose when their resident minds are erased, making him stronger than an otherwise obedient but hollow weapon spirit. (Chapters 556–558 and 587)

The blade remains an object rather than a restored biological body. Its material resilience and Patelocke's defenses make ordinary attacks difficult, but heavy weapons and overwhelming force can damage or suppress it. He can be carried by allies and act away from Su Chen, yet his continued survival still depends on the integrity and suitability of a vessel. This phase ends when he transfers into the purpose-built transmission puppet; the corpus does not state that he later returns to the blade. (Chapters 558, 663, 773, and 796)

Transmission-puppet body and communications network

The ancient transmission puppet was modified to house two consciousnesses, making it compatible with Patelocke without the rejection caused by living flesh. It grants walking mobility, the ability to handle and carry physical objects, survival in hostile conditions, defensive functions, and enough independence to maintain a private research agenda. Although Patelocke perceives possible lifeforce in the vessel, later evidence still classifies him as a Spirit Tool, so the transfer is not confirmed as resurrection into a living organism. (Chapters 792, 796–807, and 981)

Its defining ability is long-range communication. The original puppet can transmit at roughly ten times contemporary range, later maintains links among Su Chen and Zhu Clan members across Harpy territory, and ultimately contacts Su Chen across the distance between Liaoye and the sea campaign. Enhanced transmission disks use Patelocke as their intermediary, allowing distributed holders to route messages through him. The system initially depends on his unique consciousness and position, while additional Void Crystals later enable more transmission puppets and remove the need for him to remain at one fixed location. (Chapters 792, 831, 887–907, 958–966, and 1007)

The network supports simultaneous coordination, rapid warnings, and remote consultation, but it is not unrestricted telepathy. Patelocke explains that his direct connection is initially to Su Chen, so reaching Zhu Xianyao requires another available contact path; the later disks and puppet network extend that architecture rather than proving he can contact any person at will. As of his last appearance, he can project himself for a conversation with Su Chen and Diomedes, but the corpus does not specify a maximum number of simultaneous connections or how the loss of all compatible devices would affect him. (Chapters 887–907, 965–966, 1007, and 1039)

Power progression

Relationships

• Su Chen: Su Chen begins as Patelocke's captor and legal owner, having defeated his deceptions and bound the tablet. Shared research gradually makes them collaborators and then acknowledged friends. Su Chen promises him a body, builds the Soul Armament that restores mobility, and later respects his autonomy in the transmission puppet; Patelocke responds with instruction, combat support, concern for Su Chen's safety, and decades-spanning strategic advice. (Chapters 331–340, 419–420, 556, 641–642, 796, and 958–1039)
• Iron Cliff: Su Chen entrusts the Mountain-Beheading Blade to Iron Cliff so that Patelocke can teach him Ancient Arcana knowledge directly. Their documented relationship is primarily instructor and student during the Harpy expedition; the corpus does not describe an independent personal bond beyond that assignment. (Chapter 773)
• Zhu Xianyao and the Zhu Clan: The transmission puppet makes Patelocke a communications link for the separated Zhu forces. He helps maintain contact, attempts to reach Zhu Xianyao during the Sky City crisis, coordinates messages around Origin Light Castle, and later remains physically with the Zhu Clan in Liaoye while relaying warnings and battlefield communications to Su Chen. (Chapters 831, 887–908, and 958–966)
• Diomedes: Diomedes' existence is legible partly because Patelocke also remains a spirit housed in an artificial vessel. By Chapter 1039, the two function together as remote ancient-world consultants, answering Su Chen through a transmission projection. The corpus establishes professional coexistence and shared expertise, but not a detailed private friendship or rivalry. (Chapters 981 and 1039)
• Former assistants: Patelocke's assistants initially admired his research but rebelled after repeated failures, killings, and abuses transformed the laboratory into a place of terror. They killed him and imprisoned his spirit in the tablet, while later survivors used incomplete portions of his technology. Their revolt is both the consequence of his cruelty and the origin of the disembodied existence that defines his later life. (Chapters 325 and 332)

Items

• Mountain-Beheading Blade: Su Chen transfers Patelocke from the tablet into this weapon using Spirit Substantiation Medicine and supporting inscriptions. It becomes his first mobile body and an autonomous Soul Armament with his personality intact, remaining his vessel until he enters the transmission puppet. (Chapters 556–558, 663, 773, and 796)
• Origin Bone Scepter: Patelocke treats the scepter as useful but fallible, warning that its predictions do not reveal everything. He later proposes using it to determine a method for combining Refined Stargod Metal with the Flowing Gold Blade. He advises on its use but is never shown owning it. (Chapters 780 and 881)
• Flowing Gold Blade: Patelocke suggests that this weapon may be able to absorb Refined Stargod Metal and recommends consulting the Origin Bone Scepter to discover the method. The suggestion is technical advice, not evidence that he owns or personally operates the blade. (Chapter 881)
• Darkness Crystal: Patelocke acquires partial knowledge of the crystal through the memories he absorbs from Silence and helps Su Chen isolate useful information from those fragments. The corpus does not show Patelocke possessing or activating the crystal himself. (Chapters 445–446)
• Refined Stargod Metal: Patelocke identifies the material and explains that its Forerunner-grade properties make its full power difficult for later peoples to use. He recommends investigating whether the Flowing Gold Blade can absorb it, but does not claim mastery of the required process. (Chapter 881)
• Bloodline Extraction Instrument: Patelocke recognizes the instrument as one of the civilization-changing achievements associated with Origin Blood Arcana Masters and uses it as an example of biological work performed through external apparatus. He is not shown operating or possessing it. (Chapters 354 and 415)
• Consciousness Converter Instrument: Patelocke explains the instrument's history and its conversion of living Dark Astrals into Astrals. The process destroys the subject's former life, produces beings unable to reproduce, and preserves consciousness without constituting true immortality. His own tablet-bound state is comparable in some respects, but the corpus does not establish that this instrument created him. (Chapters 354 and 424–425)