by Yuri Ajin
Suddenly, another aura appeared nearby.
The Fox turned and launched a lightning bolt at the threat, but it crashed into an invisible barrier. It tried to repeat the attack when it felt a sudden jolt of severe pain in its paws. Looking down, it was horrified to find that they were frozen.
Kai couldn’t shackle, let alone knock out the Fox using the Field. Its will was strong, so all he could do was slow down its movements. To do more, he had to move closer.
The Fox stared at him. It had seen two-legged creatures before. Mostly elves. Therefore, it believed that only their techniques were to be feared. But they weren’t so strong up close. Growling, it bared its teeth, warning the human to stay away if he wished to keep his limbs.
Clenching his hand into a fist, he punched the Fox, throwing its head back. The ice that bound its paws to the ground prevented it from flying away. With a whimper, the Fox fell to the ground.
“Oh, you again.” Looking to his right, Kai saw the beaten Bear, standing by a lone rock.
Wounded and frightened, it ran away. The fear made it change its mind and head toward the river, hoping to swim across it before its inhabitants noticed it.
But Kai wasn’t going to let it get away.
He outstretched the Field, overtaking the Bear. Feeling danger looming behind, it desperately jumped forward, and then... hovered in the air. Gripped by an invisible force, it trashed and fired its steel needles, but it didn’t help in any way. Kai’s will overwhelmed it, and it passed out again.
Having placed both beasts into the Night Space, Kai found a small crevice high in a rock, threw the dark ball of energy into it, and then jumped, entering the pocket dimension as well.
Once he was inside, he chained the two animals with Cold Void just to be on the safe side.
“Let’s start with you,” he said, looking at the Fox.
Moving his hand closer to it, he formed a large clot of artificial energy, and then let it into the Fox’s body. By now, he had already gotten accustomed to manipulating energy inside the meridians and the Source, so carrying out this whole process was much easier now.
As with the Bear, spirit pain began to tear the Fox apart from the inside. It twitched and made strange sounds, even woke up at some point, but it couldn’t shake off the Cold Void. Unlike it, Kai didn’t feel any pain during the entire process as he was immune to spirit attacks.
The experiment lasted nearly ten minutes. This time, Kai put a huge amount of artificial energy into the Spark, so the absorption process was prolonged. Once it ended, the Spark began pouring back soul energy in a rapid stream. Very quickly, it filled the Fox’s entire soul with power. However, this additional soul energy wasn’t in a passive state. It darted away from the Spark, heading straight for the inner walls of the Shell.
Soul energy began to pour into the Shell under pressure, saturating and strengthening it. For several seconds, a miracle was happening right before Kai’s eyes, and then a crack appeared. And then another one. And another. The Shell couldn’t withstand it and began to crumble. Kai wanted to do something, but he lost control of the energy when the Spark absorbed it. The surplus ended up destroying the Shell.
The Fox was dead.
“Its Shell turned out to be too solid; it could no longer accept the new building material outside of the breakthrough process,” Rune’Tan explained. “At least that’s how I see it.”
“We need to repeat the experiment,” Kai said indifferently. “I’m close to the goal... I can feel it.”
He tried the same thing with the Bear. Its Spark absorbed Kai’s energy, which caused powerful waves of spirit pain and then threw out the soul energy. The experiment was replicated, but with one exception — a minute later, nothing terrible happened to the Bear’s Shell. It absorbed all the surplus soul energy, becoming thicker and stronger. The microscopic cracks and deformations that all creatures had since birth simply disappeared.
The Bear’s Shell was different from the Fox’s. It was like a sponge, greedily absorbing liquid.
But Kai didn’t stop there. He repeated the experiment a couple more times until he no longer could. The Shell continued to absorb soul energy but immediately spilled it out. Kai concluded that trying to spill more energy into it would be wasteful. Pondering, he noticed that the energy that was spilling out, which had previously passed through the Shell, began to affect the Bear’s entire energy structure. His meridians, Source, and acupuncture points began to expand, allowing him to put even more energy into the Bear’s soul.
This continued for another painful half an hour and ended when the Bear’s energy structure more than doubled. After that, all the additional soul energy didn’t affect it in any way. Instead, it went into its physical body, where it dissolved without a trace.
Kai finished the experiment.
Wiping the sweat from his face, he moved his hand away from the Bear and took a few steps back. He was barely standing, but he was happy. It was almost imperceptible, but he still felt it.
Soon, however, the Cold Void prevailed, and Kai felt nothing once more. He sat down and plunged into meditation to recover his energy.
Several hours later, he opened his eyes. The Bear had already woken up, and it was trying to hide. They were still in the pocket dimension, so no matter how far it went, it returned to where it started. Realizing that there was no escape, it gave up and, having sat as far away from Kai as possible, observed him.
When Kai opened his eyes, the Bear flinched, tensed, but didn’t budge. Where would it have gone anyway?
“You’re alive? Great.” Kai nodded, standing up. “Come here, I gotta check something.”
Fully focused on energy vision, he began to carefully examine the Bear. The beast tensed even more but continued to sit still.
“What do you think? I don’t see any side effects.”
“It seems that the problem lay in the fact that the Fox, unlike the Bear, had already stepped onto the path of true mastery. Accordingly, the Shell changes. It becomes firm and unyielding, which enhances spirit protection. However, this makes the Shell freeze, because of which it becomes unchangeable.”
“You’re free to go,” Kai said to the Bear and opened the pocket dimension, releasing it.
Once the Bear was gone and the dimension closed once more, he returned to meditation. A large clot of Yin appeared in his left hand and Yang in his right. Having connected them properly and received a considerable amount of artificial energy, he directed all this power into his soul. The Spark absorbed it very quickly, and after a while, a stormy stream of soul energy began to break out. As with the Bear, Kai’s Shell began to accept all this additional power, using it as a building material. And when the Shell stopped improving, the turn came for the Source, Meridians, and acupuncture points.
At the same time, Kai’s destroyed Source began trying to recover. The Cold Void hindered the process, as it acted as glue for the fragments. And even though he could remove the ice at any moment, without support, the remnants of his Source would instantly disintegrate, and no amount of regeneration would help him then.
Attention!
Achievement completed: [Perfect Foundation]
You have managed to improve the quality of your development to ten points. Your reward is [Memory Jade] (automatic selection).
[Memory Jade]
Rank: Gold
Quality: Peak
Contains the memories of an ancient cultivator.
“You really did it,” Rune’Tan whispered, shocked. “I watched you every step of the way and still doubted you. But now... Heavens! Just when I thought there was nothing more you could surprise me with…”
Kai understood that raising the foundation quality was something only a divine could do, and that no one managed to own both Yin and Yang at the same time. It was only thanks to the tattoo he had obtained in the Azure Cube that he was able to master both of these concepts. So, it was impossible to call this achievement purely his merit.
He felt how
his Source, which had grown by almost thirty units, was filled with additional ki. Raising the foundation gave him not only an increase in ki supply, but also raised his spirit perception and stamina, and his aura had also grown in size and strength.
“The only thing that interests me is why was I able to raise my foundation. Shouldn’t everyone know about this trick, considering that there are Fruits with soul energy available in nature?” Kai wondered.
“Oh no, boy. Oversaturating the soul with Spirit Fruits won’t give this effect. You should know this. Excess energy will simply dissipate after a while if you don’t use it,” Rune’Tan said. “What you did was different from how you usually replenish soul energy by consuming Spirit Fruits.”
“And what’s the difference?”
“I have only one guess — in the fact that it was done by your soul energy. The one you created. The energy in the Fruits...” Rune’Tan thought for a moment. “It belongs to them. That is, it can restore the spent years, but not to improve the Shell. I don’t see any other explanation,” he mumbled.
“Sounds logical,” Kai agreed with a nod.
He wanted to return to the Abode, climb up to the fourth floor, buy the necessary ingredients, prepare the Heavenly Flask, and finally break through to the Exorcist Stage.
Chapter 24
A BUSY DAY
On the way back to the portal, Kai inspected the Memory Jade. Unlike the first, this great master wasn’t located in snow-capped mountains, but at a river near a gigantic waterfall extending far into the heavens. Here, he practiced and studied his Endless Space and the Flowing Water Spheres, trying to uncover the secrets of the transition to the next level of Forces.
This would come in handy in the future when the time came for Kai to create his own Spheres. For now, he couldn’t use any of the Memory Jades as the Forces they contained were too advanced and complex for him to understand.
It seems like it has been chosen specifically for me. The first time, I thought it was an accident, but now... I feel like the System understands who needs what on their path of development.
The road back took three hours. To his surprise, there were no traps or ambushes, and no one followed him. He entered the protective barrier without any problems, immediately heading for the portal. There, he again paid ten Coins and finally returned to the Abode.
Once he was in the Portal Hall, he sensed that something was wrong. The large room looked surprisingly empty. Usually, there was a crowd of students coming in and out, but everyone seemed to have disappeared.
After a couple of steps, a group of about twenty dwarves entered through the gate, blocking the entrance, and stood in front of him.
“Are you Kai Arnhard?” the strongest of them spoke, flaunting his Abode mark and rank — thirtieth on the list.
“Maybe. Who’s asking?”
“Is this yours?” Ignoring his question, the dwarf pulled out a small vial of the Clear Body Potion from his Ring.
Kai only raised his eyebrows. His question was ignored, so he wasn’t going to answer either.
“This is pointless. I’m sure it’s you. I’ll get straight to the point. Our Honorable Lord Kenji, the head of the Ninth Faction, wishes to meet with you.”
“What? He couldn’t be bothered to come meet me himself?”
“We’ll take you to him.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you? Why?”
“At least because it’ll be profitable for you,” the dwarf replied. “Don’t you already have enough problems with the Great Pack? By refusing to see our leader, you’ll only make more enemies. Lots of them. All of the dwarves of the continent basically.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“It’s just a warning. It’s customary for our race to honor and respect the most skilled craftsmen, whichever path they choose. They are the pride of their community.”
The dwarf spoke calmly and evenly but Kai could sense harshness in his words. With such a way of speaking, he could easily influence any cultivator with a weak will.
“And you are?” Kai asked after a few seconds.
“I’m Eric, nicknamed the Unyielding.”
Kai knew a bit about the dwarven culture from what Yoh had told him. In their society, each member strove to achieve perfection in some craft. It didn’t matter if it was alchemy, blacksmithing, fencing, or even gardening. And having achieved something really great in their chosen craft — something that would be recognized by a significant part of their society — the dwarf received a unique nickname, which raised their social status by a whole level.
There were currently only three such dwarves in the Abode. Those were Kenji, the Symbol Binder; his brother Toji, the Deafening Hammer; as well as Eric, who was now standing in front of Kai. The first two had a two-word nickname, which reflected even greater skill in their areas of expertise. As for Eric, he was the Unyielding because of how strong his barriers were. Rumor had it that he was so adept at it that he could withstand a couple of minutes even under the onslaught of an initial-level Elementalist. For that stage of development, even thirty seconds was considered a remarkable amount of time.
“Tell me, Eric, why does your leader want to see me?”
“I can’t tell you the exact reason yet. But it has to do with your skills as an alchemist. He has an offer for you.”
Could this be a trap? It’d be easier for them to catch me in Darkshire, the Abode’s laws don’t reach that far. Perhaps they didn’t know which anomaly zone I entered. Still... With so many people... They could’ve attacked and chained me by now... I ought to give them the benefit of the doubt...
“All right. Let’s go,” he finally agreed. He didn’t want to make new enemies, especially when they still treated him well. And it wouldn’t hurt if he could get something out of this meeting.
Eric nodded, and the dwarves began their march toward the south wall. They didn’t surround Kai or try to escort him. Instead, they let him follow them at his own pace.
Soon, their group reached the gate of the Guardian’s Test. The dwarves showed their marks to the guards and were granted passage.
As for Kai, he didn’t have to show anything. Almost everyone in the Abode already knew his face. Special scrolls with a record of the battle with Ranmaru — any True Master could put their memories in a scroll using their will — scattered across the floors like wildfire. Many were interested to see how a mortal human managed to defeat such a strong cultivator.
The group reached the gate in silence. The dwarves began to put their hands on them and disappear.
“Here.” Eric held out a small paper amulet to Kai. “This is a one-time pass to the fifth floor.”
Pocketing it, he put his hand on the gate as well. Since he had already passed the First Guardian’s Test, another inscription appeared in front of him.
Select the desired floor.
Second floor (Test passed. Access granted)
Third floor (Test passed. Access granted)
Fourth floor (Test failed. Access denied)
Fifth floor (Test failed... One-time pass detected. Access granted)
He could’ve easily tricked the dwarves and went to any other floor, keeping the pass. But he wasn’t going to do that. Eric didn’t even ask him to sign a spirit contract or take an oath when he gave him such a valuable item. Such a level of trust spoke a lot about his character.
The countdown ended and he disappeared too. A moment later, he was on the fifth floor. Besides Eric, only two dwarves from the original group remained. The rest weren’t among the first hundred on the list, which meant that they couldn’t get here without an expensive pass issued by a member of the Ten.
Looking around, Kai was stunned. It was hard to believe that they were still inside the Abode. A vast blue sky stretched above them, dotted with floating islands that carried majestic buildings, connected with hanging bridges. Ten Large and ninety Small palaces maneuvered under and above the clouds, flying neatly alongside each other. Even the gate, nea
r which Kai had appeared, was located on a similar floating rock, frozen in the center of the floor.
“We’re in luck,” Eric said and nodded to the right “The lord’s palace is close by.”
Kai looked in the pointed direction and saw a huge palace slowly floating in front of them.
“Let’s go.” Eric waved his hand and jumped over the fence. The other two dwarves did the same.
Kai watched them disappear through the clouds and then land on some invisible platform. Using energy vision, he saw that there was actually no platform there. The Abode halted their fall, forming a solid surface right under their feet.
“Don’t worry, you can’t fall here,” Eric said, turning around.
Kai nodded and followed them. His fall was also stopped but he was ready to teleport back to the gate at any moment.
“That is, if you have a pass.” Eric smiled for the first time since they met. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Halfway to the slowly moving palace, Kai finally spoke.
“Is this how all the fifth-floor students get to their houses?”
“No. Usually, the first hundred on the list are transferred directly to their homes. And since you can’t do that, we have to walk. We go back to the gates from our homes on clouds.”
“What about the pavilions?”
“Technically, there aren’t any on this floor. But each of the hundred palaces has a room similar to them. And the larger the palace, the better they are. The palace’s size depends on the rank of its owner.”
Their conversation ended as they reached Kenji’s palace. The servants — artificial Spirits — greeted them and led them inside.
“You can go further only if you promise to be silent about what you’re about to see and hear here,” Eric said. “After all, the Abode’s strongest cultivators have dangerous enemies...”
“Just a promise?” Kai was slightly surprised. “Not an oath or a spirit contract, but a simple promise?”