Cemetery

Chapter 17 — Cemetery

Sunset Town's Cemetery.

"I'm here to visit, old hag." A man arrived at Hu Yu's grave while holding a bouquet of white flowers.

Crouching down, he placed down the bouquet before laughing out madly. His creepy laughs sounded forced, as if he was merely acting out.

"I bet you didn't expect for me to visit your grave, right?"

His lips and eyes curled creepily to the edges.

"Mother, your life was really filling. It was more delicious than the hundreds of lives I took."

The man licked his lips with his eyes closing to remember the process of slowly eating away her life through the curse.

He felt utter satisfaction.

"I've heard that you took in a new apprentice? Why didn't you introduce him to me? You're so cruel."

The man stared at the words engraved on the grave.

'Thank You'.

Without a doubt, it was from the apprentice of his mother.

"He's so cute."

He licked his lips before smacking them together.

"You still like to do that boring forging job. I am now wondering if I was truly born from your stomach. There are so many differences between us."

No one answered him. There was only complete silence.

"This town is really peaceful to the point I want to ruin it."

He clicked his tongue with his ears ringing from the quietness.

"But since you're buried here, I will abstain from it. After all, I don't want to mess with your grave."

He smiled while laughing.

"Aren't I such a filial son?"

He then came to a complete halt with his expression turning icy.

"Your dear apprentice is called Nai An, right? Ahhhh, I can't wait to send him to the deepest depths of despair."

The man extended his hand as a black sword suddenly appeared. He slashed it across the words engraved on the grave.

"Mmn, much better."

The man then turned around to finally leave the cemetery.

"Nai An… Nai An…"

He mumbled ceasingly like a madman.

"I can't wait to see you… my dear mother's little apprentice."

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A few days later.

As I walked the streets, I fiddled with one of my fingers that wore a silver ring.

Spatial Storage.

"A ring that contains its own large space to store things…" I was amazed by the technology behind it.

This was a spatial ring that Meng Tian gave me to store the Blood Sacrificed Equipment I've created.

After waking for a while, I've finally reached my destination.

"Today onwards, I'll attend the Red Mountain Academy…" My eyes gazed at the gate of the academy.

The enrollment period was already over, but I still managed to enroll with the help of the Spirit Master that awakened me.

He mentioned to the principal that I was an Innate Full Spirit Power Rank when he awakened me. At the same time, he recorded my personal information to the Federation to make it credible and valid.

"But I'm no longer a Full Innate Rank…"

Fortunately, I have a strange condition where I couldn't release soul power or soul blood outside. Likewise, it made it difficult to detect my energy signature unless I willingly show them.

That's why I would appear very ordinary to others, but it just caused them to be more cautious

It was because of my ferocious appearance.

The phase 'Hidden Dragons, Crouching Tigers' would always appear within their minds.

"It's better to stay low for now. Until I completely recover my rank."

I have officially entered the Red Mountain Academy's Soul Master Class. This would be my first day of nine years of learning about Spirit Masters.

"I don't plan to listen. I bet they wouldn't teach anything with substance."

My goal was the academy's library which most likely contained abundant information about Spirit Masters.

I didn't have to pay anything for the academy and library, too.

According to the regulations set by the Sun Moon Federation, elementary and intermediate academies had free tuition and were compulsory. Elementary academy was three years long while the intermediate academy was six years long.

"Hello, I am Nai An."

As I stood on the podium, I briefly introduced myself with the teacher next to me.

I could clearly see children looking at me curiously.

"His name is Nai An…?"

"What a weird name…"

"He looks strong!"

For the Spirit Master's Class, there seemed to be 15 students. In addition to me, there's now a total of 16 students.

My eyes swept through them before noticing someone familiar.

The black-haired boy from before who talked bad about my appearance.

It seemed the boy also remembered me since he looked very surprised.

"Do you guys have any questions about Nai An?" The teacher asked them with a smile.

"Yes!" A chubby boy immediately raised his hand.

"Yes, what's your question?"

The little fatty revealed a mocking smile as he proceeded to question me.

"What's your Martial Soul and Innate Rank?"

"My Martial Soul is Spirit Heart with a Full Innate Rank."

"What!?" The fatty was dumbfounded.

"Amazing!" The others erupted loudly in shock and bewilderedness.

All of them knew the significance of Full Innate Rank.

A genius with boundless potential and prospects.

The little fatty was now looking at me with a red face full of embarrassment. As a result, the other kids started laughing at his funny face that was close to crying.

The boy was staring at me with his eyes shining and his mouth open. He was stunned, too.

The homeroom teacher, Ling Xinmeng, gestured to me to sit next to the black-haired boy.

"H-Hi, I'm Tang Wulin!" The boy hurriedly introduced himself. "We're grateful for your help back then!"

'Tang Wulin… his name is similar to Tang Jin.'

I soon nodded my head before quietly sitting next to him.

He wanted to have a conversation with me, but struggled to come up with a suitable topic.

I paid no attention to him, and just listened silently to the teacher.

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Ling Xinmeng started to teach about the concept of meditation to cultivate the soul power.

He told us that meditation was about clearing and focusing our mind to sense the nature of the world.

The teacher taught us how to meditate to increase our soul power by clearing our mind and then sensing the nature around us.

Along with the rest, I started to meditate at my seat to cultivate.

I was familiar with meditation, allowing me to quickly clear my mind from unnecessary thoughts. At the same time, I was able to focus my mind to a terrifying degree.

I'm grateful for the creation of the Steel Breathing Method.

After sensing the nature of the world, It was then said that it was important to absorb the energy of the atmosphere into our body.

This was the most basic cultivation method known as 'Accumulation'.

There were many kinds of energies that floated within the atmosphere.

Some were fiery. Some wet. Some dark. And some heavy.

As I entered the state of meditation, I activated my Spirit Heart to search for the appropriate energy for me.

Immediately after the appearance of the Spirit Heart, I could feel my heartbeat slowing down to grow attune with nature of the world.

I could feel myself blending with nature to become one with the world, causing my senses to expand rapidly.

From the previous limited scope, I felt my senses encompassing a large part of the atmosphere. As such, I was able to feel the energies that I couldn't reach previously, widening the range of energies I could absorb.

'So this is the benefit of having powerful affinity…'

I then started to guide the energies from the atmosphere to enter my body. Upon sensing the nature, I realized I could absorb any kind of energy into the Spirit Heart.

At the same time, I saw my absorption speed being faster than normal due to the Life-Death Wheel rotating within the Spirit Heart.

I tried to use the basic cultivation method to convert and store the energies, but they soon dissipated back to outside.

The basic cultivation method wasn't suitable for me. I couldn't control the Soul Blood that flowed naturally like a river. And fundamentally, I have a different way of containing soul blood which is my circulatory system.

Using it as inspiration, however, served as a good idea that caused me to create my own method.

"First, I need to gather the energy to my pulmonary system, then to my coronary system, and lastly the systematic system of my circulatory network. It will travel throughout my entire body with my blood to nourish me from the inside out before finally gathering within my heart."

As I mentally visualized, I was already experimenting with the method I had thought.

And something happened when I was practicing this new kind of method.

"....!"

'Amazing…! All the soul power is rushing towards him!"

Tang Wulin was abruptly shocked when he felt the energy around them rushing toward my spot.

It was the same for the others like our homeroom teacher.

The energies from the atmosphere started to rush toward me in a frenzied manner.

On the other hand, I felt my countless pores opening up to greedily welcome them to my system.

This powerful absorption speed was further enhanced by the rotating Life-Death Wheel that filtered them to become denser and higher quality of soul power.

The spirit power flooded my body so much that It caused my blood vessels to swell painfully, causing them to have no choice other than to become tougher and wider to withstand the sheer amount. They then gathered within my heart to fill the aperture and expand its internal space.

With every blood cycle, I endured a terrible amount of pain with my heart and blood vessels viciously bloating. After reaching the very limits, it caused me to feel my heart and blood vessels to stretch apart.

Fortunately, they didn't explode apart and was just a sign that the heart aperture was expanding along with my blood vessels. I

After the heart aperture and blood vessels widened, the soul blood started to increase to fill the widened space.

I broke through the next rank without any difficulties.

—Negative 6th Rank.

Unbeknownst to me, the inside of the classroom was very chaotic due to my actions.

I wanted to continue cultivating but I felt extremely hungry. Upon contemplating, I discovered the formation of soul blood needed blood essence.

And thus, I decided to stabilize my foundation before continuing. If things went wrong, I would suffer from devastating drawbacks.

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Next Day Later.

After realizing what happened at the classroom, I decided to cultivate alone at the inn.

Inside the inn, I cultivated after consuming a huge amount of food to restore my energy.

'My Spirit Heart is so unstable from just advancing…'

I decided to focus on stabilizing my internal state. With my senses spreading afar, I started to absorb soul power that soon poured obediently into my Spirit Heart.

Instead of intensely filling the aperture to expand, the soul power began covering the entirety to refine and temper.

The Spirit Heart is essentially my original heart made out of muscles. The soul power was refining and tempering these muscles.

Soon enough, I felt my Spirit Heart emitting a strange powerful heartbeat that slowly grew stronger. Inside the heart's aperture, I could see the Spirit Blood slowly compressing from the vibration of the strange heartbeat. The Spirit Blood gradually turned denser as it circulated my veins, brimming with rich and vibrant energy.

An hour later, the Spirit Heart was completely saturated as the strange heartbeat receded. It needed time to adjust to further get stronger.

Opening my eyes, I pondered over my unique path full of uncertainty.

"There are two cultivation methods I must follow to advance. The two methods of aperture expansion and heart refinement."

I sighed as this would make my cultivation speed slower than normal.

"In the future, I must find a method wherein I can do both of them at the same time…"

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