Life of A Journeyman

Feng was traversing the lands as a mercenary, he and Eshu had fought many beasts and even killed a few bandits. Feng was still a few more regions away from Blood God Forest, so he wanted to use all the time he had to temper his and Eshu's body. He had multiple near-death encounters, and most of them were because he stepped into the territories of a few powerful beasts.

The beasts merely sent their clones but were able to overpower him with one thought. From all his months of experience, Feng realized the aspects in which he lacked in; and they were, The body, his blade arts, and the other aspects of his mana; as of now he only somewhat had an understanding of the lightning mana and for the others, he had a vague to no understanding of them. His blade arts were mediocre after losing the memories of blade skills in exchange for the Knowledge.

He could not figure out how to use them on the spot, so he decided to gather experience, using basic techniques like cloaking his hands with the mana, or turning the mana into a barrier. Even so, he was only able to experience a little progress with the lightning mana, the other mana in his body was just too difficult to move, let alone shift.

So, for now, Feng decided to keep polishing his skills with the lighting magic and keep trying to develop the other mana's into magic spells.

He and Eshu were near a little lake and were taking a brief breather, Feng used this opportunity to ask Damon a few questions.

'Damon, how come I haven't sensed Eshu's bloodline?'

[That should be pretty easy to answer, you damn fool. It's just like your Druid bloodline, it is not awakened,]

'Yea i get that, but i mean, he had death mana, while I don't yet have my "Druid" mana,'

[Well this, Eshu is a unique fellow, even before he awakened his bloodline in the past, he already merged death mana with the laws of life, he was an unparalleled genius.]

'Ah I see, but I still have two more questions,'

[Ask away.]

'The first question. You said I can't upgrade beings with sentience. How come I can upgrade my dagger and Proteus, don't they have sentience too?'

[Most of the questions you ask have no difficulty to them, this one is simple, it's because they only have the littlest bit of sentience, the sentience and intelligence of proteus will undergo a breakthrough soon, so after that, you won't be able to upgrade him with the mark, and as for your dagger, the sentience and intelligence of it isn't even half of Proteus, so you can keep using it for a while. And don't complain, just having one item with sentience is incredible, not to talk of two.]

Feng listened and laughed in his heart about not having difficult questions. His heart seemed to have become darker, he thought in his heart, where Damon wouldn't hear.

'So you want a difficult question, hehe.'

'You wanted a difficult question, well this is my last,'

[Ok, but make it fast I have chapters to write!]

'Che, whatever, my question is, How come you didn't bring out the treasure when I asked for it those times?'

[Eh! Do you hear that? Look bandits!]

Shouting in the space of the demon mark, he quickly ran to a corner as fast as he could. As Feng expected, Damon was a petty bastard; He would only help when he was being outshown.

With a miserable look on his face, Feng shook his head and stepped away from the lake. He then walked over to his bags, leaning at the trunk of a tree. He was about to tell Eshu to get up, but then he saw a stream of spiritual energy entering his body.

The origin and genetic energy around his body became chaotic, and his green death mana started to expand and shield him. His spiritual origin and genetic energy started giving off a silver sheen, and a silver aura descended from the heavens unto the boy. Feng instantly realized what was going on.

'He's making a breakthrough, so soon, at this age, he is making a breakthrough to silver rank, a true genius.'

Feng felt his Dao heart wavering (look for reference in the Wuxia genre of novels, it is like will; it is also not a literal heart. People with strong Dao Hearts can breakthrough easily or kill mercilessly without blinking) This young boy had just brokenthrough to the silver rank, the rank which had taken him years to breakthrough to, his Dao heart that had been tempered through years of killing was almost shattered like that.

He knew that he was no genius, but for him, this was a blow to his ego, Eshu was now just a little close to his level, it looked like he would need to advance to jade rank fast.

He was at the Mid-level Gold rank, he just needed to train his energy a bit more and he would be okay to advance to the High-level of Gold rank. He continued watching the boy breakthrough speechlessly.

Eshu then suddenly started to give off a weird energy, but it was for a brief second, Feng could not easily catch this energy, but Damon in his demon mark could. However, Damon did not alert Feng.

Feng in the meantime, waiting for Eshu to stabilise his cultivation base started cultivating his lightning mana. He infused his mana with genetic energy, golden sparks of lightning crackled around his body, dived into his flesh, and circulated around his blood vessel and veins.

His method of training was crude, but he had nothing else for that moment. If one from earth, like asura, were to ask him this question: "What about your mist breathing style?" Feng would answer like this: "It can't help me in this place, the effects are too limited, it was originally meant for origin energy, body tempering was just a half-assed bonus."

Feng had still never retraced his bloodline, but maybe it was because he already did. The ancestral druid memories were they perhaps part of his retraced bloodline…

…

From then on, Feng lived as a journeyman. He had experienced all that there was in journeying. If he said he was second at experience on the road, no one would dare lay claim that they were first.

Finally, after months of travel, they had reached their destination.