Chapter 10 Decisions
Teresa and the kids fell asleep as Ray was almost done with the story. He then stood up and made his way outside their house and as always proceeded to their roof top to gain nourishment from the light of the moon.
Only the moon and the stars hung upon the sky tonight. No clouds could be seen as the moon shone brightly this night.
The stars seems to accompany the loneliness of the moon as they carpeted the sky with their small sparkling lights.
Ray grabbed the surrounding mana around him, making sure he only takes the usable ones and not taking in any polluted mana.
The mana then went to his diaphragm were it hovered for a bit. He then began to filter it again, exhaling the bad mana outside his body and the remaining filtered mana formed a dew like subtance below his diaphragm. With one deep breath he slowly moved the filtered mana towards his chest and proceeded to repeat the process.
It took him longer this time as his cultivation is not enough to continue the filtering process, his body now showing signs of strength as his muscles gain nourishment from the pure filtered mana.
He still remembered how the dark entity destroyed their last stand. how the surrounding mana in space filtered around the uncanny being before transforming into a giant mana ball capable of destroying a star.
Ray took until mindnight to finish his cultivation and with a small gale of wind, entered the Mana level 2 for starting cultivators.
That means he had now unshackled the peak of human anatomy using this time's athletism, strength and measure.
He can feel the flow of mana on his veins, muscles and senses. The mana on his body is now converted on his own energy to use!
He looked up at the stars and was thinking what he will do for tonight. Usually back in his old self before he entered cultivation, he would get drunk with his friends and get a hangover.
On his previous life as a cultivator he had no time on celebrating life as his time to start cultivating is way past his prime!
His only advantage is the advance knowledge of cultivating that he has earned and worked hard for. He still got many years to go for him to reach his peak strength.
Now even though his back in time, he still feels the restraints of his late entrance in cultivation. Like shackles that bounds his body, everytime he cultivates he cannot effectively filter the mana around him.
He can sense and feel that his only getting 15% of the mana around him to be converted to energy. He can only regret that his abilty to copy that demon's cultivation is not as effective as the former.
"For now, family comes first. I need to ensure that my family can strengthen themselves before the upcoming calamities. every day wasted is like wasting time on worthless things." Ray breathed in, he is now prepared on what he do.
Ray now decides to himself on what he can do better to address the opportunity of his family's poverty.
With the moon at the sky, he ultimately made the decision. Right now he went inside their house, took a black cap and grabbed an old newspaper on the their old cabinet.
He first went to his sleeping family before kissing them on their foreheads one by one.
"Bad luck for somebody tonight." Ray thought as he went outside towards the metro's outskirts.
He rode a bus towards the city's red light district in The city. The red light district is known to as the business capital of the city, at day normal office employees strive and work hard to make a living and at night almost all kinds of bar are open asides from the numerous contact centers that are open at night.
Ray went to towards Jupiter street, a street known for night clubs and casinos. he only have $20 on his pockets which was the remaining last money they have ans the buchis with him.
Usually at the casinos alot of fixers and goons would stay outside to guard and take a look for potential customers.
He saw the Casino Ripple at the middle of the street. Known to outside as one of the strongest and powerful casinos in the area, the business was owned by a local tycoon who has strings with some powerful men in the city.
He sat on the mouth of the alley and waited. A little while longer a black mercedes benz stopped in front of the Casino Ripple, a man dressed with black coat came out.
He was large man around 6"5, he wore black shades ,had a big golden necklace and people around him bowed their heads as soon as he entered the casino.
*****
A vendor that sold cigarettes saw Ray standing along the streets. This is the first time he saw Ray, he had been selling on the streets for a couple of weeks now and saw many people with dark intentions.
But this man is different, there is a different Temperment about this man as he appeared cold and calculating. For once he never even saw the man blinked.
A creepy man this was. He looked at ray again before a young man came to buy cigarettes so he had to take serve the customer first and gave them a light, as soon as he turned his head again the man was gone.