Chapter 28

Fares woke up the next day to something soft on his hands. Wondering what was that, he opened his eyes slowly to see Zena's sleeping face.

'She looks cute when she sleeps.' He thought looking at what his hands were holding.

Once he saw them, his nose bled as he screamed out of surprise, "Ahhhhh."

"What's the matter big brother? Did you finally wake up?" Mona said as her small figure rushed into the room.

Fares withdrew his hands quickly as he sat up straight.

"What happened yesterday during the festival?" He asked Mona changing the topic.

"Oh, that? Well, as soon as Olga's hands fell on your neck, there was a loud BOOM! And then there was cha-cha and wooooot, as your body had suddenly been thrown away." Mona said adding sound effects to the mix.

Fares didn't understand a word she said, so he went to ask Azkar. Even though he wasn't there, as the chief of the village he should have already known about such a commotion.

"Oh, yesterday? The guys who carried you back here said you were about to be hit by Olga from behind, but there was an explosion, and you were thrown away." Azkar recounted what happened yesterday.

"What happened to her then?" Fares asked through gritted teeth. He got angrier the more he thought about that unreasonable woman.

"Oh her? She managed to barely escape the blast area at the last second. However, she still got a pretty serious burn on her left arm, but with healer Raya's help, she'll be up and about in a week or so. You were lucky that you were just a soul with no physical form, the blast energy just knocked you a few meters back, and you hit your head." Azkar said.

Fares smiled inwardly, that's what you get for attacking people out of the blue.

However, Fares still remembered the disparity between them, she was miles ahead of him in power. He made up his mind and went to grab the walnut he got from Smooka.

As soon as it was in his sight, Fares noticed the Raptors skins at the side. He facepalmed and went to continue working on it.

He repeated the same step one more time and left it to dry yet again.

Fares then went to grab the walnut placing it in front of him, then proceeded to cut it into four equal pieces using his sword.

As soon as he took it out, Azkar noticed its energy pattern and his interest has been drawn towards it.

"What is that thing you're holding?" He asked.

"Oh, this? Some kind of walnut I found while running away from some scary beast." Fares tried his best to lie to this man since he knew that his intuition was spot on.

"Is that so?" Azkar said losing interest, if Fares did not have any intention to tell him, he will not force it upon him.

After that, Azkar just went back to cultivate. Meanwhile, Fares eat the walnut piece by piece until he was done eating all of it.

In the next second, Fares felt his body getting hotter and hotter. It was like he was burning inside out.

However, Fares had more than enough experience with cultivating any eaten form of energy. He pulled the energy strand by strand from his stomach and placed most of them at his leg nodes, while the rest at his stomach node.

Normally, when people cultivate in this world they use incantations to absorb and control the energy strands. But Fares was different, since his body was of pure energy he could feel the surrounding energy on a much higher level.

As he drew the energy in strand by strand, Fares could feel his leg node fill to the brim. Right then he stopped and then went to the stomach node.

Usually, to go a step further in cultivation, you need to fill the node with energy. Once full, it needs an even greater source of energy to break the node container and allow the energy to fuse directly with the body. Each node unlocked is proportionate to a minor cultivation level.

Fares had no physical body, so he didn't start cultivation from the Body Training stage like everyone else. Instead, he jumped directly to the Soul Strengthening stage.

This was both a boon and a bane. It was good since it gave him direct understanding and more feeling and control over the dark energy. However, this also meant that physically he was not as fit as someone on the same cultivation level.

Fares had already unlocked one of his brain nodes. The nodes are present in many parts of the body. There were two in each limb, one in the abdomen, one in the brain. It usually differed from each person depending on their cultivation method.

That is also what gives others agility over strength and so on. For Fares, he felt that there were three brain nodes, one gut node, one heart node, one lung node, and a node in each limb.

The bigger the node size the more energy needed to break it. The higher energy there is at the breakthrough, the more energy that can be stored within the body later on.

In Fares' case, the initial energy from the walnut had already given him bigger nodes. This time, however, it widened his energy pathways thus supplying energy faster and more efficiently than normal.

In conclusion, the nodes act as pumps while the pathways act as pipes. The same way the heart acts, it pumps blood to the body, while the blood vessels transport the blood. If the heart was pumping more blood than the vessels could carry, it either ruptures or just directly fail and lose its function.

So he decided that instead of using the energy to break through, he could use it to strengthen all of his body's energy pathways.

It isn't as efficient, but it is not every day that you put your hands on such a treasure, might as well use it to its full potential.

He went on from node to node, one at a time, until the pathways couldn't expand anymore. Only then did he stop, however, the energy from the walnut was still ongoing.

Only his leg nodes had already been filled to the brim since it was already cultivated to a certain extent. So he decided to redirect the remaining energy into his leg nodes. After a couple of hours, there was a cracking sound coming from the nodes.

The surface of the nodes showed cracks as if a glass ball was breaking from the inside. And the cracks kept getting bigger and bigger until it finally gave in and broke apart.

The energy kept raging as if an imprisoned dragon has finally been set free. It started devouring the surrounding energy and getting larger by the second. Finally, it settled back in his legs as great as ever.

Fares opened his eyes slowly, as he stood up. Looking at his legs, he noticed that they became more bulky and muscular. He moved around a little and found out that his agility, as well as dexterity, have improved by leaps and bounds.

Fares got excited, if he had this power before he would not have lost to that alpha Raptor. Thinking about the Raptor again Fares thought, 'It is not over yet, Raptors are one of the weakest creatures out there. Let's not get complacent with this minor improvement.'

As he was thinking that, Azkar looked at him in shock, 'This little guy broke through two whole levels in the Soul Strengthening stage at once. In addition, his energy was way more than anyone in stage three. Is this the benefit of having a pure soul body?' He thought.

It has to be known that each minor stage in the Soul Strengthening stage is about 100 times that in the Body Training stage. However, it was not that Fares could cultivate faster, but instead, he used pure intense energy in both, the Crystal orbs and the walnut.

Fares decided to take a break and went to finish working on the skins for now. He grabbed the skin nearest to him and pulled on it in every direction over and over again.

The skin stretched for a while before it started to dry up. Fares then lit up a fire at the fireplace, then hanged the skin a good two meters above the fireplace for it to smoke.

Then he repeated the previous steps for the other two skins. Whenever he was done drying one, he would replace it with the smoking skin.

In the end, he had three soft pieces of clothes, large enough to shape around his body, and strong enough to withstand normal attacks.

He made himself a nice set of cool Raptor pants, and what looked like middle age shields as his upper body wear. This was done using the sword for cutting and making tiny holes within it to pass the ropes through.

For Zena, he made a badass knee-length skirt that is slightly opened at the side for easier maneuverability while hunting. And a tight upper body garment. That was all he could come up with since he had zero sense for fashion.

Fares also did the same but way smaller version for Mona. When he saw that there were leftovers that were not enough to make anything for Azkar, he decided to make underwear for the girls. He thought she would be more comfortable this way.