23 - Spar

As time passed slowly, the day came to an end as the sun went down, and the guards started to prepare dinner for everybody.

By now, Xu Xin, Yue Ning, and Xiao Wei had been told to stay in the carriage and not come out, because if Xu Xin was able to figure out that something was suspicious, the more experienced people outside obviously were as well.

After all, though Xu Xin had been through many situations, he was, after all, only fourteen years old, and his experience in this world was limited, with only his experience in fighting surpassing everyone present.

In this time, Xu Xin hadn't come up with any other techniques or ways to use his inner energy, but he wasn't disappointed in the slightest. Instead, he was excited, because his hands were already a tenth of the way healed. This was faster than he expected.

As the food was brought into the carriage, the smell of delicious meat instantly filled the air, and Xu Xin opened his eyes as he grabbed some of the food.

He was hungry by now, because the process of healing was using a lot of his energy, and constantly doing three things at the same time was somewhat exhausting.

As he took the meat, he wolfed it down in only a couple seconds before getting more. It was as if he hadn't eaten in a year.

However, he realistically only did this so he could have more time to experiment, because he was on the verge of discovering another way to use his inner energy.

He was experimenting with his icy inner energy and a way to use it to 'harden' his skin as a form of defense. Currently, the increase in defense was great, but it also hurt his skin to do so.

He figured that this could work as a life-saving technique, but that wasn't what he was trying to do.

He was trying to make a 'body strengthening' technique, which could be used to refine one's body and make it stronger, faster, and better.

Overall, having a body strengthening technique was extremely good for one's strength, though they were hard to train in.

However, as good as he was at creating techniques, it was hard to make a body strengthening technique with the element of ice, because it was too easy to damage the body and it wasn't good at refining as much as it was just freezing what it touched.

As such, he might have to go with an already created ice elemental body strengthening technique since it was too hard to make his own.

Self-made techniques were always perfectly suitable for the person that made them, hence they were more effective in their hands, which is why some people chose to make their own skill once they reached the end of their potential.

However, Xu Xin was very good at making techniques, so he made some as he went along if he had the time to, and he preferred to use the techniques that he made so that he could improve and refine them.

However, if he needed to, he would obviously use a technique someone else created.

In reality, most people *only* used techniques that others made, and they were too lazy to make their own, with only a rare few choosing to make their own techniques, even if it was at the end of their potential when they did make them.

As for people that made their own techniques and improved them as they got stronger, they were extremely rare and were considered geniuses with high levels of intelligence and perception. This was why there was such a big market for skills and cultivation techniques.

As he tried to create this body strengthening technique, he failed again and again and again, and he felt that it was going to be much harder than he thought it would be to create this technique.

He eventually started to give up, because he had only managed to get a very rudimentary skill created, and it wouldn't even increase his strength much even if he improved it. As such, he merely focused on recovering for now. He would ask Xia Yue to help him out later.

As time passed, his hands got better and better, but it was still going to be quite a while before they were healed.

Eventually, it was time for everyone to go to sleep, and Yue Ning laid down next to him while Xiao Wei laid down on his side of the carriage opposite to them.

Only Xu Xin didn't go to sleep, because he was only slightly mentally tired, so he didn't feel the need to sleep right now.

He didn't know why he didn't feel tired since his body was currently healing, but he didn't care since it gave him more time to create techniques and learn how to use his inner energy better.

Time passed slowly, and outside the carriage, the four spirit realm cultivators didn't sleep, because once one reached the spirit realm, they only needed to sleep once every few days if they needed to, and since they were all suspicious of the current situation, they were all keeping watch around the carriage, with each one taking a corner.

They would occasionally walk around the carriage and take each other's corners just in case one of them missed something, but none of them saw anything during this entire time.

None of them knew, however, that Xu Xin was also still awake, and he was monitoring things within the carriage.

Within the carriage, Xu Xin had once again opened his eyes, and he was staring at Xiao Wei. He couldn't help but think to himself just how easy it would be to kill the latter right now, and how he would be powerless to resist.

There was even a faint killing intent released, and it hung in the air like a dense fog, weighing on everybody's shoulders.

The people outside sensed this faint killing intent, and they were on guard, but Yue Ning and Xiao Wei still slept peacefully since the killing intent wasn't strong enough to wake them.

However, Xu Xin quickly controlled his emotions and retracted the killing intent.

With his goal not only to kill Xiao Wei, but also to survive and destroy the whole kingdom, that meant he didn't dare to kill Xiao Wei right now, even if he could easily do so.

Looking at Yue Ning sleeping peacefully, she had a smile on her face, and he realized that he couldn't even remember the last time when he was as innocent as her.

She may have been older than him, but he realized that she probably hadn't even killed anyone yet.

Meanwhile, since he was a kid, his life had been filled with chaos and death as he struggled to grow up and be stronger and better than everyone around him. He had never gotten to have a childhood, hence his adult-like demeanor.

Thinking about this, it just made him hate the Xiao kingdom even more, and his resolve to destroy it was reinforced.

Then, he closed his eyes and continued to research in silence.

Time passed slowly as he continued to work on making a body strengthening technique, but he was met with failure again and again.

Three hours later, he had made a slight bit of progress, but it still wasn't nearly enough to improve his strength, and the most it could do was slightly decrease the amount of damage he took.

As he circulated the technique, his skin seemed to become slightly smoother as it got a little stronger, capable of taking more damage. It also gained a slight aquamarine tint as it was continuously refined by the ice element.

He felt a bit of pain while refining his body, hence why he wanted to improve the technique or get one that's already created, but it was bearable and it refined his body in exactly the way he wanted it to, strengthening his skin.

At this point, he felt that his skin could withstand the hit of a non-cultivator without even budging, but it obviously wasn't very strong since it could even be negated by someone at the peak of the body rank.

Of course, no matter how little, it was still an improvement from before, and he knew that his technique was at least somewhat working.

At this moment, his skin contained a slight element of ice, meaning that he would be more resistant to ice and fire element attacks.

Finally, with the rudimentary technique created, he decided to move on and improve other aspects of himself.

He figured that he should have a movement technique that could make him faster, but he hadn't though of a way to do this with the elements of water or ice yet, because water was focused on flow, while ice was meant to slow things down, making it not good for movement.

He was almost certain that if he was to have a movement technique, it would almost certainly be of the water element rather than ice, but it wasn't impossible for it to be ice.

As he researched, time passed slowly, and without realizing it, the night was nearly over. As he sat there, he had his eyes open as the light shone on the carriage, going through the thin curtains over the windows and lighting up the inside.

Under the light, Yue Ning was the first to wake, and she was greeted by Xu Xin still sitting in exactly the same position as he was when she fell asleep, and his eyes were open as he looked at her without any emotion.

She was startled awake as she realized that he was staring at her because she had gotten very close to him in her sleep, and one of her hands was actually touching him.

Seeing this, she quickly pulled her hand away and sat up, uncomfortable.

A couple minutes later, Xiao Wei woke up, and he saw Yue Ning sitting there looking out the window, clearly uncomfortable, and Xu Xin was once again sitting with closed eyes, still healing his hands and researching ways to use his inner energy.

Just as he was wondering what was happening, Xia Yue opened the door, and seeing that everyone was already awake, she said: "Breakfast is ready."

She also left the door open as she left, showing that she felt it was safe for them to come out.

Yue Ning and Xiao Wei went out right away, as they were hungry, while Xu Xin silently followed behind them. He was so quiet that they didn't even hear him behind them, and when they saw that he was there, they were given a slight jolt.

This was because Xu Xin had been making a new movement technique that used the flow of the element of water to make yourself extremely quiet when moving, and though he could be completely silent while walking now because of it, during a fight, it wasn't of much use yet since moving fast would still make noise.

He had made this technique in order to be able to better sneak around, and it also made moving a bit easier as well. He was a bit faster than before, and he could move much better as his limbs seemed more in tune with themselves and the rest of his body.

As he sat down to eat, he looked at the others with apathy. At this moment, he seemed detached from the world. His hands were still in horrible condition, but they were about a fifth of the way healed by now, which was incredibly fast.

The others couldn't see the progress of the healing of his hands, but they could see that he could use his hands somewhat effectively now, and he wasn't having many issues eating, which showed that he wasn't kidding when he said that they would be healed in a few days to a week.

However, this wasn't too surprising to the others since some people just had unnaturally fast healing speed, while he also cultivated the element of water, which could help speed up healing as well.

When they finished eating, the fire that was used to cook the food was put out, and Xu Xin was about to head back into the carriage when he heard Yue Ning's voice ring out.

"Please spar with me, brother Xin."