27 - Fear

Time passed by, and Xu Xin eventually came back to the carriage, and when he did, he went inside without a sound, where he saw Yue Ning sitting quietly.

As she turned to look at him, her face turned red as she quickly looked away, looking through the now open curtained window outside.

Xu Xin expressionlessly sat down and started to mess around with his inner energy.

He was once again experimenting with it and trying to make new techniques, but he was met with failure again and again.

The reason that he kept trying so many times instead of giving up was because he felt that if he gave up, he would never get stronger and wouldn't be able to accomplish much.

This was his mindset, and nothing in this world could stop him from following it.

Very soon, the night was over, and during this time, Yue Ning wasn't able to sleep at all while Xu Xin just sat next to her silently, his body giving off a slight chill.

Xia Yue then opened the door, waking up Xiao Wei and offering breakfast, but Xu Xin continued to sit there like a statue.

By now, they had gotten used to him barely eating, and they realized that the only reason he ate so much before was because he was healing and needed energy.

Soon, breakfast was finished, and Yue Ning came back into the carriage, but Xu Xin was still just sitting there, completely silent, as if he was nothing more than a statue.

Even his clothes didn't move, and his breathing was extremely shallow, so much so that it was nearly undetectable.

He seemed to be the epitome of calmness and stillness, and the slight chill radiating off of his body was actually refreshing instead of invasive and bitter.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes as he smiled.

He had succeeded in upgrading the body strengthening technique he was developing, and it had made a major improvement, and it was now completely capable of increasing his strength by a major margin if he continued to practice it.

His mindset had once again paid off, and it only made him believe in it even more than before.

Excitedly, he started to use his newly developed technique, and he felt his skin and muscles start to freeze and thaw at the same time, being imbued with the element of ice as they were toughened and slightly glowed aquamarine.

His skin would only very slightly change color, and it was only when he was using the technique to refine his body.

Otherwise, the only difference was that Xu Xin's skin looked smoother and cleaner than before. In fact, his skin had actually expelled some oil and pus, so his skin was literally smoother and cleaner than before.

'It looks like I won't have to get a premade technique after all.' He thought to himself excitedly. He had personally experienced the difference between techniques created by yourself and the ones created by others, and it was a lot bigger than people thought.

It could lead to a dramatic increase in strength of up to 25%. Of course, this was under the situation that you had perfected your technique, since the premade techniques were refined over a long period of time by every person that practiced them.

There were also premade techniques that could have the same effect if they perfectly suited you, but they were much too rare.

The reason that the increase in strength was so dramatic was because each technique was not only perfectly suited towards you, it was also suited towards your exact inner energy element and your exact fighting style more than anything else, meaning that you could use it far more effectively than anyone else who got ahold of it.

As for Xu Xin, his fighting style was so unique that any premade technique that he could find would almost never suit him perfectly, so he was forced to adapt and overcome this challenge, and he was all the better for it.

All through his life, he had faced and overcome adversity, and it made him stronger and stronger, though it also chipped away at his childhood until nothing was left but blood and ash.

The reason people regarded him so seriously was because his mind was not that of a fourteen year old child; it was that of an old and experienced general who had been through endless bloodshed.

There was nothing left to even resemble a child in terms of his attitude and character.

The only thing that he lacked was literal experience, but his knowledge of strategies, tactics, and psychology more than made up for it.

He had been schemed against before, but the only one who had succeeded in deceiving him was Xiao Wei, who he had allowed to take advantage of a careless mistake that came from his lack of real-world experience.

In terms of battle awareness and knowledge, he was almost unsurpassed, but in terms of how much he had actually experienced in terms of schemes and plots, it was severely lacking.

He had never expected his own brother to betray him, which came from his lack of experience in this world.

He didn't know that even family members would betray each other if there was enough benefit and/or hate, but he would never make this mistake again, and he always kept his guard up against everyone he met from that point on.

Even now, as he was in the carriage cultivating, he always kept a bit of his focus on the outside world even though he didn't need to.

Even if he was asleep, his senses towards danger were strong enough to help him avoid an assassination from right next to him while he wasn't even cognitively functioning.

The fact that he still kept a bit of focus on the outside world showed just how much he didn't trust others now.

For the next two days, Xu Xin focused on nothing but his body strengthening technique, and he felt that his body was strong enough at this point that he could directly take the attack of someone at the peak of the second stage without even moving or defending himself.

In terms of pure strength alone, he was now comparable to Yue Ning, but this was only because he was a boy and she was a girl, and men were biologically stronger than women.

(Not being sexist in this novel, just stating a basic fact of biology (will change later on in the story because of cultivation lol (basic biological facts apply to people in the lower realms but not to those in the higher realms)))

This meant that his strength was comparable to a boy of the fourth stage at this moment, which was quite good for him during a fight. As for his defense, it was as strong as those at the fifth stage of the martial arts path.

Combined with the technique that he created earlier to strengthen his joints at a moment's notice, he felt that he might be capable of completely blocking an attack from someone at the fourth stage while he himself was at the third stage, which was quite impressive to say the least.

With his skills, he would only start to lose the fight if it was against someone of the fifth stage or higher, or in other words, someone at Yue Ning's level. She specialized in the bow, however, so even she might not be his match in a close combat fight.

Thinking about this, he was quite excited, because he was approaching the power of his first time cultivating, during which he was able to fight against someone three stages higher than him, even being able to fight against someone four stages higher than him at the peak of his power, reaching over the threshold of the spirit realm.

Words couldn't describe how terrifying of a genius he was, and he was the peak of the past hundred generations on this continent, and possibly only the geniuses from the other continents could rival or surpass him.

However, based on the words of that ancient and mysterious voice as well as the pure power displayed when it took over his body, he was certain that his potential wasn't merely as simple as the top genius on the continent anymore.

But he didn't dare to be arrogant because of it, because even though he was a genius whose battle strength was unparalleled among those of the same rank, he was simply a lamb to slaughter when it came to those stronger than him, and he had already tasted the bitter defeat that came from being arrogant, and it had cost him everything.

After all, a genius was nothing but a strong kid before they could mature, someone who could still be beaten to death easily by any random adult. As for a super genius, they could still be beaten by any slightly talented and stronger adult.

He, of course, was somewhat an exception to this, but that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

On the outside, Xu Xin appeared to be an arrogant and selfish kid, but after that harrowing experience that had changed the course of his life forever, he was even more cold and calculating than ever, and he was unwilling to let his arrogance get the best of him again.

He had already experienced the fear that came with being betrayed, from having your whole world shattered right in front of you, to have everything you have ever known torn away from you like it was some kind of twisted and cruel game.

That was a fear and pain that he never wanted to experience ever again.

Instead, he wanted to see Xiao Wei experience that pain and fear.

The pain that came from seeing your whole world fall apart right in front of you. The pants-pissing fear that came from looking into the eyes of the one who hated you most in the world.

He wouldn't stop at mere revenge, and he would do anything to accomplish his goal.

It could be said at this moment that he was nothing more than a broken husk of who he used to be, with his only goal in life being to get revenge.

However, he wasn't blinded by his hate, and he knew that his future wasn't limited to something as small as this revenge; it was only his goal for now since he had no higher goal for the time being.

...

*The next night*

Finally, they reached the core city of this kingdom, and they were met with giant stone gates at the entrance, and on top of and in front of these gates were hundreds of guards, all at least at the sixth stage of the martial arts path.

There was even a captain of the guard personally guarding the gate, and she was at the second stage of the spirit realm, just below Xia Yue.

Seeing Xia Yue step out of the carriage, the captain of the guard signaled to the guards to let them all through without an inspection since they were expecting them to get here around this time.

All in all, they passed smoothly through the giant gates, and they entered into the core city.

Behind the walls was a very large city that was absolutely bustling with people, and the average cultivation of each person here was at about the sixth to seventh stage of the martial arts path, and even the children had an average of the third stage at only fourteen years old.

It was obvious now why the guards on the wall were at least at the sixth stage, because that was actually below average and being a guard wasn't a good profession.

However, nobody dared to underestimate the defenses of a core city, because there were multiple people here within the city that were as strong as Xia Yue, and there were even some stronger than her.

And there just so happened to be an example of this as, just a couple minutes after entering the city, an older man suddenly appeared in front of the carriage with a sneaky smile on his face.

"I'll take it from here, Xia Yue. You've got some invaders to attend to." He spoke as if it was official business, but it was clear that he was relieving her from the duty of escorting the prince, which instantly made her angry.

He was obviously going to claim credit for something he didn't do and reap the rewards of protecting the prince even though he didn't do anything at all.

However, just as he stepped forwards, a young boy stepped out of the carriage, only about fourteen to fifteen years old. This was not the face he was expecting to see, but there was something off about this boy.

He simply stood there, his head slightly cocked to the side, and his still aquamarine eyes stared directly into the eyes of the old man, and an odd silence and stillness seemed to radiate from him.

The whole street was eerily quiet at this moment, as if nobody dared to breathe. It wasn't because of Xu Xin in specific, but the whole situation was tense right now.

However, the old man, as strong as he was, felt extremely odd when looking into Xu Xin's eyes. Confusion registered on his face as he also cocked his head to the side and stopped what he was doing.

He suddenly realized that he had stopped what he was doing, and he snapped back to reality.

Anger suddenly covered his face as he looked at this boy, but just as he started to step forward, he quickly stopped in his tracks as shock registered on his face, and cold sweat covered his back.

He sensed a killing intent that seemed to be forged from the fires of hell spill out of Xu Xin's body, and his eyes seemed to gain a slight red tinge as a hellish voice rang out through the street.

"Back off, unless you want to be executed for the destruction of the kingdom on two fronts."