Rebirth-Chapter 5

Even with his uncaring personality, Noah still had a cold grin on his face after watching Nix self destruct.

With end of his ''owner'', he felt the shackles binding him to be broken.

His mind was free.

The world never seemed as bright as now.

The contrast between the dull intelligence as a shackled ghost, and the him now was immeasurable.

While before, he might've only been able to follow simple directions, he felt in awe, more than over, of the power of the mind.

Maybe the other ghosts felt the same thing; their previous sluggish and dull actions, seemed to gain more vigour to them.

The black gas surrounding all the ghosts were dissipating quickly.

A hint of panic appeared in Noah's eyes as he quickly tried to absorb the gas.

Though this could slow the process down, he found that it seemed to leave him in a constant amount.

A sharp glint appeared in his eyes, and he thought about absorbing the other four ghosts.

Nix had 5 ghosts in total.

Noah himself who could be called half-step late stage qi gathering cultivator, a late stage qi gathering ghost and three middle stage qi gathering ghosts.

While Noah seemed to have almost human-like intelligence, he found in contrast to him, the other ghosts seemed almost robotic.

He quickly theorised, that their consciousness might've been impacted after being a ghost for so long.

To test this, he first attempted to absorb the weakest middle stage qi gathering ghost.

Walking slowly behind it, he suddenly pounced onto it, and absorbed it into his body.

The ghost shrieked and struggled with all its might, but Noah persisted and fought it.

A flurry of random blows came from the ghosts, quickly proving Noah's theory right.

That their intelligence was extremely low

Eventually the ghost fused into him.

His powers seemed to grow, and the bottleneck seemed to loosen.

With a vicious smile, he repeated this action to the other middle stage ghosts, finally breaking through to a late stage ghost.

And now, the main dish.

He sprinted at the late stage qi gathering ghost and started clawing and biting it.

The ghost struggled furiously, with shrieks like a devil.

It had been in the late stage, for far longer than Noah, but through Noahs, almost demon-like persistence, eventually, only Noah stood strong.

With a huge amount of black gas, the time he could exist extended drastically, but Noah felt a loss at what to do next.

He knew that just absorbing the black gas, would only prolong the time he could spend ''alive''.

He had no idea, how to increase it even more.

Thus he believed that his best option, was to try and stop the gas from leaving him.

He could only refer to the knowledge he gained, while occasionally being summoned by Nix.

Nix cultivated the sutra of the Sinful Ghost, as his trump card.

He attempted to modify it many times.

Noah thought hard about the information acquired then, and suddenly he had an idea.

Nix's main modification thoughts, were to try and see if his ghosts could possess others.

Eventually this led to a dead end, as the simple souls of his ghosts could not replace the complicated souls of cultivators.

A number of thoughts came through Noah's head

Firstly, Noah believed that this black gas was the ghosts core.

A normal soul, would not be able to move through physical matter; unless it was highly powerful of course.

Thus the black gas should be a sort of protection for the ghost.

Nix probably controlled the gas to protect all of the ghosts, however with his death the ghosts were now dissipating.

Noah was willing to see if, after his mind wasn't suppressed anymore, he was able to possess a sect disciple, with good aptitude for cultivation.

First he ruled out going to Nix's original Bloodshadow Sect.

This was a genuine golden core sect, and he didn't want to take the risk, of them finding out that he possessed a disciple.

Apart from blood, they were also specialised in necromancy techniques, so as an undead, going there was one of the worst decisions he could make.

However he still kept the option in mind, as he learnt from Nix, that the sect master was a young golden core cultivator, and had a chance to break into nascent soul.

Jumping onto the ship now while the information was only known to a few, could ensure that when he broke through, Noah, who was an original disciple of it, would gain an abundance of resources and trust.

Thinking of the advantages of having a nascent soul sect master, Noah nearly couldn't contain his excitement, for a smooth path to immortality.

However the risks were much too high, so he decided to see if he could take a more subtle way to join the sect.

Thinking of the subsidiary sects under it, he chose to join the Frostshade Sect.

With his innate quality of being a Ghost of Sin, especially after refining the others, his yin was overwhelming.

By converting the yin to ice, it could ensure his advantage in battles.

The sect was also known for its shadow techniques which he could use when assassinating others, concealing himself, or retreating.

As he wanted to join the Bloodshadow sect later, having a foundation in shadow techniques would be good to understand their rich heritage of techniques.

Making up his mind, he floating towards the Frostshade sect.

...

A boy was seen in a cave abode, meditating calmly.

Suddenly his eyes opened.

''Perfect! I can feel the bottleneck of the sixth level of qi gathering coming closer.''

With a proud smile on his face, he decided to practice his spells.

Suddenly, the smile disappeared; a look of fear rose on his face.

It was primal; the most vulnerable part of cultivators were targeted.

The soul.

Noah's attempt was as swift as thunder.

Instantly the boy sat down, and focused on this outside threat.

An intense battle started occurring between their souls.

Thought Noah's soul was at the peak of qi gathering, his foundation past early stage qi gathering wasn't as solid.

His soul back then broke through naturally, under an intense situation, thus it is much more solid, than the how he raised the soul later.

The absorption of the Ghost of Sins was similar to a vast majority of demonic techniques as it resulted in fast cultivation but unstable foundations.

Noah's absorption of the Ghost of Sins could be considered a demonic technique, as it raised his soul quickly but caused an insufficient foundation.

If he wished to break through later, this will cause a big problem unless he heals and sublimates his foundation.

Therefore in prowess, he could be considered to have a late stage qi gathering soul.

On the other hand, the disciple had a mid stage qi gathering soul.

His foundation was built up, step by step.

Though there were a large number of fast-cultivating but insufficient foundation demonic techniques, it was obvious that this boy wasn't cultivating one of them.

His soul was solid, but even so, Noah was suppressing him with a minor realm.

Possessing him should be easy right?

Unfortunately not.

Trying to possess someone else's body, is incredibly hard as their soul has a home field advantage inside their own body.

Outsiders will be suppressed, while their soul would be nourished by their body, thus healing faster.

As soon as Noah attempted to possess him, his lack of knowledge already gave him a disadvantage.

The disciple noticed this and got the first ''hit'' on Noah's soul.

Noah endured the pain and did the same thing.

Two clear white figures were seen clawing at each other in a dark space.

Bubbles occasionally popped out in the surroundings, but pieces of the white figures fell onto it as soon as it appeared.

Noah immediately knew what was happening.

Knowledge and memories were popping up inside his brain, and he assumed the disciple as experiencing the same thing.

Instantly Noah increased the intensity of his attacks; the disciple caught off guard lost more of his volume.

As time passed, Noah forgot who he was.

He only knew to attack the figure in front of him.

They fought and fought and fought.

Souls merging; scattering and disintegrating.

Yet neither was willing to give up.

Feeling the hopelessness of it all, Noah still refused to lose.

But he knew, any further and neither would benefit.

Thus he settled for a draw.

Merging and merging, integrating and uniting.

The amalgamate of souls and energy appeared once again.

A hand from Noah, a leg from the disciple, the head from Noah, the heart of the disciple.

Eventually ''he'' appeared.

Noah.

Yet more than him.

Yet also less at the same time.

Cracks were sewn everywhere, from its legs to its head.

A curious look flashed in its eyes.

Moving around, trying to fight every orifice of its body.

A twitch of a thumb.

Slowly a smile appeared.

He looked at his arm, then laughed.

A voice full of joy.

His cultivation journey has started.