by Yuri Ajin
“Sator, stop it! Immediately! That’s an order!” Elea’s voice was firm as steel.
Both men froze.
“But, elder sister...”
“No buts! Either you let him go right now, or consider yourself no longer welcome here. I’ll tell my brother that I don’t need a guard like you!”
After a second, Kai was no longer pinned down. Standing up, he turned to look at Sator.
The sylph was a peak-level Exorcist. He was tall, handsome, and had azure hair. His eyes were full of the same azure mist as those of the members of the Wind tribe. His insane speed now made perfect sense.
Kai looked at his astral body and the Abode mark and saw that Sator had a foundation of eight point nine, belonged to the Sixth Faction, and that he was seventy-fourth on the List of Ten Thousand.
For the first time since he came here, Kai met someone with only two digits on the list. Not counting Ranmaru, that is.
“Now apologize!” Elea ordered.
Kai glanced at her and was glad to see that she had made a full recovery.
“I’m waiting.” She frowned. “You mistook him for an enemy. Kai is not to blame for what happened. I am. My weakness.”
“But, elder sister...”
“Don’t argue with me, Sator!”
Seeing a petite, frail girl reprimand one of the most powerful Exorcists in the Abode was almost comical. But not for Kai, he knew that Elea was far from being an ordinary person. The quality of her development wasn’t inferior to Sator’s foundation. If it wasn’t the spirit wound that influenced her score, her foundation would’ve been at least nine. She had a great talent, and like Kai, she could’ve been called a Great Genius.
And Sator seemed to understand that. He probably knew Elea well, since he called her “elder sister” even though they were at the same stage of development.
“I have no choice but to agree.” Sator sighed, and then looked at Kai. His gaze remained gloomy, but the hostility disappeared. “I apologize. Please, forgive me.” He slightly bowed.
“It’s all right. I hold no grudge against you,” Kai replied and glanced at Elea. “Actually, Elea, you’re wrong. That fight is entirely my fault. Those assassins came for me. I should’ve known. I want to apologize for what happened.”
“I know that you were their target. And I want you to know that I don’t care. If I was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I can’t blame you for that. I need to depend on my own strength. And if I can’t deal with the test given to me by fate, that is my fault. That’s why I don’t need your apology. I take no offense.”
Elea was different from before. Up until now, she seemed like a delicate indoor flower, but the girl that stood before him now was like a dandelion — strong and stubborn, able to grow anywhere, even in a crack in concrete. It was as if the attack had awakened something in her and rekindled her fighting spirit.
“All right. But I still want to give you something. If not as an apology, then at least as a gift.” Kai held out a small bottle with a blue liquid inside.
[Enhanced Elixir of the Three Astral Moons]
Rank: Royal
Quality: Peak
This elixir helps restore minor spirit damage by covering the Source or the Astral Body with an impenetrable film (completely or locally), giving it partial impermeability. Energy can be conducted through it if necessary.
The elixir halts the destruction of the Source or the astral body caused by severe damage and suppresses spirit pain.
The effect lasts four hundred days.
Kai hadn’t forgotten about Elea’s order. Delivering the elixir was the reason he risked his life today. It couldn’t heal Elea but it was much more effective than the medicine she had asked for as it wasn’t just one of the best in the Belteise Empire, but Kai had also strengthened it with the Yang particles.
Upon drinking the elixir, Elea shouldn’t feel the consequences of her spirit wound in the coming year, unless her astral body got overburdened, for example, during battles.
Elea offered to pay for it, but Kai insisted that it was a gift. In return, he asked for one thing — for Elea to allow him to visit her from time to time over the next three weeks to examine her wound again and try to find a way to heal it completely. She agreed.
Kai performed the first checkup, spending almost an hour on it. After that, he said that he couldn’t linger on the first floor any longer, and, having said goodbye, he quickly left Elea’s house.
On his way back, he contemplated the concepts of Yin and Yang.
Experimenting with both elements didn’t bring any results so far. Apart from the mutual destruction of concepts, inevitably followed by an explosion, they don’t interact at all when I remove my will from the process. I’d really like to know what the Spark does to them to transform them into soul energy. It’s a pity that even Rune’Tan doesn’t know. Kai crossed his hands behind his head and continued thinking, I should increase my understanding of both concepts to lift the veil of secrecy a little. I think I already got some grains of understanding about mixing them, but it’s not enough. I own both of them, which is usually considered impossible, but I just can’t find a way to effectively use them together...
***
Hundreds of disciples passed through the opaque bluish haze that replaced the gate of the Forces Pavilion. Kai was among them.
It had been twenty-six days since Shacks and he had left the Abode. Having finished cooking thirty thousand doses of his elixir, Kai gave them to the Cloud Anarchists to sell.
To ensure that he’d get his share, Kai signed a special spirit contract, created by the Abode itself. It was more expensive than the regular ones, but it allowed the transfer of Coins remotely and automatically. Therefore, money was transferred to Kai’s mark as soon as an Anarchist sold one of the potions.
Kai became richer and richer, and he accumulated a ridiculous amount of Coins. As Ranmaru predicted, two weeks later, Halator Eswix came to the Ground floor, along with a dozen other members of the Fifth Faction, each of whom were in the first thousand.
Upon learning that Kai’s shop was destroyed, he figured out what happened next and headed to the Cloud Anarchists’ office where Kasox and Ephlix were already waiting for him. Initially, Halator planned to intimidate them, forbidding them to sell Kai’s potion, but the two were prepared for such a turn of events and had made a plan for negotiating.
In the end, they assured Halator (and signed a contract) that no more than thirty thousand potions would be sold, that nothing would interfere with the Fifth Faction’s plans, and everything would return to normal.
However, Kasox and Ephlix also reached an agreement to sell a batch of twenty thousand portions to the Fifth Faction at the price of fifty Coins a piece (in the last month, it went up much, but it was still cheap since the actual price of Kai’s enhanced potion wasn’t below three hundred). Kai gave them permission to do this as he’d get his eighty percent cut from this deal, too. Forty Coins per bottle eventually brought him eight hundred thousand Coins. He was almost a millionaire.
This was a huge amount of money even for the second-floor residents. And only a few students on the third floor could boast such wealth. Most of them spent it on their development — the Abode offered the best places and resources for that, but access to them was very expensive.
And now that he had the funds, he left the Cloud Anarchists base as soon as he finished brewing the necessary amount of potions. His next destination was the Forces Pavilion.
After waiting in line for three hours, he reached the bluish haze of the entrance and touched it with his left hand.
Activating [Cloud Abode: Forces Pavilion (floor 1)]...
Do you want to enter Forces Pavilion (floor 1)?
Yes/No
Choosing yes, Kai saw a new message.
Select the area you wish to visit:
General Hall of Elements (unlimited) — 100 Cloud Coins per day
General Hall of Weapons (un
limited) — 100 Cloud Coins per day
Closed Hall of Elements (no places available) — 300 Cloud Coins per day
Closed Weapons Hall (6 places available) — 300 Cloud Coins per day
Private Room (3 places available) — 1,200 Cloud Coins per day
Yoh had told Kai about the structure of the pavilions on the first day. In the Forces Pavilion, the General Hall was a huge room, inside which there were hundreds of concentrations of the seven basic elements — Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Lightning, Life, and Space. The disciples could freely meditate around them, contemplating Forces of extremely high quality. But if they wanted derivative elements like Mist, which Shacks used, or Sound, which Ivsim used, those could only be found on the second floor or higher. Fortunately, both of Kai’s main elements — Sword and Space — were on the first floor.
A separate hall was intended for the contemplation of the various Weapon Forces, where, instead of concentrations, there were hundreds of unique swords, sabers, spears, bows, arrows, staves, glaives, and many more, emitting powerful Forces. There were no restrictions here, besides, of course, the ban on touching artifacts.
General Halls didn’t have limits on the number of students inside, which was why they were always crowded with cultivators wanting to be closer to the concentrations or weapons in order to more effectively contemplate the Forces. In Closed Halls, there were no more than two hundred students present at the same time, which greatly simplified the process of meditation. However, getting in required queuing for hours and, sometimes, even days.
There were also Private Rooms, where cultivators could contemplate the Forces of any desired element by themselves. In each pavilion, regardless of the floor, there were only twenty such rooms.
A year and a half ago, they were all constantly occupied on each of the floors. Anyone who wanted to rent a Private Room had to wait for weeks. This problem became so serious that in the end, the Cloud Ten made a unanimous decision to double the renting price, and sent the petition to Airus, to which he agreed. Now, only the richest students could use these rooms for an extended period.
Kai was lucky to find three Private Rooms available now.
He rented a room for sixty days. Seventy-two thousand Coins instantly disappeared from his hand, after which a blue haze swallowed him.
The teleportation was taking a few seconds.
I wonder if Shacks has already returned to the Abode, Kai thought while being nowhere.
He knew that his friend was also planning to visit the first floor pavilions today. Unlike him, Shacks couldn’t fake his aura frequency, so there was no point in changing his appearance. But the archer wouldn’t have been the heir to the best clan of assassins, spies, and scouts on Saha if he didn’t know how to disguise himself and hide.
But even he couldn’t get to the first floor. The guards were well prepared and very perceptive of the invisible. Because of this, Shacks decided not to head straight to the first floor with Kai, but to take a walk through anomalies. For that, he needed to cross a part of the Whispering Bloody Forest to get to the teleport that led directly to the Portal Hall on the first floor. One of the drawbacks was that this path was much longer.
Once he got to his Private Room, Kai looked around. As expected, there were only the bare necessities — a bed, a chair, and a table, for some reason. The only thing that interested him, however, was a small hole in the floor in the center of the room, next to which was a meditation mat. Kai sat on it.
Choose the desired Path and Force.
The Path of Sword. The Force of Impact, Kai said in his mind.
A sword covered with cracks appeared above the hole. The weapon, surrounded by a protective barrier, hovered in the air, emitting incredibly powerful Force of Impact particles. In the first few seconds, Kai almost suffocated due to the pressure. Shallow wounds appeared on his skin, as if from a blade, and then instantly healed. He had never felt such a powerful Force before. Even Starks striking him with lightning was inferior to the quality of this power. Whoever had left their Forces in the blade had to have at least been at the Divine Stage, and had also managed to create a peak-quality Sword Sphere.
Kai first summoned and swallowed the Particle of Wisdom that An’na had created for him. After that, having activated Ultimate Focus, he opened the Mind Gates and partially submerged himself into his spirit world.
***
Three and a half months passed in the blink of an eye, two of which Kai spent meditating in the Private Room. The result he had achieved shocked him. The Particle and the Favorite of the Forces achievement gave him an incredible boost. But the main reason for the high speed of contemplation was the Abode itself. Kai finally realized why everyone was so eager to get here.
In just sixty days, he managed to get all of his Forces on Path of Sword and the Path of Space to the level of perfect understanding. A huge boost, considering that before coming here, he had perfect understanding of three Forces on the Path of Sword and only one on the Path of Space. Now he knew eleven of them.
The only thing that he wasn’t able to improve was the Force of Form for both elements. The first-floor Pavilion just wasn’t good enough to contemplate this Force of any of the Paths. For that, he had to go to the upper floors.
And even though it wasn’t perfect, Kai was happy with his result. His Sword and Space techniques would definitely become much stronger.
The Abode provided an opportunity to contemplate not only Forces but concepts, too. There were only two of them here — Yin and Yang. But, unfortunately, they could only be found in the Pavilions on the third floor or higher, where Kai couldn’t go just yet.
He spent the remaining days of the lease replenishing the strength of his medium Sword Spirit with the help of a special Abode artifact. He wasn’t just cultivating his Spirit, using particles of Forces for its further evolution, but he was also restoring its spent energy supply. The latter turned out to be rather simple, and it took only a few days. Kai’s Sword Spirit regained the strength it had before Kai came to Earth. That is — forty-six percent.
After that, Kai finally left the Private Room and went to the Techniques Pavilion. Thousands of scrolls were in front of him, and he could take each of them for a while. Settling in a secluded corner of the pavilion, he spent three days going through everything it had to offer, and ended up choosing two scrolls, both of them first volumes of peak-quality Gold-rank.
The Impenetrable Repelling Field Technique let its master create a strong barrier operating on the principles of the Force of Repulsion of the Path of Space. By distorting space, and the direction of gravity with it, this technique allowed its user to easily repel or deflect any attacks.
The second scroll Kai picked out was the Fluttering Wings Technique. Its main principle was the accumulation of a certain special impulse during movements, in order to later release it through an attack. A whole complex set of movements was developed especially for it, which required the cultivator to use both body and energy, which was supposed to be circulating through the body with a special weaving. In essence, it wasn’t even as much a technique as it was a fighting style for two swords with the use of energy.
Kai had never seen anything like it. Even the Seven Blades Clan had nothing similar.
Having found nothing else of interest, he left the Technique Pavilion after memorizing the contents of both scrolls. If he were an ordinary cultivator, it’d take several thousand Coins and months of careful study for him to understand the techniques as these scrolls were among the most expensive ones on the first floor. But thanks to his impeccable memory, Kai managed to save himself a lot of money.
Next on his list was the Development Pavilion where he also rented a Private Room. It was divided into several areas: a meditation room, which was actively collecting prana, a place for strength and spirit exercises, and a special area where he could fight training dummies or Artificial Spirits.
Kai spent the next month there. During that time, he managed to hone the two ne
w techniques to perfection, and finally understand the principle of merging the concepts of Yin and Yang with ordinary elements. As a result, he strengthened all his techniques of the Paths of Sword and Space with the help of Yin, increasing their destructive potential, and the Cold Void techniques with Yang, making them stronger and more effective.
In addition, he managed to deal with the strange power that appeared in his limbs when he combined Yang particles and soul energy. While fighting the dorgan, the speed of his regeneration increased hundreds of times for a second, and the restored limbs temporarily gained monstrous power. The price for this was the loss of not only twenty years of his life, but also all the power of his bloodline, including regeneration, for almost two days.
Kai didn’t spend the last charge of that strange power. So, having thoroughly studied this issue, he found out that the main culprit was Life Rampage, which was still active at that moment. He realized that by saturating his body with Yang particles, he had forced them to adopt the same energy pattern as Life Rampage, and this ultimately strengthened him. The soul energy acted as a fuel, momentarily increasing the power of this bloodline ability.
Kai decided to use his time in the Private Room to try to repeat that sequence of events, but without using soul energy. For a week and a half, without wasting time on sleeping and eating, he tried to recreate that effect, relying on his memory and energy control, until he finally got the result he wanted. He was able to create two techniques that both took power from the mix of the Yang concept and his bloodline.
You have created [Eight Flashes of Yang Technique].
Rank: Gold
Quality: Medium
You have created [Flesh and Soul: Double Breakthrough Technique].
