Chương 31: Evolution & Beast Soul

[Meditation Technique (Basic)] 533/1000 [Pristine Aura Manipulation (Basic)] 487/1000 Nero's chest heaved up and down rhythmically as he observed the progression while lying down on his bed. He'd focused extensively on meditation techniques after returning. He possessed three spirit stones now. They were sufficient to start opening his beast core.

"If I'd known those mana crystals were of such high quality, I would've focused on leveling my meditation technique instead." They'd nearly brought him half a Gold Crown. Selling them bit by bit was clearly the better option compared to just dungeon diving for him right now.

"Considering the amount of materials that exist over there, I could probably keep extracting resources for weeks and it wouldn't end." After a bit more contemplation, he decided on that path going forward. It would save him time and give him enough money—both of which he could use to advance rapidly. He roused from the bed, made it again, and left for the sect kitchen, where he spent two coppers to buy himself some chicken meat and bread, ate them, and returned to the garden after resting.

He resumed his duties of tending to the plants. It was strange—inside the sect, the temperature was actually very neutral, neither cold nor warm. There was also a natural breeze that drifted in from the garden. Senior Chang had previously explained that the sect compound and the whole area were protected by a defensive array that kept snow, lightning strikes, and sometimes even unusually heavy rain away. That didn't mean no rain or snow ever fell inside the compound. It did.

Nero himself had been scraping away the bits that accumulated under the tree, recently piling them into one corner to melt away naturally. The barrier just protected the compound from anything extreme or excessive that could disturb the disciples' cultivation and concentration. Since the sect lay near the end of the slums and administrative area, alongside the buildings of other sects, there weren't many ordinary people around to marvel at this remarkable construction.

Nero continued his work, loosening the soil around certain plants, applying fertilizer, and watering them. This time around, he only needed to call Senior Disciple Chang once. After finishing his duties, he returned to his room, took an hour-long nap, and then restarted his cultivation session. The scent of jasmine drifted through his open window, embracing him as he immersed himself in breathing in and out. The clock beneath the perpetual night ticked by, and before long the next day arrived.

Nero repeated the same routine—waking up, leaving his room, ignoring his roommates who loved to shoot disdainful glances his way at every chance. He washed up, put on his black adventuring clothes, and hung the other set out to dry near his window, where the breeze from the garden was strongest, before heading off to his duties. His duties ended around six o'clock, and he returned home to resume his cultivation. Interestingly, it took him only fifteen minutes to calm his mind and heart this time.

Time drifted by with the wind as the sweet scent of jasmine spread. Before long, the next day arrived, and like glass shattering, the features of the mundane world before him splintered away, revealing an inner self full of myriad motes of light. Amazed, Nero opened his eyes.

"Whoa…" The world before him remained the same, except that he'd gained the ability to perceive its hidden side. Motes of blue, red, green, and brown, among many others, drifted around like fireflies. They were small, tiny, but extremely numerous. As Nero sucked in a breath while observing them, he inhaled a bunch of them at once. And just as he suspected, inhaling them caused no harm. Instead, when he closed his eyes, he could see them drifting within him before phasing through his flesh and escaping.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Nero tried stopping them, and sure enough, he could! Nero smiled excitedly and opened the progression panel of [The Endless Path]. [Meditation Technique (Intermediate)] 1/5000 [Pristine Aura Manipulation (Basic)] 512/1000"Finally!" He clenched his fists and thumped back onto the bed.

"Now I can finally gather enough energy to test this one out." Beast Soul: Nascent Phoenix (Prehistoric) A nascent phoenix beast soul. When Nero had killed that bird, the ease with which he'd done it had made him severely underestimate the creature's potential. The bird had seemed intelligent, but the last thing he'd imagined was that it was a nascent phoenix.

"Thought it was weird how the dungeon had so much high-quality mana crystal, but its monsters were so much weaker." It was possible the dungeon had been planning to invest all the crystals into the boss and evolve it into an actual Phoenix. Though that would've taken a considerable amount of time, as Phoenixes were A-ranked threats. It was also strange, the sheer number and bulkiness of the chickens, which were supposed to be mere mobs.

Defeating them would've been a thousand times harder if he hadn't had the brokenly offensive gene talent of Aura of Decay. It rendered their supremely strong, almost steel-like claws moot. The creature had also been dishing out elemental attacks with intense concentrations of mana. And although Nero had mostly managed to deflect them with Aura of Decay again, a normal adventurer without such an overpowered, defensively offensive talent would've suffered severe burns.

Even he himself had initially dodged the attack instinctively, just from the sensation of supernatural energy—mana—that he felt radiating off it.

"Either way, since I've gotten it, it's about time I test it out." Nero sat cross-legged. To use a beast soul, one needed mana. So he'd have to first gather enough of it within himself through meditation, which now allowed him to draw in mana, then feed it to the beast soul, which would in turn allow him to project the soul's power outward. The meditation technique, after evolving, gave him an instinctual understanding of how to use it. It was similar to when he acquired a gene talent.

Through inhaling, he drew in the energy of heaven and earth—the mana particles of myriad elements. Once they entered his inner space, they naturally drifted toward his lower abdomen, sitting there for a bit before attempting to move back out of his inner space. All Nero had to do was prevent that with his mind. But whereas previously that alone would've counted as one cycle, after evolution there was an extra step to Meditation Technique (Intermediate): refinement.

The process involved transporting the gathered mana particles from his lower abdomen throughout his whole body, starting through the veins. Thankfully, he was already accustomed to doing this with Pristine Aura, so the process came more easily to him. But as he discovered after moving it halfway through his veins, it wasn't the same as cycling [Pristine Aura]. Shit, it stings! The stinging was just the beginning.

As he continued cycling the energy through veins he hadn't circulated it through before, the stinging pain worsened into an outright burning sensation. He clenched his fists and curled his toes in an effort not to break the session. The energy flowed through his veins like hot lava moving through river channels. After a painful five minutes, the first cycle ended.

The multicolored, splintered energy he'd initially drawn in returned to his lower abdomen, now transformed into pristine rainbow energy—far denser and purer than before, and more thoroughly meshed together. It no longer tried to leave his body, instead settling in place, unmoving. Nero finally took a normal breath and collapsed onto his bed. Observing his hands, he found they'd turned almost entirely red, sweat soaking through his clothes.

"Phew, that was much worse than whatever I'd imagined." This elemental energy now sat in the place referred to as the "Lower Dantian." According to what he knew of cultivation, there were three dantians in the human body: the lower dantian, which resided around the navel area—the place that now hummed softly after he'd refined the first spark of elemental energy. The middle dantian was usually located near the chest, close to the heart. And the upper dantian sat in the head region, behind the eyebrows, apparently.

"I'd have to get a cultivation manual soon," he decided. Currently, he had a good amount of contribution points to exchange for some books from the sect archives. But for now, he sat back up into the cross-legged pose and began refining more energy. The current amount wasn't nearly sufficient for a Beast Soul projection. And although simply possessing the soul told him something about its uses, it was still far from the in-depth experience and knowledge he'd gain after actually using it.

He'd also gained around five primitive gene fragments. Once he accumulated a bit more strength, he'd have to go looking for another dungeon to collect five more gene fragments. Because at ten, the gene fragments would automatically merge into a full-fledged gene talent.

"And one could never have enough gene talents." He smiled and continued accumulating more energy. After another hour, the energy volume finally reached an amount where he could project the Beast Soul for the first time!