Chương 36: Chapter 35: Pristine Sphere

The Pristine Aura flowing through Nero's veins suddenly thickened, and became a touch colder. The efficiency and speed with which it moved on his command took a massive jump. Nero felt his command over the energy growing rapidly before it plateaued. He opened the Progression panel of the [The Endless Path] [Meditation Technique (Intermediate)] 59/1000 [Pristine Aura Manipulation (Intermediate)] 1/1000 He immediately clenched his fists in excitement at the display.

"Finally!" He rose from his bed, and recalled the Aura as its coldness enveloped him in a silvery hue. Nero tried something he'd thought of before, but hadn't done, mostly because of the mental expenditure it imposed on him. He pushed the energy through his veins and into the center of his palm. An extremely minuscule bit of liquid silver took shape, and Nero kept feeding more of the Aura into it. After a minute, he started to feel exhausted. He saw a small, fist-sized ball of silver shining brightly over his palm.

"Pristine Sphere, I'll call it, [Pristine Sphere]," he decided. But first, he'd have to see what this ball actually did, so he again quietly opened his window, and this time, instead of flinging it at the barrier, he threw the ball toward the ground instead. The ball flew out, hit the soil, and splintered to bits. Not even a bit of the ground was damaged.

"Hmm, makes sense I guess. Pristine Aura by itself isn't dangerous, its only purpose is strengthening things… Wait." He invoked his Nascent Phoenix beast soul, and the orange-flamed cloak enveloped him with warmth almost instantly at his beckoning. Nero then used his remaining mental energy to pull out some more Pristine Aura and coat it over the flame-cloaked manifestation of his beast soul. The effects were immediate—the orange flame turned blue at the mixture, and he felt the warmth grow slightly more intense.

Nero then produced a small ball of fire in his palm. The ball was now bluish in color with a distinct silvery hue around its surface. Nero threw the ball at the ground again, and this time, as it smashed onto the ground, the area immediately lit up with orange flame and a sharp explosion. The sound alone shook Nero's house walls.

"Hey, something just exploded!" The disciple in the room to his left yelped.

"Hey, which of y'all farted! Almost had a qi deviation here, courting death!" The disciple to his right roared out too. Nero quickly retrieved his silver Aura, and fired a normal fireball out the window, but this time aimed it toward the ground below his left roommate's window, far from the wooden walls. The fire simply hit the ground and fizzled out after a bit. No additional explosive effects, no extended burning. The one he'd initially cast had already died out. He quickly shut his window.

The disciples yapped loudly at each other for a bit before going back to their cultivation, each suspecting the others of having made that sound. Nero stayed in his room and continued his cultivation. After an hour, he went out for his morning duties. With each passing day, the time it took him to tend to each plant grew shorter. Senior Chang came over to ask if he'd like to take up another job, since the earnings from the extra pay could supplement his cultivation expenses.

Nero politely declined, telling him that he had other sources of income. The senior nodded and simply left. Nero was certain he'd eventually find out about his extra income anyway, so he didn't mind revealing it. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"I really like how the senior never asks any prying questions," he noted, and went to catch Senior Chang before he fully left.

"Senior, I have some questions about the training facility over there!" he called out, hurrying after him. …. Nero stepped into the training facility for the first time. It was a patch of loosened dirt fenced off from the rest of the garden. The moment he crossed the fence, a tingling sensation swept through his skin, as if he'd stepped into a pond during winter. His eyes also lit up with the scenery of myriad elemental mana particles.

The concentration of mana within the facility was easily triple that of outside, even though the place contained nothing special that would explain the phenomenon. There was a large shed at the far end of the area, where all the equipment needed for combat training was kept, and a simple wooden roof overhead allowed training even during rainfall. Walking in a bit further, Nero's eyes caught sight of the fence from the other side. Tattoos.

Each post was tattooed with strange letters, similar to the ones he'd seen used by the receptionists of both the sect and the guild—except these glowed an azure color, and their lettering was bolder and far more intricate.

"Senior Chang did tell me any form of martial training is best done here rather than anywhere else. Guess this is why," he said, walking toward the dummy shed. There, he picked up one of the dummy dolls and hung it from the wooden roof. Senior Chang had told him it was best to exert himself as much as possible here, mainly because his very physique would absorb the ground's ambient energies to rebuild any torn micro-tissues and micro-fractures in bone.

Usually, an instructor would be present to train him—he'd seen one training other disciples just a few days ago—but because of the emergency deployment that had been announced, the man was probably off doing something else. That was also why he'd gone to ask Senior Chang about it. According to him, the instructor had gone to meet his family outside the sect and would be back the day after tomorrow. Until then, Nero focused on reusing the Cypher Arts he'd learned from Zyran.

He dropped into a battle stance—left hand forward, right hand held back near his side ready to punch out, left leg forward, right leg back supporting his weight and momentum. He also remembered Zyran's words. There'd been some instructions about channeling internal energy through his body and mind, but he believed that was more for the second form, Transparent World, not the first, Spectral Touch.

Practicing his first Cypher Art felt strange, to put it simply, mainly because he hadn't gotten any in-depth explanation from Zyran when he'd used it. The elder had just shown him the form and performed the attack once. That was it. No detailed information on internal energy manipulation or anything precise. And Nero didn't remember anything special about it either. So he was going entirely by feel, winging it completely.

He kept striking the dummy with his fists, and with each strike, tried to emulate the elder's form a little better. Nothing clicked, but even if nothing clicked, the sweat he was working up was still improving his strength! That alone was worth every penny, and based on the senior's words, the exercise and muscle improvement here directly correlated with one's own base stat improvement! Meaning instead of risking his life killing monsters for attribute enhancement, he could get the same results doing push-ups!

The exercise continued. In between sets, Nero would stop, rest on a nearby bench, admire the plants, draw some water from the nearby well and quench his thirst, then resume training. Though he talked of push-ups, he did exactly zero sets of them, choosing instead to focus on mastering the Cypher Art of the Phantom Path. After two hours of exhausting himself straight, Nero started feeling hungry and went to the sect kitchen to grab some food, then returned to the training grounds while eating.

Approaching the facility, Nero found two other disciples practicing Cypher Arts on the very dummy he'd left hanging before going for his meal. As he entered the training grounds again and headed to the shed to grab another dummy, a hand fell on his shoulder.

"Hey, are you that slum-born scum who's been leeching off Martial Aunt Sylvia's good graces?" Annoyance prickled at the back of Nero's neck at the remark. He shrugged off the hand and replied, "No, you have the wrong person."

"You dare take that attitude with me? You damn outsider!" Something hard slammed into his back as Pristine Aura immediately sprang up to shield him from it. Nero felt no pain. Turning around, he saw the disciple winding up for another hit. Nero simply sidestepped, dodging the attack.

"Look, you guys have the wrong person. Let me go in peace, okay?" Nero said, trying his best not to let irritation color his words.

"Now I'd have to listen to a nobody like you? Me, Wu Fang? Sole heir of the Fang family? You rascal!" The disciple's face visibly turned red with anger as elemental energy burst forth from him.

"Thinking you're tough with that measly elemental energy? You coreless shit! I'll show you!"