Chương 33: Chapter 32: Soaring Cultivation

Orange flame flickered into existence, slowly crawling its way around Nero, starting from his shoulders, then his hands, then his legs, before extending out into a cape on his back. The sensation was different from when the Aura of Decay had enveloped him. While that had felt cold, this flame felt much warmer, even soothing. The flames flickered around him. The manifestation of the beast soul had turned out a lot different than he'd imagined. But somewhere deep inside, he felt this wasn't the full manifestation.

"Hmm, is it because the bird is a nascent phoenix, or because I don't have enough energy yet?" Either way, he really wanted to test out its abilities first. He extended his palm and willed the flames toward the center of it. Almost immediately, a decent chunk of energy from within him flowed out, and after going through the beast soul, it manifested on his hand as a small, ball-sized flame.

The fireball didn't contain as much concentration of mana as the little phoenix had exhibited, mainly because of his own lack of energy. But structurally, they were exactly the same. Nero opened his window, and his long cape slid across the bedsheets as he did so, not even warming them. After looking left and right, he chucked the fireball into the distance. The ball of flame shot forward and crashed against the sect barrier before cracking apart like fireworks.

Nero watched it, his lips curling into a wide, evil smile as he hurled several more fireballs; they collided against each other and splintered. The whole scene looked exactly like a real fireworks show. He leaned back on his bed and watched it happily. It was only the second time in his life he'd seen fireworks.

"It's pretty," he said dazedly, the orange flames of the balls turning multi-colored as they splintered, making the whole thing far more beautiful than it would've been otherwise. But as was the case with all happy moments, a loud siren reverberated across the sect, followed by the booming voice of a senior.

"Quickly check who dares invade our sect! The bastard is chucking fireballs—bring him to me at once!" It was the sect elder. Nero quickly deactivated the beast soul, scrambled up, closed the window, pulled the bedsheets over his head, and pretended to be asleep. After half an hour, once things had calmed down, he slowly got off the bed, brushed his teeth, ate something, and left for work in the garden like nothing happened. At work, Senior Chang approached him, his face haggard.

"What happened, Senior? You look tired." he asked. The senior cracked his neck, trying to work out some stiffness.

"Well, duh, did you not hear the elders' shouting this morning?"

"Ah, I was actually deep asleep, so I didn't notice."

"Makes sense—you were late to work too." The senior eyed the grand hall behind him with contempt.

"The elder made us senior outer disciples search around like dogs for whoever caused the disturbance in the sect's formation barrier." Nero didn't meet the seniors eyes, and wiped the a particular bead of sweet of his brows. The senior moved to sit atop one of the nearby large stones and pointed a finger at Nero, whose face turned grim.

"Tell you what—that elder's a real sucker for the inner disciples! This search should've been their job, and instead he dumped the whole duty on us! As if we aren't already worked like dogs on daily sect duties!" He spat to his left in disgust, while Nero took a breath of relief.

"He's probably getting paid off by those rich brats." The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Senior, don't take offense, but aren't you rich too?" Nero asked, almost reflexively, before instantly regretting it. The senior looked at him like he was some strange creature.

"If you can call a twenty-year-old, freshly minted lesser noble with nearly a thousand crowns in debt 'rich,' then maybe." After his duties, Nero didn't waste any time heading to the dungeon. Instead, he went straight to the transaction desk in the grand hall and bought himself an overdrive potion—basically a drug that let him stay fully energized for three days straight without needing rest, food, or entertainment. It cost him five contribution points, since the sect didn't accept any other currency.

He also grabbed two sticks of calming incense for a single contribution point. Then he hurried back to his room. He lit the incense and entered meditation. Within five minutes, his heart and mind had settled into the peaceful state required for cultivation. He held the spirit stone in both hands over his crossed legs and began to meditate. This time, focusing on the spirit stone, he didn't even need his intermediate technique to draw out the stored energy within it.

Absorbing the elemental energies, he moved them through his mana channels—it still stung badly, though not nearly as bad as last time. After cycling the energy, letting it settle into pure, multi-colored essence within his lower Dantian, he pulled in more elemental energy and repeated the process. The process of pulling in energy and refining it into a purer form soon revealed to Nero the drawbacks of having a low-grade aptitude.

His mana veins couldn't draw in nearly as much energy as a normal, profound-grade aptitude senior like Chang's could. While the senior could pull in fistfuls of elemental energy and channel it through his veins, Nero could only manage a small spoonful. And while Chang wasted only thirty percent of the energy during refinement, Nero's wastage easily exceeded fifty percent! That meant he'd need many more spirit stones than anyone else just to awaken his dormant core!

Nero gritted his teeth at the unfairness of it all, before cracking a wild smile.

"It is what it is, damn it!" He spent five more minutes calming his overflowing spirit and anger before continuing the cultivation session. Hours ticked by like fine sand slipping through a grip, and the next morning arrived for Nero. Since he'd taken the drug, he didn't need sleep, so he kept cultivating straight through. By the time his daytime duties came up, he'd already finished the first spirit stone, draining it dry of energy until it crumbled to fine sand.

He breathed out, tossed the dust out the window, and went to work in the garden. It took him five hours to finish all his work before he returned to the cottage to rest. On the way, he saw his roommates celebrating one of their birthdays. It was roommate Shen, the most senior among them. The guy was also close to breaking into the Silver Core stage from Bronze, so clearly this was more than just an innocent little party.

"Then again, maybe I'm just jealous, and that's what's making me think that," he muttered to himself, drifting into his own room. The cultivation resumed while the party buzzed on the other side of his walls. Nero cultivated from near evening all the way to the next morning, then dazedly drifted toward the grand hall, spent all his contribution points on more overdrive pills and one more spirit stone, and returned to his room. Back in his room, he furiously resumed his cultivation.

Within the same day, the spirit stone he'd bought was consumed, and he continued gathering the energy needed to awaken his dormant core within his lower Dantian through the meditation technique alone. In that same loop, a whole week passed, until Nero finally ran out of both contribution points and overdrive drug. Before collapsing unconscious, he ate like a starving beast. His sleep lasted two whole days straight.

After waking, he found his door open, and the most senior of his roommates, Shen, grabbed him by the collar the moment he stepped out.

"You bastard! How dare you make Senior Brother Chang worry about you!" he roared, spittle nearly hitting Nero's face.

"Huh?" Nero said groggily, not understanding what he was talking about. His brain wasn't fully awake yet, so everything felt extra confusing. The outer disciple heaved a sigh and shoved him back—only to be pushed back himself, as a pristine Aura instantly roared to life and covered Nero's body.

"Huh?" This time, it was Disciple Shen's turn to be confused. Nero looked down at his own body, then bowed as he deactivated the Aura.

"Sorry, Disciple Shen, that was my body acting on its own." Nero tried to recall what the man was even furious about.

"Ah, and I won't make Chang worry again." he said, drifting off toward the bathroom to wash up like a drunkard, while Shen stood frozen, still trying to process everything. After washing up, Nero's mind slowly began to clear. It was only after returning to work as if nothing had happened that he learned how worried Senior Disciple Chang had been over his sudden disappearance. Nero then spent half the day getting thoroughly scolded by Senior Chang for overusing the overdrive drug.