The very next day Jade stood ready and packed in front of her apartment building waiting for her master to arrive for her extended training excursion. He was very sparse on the details only telling her to pack for a long stay.

A rather ordinary looking red family SUV pulled up into the driveway. Loading her suitcase and backpack into the back of the car she exchanged greetings with Namoru. They took a short drive to an unassuming building downtown.

“This is one of our sects more covert bases. Its main purpose is to offer our members a discrete way to travel.” Namoru explained with a mysterious smile.

“What do you mean travel? Is it a place to store your cars?” Jade looked around with curiosity. There were a few more parking spots in the underground car park, most of them empty.

“Pah! It’s probably a spatial hub where they set up transportation formations. In my time we didn’t sneak around like scared little mice.” Duyi snorted with impunity.

“Old man did you just say SPATIAL HUB. This means we are going to teleport somewhere. That is so cool.” Namoru raised an eyebrow at her bulging eyes.

“It seems Duyi has spoiled my surprise. Never mind then, disciple. We are going to use the teleportation facilities here to transport to our destination. It is just to far and to out of the way to get there through regular means.”

“Where are we going? The capital? Or is it some secret training facility under a mountain. That would be cool.”

“No, we are neither going to the capital nor are we heading under a mountain. Where we are going is much more dangerous. We are going outside the empire into the Wild Lands.”

Jade stopped in her tracks. Her eyes twice as wide as before. The Wild lands where just that wild, unconquered, filled with beasts and deadly plants and dangerous mana regions. Suddenly she became quite unsure if she was ready for that.

“Is that a good idea? I mean I barely started my combat training. What if we get attacked by something I can’t handle?”

“Then you will fail, you will get injured and you will learn.” He continued down the hallway until he reached the stair well that led into the facility. Opening the door, he turned to her with and intense stare.

Jade gulped. She did not want to get injured. If she was honest with herself, she was afraid of getting hurt, badly. Loren’s torn body parts kept flashing in her mind. She remembered the helplessness, the desperation to do something, anything at all to rid herself of that feeling. Determination once again welled up in her, pushing her forward. She took the first step and by the third she was running to catch the door that was closing behind her master.

Insides of the building looked nothing like the outside might suggest. Some might think it an office or an apartment but the inside was mostly one room. The walls were covered in dense runic script and she could even spot gems inlayed in the formations. Hanging from the ceiling was a strange crystalline device. It was a long spike that came to a point almost 2 meters above the ground. At its base it was about 7 meters in diameter. There were smaller rigid spike jutting out of it all angled towards the ground. A strange black substance was constantly circulating inside it.

Jade felt like a child on its first visit to an aquarium, she was looking everywhere with a gaping mouth. Namoru approached a terminal that came out of the ground. After inputting a slew of commands, the device started humming and the black liquid started to gain more and more speed. With a loud woosh sound all the liquid in the crystal ejected out the bottom forming a black sphere of deep nothingness.

“It is time. We need to hurry this is quite energy intensive to keep up. Once through we will get settled and start your training immediately.”

And then he just walked right into the nothingness and disappeared. Jade took one last look at the glowing runes all around before she decisively stepped through the dark orb herself. There was a feeling of weightlessness and freedom. Yet at the same time she never felt so restricted in her life. Around her was dark nothingness. There was a notion of rapid movement but no discernable markes.

Suddenly her Origin core pulsed and she felt something enter her body tearing through it reaching into her core. Jade started to scream, but there was no medium to carry the sound. A silent scream of terror frozen in a moment of eternity.

Everything slowed, Jade could vaguely hear the slowed voice of Duyi in her mind but she could not focus on it. The pain was to much. Yet she was hyper aware unable to act in the slightest she could feel some sort of energy snake through her body.

The first subjective minutes Jade almost lost it. In her desperation she focused on her origin core trying to find any strength no matter how small to resist. What she found was something entering her core, a black energy that was tunneling through her flesh and bones.

It felt wrong to her. The path the energy took was direct but erratic. Every time it came near one of her nebulae it was slightly redirect before it forced itself back towards her core. In a moment of inspiration Jade increased the speed of her mana exponentially, explosion after explosion went of from her core. She forced all her mana out as fast as she could.

It started to push the energy away from her core slowly, step by step. As soon as it reach the first nebulae it seemed to latch onto it now funneling itself into it. As if that was the first domino to fall the energies path snapped into a different form rapidly.

As quick as it came the pain subsided. A spiderweb of black energy streams now connected her core and her nebulae. But even more surprising was that the black threads reach out through her body to the place where her meridians were. Where a normal cultivators Meridians might be small grains of crystalized mana hers seemed to be infinitesimal small black holes.

Still jade whole body was cracked and bleeding. The pain of the energy was gone but now the pain of her injuries came into her forefront. This is how she was ejected on the other side of the portal. Falling over herself, she collapsed in a small replica of the teleportation hub.

The Last thing she hear before losing consciousness was her masters yelling “Jade!” and the sweet chime of the system in her mind.

Your Body and Mana system have been reforged by void energy.

[Origin Pathways] evolves into [Void pathways of the Origin]

Title acquired [Void Forged]

[Void Forged]

+10 Body

+10 Speed

Gain the skill: [Void Body]

[Void Body] Tier 1

Your resistance to void energy is increased.

[Body] acts as if it is doubled against Void damage

Can survive twice as long in the void

You can use void energy to temper your body without dying

[Void pathways of the Origin]

Your Mana pathways mirror the universe. The energy of the void acts as your mana channels and its depths swallow the mana around you.

Open Meridians: 4/12

Current stage: Nebulae

Origin of Wood: [Growth]

Current number of Nebulae: 5

4% increased mana gathering speed per nebula

5% increased mana gathering speed per opened Meridian

Total mana gathering speed increase: 40%