Akata’s soul was much stronger than people on his same level. He had the soul rune to continuously strengthen his soul, his cultivation bases as they grew stronger helped to nurture his soul, he had the teachings and techniques of Monarch Heartsoul and Cultist Soulfire, he had control over the Outer Element of Souls… because of all this and more factors his soul was already comparable to the Second Rank. A mere attack that was conjured up by a being at the Great Circle of the First Rank had a much weaker soul than him.

Akata willed it and his pulsating soul rune guided his intentions toward the incoming attack. With but a thought it commanded the attack to miss its mark.

Boom!

The attack, instead of flying downwards to the group, flew forward and landed many meters behind them. The group was flabbergasted and flustered. Fear still settling within their bodies and minds. That attack just now had destroyed a part of the forest, if it wasn’t for the attack ‘missing’ just now they would’ve all been killed or taken out of the trial. Sweat riddled their clothes and backs as they snuck a look at Akata who was standing in front of them.

Akata was completely calm but to put up appearances he looked bewildered and shaken to the core. He couldn’t let the group know that he had anything to do with that attack missing just now. This was a huge secret, if someone was to find out that any attack that was weak enough in soul strength than him could be controlled to miss him, what kind of danger would that put him in? Many major powers would flock to him for the chance of getting their hands on this kind of ability.

After being ‘shaken’ for a while, Akata fiercely shook his head and steadied his bearing. “Attack now, this is our only chance!” Akata yelled out. Indeed this was their only shot. The Lunar Bear had only just evolved right now and wasn’t familiar with its strength at all. It had overdrafted its power with that attack and was temporarily incapable of fighting right now. This was the perfect chance to attack it. The group’s will to fight instantly spurred on and their faces filled with determination and ruthlessness. They grabbed their weapons and shot out various abilities and attacks that aimed straight for the Lunar Bear.

The Lunar Bear itself was bewildered as well. Although it had overdrafted its power, it was still capable of aiming. How could that widespread attack miss its target? It was at a complete loss of what just happened. The only thing it knew was that it felt as if its attack just now was being guided somewhere else. If its intelligence was higher than it would perfectly be able to tell that its attack just now was being controlled.

It let out a hoarse roar and charged toward the group that was aiming abilities at it. Although it was tired from the attack that didn’t mean it was going to just sit there and be hit. Akata was in the front of the group and therefore the beast shot towards him first.

Akata had already been mentally prepared. He could tell that the beast was about 30 percent weaker than it had been a moment ago. But this 30 percent would quickly go away and it would be back to peak condition in no time at all. Therefore, Akata held nothing back as he charged at the beast, scythe in hand.

With a wave of his scythe he sent out multiple attacks that landed on the Lunar Bear’s body. Obviously this was just meant to slow it down as it wasn’t able to injure it at all. Akata then jumped into the air and disappeared out of the sights of everyone. All anyone could see was a black ball of light cover his body before he simply vanished.

Whoosh! The Lunar Bear felt a sense of danger rapidly approaching so it swiped its claws frantically as it didn’t know where the danger was coming from. It still had a few more moments before it was able to use its gravity abilities so all it could do was physically swipe in the air and around its body. But who would’ve known that it would all be for naught?

A crimson gold light suddenly sprang up atop the Lunar Bear’s neck as its head soon fell off of its shoulders. It’s body was slow to react and let out one more final swipe as it soon fell down as well. The terrifying Lunar Bear was no more as it became a lifeless corpse that would soon rot.

Akata appeared an instant later bathed in golden light atop the corpse of the Lunar Bear. He had combined the Silent Meteor Kill stance and the Clear Passage stance into one and ha easily been able to slice through the body of the evolved Lunar Bear. just to be sure he had even added on the strength of his golden and crimson rune. Not even that but he had put his complete all into this one attack and had switched his First Rank Bludhaven Scythe for the Third Rank Blacksoul Scythe. Although it would leave him depleted of his strength, Akata didn’t want to take any chances.

After killing the evolved Lunar Bear Akata immediately sat down and started to recover as fast as he could. In this dangerous environment, it was essential to have as much strength to defend oneself at all times. He rotated his cultivation bases and to his surprise found that his Demon Realm cultivation base had advanced to the 2nd Grade. It was negligible in terms of strength increase but it was a step in the right direction nonetheless.

The group didn’t even need to be commanded in order for them to surround and protect Akata from danger while he was recovering. By now, they had a tacit understanding of their roles. They split up into two groups. One group would recover while the other kept watch of the surrounding area. That way they could make the most of their time and energy.

Akata was fully focused on recovering his spent energy but he couldn’t help but notice something strange with his soul rune. It was twirling around as if trying to get Akata’s attention. With Akata’s newfound Soul Foresight ability he had a basic understanding of what his soul was saying.

‘Absorb the soul of the evolved Lunar Bear? But why?’ He paid closer attention to it. ‘It has something to do with that undeveloped white pellet in my dantion region?’ Akata had always been wondering about that white pellet in his dantion region that had formed but seemed to be incomplete. This white pellet had came from when he was absorbing the strange energy within the wind when he was waiting to go back to the Red Cloud Sect. Back then the wind had stopped abruptly so the pellet had stopped forming.

With his Soul Foresight Akata searched for the soul of the evolved Lunar Bear within the corpse. Between the time it had been killed and Akata had searched for the soul only about a few seconds had passed so the soul was still very much active. With but a thought he rotated the soul rune within his body and began to absorb the soul of the dead Lunar Bear. The soul rune happily took it in and refined it for Akata’s use. Almost immediately white motes of light began to form and drift towards Akata’s dantion region. The incomplete white pellet within his dantion region soon formed a vortex and began to suck in all of the white motes of light; slowly, it began to increase in size.

The vortex grew larger as time went on and sucked in more of the white motes of light. The soul rune spun faster and refined the soul of the Lunar Bear. Akata watched as all of this happened. He didn’t have to do a thing. His only role lay in finding the soul and initiating the process of absorbing it.

As time went on, Akata could feel his strength slowly increasing. The white pellet within his dantion looked more like an egg as it floated in midair. The vortex that was absorbing it suddenly increased in size and the egg took in a bunch of the white motes at one time.

Crack! The egg split open as a tiny worm-shaped being appeared. The worm-shaped being landed in the lake of the dantion region where it swum around and then settled at the bottom to start cultivating. With this, Akata now had his self image as the figure for his Mortal Realm cultivation base, a small sapling for his Plant Realm cultivation base, a bat winged creature for his Demon Realm cultivation base, and a worm-like sea beast for his Beast Realm cultivation base. It could be said that his cultivation bases were extremely diverse in appearance.

Akata was instantly shocked in his heart but not too shocked. He had his guesses as to what that white pellet was but nonetheless when it happened he was still shocked. He already had three different cultivation bases and now he could add a fourth one to his list. He was much more familiar with this cultivation base than the Plant Realm and Demon Realm cultivation bases. This was a Beast Realm cultivation base.

The vortex continued to spin as more white motes gathered into the worm-like beast in the lake of the dantion. The worm-like being grew slowly in size until the vortex slowed down rapidly and then disappeared. The worm-like being was still tiny, only about the size of the pinky of Akata’s Mortal Realm cultivation base figure.

‘Beast Realm cultivation base, and its at the 3rd Grade First Rank already.’ Akata was extremely pleased. He was already formidable with two cultivation bases and when he got three he would easily surpass people of the same Rank. Now with four… who knows what kind of strength he would have in the future.

This wasn’t the only thing Akata took note of while this process of gaining another cultivation base was occurring. Now that he had the ability of Soul Foresight, he could pay much more attention to his soul and find many small details that would’ve been overlooked by him in the past. ‘My soul is actually changing with each new cultivation base. Right now it is mostly a mortal soul but if any of my cultivation bases breaks through to the Second Rank before my Mortal Realm one then it will completely change my soul.’ Akata sucked in a deep breath.

His second strongest cultivation base was his Plant Realm one which was at the 7th Grade of the First Rank. If it surpassed the Mortal Realm cultivation base which was at the 8th Grade then nothing serious would come about. But if it broke through to the Second Rank before his Mortal Realm cultivation base did, then his entire soul would change in favor of his Plant Realm base. Akata didn’t know what this implied but he definitely didn’t want to find out.

‘I have to make sure to break through the Second Rank with my Mortal Realm cultivation base before all my other bases.’ Akata thought for a moment before another problem popped into his head. ‘What will happen to my soul once I fuse my cultivation bases together? Will I still be considered human?’ Akata inwardly shook his head before thinking, ‘It doesn’t matter, I’m training to be a monster anyways.’ With that, he went back to recovering his energy.