Authors note: Special thanks to WandererAsura for helping me out with several ideas, it's really appreciated.

Chapter 5 – Lonely Ghost Finger

Within Merry's house.

Moon sat there besides the window, staring out into the vast nothingness of the night. A small breeze of Qi constantly circled around him, being absorbed into his dantian at a rapid speed. The three colored orb inside of him was like a vacuum, sucking up all of the Qi in the atmosphere that it could find! At close observation, one could see that the dantian was almost three quarters full, just a few more hours of training and he could possibly make a breakthrough into the third stage of the Nursery layer.

“Moon, come downstairs! Your food is ready!”.

A delightful smell came from down below, making his stomach quench. It'd been at least a day since he last ate, and right now he felt like he could consume an entire Gluttonous Fire Hound! Galloping down the stairs, Moon stopped his training and dashed towards the vibrant fragrance.

Uriel and Merry were sat down together around the table where various delicious assortments of food had been laid out. In the middle was a large plate that had the thigh of some sort of magical beast, it's smell was hard to describe.

“Looking at that huge chunk of meat, Moon? I caught that earlier today near the woods, it's a second nursery stage Spiteful Boar.”

“You managed to kill that thing? Truly, my fairy princess is becoming more manly with every passing day!” chuckled Moon, his face had an air of cheekiness and respect. To kill a magical beast at the second stage whilst at the third was still a difficult task, and it was easy to lose your life if you weren't careful.

“Enough fooling around youngsters, the foods going cold! Eat up before I eat it all myself..” said Merry, who was shoveling the food into her mouth at a rapid pace. Seeing the food being taken away right in front of him, Moon quickly sat down and began to stuff himself til his belly nearly exploded.

With a satisfied face and a belly popping out almost an entire foot, Moon let out a loud burp. “Disgusting boy.” said Uriel, who was delicately wiping her mouth with a napkin with the absolute grace of a princess.

After Merry had finished clearing up the plates, her face turned slightly serious as she moved to one of the bookshelves. With a clicking sound, Merry pressed down on a corner of the shelf as a secret space appeared. Dust blew out from within, and one could see that in this secret space was an old book, covered from top to bottom with spider webs and dust. Merry grabbed hold of the book, and blew onto it, blowing away most of the dust and cobwebs.

She gave the pair of youths a strong look and muttered out an order to them both, “Sit down and listen closely, what I'm about to give you is something that was given to me by a very old, powerful friend whom I met when I was exploring the Reiqi continent.” The book was placed down on the table, it gave off an ancient aura that looked like it hadn't been opened in centuries. A small title was written on the top, 'Lonely Ghost Finger', it was an old martial arts technique!

Merry slid the book over to the two youths, Moon quickly took the book and opened the first page. “M-Merry, you're really giving us this? We can actually learn this old martial technique? Who was it who gave you this?”. His head was full of questions, it has to be said that martial arts techniques are rarely found or given out. Clans would rarely ever pass techniques to outsiders as this would often lead to their clan being abused and internal affairs would arise. Considering that there was no clan name written on the book, it had to have been written by a rogue cultivator who wasn't part of a clan.

Martial arts techniques all fall into the cultivation layers. For example, there can be Nursery layer techniques, Descendant techniques, Rebirth techniques, Heaven techniques, Half-Immortal and Immortal techniques. The higher level layer the technique was, the harder it was to train in. They would also be incredibly harder to acquire and the costs would be much more, a medium Rebirth technique could be sold for at least 10,000 gold.

On the first page of 'Lonely Ghost Finger', it was written that it was a high Descendant technique. This was only a step away from the Rebirth layer! This proved that the strength of this technique was incredibly high, but it would also be extremely difficult to practice in.

The opening paragraph of the book read, 'One path of loneliness, one finger to pave away the darkness, devour the light and pierce the soul of your enemies! To practice in the 'Lonely Ghost Finger' requires a deep understanding of the true meaning of loneliness and the feeling of being alone in the world. Only those who have this trait can become masters of this art.”

Moon and Uriel glanced at each other and both had faces of recognition, as if they understood that they were both able to practice this technique.. Due to their circumstances of being abandoned by their parents and left alone in the town of Wudao, they grew up harboring great feelings of loss and a sense of loneliness. Although this was unfortunate, this would greatly enhance the power of this technique which was based on negative energy.

“I want you both to begin training in this technique immediately, no delays, you hear me? With this, I'm sure you both can become one of the strongest existences in Wudao. Those kids messing around with you, Rudan and his petty gang, won't be able to do anything if you practice this art. But no killing, understand?”.

Moons face lit up, just the thought of being able to take revenge on Rudan was already enough for him to want to indulge himself diligently in the training of this new martial technique! “I understand grandma Merry! Thank you for this gift!”. With the book in his hand he dashed to the front door of the house, squeezed on the creaking door handle and ran to the training field behind the house.

Uriel let out a sigh, “Ha.. It looks like he's extremely focused on learning this technique. Grandma Merry, did you ever practice this technique?” asked Uriel with a concerned face.

“No, my dear. I truly never felt the sense of loneliness that was required to learn this technique. You must understand, the creator of this technique must have been someone who had truly lost everything and was all alone in the world. The negative energy needed to create a technique like this is really unimaginable.”

Meanwhile at the field behind Merry's house.

Moon was stood in the field. The book was opened onto the first page which read 'First stage of the Ghost Finger', a gathering of Qi was focused on his middle finger. “So, to start training this technique it states that I have to gather the negative mental energy inside me. I need to focus on the times when I've experienced true loneliness and a sense of regret.. and then once in this state, I channel all of these emotions into my dantian and convert it to some kind of dark Qi.”

Moon shut his eyes, and immersed himself within his memories..

A small boy who was aged eight years old sat by an old Boon tree, the cracks and lines showed that it was at least an eight hundred year old tree. In the boys hand was a small toy bear, covered with rips and holes, yet it looked like he had a deep affection for it. The boy looked off into the distant plains, a face filled with a lonesome look covered him, as if he was truly the only one left in the world.

Shouting could be heard coming from the south.. A group of boys appeared to be walking toward the tree, the leader had a red haired mane with a hawk shaped nose. It was Rudan! A cruel look appeared as he walked up to the black haired child with a scar on the left side of his face, this was Moon!

“Hey brat, where are your parents at? Haha I forgot, you don't have any! Wanna know what my dad gave me this week? The horn of a third stage Raging Rhinoceros beast!”. The other boys next to him laughed in unison, pointing fingers and uttering slurs at the boy beside the tree.

Rudan glanced at the bear in Moons arms, his only friend he had in the village beside Uriel. “What's that tattered old thing you have on you? Give it here!”. Moon looked up and shouted back at the vile child who had dared to take his precious friend away from him, “No! You can't have it, it's mine!”.

“Cut the shit, hold him down guys and pass me that damned bear” he ordered. Rudans underlings dashed over and pushed Moon to the ground, the bear still clutched tightly in his arms. Kicks and punches were being hammered down on his body, yet he still wouldn't give up. Only when a small blade entered his right arm did he let go of the bear, “AAAAHH~~~!”. He let out a scream as blood trickled down his arm, one of the boys grabbed the bear and threw it over to Rudan.

“Hah, this little old bear is in such a bad state, I may aswell add a few more holes to it.” He grinned, an air of arrogance was on his face as the other boys laughed as Rudan began to tear the bear into pieces, it's arms and legs flying onto the floor as it was utterly destroyed.

“RUDAN!~~”

Negative energy was swarming all around Moon, the memory of him as a child had created such a thick black Qi around his dantian that it felt it could burst at any second. All of a sudden, an extremely dark Qi started to flow to every place in his body, Moon felt like his muscles were about to reach their limit and his profound veins were stretching at an abnormal rate. The black Qi was continuously ripping apart his insides and regrowing them anew, transcending his limits nonstop!

All of a sudden, the black Qi convulsed into one area around his dantian, and then flowed directly to his right hand, all the way to his middle finger! He had actually managed to achieve a breakthrough to the first stage of the 'Lonely Ghost Finger'. The foul negative Qi glowed and twisted around his finger, if one could look closely it seemed like a gathering of small ghosts were rotating around it restlessly.

PIERCE!

Moon harnessed the Qi around his finger and shot it towards the old Boon tree in the centre of the field. It pierced into the tree, creating a hole that landed directly into the middle. If this tree had a soul, then it would have been completely eradicated by this attack. He withdrew his finger, and within the hole in the tree was a lingering black Qi which seemed to suck the life from anything near it. He had truly been successful in using the Lonely Ghost Finger, and on his first try! If the founder of this technique could have witnessed this scene, he would have awoken the seven immortals with his screams.

Within Moons dantian, the Qi that was absorbed before had reached a climax. The energy around it was like a bubbling cauldron, ready to explode at any second. Breakthrough! After executing the Lonely Ghost Finger technique, he had actually broken through to the third stage of the Nursery layer.

Moon could feel the changes within his body that came with the strength of the third stage, if before he could only lift a boulder that weighed 200 pounds, he could now lift one that weighed 400! His strength was excelling by leaps and bounds. He also tested out his speed, it had a clear increase as every three steps was now like one. His body's hardiness had also increased, it felt like his skin was made of a tough wood.

The biggest difference between the second and third stage of the Nursery layer, was that one could actually visualize the changes that were occurring within ones body, including the profound veins and the dantian!

Moon visualized his profound veins, and followed them up to where his central dantian laid dormant.

“Eh? What's that strange three colored orb!?”.