Chapter 6 – Joy and Sadness

“...”

The onlooking crowd fell completely silent as they were witness to this overwhelming manifestation. They had never heard of four martial spirits appearing on one person, never mind six. The shock they felt was incomparable to when they saw Mark’s Double Spirit. Although there had been cases where people had been in possession of a far greater amount of martial spirits formed by the spirits of slain animals, such spirits were never truly part of oneself. Daniel’s being, however, was fully tied to his six spirits.

However, what truly drew the crowd’s attention wasn’t the number of spirits. It was rather the behavior of the snake, phoenix, dragon, and human. Even the common villagers present knew that this display of deference was abnormal. Each martial spirit looked absolutely exceptional on its own, yet they were submitting to the most simple-looking martial spirit.

This shock was even more intense among the knowledgeable cultivators present, as they knew the other martial spirits. The naked meditating human was the Rank 8 Hermit Sage. It, and the two Rank 7 Martial Spirits, the Luminous Phoenix and the Black Leviathan, were the characteristic Triple Spirit that allowed Evan to stay unrivalled among his peers in his younger years. Although they did not know the exact rank of the dragon spirit, even the weakest Dragon Martial Spirit was Rank 7. The emerald green sea was an equally impressive Martial Spirit, the Rank 8 Sea of Vitality.

What truly drew Evan and the people’s attention was the vibrant sapling. Although it resembled the infant form of the often seen Rank 3 Common Ash Martial Spirit, there was something singularly different about it. Something almost transcendent. However, no matter how he looked at its physical appearance, it looked like the greatly downgraded version of the Rank 7 Wise Ash of Life characteristic to Evan’s deceased wife’s clan. Yet, Evan felt that something was hidden underneath its utterly mundane facade.

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The silence was broken by the successive manifestation of other children’s Martial Spirits. The parents naturally refocused on their children.

Between Mark and Daniel’s flamboyant phenomenons quietly sat Dellons.

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The pace of manifestations gradually lessened, and finally after an hour or so, the children started to break out of the meditative states induced by their Martial Spirits. Many got up and departed from the circle to rejoin their parents. Most of the children could not wait to test their spirits out. Yet, they had to wait for all the children to end their manifestation.

Left in the circle were the three friends. Dellons opened his eyes dejectedly, only to see his two good friends’ success.

He hadn’t been able to manifest a Martial Spirit. This left him with a dispiriting void. How many nights had he stayed awake, imagining what kind of spirit he would have? How many times was he woken up by the nightmare of manifesting a trash spirit? How many times had he vowed his parents had he would take revenge for them once he started cultivating?

How was he going to do that now?

He hated the Heavens that rejected him. This was the moment a flame lit up in his heart that would later shake the world.

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Mark soon woke up, followed shortly by Daniel. They looked around and saw that they were the two left in the area. They got up and joined Dellons, Evan and the orphans.

“Dellons, what kind of Martial Spirit did you get?”

Mark asked innocently, only to be greeted by silence. Sensing that something was wrong, Mark guessed that Dellons manifested a trash Martial Spirit. He patted Dellons in the back and added:

“Talk to me about your Martial Spirit when you feel like it.”

“I don’t have one.”

Dellons snapped. This time, it was the red-haired boy’s turned to be silent. Never had he imagined that such a rarity would occur in this group of friends. If Dellons had a trash Martial Spirit, at least he could cultivate. The absence of one meant that his road out of mortality would be nigh impossible. Mark could not think of anything to say.

Realizing that he had just talked very harshly to his friend, Dellons tried to justify himself.

"Uh... I'm sorry, I just..."

“I’ll ask dad if he can do anything for you.”

Daniel could only say so to comfort his friend. An uncomfortable silence settled itself as the three children waited for the next and final step of the Ceremony.