Ezekiel Suncrest Pov

The stench of blood was thick in the cave. Opening my eyes, I spat out several gulps of black blood.

“Truly, the Longevity blood condensing scroll is tyrannical, it even managed to purify blood from several humans into less than a drop of Longevity blood. And this isn’t the purest kind of Longevity blood the technique can create…”

Slightly speechless at the thought of how many people I had to kill, I shook my head in dismay. I was still in the cave where I had received the inheritance of the blood immortal guy, since it wasn’t like I could deal with the repercussions of killing several people. Even if I can’t be killed for this one month, if the police somehow manage to discover that I killed them, they could still capture me and wait until they can kill me.

After all, I was still a Rank 1 cultivator, at this stage, I had barely started cultivating. All it would take to kill me is a stray bullet. Thus, the best decision was to stay in the cave until I could ward of bullets like nothing. Well that was only part of the reason. The other reason was that the inheritance wasn’t over, since there are more caves other than the one I was currently in.

Why did I know this? Well when I consumed the inheritance crystal, I had gained 10% of the authority of this immortal cave. This had allowed me to know that there were 10 inheritance crystals in total, with the one I swallowed being the start of the inheritance. Now I had 10% control, what I had to do next was to increase my cultivation and receive the rest of my inheritance.

That’s right, MY inheritance. If anyone comes here accidently, I would kill them to prevent word from spreading out. Imagine the consequences if it were to be known that I was hogging the inheritance of a Rank 7 Blood immortal, numerous powerful cultivators would undoubtedly come from all over to kill me and take away the inheritance.

Thus, I was in a rather bad situation. The only way out of this was to get stronger! Standing up, I brushed the dust off of me and walked towards a particular wall in the cave. Making some hand signs, I used my blood qi, causing the wall in front of me to ripple like water and eventually fade away.

The stench of blood was even stronger in this cave, which wasn’t surprising considering the fact that there was quite literally a lake of blood in it. Breathing in slowly, I manipulated some of the blood around me to form a solid step in the lake. Currently my abilities weren’t that good yet, but I was confident that with practice, I would eventually be able to control this entire lake. Forming another step in front of me, I stepped onto it and the step behind me collapsed, returning to the lake once more.

Soon, I reached the middle of the lake where there was a small island. Standing on the small island, I smiled. The island had only 1 tree on it and that tree was blood red. That tree is a tree that the Blood Immortal had previously picked up during his travels. He had not given it a name, instead he merely described it as a tree that caused numerous calamities. He also said that the tree used blood as nourishment, causing the air surrounding it to be constantly filled with blood qi, which is why I decided to cultivate underneath it. Cultivating here would likely be more beneficial to me, plus I intended to eventually subordinate the tree, which would be easier if I understood it.

Sitting underneath the tree, I began revolving the Longevity Blood condensing scroll. The Longevity Blood condensing scroll could produce two kinds of blood, heart blood and longevity blood.

Longevity blood would allow me to live longer. Blood qi could also be derived from it, which is what I would use to power my magical techniques. Heart Blood was a more condensed version of Longevity blood, and was the basis of my cultivation. Thus, it was much more important. If I lost my heart blood, I wouldn’t just lose my cultivation, I would die permanently, unable to be resurrected. According to the technique, even my soul wouldn’t be able to return to the cycle of reincarnation once I lost all of my heart blood.

The way blood cultivation worked was that blood of numerous beings would be absorbed and purified. Then, the life force and qi in the blood will be condensed into a drop of Longevity blood. This was why while a normal cultivator might have spiritual qi in their cultivation base, blood cultivators have a sea of blood. This was also why the path of a blood cultivator was always filled with slaughter.

I unfortunately was very far away from having a sea of blood. I had a mere drop of Longevity blood and even that was incomplete.

Taking a deep breath and clearing my mind of all unnecessary thoughts, I began absorbing the surrounding blood qi. Instantly, I could feel the first drop of Longevity blood begin seething in excitement, slowly but surely increasing in size.

Soon, the Drop of blood began to glow with a radiant red light, showing that it was almost complete. With a loud bang audible to only me, the drop of blood finally formed, radiating an aura of power. Almost instantly, I could feel my longevity and cultivation base increasing.

[Ezekiel Suncrest has gained 0.12 vitality, 0.5 Strength and 1 point in blood qi]

Stretching, I continued cultivating. I intended to cultivate here until I reached rank 2 and by then, I would go make some blood slaves. After all, even though I was a cultivator, my firepower was incredibly low.

Silence descended as I continued cultivating, with only the occasional slosh of blood breaking it.

[Ezekiel Suncrest]

Rank 1

Gender: Male

Blood cultivator

Cultivation technique: Longevity Blood Condensing Scroll

Vitality: 13.12

Strength: 13.5

Blood qi: 17

Mind Power: 18.

Attack: N/A Defence: N/A

Skills: Will of the commander Lvl 1, Blood servant creation Lvl 1, Blood manipulation Lvl 1

Edward Suncrest Pov

“… and that’s why you will be allowed to only pick one Soul Ark later from the Tower’s inventory. Remember! It’s important to thoroughly consider which Soul Ark to pick. In your two years of education, the tower will give you a total of 3 Soul Arks for free.”

“Between the different categories of offense, defence, recovery and auxiliary Soul Arks, you can only choose three. For your first Soul Ark, it’s advisable to choose one you can dominate easily like a water ball Soul Ark, since you can only use it once you control 10% of it.”

The middle-aged Wizard with a bald spot droned on and on like a teacher. I was seriously getting bored here, I mean really? When they said lessons, I thought it would be something like transfiguration, or something exciting. What I didn’t expect was to sit behind a desk and listen to a teacher drone on about the fundamentals of a Wizard. It felt like I was back in high school again. Definitely not a good feeling.

Don’t get me wrong though, the things that he was talking about are definitely important, and I was definitely memorising the content. Its just… I didn’t expect to be in an actual lesson really. This was a Wizard tower for crying out loud! Weren’t we supposed to learn stuff like how to create explosions?

“…that is why, you will now follow me to choose your first Soul Ark.”

The screech of 19 wooden chairs sliding across a rough stone floor interrupted my train of thoughts. Did I mention that I was in a class with twenty students? Fortunately, I wasn’t sitting at the back-left corner of the class, since a boy with flaming red hair was already sitting there.

One look and you could already tell that he was going to be a future Main Character. Hell, his hair didn’t look like it was dyed, in fact, it looked pretty natural, further cementing his position as Main Character.

Following along and standing up, I was almost tripped by a scrawny girl who had accidently gotten in my way. Fortunately for me, I didn’t fall down.

On the other hand, the girl wasn’t so lucky and fell down with a loud thump. Looking up at me, she immediately cowered and apologized.

Seeing that she was cowering and apologizing, I was once again reminded of the fact that I looked pretty damn scary to others. Somewhere along the line, I had decided to shave bald and remain that way. I also had a scar extending from my right cheek down to my collarbone, which I had received when fighting some gangsters. According to my son, my eyes looked like they were glaring at someone 24/7. Combine that with my muscular frame that I was rather proud of, I guess you could call me a rather intimidating man.

Although I personally felt that I looked pretty funny in my Wizards robe.

Suddenly, I felt something push me away from the girl. Stumbling a little, I saw Mr. Main Character glaring at me, telling me not to bully the weak.

Honestly looking at it from a third person point of view, it was a pretty humorous situation. But I was the one getting shouted at and I wasn’t amused. Stretching out my hand, I grabbed Mr. Main Character’s collar and lifted him up to eye level. Clearing my throat, I spoke. “Look here Mr. Main Character, did It look like I pushed her over? All I did was walk and she knocked into me. She fell down because of her own clumsiness and apologized because of her own mistake, no need to push and yell at me and make me the villain here.”

Dropping Mr. Main Character, I walked over to the girl and apologized to her before running to catch up with the rest of the class. Wizards didn’t exactly have a habit of waiting for others, so if I’m late, I would likely lose my chance to select a Soul Ark.

As I left, i heard Mr.Main Character shouting something about his name. I couldn't hear it though.

Soon, I caught up with the others, who were standing outside the Tower’s inventory room. I had barely made it along with Mr. Main Character and The girl who fell over. Shooting us an uninterested glance, the middle aged Wizard opened the door and walked inside.

The class of 20 walked into the inventory and were given a surprise. Given the state of the rest of the tower, I assumed that we would be looking at stuff in stone boxes or something. I was wrong though. The entire room was lit up and there were glass compartments along the walls, with some tags beside it describing the items.

All in all, it looked like something out of a modern persons imagination. And it was pretty damn cool.

Turning to face us, the Wizard cautioned us.

“The rank 1 Soul Arks have green coloured tags. DO NOT and I repeat, DO NOT take more than one Soul Ark. Otherwise, the Tower will kill you. Now go, select your Soul Ark. When you find the one you want, use the bag we gave you on the first day to contain it.”

Then, he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Instantly, I began reading through all the green coloured tags, trying to find the one that was most suitable for me. Why was I rushing? Well in an inventory, things are always limited, aren’t they? That’s why I wanted to quickly take one before the good ones an out.

Looking at the closest tag, I began reading through the information given. Strangely, when I started reading it, the system made a notification with the exact same words on the tag, allowing more than one person to read the tag at a time.

The first looked like a bundle of green strings

[Earth Manipulation Soul Ark. Grants user ability to control all things related to the earth element, although effects depend on users Mind Power. Low effects from 15 Mind power to 30, 31 to 70 grants average effects, 71 and above gives great effects. Not recommended for beginners.]

Hmm, rejected since it doesn’t match my element.

Next, I looked at a ball that was bright red and radiated heat.

[Fireball Soul Ark. With the appropriate formations, a ball of flames will be released, dealing high damage to the surroundings. Easy to use.]

I would go back to this one if there wasn’t anything better.

Next up, three lumps of transparent crystals connected to each other.

[Tri-water shield. Forms three shields of water, damage is shared between all three shields. It is hard to control the movements of the three shields with lesser than 25 Mind Power.]

Again, not a good choice.

[Metal body Soul Ark. When activated, forms a defensive layer of metal on the skin of the user. Highly recommended for beginners.]

[Sand crawler Soul Ark. Raises recovery abilities of a Rank 1 user to 10x its normal amount. Recommended for beginners.]

[One coloured butterfly Soul Ark. Allows user to temporarily fly. Not recommended for beginners.]

[Broken Sword Soul Ark. Grants the user superior ability in wielding swords, no matter of what kind.]

There weren’t any particular ones that caught my eye. Moving on, I went to a section where the tags were an obvious shade deeper in colour.

I expected them to be higher in quality and I wasn’t wrong.

[Five element Soul Ark. Grants user ability to manipulate all five elements, although extremely high Mana (70) and Mind power (90) is necessary in order to barely use it. Beginners should stay away.]

And stay away I did. I didn’t even have enough stats to barely use it, not to mention that I would have to engage in a battle of wills with it. All things in the world had souls, including Soul Arks. Soul Arks could be created naturally or through human hands, but the one thing they all have in common is that in order to use their power, you would have to crush its will or get its acceptance. However to gain their acceptance was nigh impossible, causing Wizards to prefer using the method of destroying their wills and replacing it with their own.

Looking at the next case, I finally found what I had been looking for this entire time. A Ball of burning flames, similar to the Fireball Soul Ark hovered in mid-air, however, this ball seemed more tame then the Fireball Soul Ark.

[Fire Manipulation Soul Ark. Grants user ability to control all things related to the fire element, although effects depend on users Mind Power. Low effects from 15 Mind power to 35, 36 to 75 grants average effects, 76 and above gives great effects. Not recommended for beginners.]

Quickly opening the glass case, I used the special bag given to us and quickly covered the Fire Manipulation Soul Ark. From how tame it acted, I expected it to be easy, but that thing bucked around like it was a wild bull.

Somehow, I managed to get it under control and exited the inventory room. When I walked out, the middle-aged Wizard was waiting there for me. It seemed like I was one of the last people who came out, since he just stretched his hand out to me impatiently, like he wanted to get it over with.

Taking out the Fire Manipulation Soul Ark, I handed it to him. Seeming a little surprised, he told me to quickly begin. Stretching out my hands, I sent my will into it, as well as sending my mana to envelop it, causing the Soul Ark’s soul to fight back.

Grunting a little, the middle-aged Wizard sent out a wave of mana, causing the Soul Ark’s will to temporarily cease resistance. Quickly taking advantage of the situation, I received it into my mana pool and began quickly replacing its will with my own.

“This is a one-time opportunity, where I help you refine a Soul Ark, so cherish it. Once you have over 50 Mind power, and you can receive your second Soul Ark, you will have to do this yourself.

I had only managed to gain control over 60% of it before it awakened and began fighting back once more. Eventually, we reached a stalemate at 50%, whereupon both of us stopped the fight.

That was how I received my first ever Soul Ark on my path as a Wizard.

[Edward Suncrest]

Rank 1

Gender: Male

Vitality: 12

Strength: 13

Mana: 15.23

Mind Power: 16 (17)

Attack: N/A Defence: N/A

Skills: Unwavering Will Lvl 1

Soul Arks: Fire Manipulation Soul Ark (50%)