Author’s note- Remember how I told you that everything in the Universe Catalog will be introduced in the story? Well, there is a huge info dump about all things related to cultivation and aura, and it is very important. Please read. Also I seem to write very fluidly when there is an info dump, so there may be more of these in the future. ‘Winks with a huge smile’

Also, I don’t know how I did it, but I postponed reading translated chapters until I was done this chapter. And I’m a hardcore leecher, so don’t expect anymore times like this for a while.

__________________________________________________________________

Fire (part 1)

???- “Fire… is like a battle. It may be intense, but in the end there is only ashes…”

A man looked at me with at dark and looming gaze, his expression unreadable.

???- “Will you also become one with the flame, Daniel?”

An image of ashes suddenly superimposed on the man, and suddenly his expression took on an expression of greed. A sense of horror rose within me, and I backed away a step. But suddenly the man rushed within me, and I felt paralyzed, as if I could no longer move. And in the next moment, I opened my mouth and started to speak, in a voice that was clearly not my own.

Me???- “Well, there really was no need to ask that question. After all, we are already one.”

I bridled up with maniacal laughter, and flamed up into ashes.

******************

I woke up in a cold sweat, and I closely examined myself and my surroundings as a reflex to my dream. The bed was just how I remembered it, with brown sheets that covered my body and the top of my bedpost was halfway broken off. The room was my room, except for traces of muddy foot prints too large to be my own. But wait… I was supposed to be at the orphanage, that woman! She tried to kill me, so I slashed her and… Nothing.

Feeling around my body for any traces of bruises, I found no area that hurt. In fact, my skin felt much more responsive to every touch, and every part of my body felt like it was brimming with an energy previously unknown to me.

I spoke to myself in partial amazement,

Me- “Wow! I feel great!”

I stretched my muscles, and they responded with a flexibility previously unknown to me. And surprisingly, it felt really good. Soon, I started testing out all kinds of movements that I could of never done before. Touching my toes without bending my knees, bending backwards so far my head reached the level of my waist, and doing a straight up split1 without even flinching!

(1: A split is where both your legs go sideways and you lay them flat on the ground. The legs have to be completely opposite to each other)

And with my improved flexibility, it was time to test out the Earth Shattering Fist. Taking the posture for the fist, I slowly performed each movement that I had fully copied down. Then I snapped my arm back to the position, and struck out quickly.

I performed the same actions as I did before, yet there was something different to me about those movements than before. It felt like something, something foreign moved with me as I performed the martial art. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to isolate that feeling.

So I decided to try something new. I sat down, and just tried to observe my bodily functions. I moved one muscle at a time, searching for that feeling. But it was not within my muscle. So next, I resigned myself to observing the next easiest thing. Breathing.

However, even though I felt like I understood more about myself than ever before, I couldn’t find what I was looking for. But I decided on trying to listen at one more thing, My heartbeat.

Sitting still in an area void of noise, I was suddenly able to feel individual heartbeats starting in my chest. Then I moved my perception upwards, and felt the blood pulsing up at my head. Unsatisfied, I spread my perception to even the outer extremities of my arms. But I did not achieve results. So lastly, I focused on my legs to see if I could feel a heartbeat from there.

However, unlike all the other areas of my body, My legs were surprisingly hard to feel. The most I could feel my pulse to was my stomach. Finally getting a challenge, I focused all my efforts on my legs. And I was not disappointed. It was faint, but it was still there.

So then I redrew my still hyper-focused attention back to my chest when all of a sudden my pulse seemed disoriented. It was almost as if I had, two pulses?

I shook my head in disbelief. That didn’t seem right…

Feeling for anything abnormal, I focused on my chest again. But the feeling was on and off. It felt like whenever I breathed, I could no longer have access to that feeling. It was just like the irritation that comes to a man when he new to fishing. Just when he thinks the fish are about to be his, they swim away from his fishing hook.

Me- “Well if breathing is the problem, I’ll just stop breathing!”

The Idea may have been silly, but it ended up working. I could finally understand that foreign feeling. So I quietly observed it as long as I could hold my breath.

It was a bizarre to know that there was something you never knew about now moving around inside you. And the way it moved was different than anything else in my body too. It felt like a raindrop slowly inching down a window, but suddenly another raindrop would collide into it. Then both of them would speed up together, leaving a trail of water behind. Eventually, that raindrop would start inching yet again, and another raindrop would gather from the trail of water left behind. It then would hit the raindrop in front of it, causing the whole process to happen over again.

It truly felt incredibly strange. But yet, the whole process seemed so familiar, like it had happened my whole life. It was just that I was never able to sense it.

I was drawn into a mysterious state by feeling those two raindrops circulate throughout my body. Eventually, it got to the point where I could literally see it. But oblivious to the changes within me, the raindrops still continued in their slow, mysterious way, circulating within me. But after a little bit, the raindrops within me started to slowly speed up, as if they were being drawn like a magnet to something.

They grew faster and faster, and suddenly the raindrops dropped into a large, spherical area with a small globe of water in the center. Flying forward, they became one with a chaotic section of the globe, and soon after, another 2 droplets were sent out. They went into a chamber opposite to the one they came in and continued the cycle eternally.

A sudden insight flashed in my mind while in that mysterious state, and I waited until the aura was within my arm. Then I jumped to my feet and drew myself into the stance for the Earth Shattering Fist.

At this point, the droplets suddenly stopped and coiled like a spring, waiting for something to happen. I did not disappoint them. I struck forward with the Earth Shattering Fist, which now contained an indomitable might. The drops sprung forward and spiraled out of my channels into the air. They formed a rippling flame that seemed to spiral around my arm till they reached the end of my fist.

It created a burning shockwave, which compressed the air by suppressing a purplish sort of energy. The two spiraled together until reaching an object; one that seemed fragile compared to the fist I let out. The two energies penetrated the object, and then they suddenly collided together within the object and exploded.

“BOOM!!!”

The object shattered, and splintered remains flew out. Most of them bounced across my clothing, but one of them cut past my cheek, leaving a small cut. But I was not thinking about that. Instead, I was still focused on the now smaller raindrops that rode on the purplish energy and tried to re enter my body.

With a single thought, the raindrops turned into thin streams that entered where they left. With another, they continued circulation. And with this another thought came to mind: If I can make them exit and re enter my body, why can’t I speed up their circulation? So using this train of thought, I continued to exercise my newfound ‘limb’. That is, until dad came bursting through the room.

Dad- “Daniel!? Are you ok? What was that noise?”

Dad came in with no trace of the sadistic smile from yesterday. Instead, it was one of worry. But when he saw the shattered bedpost, he grew silent.

I turned to look at the shattered remains of the already damaged bedpost. Sheepishly grinning at dad, I weakly said,

Me- “We’re fine. I was just practicing the Earth Shattering Fist, but this happened…”

Dad’s tone instantly took on a tone of scolding, although he wasn’t truly angry,

Dad- “Daniel, you shouldn’t practice the Earth Shattering Fist with aura in the house. First of all, you should only aim your fist at a large space of empty air when you’re a beginner. Secondly, you have to control your aura to detonate it before it hits anythi-. Wait! You can control your aura!?”

Me- “So that’s what it was… I should have known.”

Dad smiled proudly, and murmured something about proving those fools wrong. Then he asked excitedly, like it was his own awakening,

Dad- “What element did you awaken to!?”

Instead of answering, I smiled and brought the liquid aura outside my arm, letting the faint flame flicker around on the surface of my skin. I could not, however, make it invade the area like that, woman, did. I wonder why?

Me- “Dad, why can’t it leave the surface of my skin? I clearly remember sending it out like a shot for the Earth Shattering Fist, and that woman could invade a whole area with hers.”

Dad- “Oh, you mean like this?”

Dad’s eyes flickered with a greenish golden light, and suddenly a rolling mist came out of his body and flooded the area. However, it was not black like that woman. Instead, it was the same color as the light from dad’s eyes, a greenish golden color, which gave me a feeling of joy and insurmountable self-confidence.

Dad- “This, is aura. But the reason you can’t do this with your aura is because Caldera and I are both true cultivators, and we both can extend our aura to the extremities of our magespaces.”

I cringed at the unfamiliar terms.

Me- “Dad, when you say true cultivator, you make it sound like there are false ones. And I’ve heard the term magespace before, but no one was willing to explain it to me.”

Dad was always eager to explain something, as long as it wasn’t about the clan. So he answered without hesitating,

Dad- “Well, they aren’t really false, but one who awakens with pills will never have an edge over a true cultivator. As long as they have the same abilities of course. But a true cultivator is one who awakens on his own, without the assistance of pills. And a magespace, well, it’s hard to explain. You’ll understand when you advance to the basic realm.”

Dad grinned and continued on,

Dad- “And who knows? You may get a headstart from how young you are, by advancing to the basic realm before 12. That would be an unbeatable record, especially due to the fact that only the emperor can awaken before the age of 12.”

I smiled proudly as I let my emotions get the better of me. But so what? I had nothing to hide. In fact, I feel like going straight to Luke just to bragg in his face. But then I looked at dad’s now stern gaze, and threw my sky high thoughts back down to earth. That’s right. If the bandits discovered I had that kind of talent, it didn't matter what I did. I would be at the mercy of murderers and drunks, who might try and ruin me without thought for the consequences.

The best example of this was that old woman, Caldera. She already had pre-existing hatred with me, and that made her try and kill me even while she was on her last straw. Luckily, the power difference between her and my father was too great for her to do anything. But if someone at the 2nd or 3rd level of the basic realm who wasn’t so old tried to kill me, I might not even know how I died.

I took a deep breath and nodded at Dad, showing I understood. Sometimes we just had those moments where not even a word was needed to express what the other was feeling. That was just a part of who we were.

Me- “Dad, how do I cultivate? Am I even allowed to currently?”

Dad hesitated as conflicting emotions appeared on his face, but he decided to answer my question.

Dad- “Well, to cultivate you need an art that is suited towards you. And I don’t currently know of any fire attributed methods, only a universal one that is passed down through our family. Do you want to learn it? It will not boost the prowess of your natural energy, being a non-attributed method, but the foundational abilities of this method are second to none. Of course, the method comes with conversion abilities so you can use attributed energy in spells as long as you are willing to wait using your aura.”

Whenever Dad talked about it’s foundational abilities, he sounded extremely confident. But the problem was, I didn’t even know the importance of a foundation.

Me- “What’s a foundation, and why is it important? I thought you could just absorb energy and eventually advance ranks…”

Dad’s suave smile froze for a moment, then he started cursing under his breath about stupid clan members and their pointless rules. Then he continued,

Dad- “Well, of course you wouldn’t know this at your age. Have you ever heard the saying, haste makes waste?”

I nodded my head yes.

Dad- “This saying is the crux of the foundation. A foundation is the amount of latent energy accumulated in your body and core. This latent energy is the energy used to break through from level to level. Your foundation also affects things like recovery speed, battle prowess, and the rate at which you cultivate. Basically the better your foundation, the better your life. The amount of ease at which you accumulate a foundation is talent, and an accumulated foundation can only be disturbed by certain things. These are receiving a life threatening wound without immediate healing, using a secret technique to draw out latent energy for battle prowess, and advancing to the next realm too early.”

Me- “Ok… But you still haven’t told me the most important thing; how to gain a foundation. I don’t really need to know how to lose one yet if I don’t even have one, right.”

Dad- “Cough, cough. I was just getting to that. You accumulate a foundation through many methods. The first and most common method is to eat magical beasts that you have hunted. They will improve your flesh and blood from the inside out, and you will immediately see some results. Of course, you cannot eat the same kind of meat every time or else the effects will start to wane, but this is still the cheapest and easiest method. The second most common is to get a higher quality cultivation technique. The better the technique, the more the energy will penetrate and refine your body in a greater amount of area. Also, a good cultivation technique will more often than not be suited to a certain kind of element. Everytime you cultivate it will draw in small amounts of essence aura into your natural energy, making it easier to control through your own aura. This kind of method will also strengthen your natural energy, making an even better foundation. It will also of course, add a boosting effect to spells and martial arts that follow that element.”

I frowned slightly. He mentioned that the universal method was non-attributed. Does that mean that it won’t have any boosting effect whatsoever?

Me- “Dad, you mentioned a universal method. How much of an effect on my combat capabilities will it have for me to use a non-attributed method.”

Dad looked like he was answering a difficult question. But after a moment, he spoke carefully,

Dad- “I’ll be honest with you. It won’t affect you during the first rank of the basic realm, but it will affect your capabilities by 10% at the second rank and 30% at the third rank. This is mainly because your elemental attacks will take more time to mobilize than normal. However, your perfect foundation will increase your combat capabilities by 5% at the first rank, 10% at the second rank, and 15% at the third rank. So in total, you will be stronger than others at the first rank, same as others in the second rank, and weaker than others in the 3rd rank. However, this method will give you the highest possible chance to advance into the intermediate realm.”

Dad stared at me expectantly, but also with a trace of fear. If I chose not to learn the universal method, I would be able to keep up with the rest and become as strong as dad. However, I would also be giving up a greater chance to become infinitely stronger. But isn’t the third rank enough for me? I have no need for all that strength.

So I made the choice to not use the universal method. But just as I opened my mouth to make my refusal, I just couldn’t say no. I knew he would be incredibly disappointed in me if I chose to give up my heritage for another method. I said somewhat disappointedly,

Me- “I’ll cultivate our Universal Method…”

But when I saw the expression of joy and pride on my father’s face, I knew I had made the right choice.

Me- “How do I start?”

__________________________________________________________________

The Universe Catalog

Author’s note 2- Hey, this is part 1 for you guys today. And yes, it takes me about 5 hours to write a chapter on a very good day, and 12+ if I have a writers block. Yesterday, I wrote myself to sleep making this chapter, and wrote non-stop during my free time today. Now I’m off to read all the translated chapters I neglected, so see you guys later.