A cold feeling, as if it came from icy waters was seeping throughout Lute’s body. He was drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness; he didn’t know how much time had passed, it felt like an eternity. Sometimes an image of the Origin Soul Needle would flash through his mind. It was an image of it releasing a resplendent icy blue light, this light seemed to be the source of the icy feeling throughout his body, dragging him to consciousness each time and forcing Lute to remain in clarity.

This time of clarity would only last for brief moments at first, but as time went on, Lute retained consciousness for longer periods of time, and eventually he began to stay awake long enough to inspect the state of his body.

It was truly in shambles, he was lying in a pool of his blood, but thankfully the bleeding had stopped. Many ribs were either fractured or broken, and his left arm which released the overbearing technique from before was a mess. The muscles were torn to shreds and the wrist bones were broken, many of the fingers fractured. Aside from this, there were many sickly colored bruises and burns on his body. Were it not for his physique, he would’ve died long ago.

Even the meridians and dantian were in shambles, and on the verge of rupturing. But, all of this was slowly being healed. As long as Lute didn’t cripple his body, he could be on the verge of crippling himself and still be able to heal back to peak strength given enough time.

This was all thanks to the Primordial God, and the Origin Soul Needle. Much like when he first assimilated with the needle, Lute could guess this portion of its functions, it was an unknown function nobody knew about, at least until now. The resplendent light released was the needle actively stimulating Lute’s soul and consciousness, while it didn’t take away the pain, the icy cold feeling he had would clear his mind, and although he would sense the pain even more, Lute realized his pain threshold was increasing. He would be able to deal with pain easier, it wouldn’t nullify or lower the pain he felt, but he would be able to persevere through it. His willpower would steadily increase.

The other entity responsible for Lute surviving was the Primordial God. Even though Isla said he wasn’t the first God or one of the longest surviving gods, he was certainly on a higher plane of existence compared to most Gods, Devils or Divine Beasts when it came to physiques.

Lute felt that nobody knew the true strength of the Primordial God. Although he was powerful, perhaps he had never truly been serious in combat as there’s no way a physique like this would go unnoticed. Had Lute not cultivated the first level of what he decided to call the Primordial First Physique, he would have most certainly died. It was as Isla said, in the past, present and future there more than likely wouldn’t be a body tempering art that surpassed this one. There would certainly be some that came close to the Primordial First Physique in strength and ability, but absolutely none would surpass it.

As time passed the sense of touch gradually began to return to Lute’s body, so much so that he finally managed to sit up from his paralyzed state of lying on the ground. Such movements however were extremely painful. This caused his skin, which throughout nearly all his body was cracked and split open to seep blood from their wounds. The price of opening the first door was not light.

Finally in an upright positon, Lute struggled to slide backwards in order to lean against a tree, his body still devoid of energy and Qi, as it was all being used to heal his wounds. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he was now able to physically see his body and just how much of it was in tatters. He was also practically naked again, the fur he’d been wearing was drenched in blood to the point it was unusable.

The surroundings were silent, not a single lifeform was in this area for almost a kilometer in every direction. Sadly, Isla wouldn’t be able to do this in order to protect Lute in the near future, especially if he went to areas populated by humans. Humans always have and will use their uncanny willpower to deal with persevere through times of danger, so it was best that she remain hidden when the time came, Lute would have to rely on himself from now on to stay alive.

In such silence, the only things Lute was able to hear were his ragged and painful breathing, as well as the slight breeze and rustling of leaves. Isla remained hidden in his body, choosing to let Lute recuperate somewhat before speaking with him. As such, it was actually the perfect environment for Lute to heal and cultivate, there would be no danger or distractions.

This was the exact thought of Lute. He immediately began to cultivate in earnest, attempting to heal himself while the Origin Soul Needle was giving him clarity of mind through its icy light. He already autonomously in took Qi from the surroundings due to the Primordial First Physique, but now that he was actively trying to focus on absorbing it, the speed at which he could gather the world’s essence and purify it increased many times over.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he focused upon healing his wounds. The strands of Qi that flowed through his body felt refreshing like a cool stream of water, giving him a place of refuge for his mind to focus upon rather than the pain of his wounds. During this period of recuperation, Lute lost himself, he was devoid of any thoughts or emotions, and he truly became one with nature as he healed.

Just like that, the day passed in silence, it would take more than a few days to heal such wounds, but the world didn’t stop moving simply because Lute was holed up in the Crimson Tide Mountain Range healing and cultivating.

A few days later at the outskirts of the Crimson Tide Mountain Range, there was yet another group of cultivators, taking requests from the sects to investigate rumors, subjugate Vicious Beasts, and any other task befitting their cultivation.

If they completed enough requests in a commendable way, then they could earn merit points upon which they could spend. The method for giving merit points were under tight knit security of only the Sect Master and their closest aides in order to prevent the disciples or any Teachers from bending the rules or finding loopholes in order to obtain more points than they deserved, as points could not be stolen from a disciple who already had them and they couldn’t be counterfeited.

This was precisely the reason that this group of cultivators had arrived in the Crimson Tide Mountain Range. They all were in the Nascent Qi Realm and the strongest was at the third level, on the verge of breaking through to the fourth level. Each one of these cultivators was far more talented than Glen would ever be, they knew not to rush cultivation so their cultivation realm accurately represented their strength.

The subject of their request….Lute, when Glen had escaped with his one remaining group member, he immediately went to the requests hall, telling everything that happened. However he exaggerated the story beyond the scope of what actually happened. He spoke of how he valiantly fought a rogue cultivator in the Nascent Qi Realm and despite is heroic actions of acting as the sacrifice, the twin brothers of his group were still slaughtered as they were the weakest.

None of this actually happened, as Glen simply hid in terror after Lute swatted him away without even using Qi. Lute had accurately depicted his personality the second he met him. Glen exaggerated and lied to get a request put up that would make Nascent Qi sect members interested.

The subject of the request, a wild savage who somehow made it to the Nascent Qi Realm by themselves, he had crimson hair and piercing blue eyes, an aura so thick it smelled of blood and his body was unnaturally strong, almost comparable to a low level Vicious Beast in physical strength. He was thought to be an insane berserker that thought of nothing except killing. This was how Glen described Lute, facts mixed in with falsified information. But it had successfully enticed this group.

They were made up of Seren, Ley, and Halsten. Seren was the weakest of the group, only at the early stages of the first level Nascent Qi Realm. Although the difference between a first level and third level Nascent Qi cultivator wasn’t as large a gap as there was between a third and fourth level, jumping a small realm was still uncommon, and Seren was able to do this.

Even though she was only an first level, her strength was comparable to a second level Nascent Qi cultivator. This was not unheard of, many talents who rose to the pinnacle of the Crimson Tide Planet could jump cultivation to fight, but typically nobody fought even one small realm above them, the only people that did so were considered more than average cultivators who rose to prominence.

But being able to jump cultivation to fight wasn’t everything; there were many different ways to identify a genius. Being able to jump realms and fight was just one way, but a genius could mean strategical mastermind, a person talented in comprehending an art or technique to its limit, being able to produce well-made tonics, pills or medicines as an alchemist or even diplomacy.

There were many ways to define talent, cultivation alone wasn’t looked at. A true genius was one who was talented in multiple aspects. Lute was already talented in comprehension and his battle instincts were surprisingly decent, if he was talented in any other fields he would definitely be considered above average at the minimum.

Seren was the same, most of her talent lied in combat. Unlike most girls her age, she let her platinum silver hair flow freely and never tied it up unlike others. Her eyes were a deep sea green. She would wear a leather tunic and breeches that the male disciples wore though, she didn’t enjoy the frilly battle skirts that most of the more feminine girls wore. But hidden behind the leather was a figure above average in this world, she could be considered one of the top ten beauties in the Fallen Tide Hall.

The only problem was her personality; it was extremely stubborn and unyielding which made it hard for her to be approachable and sociable. Her icy atmosphere was something very few could easily get along with.

The only reason she was in a group at all was because of this request, due to its nature she wanted it in order to push herself to the limits of combat against what was deemed to be and insane and unpredictable cultivator. But the request that had been approved by an Elder mandated that a minimum of a group of three must go because it was in the middle of prime Vicious Beast hunting grounds.

As they camped outside the foot of the mountain range, Seren didn’t dare sleep, she would’ve taken anyone else for partners except these two, Ley and Halsten were notorious through the sect’s underground association.

As with any organization, there was corruption, which was an absolute fact. Ley, although she was short and lithe, had formidable abilities at moving around covertly and Halsten was of an extreme build with a massive two-hand broadsword around him. They were suspect of more than a few murders’ for hire in the sect, but there was no proof against them. It was even thought that they had an Elder backing any actions they took, as for who that person was; they remained in the shadows unnoticed.

Even if she was slightly dull in the senses during the day, she would rather know that she wouldn’t be backstabbed in the middle of the night by staying awake and cultivating, but not too deeply to the point she was unaware of her surroundings, these two were just that dangerous. Even more so, whenever Seren made eye contact with one of them, it felt as if they were plotting to kill her.