The Secret Art the Soul Fragment had given him was called [Nirvanic Rebirth]. This Secret Art could be literally called Heaven Defying. Even that could be called an understatement. This Art could only be used by people that have not started to cultivate yet and the whole point of the Art was to allow the body to go through a thorough rebirth and upgrade the body even more.

The Soul would also go through a rebirth and the person perception and latent affinity towards the Fire element would raise by several levels. When Nalser thought about it, he couldn’t help but think about what would happen if he tempered his body to the limit with the [Phantom Song Sutra] and then underwent the [Nirvanic Rebirth] and then tempered his body all over again. This thought both excited him and also made his scalp numb. That type of a thorough body foundation was most likely unheard of.

Nalser could be considered to be more knowledgable than anyone else in this Realm about what exists outside this place. There are Family Clans that have special Bodily Constitution unique to their own Bloodline, the people that were considered geniuses here were none more than mediocre disciples in other Realms.

Nalser never entertained the thought of being a Heaven Defying Genius or some one special. In his mind, all you achievement were the direct reflection of your hard work. All external help could only amount to that much.

Yes, there were pills that could help temper the body or strengthen the Soul but Nalser found relying on external sources like that to be burying their own talent. All Pills left behind residue toxins that would slowly accumulate over time. Even if a person expunged all the toxins he or she could find in her body, some residue will still stay.

Over time, the more pills are taken, the more toxins build up, slowly and surely blocking the future path of the person. It was also the reason that all the Geniuses that were born with a golden spoon in their mouth would fall short of reaching the apex of cultivation.

This World was the best place for Nalser at the moment, there were next to nothing that could threaten his life in this place. To slowly train here would be the best option for him at the moment. As Nalser sat in the corner completely absorbed in his own little world, a pair of eyes looked at him from the shadows with a tender look.

These eyes belonged to the middle aged man that was Nalser’s father. As he looked at Nalser, he thought to himself, “No matter what I do, I will never be able to make up for abandoning him.” A hint of sadness flashed in his eyes but afterwards it was overtaken by a look of determination.

He turned around and as he gave Nalser one last look, he murmured, “100 Paragons, 50 Origin’s, 10 Earth Sages…. No matter if even the Heavens themselves wanted Nalser dead, they would be unable to do so.” A hint of a crazed smile flashed on his face as his eyes turned cold and he slowly walked away thinking, “Time for sleeping and conserving our strength is over. It is time to show the entire Realm that the Nura Clan is never to be provoked.”

After thinking that, he disappeared into thin air. The next several days passed in silence and calm. Nalser focused on his own body tempering while Mei prepared Lauren for the upcoming awakening.

Soon another week flashed by and Nalser was awoken from his training by a sudden throb of the Yang Flame. His eyes snapped open as he stood up murmuring, “Seems like it has started.” After saying that, he disappeared from the spot and when he reappeared he was in front of the little cottage. In front of him, was Lauren inside a white cocoon.

The awakening of the Yin Flame was completely different from the Yang Flame. The Yang Flame was tyrannical and it burned away the impurities of the body while slowly forcing itself into the very cells of the body. The Ying Flame however was gentle and slowly fused into the body. The process of Yin Flames awakening would take several months to several years.

The process was painless but it took an extremely long period of time to complete and during that time, the person could not be disturbed under any circumstances. Lauren was currently in an extremely defenceless state as she was in an extremely deep sleeping state. Her only line of defence was the paper thin cocoon surrounding her.

As Nalser looked at the cocoon with a serious gaze, Xi suddenly appeared next to him and said in a serious voice, “After a Yang Flame Holder awakens, the awakening of the Yin Flame is guaranteed.” He took a deep breath and then added, “However, she is currently completely defenceless, so it is up to us all to protect her during this time.”

Nalser nodded and took up the position according to a formation Xi had taught him before. It was a triangular formation which needed three people to form a three sided pyramid. As Nalser, Xi and Mei sat down in their respective positions, they synchronised their Mana and Qi to form a black three sided pyramid with the cocoon right in the centre of it. The barrier formed looked like a fragile sheet of glass but in reality, it was extremely strong.

The three of them then closed their eyes and kept up the barrier as they returned to what they were doing before. Nalser continued tempering his body and had already completed 56 Cycles.

Only 43 Cycles were left until he has completed the Elementary form of the [Phantom Song Sutra], Nalser was very eager to know what would happen after that. As the three of them kept silently cultivating and tempering, time slowly trickled by and soon one month passed then another, and then another.

In total three months had passed already but the cocoon had shown no signs of breaking. If one looked closer, it seemed even brighter than before as Lauren was being baptized by the Yin Flame. In a sense, the longer the Baptism took, the deeper the fusion between Lauren and the Yin Flame would be.

None of the three were in a rush to anywhere, so they silently cultivated, keeping their guard up. In these three months, Nalser had made significant progress in tempering his body with the [Phantom Song Sutra] and had already reached an astonishing 98 completed Cycles of Refining. In truth, he had reached this accomplishment two weeks ago but no matter what he did, he couldn’t progress in it any further. So he decided to let it be for the moment and didn’t actively cultivate in the [Phantom Song Sutra] but rather focused his attention more on the other Secret Arts and Techniques.

One Art that piqued his interest among the patch was [Phantom Mark]. This Secret Art had no offensive or defensive power but rather the whole point of this Art was to store Qi. The Phantom Mark acted as a Second Dantian with virtually no limit to how much Qi it could store. It was made for extended battles of attrition or outlasting your pursuers.

During a fight, you could also tap into the Qi in the Mark to unleash attacks several times stronger by infusing more Qi into it. Although the Art was extremely enticing to train in, it had a few flaws. The Art manual was incomplete, so Nalser could only train in the first few levels of the art. As for the later levels, he would have to develop them on his own.

But in Nalser’s mind, that wasn’t the biggest flaw it had but rather, the biggest flaw was that only one type of Qi could be stored in the Mark. For example, if he stored Fire Attributed Qi in it, he could never store any other type of Qi in it. If in the future he changed his cultivation Art, he would have to destroy the Mark and start all over again.

This Art had a lot of merits but the one and only condition to it being a good trump card was that he invested the time to condense the Mark and continuously tried to improve it to suit himself more. As he looked over the Art, by intuition, he could find several spots, he could adjust to suit himself more. As of now, he wasn’t planning on training in the Art itself but would first see what would come after he completed the 99 Cycles of [Phantom Song Sutra].

For some reason, Nalser felt that the Art itself was somehow connected to the Yang Flame itself. Always, when he trained in it, he felt a sense of familiarity with it as if he had been through this entire process already. Although he didn’t dare to be certain, he had one possible explanation for it… It was that the Art itself didn’t originate from this Realm but rather from The Original Yang Flame Holder.

However, if it did, Nalser had no explanation on how it ended up here. So, for now, he decided not to mull on it and decided that when he gets stronger, he will try to find out but currently, he had way too many things to do. He didn’t have the time to spare to mull over things that he had no way of confirming.

And just like that, another six months went by in a flash. During that half a year, Nalser had looked over all the Jade slips on the Arts he had gotten and all the Arts he had gotten from the Soul Fragment. He had sorted out all the techniques and Art he could use and those that were useless for him. Over the dozens of Arts, he could use only 3 Arts: [Nirvanic Rebirth], [Phantom Blade Arts], [Phantom Mark].

The rest were either incompatible with him or inferior to the Arts he already had. It also wasn’t a good thing to bite off more than he could chew by training in a lot of Arts at the same time. A jack of all trades was inferior to a Master of one and Nalser had no interest in becoming a Jack of All trades.

The reason he decided to study the [Phantom Blade Arts] was because it was similar to his own Blade Art he had developed from [Phantom Song Sutra]. However, the [Phantom Blade Arts] was far more intricate so it would serve as a good guide post as he kept developing his own Blade Art. There was also a movement Art called the [Seven Mirage Steps] but it was very vastly different from the one he currently used, so he could not gain any insights from it even if he mastered it.

Just like that, time slowly trickled by…. Soon another six months had gone by and all three of them were woken from their cultivation by a sudden cracking sound.

As they looked towards the sound, they saw a giant crack on the cocoon. Seeing that, Xi smiled as he said, “Seems like it will be over in another 3 months.” Mei also nodded her head and Nalser just looked at the crack with a thoughtful expression. From what Xi said, it would seem like it would in total take a year and a half. To the two of them, it may only be a blink of an eye but for Nalser this year and a half was an extremely long period of time.

He has gained a lot of new insights and his combat strength has grown a lot as well. However, for the past year, he has had no chance of testing out a lot of new ideas in actual combat, so he was itching for it to be over already.

It wasn’t wrong to say that actual combat was the best teacher one could have. Unless one suffers from his mistake, he wont remember it, no matter how many times others point it out.