As promised with the Elder, I left with my father to the Martial Arts Pavilion in the morning after 2 days. I knew what will happen once we meet with the Elder. He he he… he wants to use me as a front in his sect while he runs amok in the shade of my strength. As I said, you have to learn so much in the area of politics, Respected Elder. Your plans are something like dust below the feet of the politicians I used to deal on Earth, you know.

While secretly laughing to myself after imagining the facial expressions of that Elder, we arrived at the entrance of the Pavilion. Leo is waiting as if expecting us. He led us to the same room where I met the Elder 2 days back.

After Leo departed, we entered the room to see the Elder sipping tea. He smiled on seeing me and my father.

“Come come, Lorvak. Let’s talk over the tea. This is a specialty in the capital called ‘Wild Herb Tea’. You can’t find these tea leaves anywhere but the capital, you know”, the Elder declared proudly as if it was something he made personally.

“Thank you, Master. So you are leaving today for the capital?”

“Ah, yes. The Sect called for the half-yearly meeting. All the Elders have to compulsorily attend. Otherwise they will be disowned. This time it is even more important as they are electing the Patriarch of the Sect from various Head Elders. The opposing party has gathered quite a number of followers thus time. We are not confident that someone from our faction will be elected.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that statement. I expected his situation in the Sect to be somewhat bad. But I didn’t know that he is this desperate. Suddenly I am looking forward to the point where he will test my Spirit energy levels.

“Azalon, have you been practicing diligently these past 2 days?”

“Yes Elder. I even cultivated entire night on the day we met.”

“Good good. You are intelligent and hard working. Remember that only with hardships can one advance in cultivation. If you don’t work hard, even if you have a heaven defying treasure in your hands, you will not be able to use it. Now lend me your hand. I will check the Spirit level in your body.”

I extended my hand with an innocent expression on my face. The Elder grasped my pulse and injected with his energy to search for my cultivation. That energy revolved once around my entire body before returning to the Elder’s palm. His facial expression changed from expectation to shock to bewilderment and finally to faint anger.

No matter how much I tried to maintain my facial expression, a smirk flashed on my face. Naturally the Elder didn’t miss that. He frowned and his face immediately started raging. I gave him a deep look and moved my sight to my father.

The Elder understood my intention. He couldn’t accept the fact that his plan has been see through. A not even 2 year old kid intimidated him, a Head Elder of a Sect, by using the position of his father. No matter who it is, they will instantly fly into rage.

But the Elder didn’t live for almost two centuries for nothing. He immediately calmed his emotions and his face became as calm as a lake.

“Lorvak, I am going to be blunt with you. Your son cannot comprehend the intricacies of cultivation. He couldn’t refine the Spirit energy even using the basic of the cultivation techniques available. I cannot expect him to understand the higher level cultivation techniques at his level. Perhaps after he grows up, he may once again try his luck. May be the Spirits will grant him their grace.”

My father looked crest fallen. I debated many times whether to explain everything to my parents. In my previous life, I was an orphan. I didn’t know what family feels like. But now I have a family with me who are willing to support me no matter what path I take. But I accepted that I couldn’t. It’s not that they won’t believe me. But once they start believing me, they will never look at me as their son with the same feeling as they do right now.

I will be an enigma to them. And I can’t bear the distance between us, as I tasted what having someone close to you feel like. That’s why even though my father looks depressed, I just shut my mouth and watched the drama unfold.

“But don’t worry, Lorvak. Even though Azalon can’t cultivate, he can still become a Knight. If he can become a high Realm Knight, the kingdom will grant him many favors. Even though they will not be at the level of cultivators, for a Knight they will be more than enough.”

“It is as you say, Master. I brought him to you for guidance. If you show him his path, he will walk.”

“Good. Now, Azalon, I have 2 techniques which I have brought with me. One is a Spirit energy refining technique and other is a Body refining Technique. I originally wanted to gift them to your father as a parting gift from a Master to a Disciple. But since you have asked me for guidance, I will consider you an Initiation Disciple and grant you those techniques.”

“Thank you, Head Elder.”, I reply with a deep bow.

“Now listen carefully. I will explain the techniques to you once. You can take these techniques with you and start cultivating at home. But you have to give me your word, Azalon, you will never reveal the fact that you have these techniques or the one who gave you these is me. Understand?”

I nod my head like a chicken pecking at the ground with a childish innocent expression on my face. You can almost see the blood rolling in the veins, which popped on the forehead of the Elder.

“The Spirit Refining Techniques is called ‘Soul Resonance Technique’. It is a fairy high level technique available in the capital. It is powerful but it comes with great complexity. It has been gathering dust in the capital’s Martial Arts Pavilion. It has caught my attention, but it is of no use to me right now. Maybe someday, someone from your family can use it. Here’s the technique script. You just have to inject your refined energy into it, and it will be imprinted into your memory. After you use this script, it will turn into dust and will only exist in your memory.”

He gave me a single green, almost transparent, paper looking sheet. There were letters on it, but I can’t read them as they were moving across the sheet as if they were alive.

“The Body Refining Technique is a middle ranked technique called ‘Four Chakras Body Refining Technique’. It is not that complex but it is also not powerful. You can consider this technique to be of supportive type art that cultivators use to enhance their bodies to withstand the backlash of handling excess energy absorption than they are capable of. It was in the same condition as the cultivation technique. But I think it will be useful to you. You have a unique physical condition and this technique may enhance that condition by another notch. That way you will be slightly powerful even among the same Realm Knights. As to how to study, it is the same method as the cultivation method.”

This time he gave me a brown sheet, with the same type of characters, but as tried to study it, it gave off the feeling that something is off with it. Its feel is different from the Soul Resonance Technique, which gave me a mysterious feeling as if it is holding all the answers my questions.

But this Body refining Technique felt as if it is not complete and there is something missing. With that it felt itself to be worthless and locked itself in a box. And finally he gave me a simple animal skin book, on which are written various unknown characters and their explanations.

"And finally this is something which I have written when I had some free time. This book contains the basic information on Runes and the workings of various Rune Formations. If you can completely comprehend this book, you can be called a beginner in Runes and Rune Formations. I hope you can make something out of these gifts."

“Elder, thank you for your gifts. I will definitely try to comprehend them as fast as possible to prove to you that I can answer your expectations.” I said with sincerity dripping from my voice.

His eyebrows lightly twitched, but he lightly nodded his head and turned towards my father. My father’s eyes are filled with gratitude and worship. I had to refrain myself from face palming. You block headed father…

“Alright, Lorvak. It’s almost time for my departure. If you ever come to the capital, you can come meet me in the Sect. Now I have some preparation to do. You can leave.”

My father immediately bowed deeply, and thanked him. I followed his example and bowed even deeper than my father. After that we bid our farewells with the Head Elder and Leo, and returned back to the mansion.

That evening, I was sitting on my bed and in each of hands is the cultivation and body refining techniques that the Elder has given me. I absorbed the energy from the surroundings and refined the remaining energy after the absorption in my body. But instead of transferring all of the energy to LILY, I siphoned off 2 streams of energy, and sent them along my arms to my palms.

I then inserted the energy into the cultivation technique sheet. As soon as I filled it with energy, a massive flood of information rushed into my brain, and the green sheet turned into dust and fell off from my hands.

I immediately scanned the information that appeared suddenly in my memory. As the Elder said, it is called ‘Soul Resonance Technique’. As I started reading the information, I understood the technique almost immediately. The technique is quite simple. The process is the same as the one I did with the basic level cultivation technique.

It works on the assumption that the raw energy from the surroundings contains within it all the soul signatures. But instead of searching for the same signature as your soul and rejecting all other signatures, like I did with the resonance concept of my soul, the cultivator will divide his soul into number of fragments. Each of these fragments is from the same soul but with slightly different signatures.

The more you can divide your soul, the more energy you can refine as long as the body can withstand the absorbed energy. The only drawback is the soul diffusion comes with a pain that feels more painful than death. That’s why even though the results are good enough to start a war; the process is painful to hide in a hole.

But the more I thought about it, the more it felt that this technique is tailor made for me. I have a body that can withstand almost 4 times the energy than a normal human. And if I can divide my soul, then the frequency resonance will increase and I can utilize more of the bandwidth. As for the pain, I have already experienced it once and that too for a long time. If I can become strong, I will bear it. I think that even though the pain will be great, it will only last for a short while. And if I can refine more of the energy, LILY will recharge faster. By my estimation, the time will almost reduce by 2/3rd of the estimated time.