Chapter 10

In a dimly lit room, a white blanket rose up and down in a rhythmic beat. A pretty and charming woman head could be seen, poking out from the blanket. Her rosy cheeks and the tranquillity of her face showed she hasn’t suffered any sort of life threatening injuries.

Suddenly her eyes opened, to reveal the intoxicating natural green eyes that would have looked to have been born from nature itself. It was as calm and serene as the all-embracing Mother Nature.

At that moment, she abruptly leaned up and searched around the dim room while patting the bed. Her hair was in disarray, but this didn’t affect her natural beauty while she displayed a panicked expression. This is Serenity

Her panicked state quickly turned into a face almost on the verge of tears as she fiercely patted down the bed, seemingly trying to find something on the bed. With her actions, the originally tranquil and smooth bed turned into shambles, with crinkles and the blanket also on the ground after she threw it off and felt the sheets.

A mature lady was seated next to the bed; she saw Serenity’s weird action on the bed and sighed. This lady was her mother, Mika.

“He’s gone honey”

The dishevelled state Serenity on the bed stared at her mother and couldn’t help but raise her lips as tears instantly formed and ran down her cheeks. It took Serenity just a moment to turn from panicking to tears as she dived into her mother’s embrace.

“NOOOO”

An ear piercing yet choked sobbing resonated within the hospital room. The desolate cry carried boundless sorrow and regrets, a cry that would have made people not help but want to cry along with this young yet fragile lady.

Mika was shocked at her daughter’s unexpected action and instantly fell into confusion.

‘Why is she crying for? It’s not as if he is…….oh’

The mother realised her mistake, she knew her daughter deeply loved him, but she forgot the state of her daughter. She originally thought her daughter just wanted to cuddle Kusan and not be in a state of actual panic that was leaned more towards thinking he was dead.

So with her giving a reply of ‘He’s gone’ was a hammer that smashed the last nail down on the last and fragile defences her daughter was frantically holding onto. With that in mind, she saw that her daughter misunderstood the actual meaning behind her words when she said that.

She lovingly caressed her daughter as she hushed to her, trying to get to her through Serenity’s heart-wrenching cry.

“Darling….calm down….he isn’t dead yet”

She continued to repeat her sentences until she heard her.

As time passed, the sound of her cries finally came to a rest. Serenity slowly separated herself from Mika. Serenity calmed down enough when during her cries, she heard her mother’s word of ‘he isn’t dead yet’ and slowly calmed down, albeit struggled.

Serenity looked up at her mother’s eyes with a puppy expression with slightly red eyes. Her expression is so lovingly and sad that it would make a puppy look like an amateur.

“He’s not?”

Mika smiled a motherly smile, despite her chest being soaked wet, owing to Serenity’s incessant sobbing didn’t mind it one bit. After all, her daughter is the world of her.

“No,, I was talking about him having already left the hospital.

When he woke up, you went to sleep just a minute later after you entered his embrace and so he didn’t want to disturb your sleep so he laid you down on the bed and left.”

Suddenly Serenity giggled and covered her face behind her hands. Her ears turned red as she mumbled words that not even her mother, even with her powers couldn’t discern what she was saying except for some words.

“I………went and did………I’m so embarrassed……..he did…….”

Serenity went into her own world. Mika meanwhile looked sadly at her daughter as she thought about the past.

‘If only it wasn’t Kusan who saved her but someone else then she wouldn’t have to experience such pain in the future.’

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Elsewhere

‘So the Judges haven’t determined who the culprit is’

Kusan agilely flew through the air like a bird as he was contemplating the possibility that the Judges could determine the real culprits behind the destruction of the land. Since the destruction of the property of the Dojo is also considered a crime, with the only exception being the training ground where they are free to destroy the grounds.

That is the reason for the existence of the training ground, even the ‘Death Match’ must be done there or else if anyone is found dead, then the killer/s would be dealt the death sentence. Hence, very few people would actually do such a thing, with only the fresh disciples being the only ones who would be ignorant of such a law.

Although there are smart nobles who can find loopholes through such a law, but only a handful of them exists as they are not only strong but smart enough to turn such a situation around. However, the downside would be the hidden hatred against the nobles themselves.

Kusan knew the code-words the Judges uses to converse, coupled with heightening his hearing, he knew only the surface of what the Judges said and not their actual thoughts.

It was still enough for Kusan to know that they weren’t able to discern the real culprit as they indirectly spoke that they will focus on the earth mage. Thus, it gave him a good peace of mind while he can still be a part of the Dojo before his strength is sufficient for the world.

‘Time for inspection on this grimoire when I get back’

And so Kusan disappeared into the night.

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In a pristine white space, a thin book hovered in mid-air. Seated in front of the hovering book in a lotus position, is Kusan.

He watched everything that the book did, under his control. Whether it from the time it hovered up under his control but he stopped watching everything and focused on a new phenomenon from the book.

Black faint smokes suddenly appeared from the book. It wrapped itself in a dense fog that quickly materialised into a water form. The watery form shuddered under Kusan’s light breathing as if he was intentionally puffing out a massive amount of air at it like a dragon powerful exhaling.

Kusan didn’t react but continued to see what happened, despite the unexpectedness of the black water that appeared. There was nothing of any kind of threat emanating from the watery form but a familiar feeling. A feeling akin to something of being of the same kind as his fire and water magic source but acts differently to them.

Fire, to Kusan, acts as a warm energy. It is like something that soothes him in the cold as if though the cold never existed. It burns fiercely within his channels but to him, it’s a source power that is his greatest friend. Having been through with him from as far as he could remember, to the time when he was almost dead fighting against the 6th ranked ‘Blizzard Fish’ to helping him provide much needed energy after the transformation of magic to energy.

The same applied to his water magic. It makes him feel as if though he was one with the fish, swimming, gliding and breathing underwater.

No matter what, both his elemental magic, to him was as if though they were part of him. Part of his life and consciousness.

And now, the same feeling was also being applied to him from the black source that he discovered emanating from the book.

Suddenly orb shot out multiple strands of black magic and in the blink of an eye, entered between Kusan’s two eyes and merged into his body.

Noticing this change, he couldn’t help but grow cautious and try to fight it. However, for some reason he couldn’t help but not shoot the black thing with hostility and his body weren’t doing anything to the invisible strand of magic as his physical attacks passed through it as if though it wasn’t a real attack.

Unbeknownst to him, if the black thing saw what kind of gaze it was giving it. It would seem from its point of view, a feeling of a parent having caught their child red handed doing something bad.

He stopped when the experience of the black magic intensified to a new limit.

‘Black? And it gives off the same feeling as my two elemental magic.

The only thing that could be naturally black would be darkness magic but that isn’t right. I know what darkness magic feels like but this shouldn’t be possible..’

Kusan at first thought it was darkness magic as during one of his time in the forest, a 4th ranked beast known as the ‘Black eyed Monkey’. A monkey with the ability to use darkness magic to somehow invade their enemy’s body and thereby, forcing the enemy to be fully under their control.

One time he encountered such a formidable beast since he was only at the 3rd ranked warrior at the time. At first, the battle was leaning towards Kusan’s victory as the monkey’s agility proved very difficult for him to deal with but nonetheless, he persevered and almost won.

But suddenly the beast used its special power and before Kusan knew it, he was enveloped inside a dense black fog that made him almost blind, since he couldn’t see more than twenty centimetres in front of him.

It was the first time he fought this type of beast, so it was natural that he didn’t know such ones even after he studied what type of beasts and monsters reside in the forest.

The next moment, he felt a foreign magic pour within himself and discovered to his shock, that darkness magic was invading his body. He wasn’t as cautious as he is now than back then, considering that fighting that monkey was the first time he experienced actual life and death battle.

He didn’t know what it was, but he adapted fast and attempted to control the new magic while he stood guard in the fog, against the agile monkey. However, instead of the monkey taking action despite Kusan being handicapped in battle due to low visibility, the monkey just stood from afar as it gave an eerie smile as it watched Kusan, like a Grim Reaper watching its prey before it comes to claim its life.

After experiencing that excruciating pain where Kusan felt his innards suddenly convulse while under the control of the darkness magic. He also wasn’t guarded against the darkness magic since his sensitivity with his own magic wasn’t at the level he is now where he can sense them as if though they were a part of his soul.

When he thought back, he was extremely lucky due to the fact that during his painful torture and coupled with how unguarded the monkey was, he managed to kill the monkey when it decided to walk up to him and laugh at his face as it was about to bring its two fists down upon his head. This is the moment where he surprised attack the monkey by piercing the monkey’s head, before it could register what happened, its head was already flying through the air after Kusan continued his attack and sliced it off.

When he remembered such an experience, Kusan couldn’t help but wake up from his current vulnerable state and started to try to expel the darkness yet not a darkness magic. He wasn’t sure since the feeling was somehow, to him, more pure and deadly than the monkey’s darkness magic.

He discovered that he could control the darkness magic and poured it outside of himself. However, he didn’t see the normal scene of when he tried to expel magic out, magic pouring out from all his pores as it snaked through the air. Nothing was coming out from his pores or even his pores rising up to show that they are about to expel something from within his body.

The pores on his body were dormant and this puzzled Kusan since he could tell that by going through the motion of expelling the dark magic, his reservoir for it was actually being depleted. But, where are they being depleted, he didn’t know and that is what is scares him.

What was currently happening to the ‘dark’ magic that Kusan was expelling yet not knowing where they were disappearing off to, were being unintentionally poured into his soul. How it came to be poured into his soul, it was because the way it circulated through his channels as every element follows a specific path unless they use a more powerful cultivation to change the path to make them grow in a different way.

A cultivation technique is the same as how a tree is nurtured and the level of rank. If raised poorly, it’ll turn into a crooked and fragile tree, making it unable to advance any further than it currently is at. If raised excellently, it would turn into a powerful and mighty thick tree that would take a woodcutter twenty days to cut it down and overshadow the crooked tree as if though it was nothing. Such is the differences between a normal person who trains without cultivation compared to those who do. That is if the technique is a good one instead of a poor technique.

What he also didn’t know was that the pitch black magic wasn’t exactly darkness magic but instead ‘necromantic’ magic. The abilities that this necromancy could extend to be limitless, it could even improve the level of the soul of Kusan.

This is the difference between the common magic and the rare magic, unlike the rare magic’s ability to help the soul. Common magic cannot do such a thing as the only benefit it gives is its vast usage in offensive, defensive and passive. Not having the ability to strengthen the soul is linked to how strong the mental fortitude and that is something that every magician wants, a stronger mind.

The strength of the soul was not only beneficial for magician, it could also improve the concentration that warriors all need, for a life and death battle, the first to falter in concentration is the dead one.

The necromantic magic poured through his veins, just like mountain water being guided with the river acting as the pathway until it reaches the sea as if though it wanted to go home but instead of going to the mountain, it was going in the opposite direction, the mountain.

Once the magic touched the entrance of the pores, it suddenly dispersed into the body like the water turning from a liquid form into a fog. The fog didn’t build up despite large amounts of magic being dispersed as Kusan’s soul was sucking in the magic fog like a vortex.

Every single soul has the ability to devour magic to strengthen itself, how? When someone uses magic, a very miniscule amount of magic gets dispersed when it touches the entrance of the pores while the majority flies out to do the bidding of the magician. Although small in amounts, it still slowly strengthens the power of the soul. The higher the magic output, the higher the amount of magic the soul absorbs. It also works the same for energy.

Some people have wondered why weak people have weak souls while the powerful ones had a strong soul. It wasn’t because their strength was strong that they had a strong soul as many thought it was normal but it was because of how much they expended and their soul intake. By comparison a 9th ranked magician miniscule amount being absorbed by the soul is equivalent to a 4th ranked directly pouring all their magic into the soul to be able to match up to a 9th ranked absorption rate.

So for Kusan, whose soul is being augmented by all of the necromantic magic, although he wouldn’t notice it now since he was busily concentrating on where the magic was going but his sensitivity to magic was not high enough for him to see that they dispersed upon impacting his skin.

The only way Kusan can actually expel the necromantic magic is if he followed the correct method to do so. Since rare magic does not follow the same way common magic does. Whether by blind luck or not, Kusan is actually improving himself due to his cautious nature.

After counting to two hours, his necromantic magic reservoir was finally depleted. Strangely enough, he felt more refreshed and energised than usual.

He dismissed the feeling as something normal, because every time he stays inside the meditative state, he would be refreshed.

Having found that it was empty and that nothing has happened to him, he still couldn’t help but had a nagging feeling at the back of his head saying that it did do something.

He meticulously scanned his entire body but no matter how hard he searched or how long, he couldn’t find it. After three hours of searching, he gave up and decided to focus on the book, thinking that the one and only time the brain proved him wrong.

Now that the mysterious black strand was empty and according to Dray’s explanation, there should be no possibility of traps being present since once blood bounded to someone. Nothing can be done since it becomes a part of the master.

With that in mind, he slowly extended his right hand towards the hovering book, cautiously eyeing the book and should it make any sudden movement. Kusan would immediately retract his hands and prepare for another mysterious attack.

When he finally laid his hand upon the cover of the book, nothing happened. He then flipped the book and the moment he did, the book dropped down onto the ground as if though its previous state of hovering never happened.

Kusan picked up the book, he wasn’t as cautious as before because the moment he touched it, he felt nothing other than the mysterious material the book is made off.

He started to read the book; his guard wasn’t still down against the book despite the warning that there would be no traps from blood items from Dray.

Before Kusan knew it, two days has passed in the real time and he finally stopped reading the book. He wore a malicious smile, seemingly satisfied with the contents of the book.

“Hahahaha”

The source of Kusan’s happiness despite having never been genuinely happy is due to four reasons.

Firstly, it was because he can create undead warriors. This would greatly benefit him, not only in terms of power but in satisfaction. If he could kill his enemies and reanimate them into his own underlings, he can have all the time he wants to brutally slaughter them again and again until his hatred has finally dissipated, which is most unlikely considering just how far reaching his vengeance is.

Second is that he can control an army of magical beasts and monsters now that is something that is worth looking forward to. With them under his control, he could stealthily kill his enemies and no one would be none the wiser. Another use is to use them to hunt for his family and those mysterious robed figures that killed my mother. Especially that lady he saw when the hood wavered just for a moment in his memory, but that was enough for him to see what she looked like.

Thirdly, soul separation spells. Should he ever fail to kill those Saints and possibly die as a result. He can always use his other souls to use the newfound information on how they attack and all to adapt himself to it.

Fourthly, are soul attack spells. At first, Kusan was sceptical about this but when he read further into it, he found to his surprise to be an omnipotent attack. According to the book, every single rank signifies very certain soul strength with only the Saints having varying degrees of soul strengths because of how different they are compared to others.

One must know that to use soul attacks, which is considered extremely rare with only a very select few rare magicians can use soul attacks, is to bypass all energy and magical defences as if though they were nothing before it. Even a physically powerful defensive person is nothing but fodder before the soul attack like butter before a knife. In addition, many have never trained their soul defences to be of comparable level as their strongest defence.

So it isn’t strange for Kusan to think that the soul targeting spells are omnipotent, with only his fellow necromancers, prophets and chaotics being the only real threat to him.

The necromancer refers to the Necromantic magic. While the prophet represents the Holy magic. And lastly, the chaotic is the embodiment of Chaos magic.

‘However, there is something wrong with the book.’

Kusan discovered that the book was similar to one aspect with interspatial rings. The book had an extremely large amount of pages despite the book being thinner than ten centimetres. He suspected that this book also had a space ability to be able to have more than three hundred pages and still hasn’t reached the end. After reading the description of some of the spells and that there were many pages, decided to skip right to the end to see how many pages the book contained. He finally reached what appeared to be the end but when he read the words on it, he couldn’t help but think it was a joke.

Emblazed on the last page were two deathly wrapped words on it.

‘Saint Spells’

No matter what, he couldn’t help but be inwardly scared of the powerfully black words. It was as if though the words were written by the Grim Reaper himself who infused the words with his deathly powers.

“So every spell I have read is only up to the ninth rank and that isn’t even the end of this book.

But how exactly does the book know if the person, who possesses this, be able to determine whether the person is of Saint Level or not, maybe quantity? No, I have heard that upon reaching the Saint level, their energy and magical powers undergo a change.”

Before he could think further, he was abruptly interrupted by his internal clock. He has the ability to roughly determine time that has happened in real life and to his meditative state.

Inside the meditative state, for every hour inside is equal to fifty minutes in the real world.

There is ability besides rejuvenating oneself through meditation and that is slow down time effect. It has the effect to allow one to quickly recover mental or physical fatigue, train faster or to use it as a study place. Despite the benefit, it has a price; it all depends on one person’s cultivation level and their level of meditation. The higher the cultivation, the greater the time gap between the meditative world and the real world.

It may not seem like much to most people but every minute in training is one minute closer to their goal.

It is said if one reached the Saint rank, they would have ten minutes more time in the meditative world than a ninth ranked person.

So if exactly forty eight hours passed in the real world, then Kusan has been in the meditative state for an extra eight hours in the meditative state.

Eight hours may not seem much but in long terms, it is definitely a lot of time that it could contribute to one’s cultivation.

Kusan had no choice but to open his eyes as now that it was only a few hours before the third day comes, which is the day all final seven disciples convene for the trip to the city to participate in the ‘City Selection’.