"Alright buddy I'm awake." Lin protected his face from Sun's barbed tongue and grumbled weakly as he opened his eyes, first light wasn't that far away from breaking the thick curtains of last night's deepest darkness. "I'm so hungry I can eat a horse, you too huh, Ill be needing your help buddy I'm not feeling well right now." Leaning on his friend, Lin got up on shaky feet and massaged his empty stomach.

Taking out a few dozen large slapes of precooked meat from his space ring almost exhausted Lin to unconsciousness again, squatting down to the ground, Lin waited a whole minute for the hammers of pain hitting his brain like an anvil to fade away slightly before he brought out the rest of their meal.

For the first time in a long time, Lin wasn't spreading his soul sense, to be exact, he couldn't.

His soul never felt weaker and spent like it was at that moment, to his dismay, Lin found his spirit wings unresponsive as well and he couldn't activate them no matter how many times he tried.

"Whine...." Sun didn't touch the food Lin took out from his space ring, he cradled his best friend and kept snuggling with him, in a pure natural animalistic way unbefitting his scary outlook, the tiger did his best to uplift his best friend's down-casted state and cheer him up.

"We need to eat, we need to get stronger Sun, so strong to protect ourselves in any circumstances." Lin stretched his hand to tear a piece of meat from the nearby plate, taking a bite he told Sun while chewing his food, then forced the rest of the meat in his hand into Sun's mouth. "That's right, Mia wronged us, but we can't be passive anymore." Lin spoke as he ate and Sun snared slightly at the mention of the name.

"Howl..." Snorting, Sun gave Lin a blaming side-glance that said : "You brought us this trouble buddy, she bit the hand that helped her like the bitch she is, next time I see her Ill brutally crunch her bones in the most savage way possible." Lin didn't defend Mia but his eyes got flooded with waves of sadness.

Looking down at his trousers with a missing piece at the groin, Lin wished that whatever transpired yesterday was nothing but a bad dream, however, it was true and the facts couldn't be denied.

Mia castrated him!

The events were, sudden, confusing, and unexpected.

Mia was categorized by Lin as an airhead before, but she wasn't vengeful, malicious, or wicked.

She was playful, childish, and caring.

Lin's only consolation was the functionality of his penis after getting severed, that means that her action wasn't intending to harm Lin, she could take both his and Sun's lives if she wanted.

The explanation Lin could interpret from the situation was that Mia suffered from some kind of emotional blackout, her eyes were full of loss and confusion once Lin saw them, the guilt and grief inside her gaze were hurting his eyes as he looked at them.

Lin's heart was tearing apart once he looked back at Mia, not because of what she did, but because he felt her pain and emotional suffering.

After all reattaching a leg or an arm wasn't that hard at all for someone like Lin, Mia left burdened with guilt and right now god knows what kind of state she's in.

"Sigh...." Lin sighed and ate to chase away his negative emotions, unaware of his current intake of food the great sage was watched by Sun, the tiger was extremely shocked by his best friend's gluttonous behavior.

Sun only got to eat three chunks of meat before Lin wiped the plates clean, not to mention the bowls of thick porridge, soup, and the various vegetables, fruits, and side-dishes.

"Eh!...." Lin looked at the clean plates then up at Sun once he woke up from his daydreams, then felt his stomach which demanded more still, "I ate that much and my hunger wasn't sated yet!," Lin scratched his head apologetically and resisted the next wave of headache to take out all the food in his space ring, then he and Sun wolfed them all.

"Aaah, that was good. I'm stuffed to the bursting point, look buddy my tummy is rounded like a rubber ball, hehe you too huh. Yours has fur mine is smooth, yup, yours is very comfortable. Let me rest for a while to digest all that food, just how could I eat that much exactly...." Burping loudly, Lin crawled back then sprayed his body on Sun's belly, it took seconds for Lin to drown in sleep.

In his dream, Lin was floating and everywhere around him was white, yellow, gold and dark-gold dots of light orbiting his body.

Sun crouching below him, sleeping with his head rested on his front paws, red dots were racing towards his brain, once they entered his head they'll get sucked into his beast core.

Once Lin willed it, the white and yellow dots of light stuck to his body like metal to magnet, the gold dots seemed to be curiously watching him after stopping one meter away from his body, the dark-gold dots were the only ones to stay on their previous orbit and remain unaffected by Lin's calling.

Lin's wings were activated when he tried calling these dots closer, and he noticed the difference in his wings of light at once, on the right wing there was a feather at the far end, the feather was unlike the rest of the yellow feathers on the right wing, most of them were completely yellow or lined with a golden color at their end, that one was completely gold with a dark-gold symbol of opened wings.

The left wing had a similar golden feather, but the symbol was silver instead of dark-gold, it was the infinity symbol on the left wing and the symbol of spread wings on the right!.

The glowing dots of white and yellow didn't waste another second on sticking to Lin's body once the wings appeared, racing against each other they perched on Lin's wing feathers like birds to a tree.

Even the gold dots, who previously remained one meter away, didn't hesitate to do the same!.

Even the dark-gold dots shrunk the distance to one meter and with Lin as their center they peacefully circled him.

The symbol of the wings was flickering weakly at the beginning then gradually it's glow strengthened, it seemed to be consuming these white and yellow dots of light ravenously just like Lin ate his previous meal.

Once it saturated with it's consumption, the dark-gold symbol of the wings buzzed once and the dark-gold dots seemed to answer the call by pushing away the white and yellow dots covering the golden feather to occupy their place, the gold dots hurried to occupy the remaining spots which the dark-gold dots left.

Now the remaining gold, yellow, and white dots had no choice left but to perch on the yellow feathers instead of the golden one.

The golden feather with the infinity symbol was a lot more peaceful on the left wing, no yellow, golden, or dark-gold dots covered it whatsoever, only white dots choose it as their resting place.

Watching the strange game of the different glowing dots, Lin had nothing to do with this strange dream, he was actually thinking about old Jin Bao and the last words he heard while inside the strange world of light.

'Old Jin was trapped inside the ring, he couldn't get out and even if he could the man wouldn't try it ever, the ring helped in keeping him alive after all, but how could he help me in that state?, It must be through the ring if he wanted to give aid to me. Then I have to look inside for myself, when I tried to send my soul energy inside he warned me against it out of fear of me suffering the same fate, then I need to reach the next step of my soul cultivation before I go check on him.' Lin thought about the worrying matter of Jin Bao's disappearance, then made up his mind to push harder than before for his next breakthrough in soul cultivation, his priority is to reach the soul clone realm to confirm whether old Jin Bao is gone for good or not, even if it meant to be trapped inside that mysterious ring like old Jin in return.

That was the least he could do to honor the person who introduced him to cultivation, if old Jin Bao was gone forever, Lin was prepared to find the person called Yi Shirong and deliver him the justice Jin Bao wished to befall him.

As for Mia, Lin didn't want to dwell on it for now, her time will come and she too needs to be taught a lesson for what she did.

After all getting blinded by whatever emotion doesn't wipe away the committed sin, it is the fault of whomever got blinded in the first place for being weak to the degree of being driven by his emotions, everytime, with no exceptions.

As he drifted away with his thoughts from the action of the glowing dots, Lin started to zoom out from this strange dream and opened his eyes to find the glaring sun of noon scalding his skin.

"It's noon already, Sun, wake-up lazy bum. Take me down to the shore buddy, it's about time I get my first soak in salty waters. By the way you never ate a fish before right!," Lin got up groggily and pulled Sun by the ear to wake up, straddling his neck, Lin pointed down at the island shore and encouraged the drowsy tiger with a new cuisine which he never tasted.

Lin's soul sense still couldn't be spread further than his skin, and his spirit wings adamantly refused to activate, add to that his current feeling of hunger despite eating an exaggerated meal a few hours ago!.

His food supply ran out after the last meal anyway and their eyes has to point towards the ocean for a new food source otherwise he and Sun will starve in the future, unless Lin assimilated his spirit, the advanced space talisman is just a useless piece of rolled leather inside his space ring, however, Lin wasn't overly concerned with the absence of his soul and spirit energy just yet.

His space ring is still accessable, and that is powered by spirit energy somehow, his spirit wings shying away didn't mean they're gone.

Or that's how Lin comforted himself, something must've gone wrong when Mia made him lapse into unconsciousness with her fused Spirit-Sword intent energy.

Unbeknownst to Lin, the residual time energy from Mia's martial-spirit currently stuck to where his penis once was, caused some interference to the flow of his spirit energy.

The space ring was bound to Lin's primordial spirit source during the suppression of the chaos energy, that's why he could use his space ring albeit hardly, his spirit wings on the other hand was separated from his control by the higher element of time.

Descending to the rocky cliff Lin and Sun soaked in the waters until dusk, Lin made a few makeshift-primitive fish traps after Sun failed to catch these slippery bastards.

The big tiger made a few cannonball dives after climbing a few dozen feet on the rocky cliff, only to end up with empty claws, trying to outsmart these fishes, Sun shrunk into a kitty and tried to surprise the fishes by enlarging suddenly, only to find them scurrying away faster than he expected.

The tiger ended up burning more energy in the attempts, his shape-shifting ability had it's toll on his energy-tank after all, every change required Sun to resupply his body with nutritions, or his hunger bangs wouldn't stop but increase instead.

Still, he was having fun and Lin let him do whatever he wanted.

Before dusk Lin got out of the waters and climbed to a protruding rock from the cliff above the level of crashing waves, he sat there looking at the burning horizon as it faded gradually into darkness.

Resting his back on the hard rocks, Lin aimed to communicate with the surrounding spirit energy, this time Lin had no soul sense to supplement his attempt like yesterday when Mia had her breakthrough.

"The basic spirit gathering formation!," Lin suddenly got up and muttered faintly, "Sun, take me back up, it is time I give that formation a try." Calling for Sun to stop playing in the water, he latched on as the tiger jumped left and right in his ascent.

"Guard me buddy, you can go and keep playing later, en, good boy." Lin got down and walked into the formation Mia drew on the rocky ground, after checking the five spirit cryastals in each node, he sat in the center cross-legged and told Sun to take the watch until his trial is over with.

In this moon-full night the other source of light beside the moon and stars was the five spirit cryastals, each crystal was of the color of one of the five basic elements, red, yellow, green, blue and brown.

Fire, gold (metal), wood, water and earth.

Once Lin closed his eyes and calmed his breathing, he was enveloped in a strange feeling of being pressed down by heavy, squishy, warmth.

His soul sense imprisoned beneath his skin, his third eye (soul eye) closed shut, his body demanding nutrition urgently.

Still, the pressure he felt after entering the spirit gathering formation accumulated gradually, his skeleton groaned when Lin spent a minute within.

'assimilating my martial-spirit into the dantian, according to what I knew from the soul strengthening technique, old Jin and Mia, I need to direct my spirit wings towards the area below the stomach, from there I need to coat my spirit with compatible spirit energy then pierce inwards to open the dantian. The better the quality of the spirit energy coating my martial-spirit, the firmer the foundation Ill have in the spirit apprentice realm, which in turn means easier transition to the next realm when I reach the peak of the previous. This analogy is constant in each realm.' Lin thought as he tried to imagine covering his wings with white, yellow, gold, and even dark-gold strands of energy, the image he conjured in his head was exactly the same as the one he witnessed in his dream.

At once, the pressure was gone and Lin's bones popped and creaked loudly, as if his skeleton was sighing in relief at the disappearance of the stifling pressure.

'I guess that means that I'm on the right track, if only my soul sense was working, I would've seen the coating energy. Sigh, whatever, one step at a time I guess.' Lin didn't know the ongoings of his operation, but he didn't let it influence his concentration at all.

Lin can brag about his imaginative mind to the best of the best in this world, of that aspect of his capabilities, Lin was confident that beside Lily, he was unequaled.

Lin was entirely relying on his imagination, first step was the glowing dots of the four colors coating his wings, second step would be moving his coated spirit wings downwards to the dantian area, third step is to bypass the blockade of the invisible walls which stopped the strands from entering his body yesterday.

Actually all these steps could be summarized in a single step : "Crossing the mundane." It was called that by the soul strengthening technique.

Lin imagined his spirit wings pushing deep at his dantian.

"Bfff.... Cough, cough." Lin felt his innards squeezed tightly and pushed upwards at his throat, to the degree of spitting blood.

Sun was scared shitless when it happened and he looked everywhere for the asshole who attacked Lin after standing above him, he saw Lin spit blood suddenly, someone did something to his buddy!, Is that bitch back to hurt his friend again?.

"Buddy, I'm alright, nobody is here beside us." Lin wiped the blood from his lips with his sleeve and told Sun to calm.

"Murrrr...." After double checking again for anyone nearby, Sun hesitatingly left the formation.

'Was that attempt a failure just now?, How many times will it take until I succeed with the spirit assimilation?,' Lin massaged his body while thinking that troubling thought, 'Whatever, sooner or later Ill have to take that step anyway, no running away now.' again, Lin imagined his spirit wings pushing deep at his dantian.

This time he was prepared for pain and his suffering was a lot less than before, still, his face reddened like a tomato when he stifled a groan.

'Again,' after giving himself a moment to catch a breath, Lin gritted his teeth and willed his imagination to pierce his dantian with his martial-spirit, he was bracing for impact with all his power.

Again and again, and some more.

Lin tried eight times to no avail, his only gain was pain, time and again, after the eighth try Lin was dancing on the faintest strand of lucidity, wobbling unstably towards unconsciousness with each breath.

'I refuse to believe that I can't cultivate,' while veering into unconsciousness, Lin willed his martial-spirit towards his dantian one last time.

"Omm.... Whoosh...."

"Whine...."

Last thing Lin got to hear before slipping into the folds of unconsciousness was a sudden, deafening, stifled sound, followed by sweeping wind and Sun's low whine.

If Lin had been awake right now to see the sight Sun got to see after blinking the sand from his eyes, then he'll certainly start making mental notes of the blinding lights entering his body, the change his skin is experiencing, the color of his pupils which changed into bright gold color from their original obsidian black.

All of these changes were mainly exterior, on the interior level his body was being washed by the energy from the light element.

As for his spirit wings, they took the center of the dantian once they entered with their accompanying coat of light element spirit energy.

Then that spirit energy was sent out to heal Lin's accumulated wounds from the nine tries of crossing the mundane, while the martial-spirit used the advantage of the basic spirit gathering formation to collect each and every strand of light element in the fifty meters radius, plus converting the colorful energy from the five spirit cryastals into light element energy then gobbling them all the same.

Sun crouched nearby and vigilantly guarded Lin in his sleep, but even if Lin woke up and told him to go away, Sun wouldn't budge even if it meant missing one hell of a meal.

Sun found many answers to his accumulated confusions collected ever since he ate the mammoth's core just by sitting next to Lin right now, his inherited memories as a beast are buried deep within his bloodline, while Lin has to accumulate spirit energy to bypass the sub-realms of the spirit apprentice realm, Sun needs to unlock his inherited memories to pass the demonic beast realm.

Each time Sun unlock a part of his inherited memories, he'll gain intelligence.

As for communicating with the elements, beasts never met any hurdle in that matter, that's why they're called the world's favorite by cultivators.

Night was spent calmly, Lin's spirit wings were sated one hour after he lost consciousness, no further accumulation of light element or conversion of the mixed elements from the basic spirit gathering formation happened.

Sun crouching nearby with a much smarter glow in his eyes, but Lin's martial-spirit was distributing the over-flooding light-element energy to every cell, starting with the outer-layer of skin then sinking deeper into the muscles.

Lin woke up and none of the previous weariness, tiredness, or exhaustion remained.

The formation underneath his butt sent streams of energy towards his body from the five points of the star, through the lines just like veins and arteries transmitting blood to body parts, from outside the formation the swirl of spirit energy strands funneling inwards at him, waiting to be taken in like beggers pleading for a meal or comfort under his service!.

Sun giving him a cursory look to check if he's alright before closing his eyes to take a nap, but there was another meaning as well in that look : "Ill be expecting food when I wake up."

Standing up and yawning lazily, Lin was shocked at how vastly different his current bodily state was from yesterday, power was coursing through his veins like molton lava oozing out from a bursting volcano.

"This feeling is amazing, so that's how cultivators in the spirit apprentice realm feel when they assimilate their martial-spirit," Lin squeezed a fist and looked at his right hand wondrously, "I can feel the connection with my spirit wings like never before, same for the light element everywhere around me," looking up, Lin could feel each and every strand of light element in the domain of the basic spirit gathering formation, "Whoah, are these really my wings?," Once Lin willed his martial-spirit to appear he was stunned by the difference, his wings previously were merely spanned three meters from end to end, now his wings were more than double the previous span!, Almost reaching seven meters and each and every feather had more and more of the gold color instead of the previous yellow, "Hrmmm, that is exactly the same as this symbol on the right wing feather, does that have a meaning?." Lin looked at the back of his right hand at the dark-gold tattoo which appeared once his spirit wings revealed themselves at his shoulder blades.

"The left hand has nothing!, This right hand symbol is the same with the one on this feather, is the one on this left wing somewhere else on my body?," Lin looked everywhere but found no symbol of infinity anywhere on his body, "Maybe it is just how my martial-spirit is!." Lin scratched his cheek in befuddlement but he felt like there's some hidden reason for the appearance of these symbols on his wings, walking like he's used to do whenever he's thinking about something amusingly confusing, Lin let his mind loose.

If only Lin could see his inner soul body right now, then he would've seen the silver infinity symbol on the back of his soul body's left hand flickering in silver light as it sucked like a whale on the thick silver clouds surrounding his soul body, each time it happened his soul force would increase!

"Trrrk... Clack...." Lin's shoes hitting something and the sound grabbed his attention, the broken white jade of the prime light cultivation manual was left to gather dust on the floor ever since Lin got blasted with Mia's sword intent-spirit energy fusion, "what to do from here on is to follow the instructions of this jade," bending down to take the only light element cultivation manual he has, Lin sent his spirit energy inside to take a look, previously, Lin couldn't access any of the jades he found in Weisheng's space ring, now that he managed to assimilate his spirit plus being outside the domain of the land of forgetfulness's suppressing chaos energy, he should have no trouble learning from this technique. "This prime light technique is very simple, according to it's teachings, during the spirit apprentice realm all I need to do is accumulate light energy, unblock meridians, fortify their walls, widen them (meridian passages) further then repeat until you hit the absolute limit!. It even has graded the light element strands and differentiated them from weak to strong," Lin was super fast in digesting the information that he found within the broken jade, if Mia or old Jin had seen how it took him a second to comprehend a level four cultivation technique they'll be cursing his seven ancestors for calling it simple, nothing should be simple for an upstarting cultivator! Not to mention a six years old brat. "White strands of light element energy is the mildest, easiest, most tame of the light element strands. Yellow strands are stronger than white strands in a ratio of one to hundred, sometimes it is a bit more than that but never lower than a hundred otherwise the strand decomposes into a hundred white strands, gold strands equal a hundred of the yellow ones a thousand of the white strands, or more!, and dark-gold equals a hundred of the gold." Lin muttered faintly while gathering the unwashed plates left from yesterday's meal back into the ring, his soul force was still confined to his body and he couldn't release it out.

After that he went down to check on the fish traps he made with the wooden boxes which held the medicinal ingredients in his ring before, first thing Lin noticed while climbing down the steep rocky cliff was how light as a feather his body currently was, on top of how much stronger his arms and legs felt, he had a hidden intuition that his true capabilities weren't revealed yet.

That made Lin eager to see how far his pumma training will go if he tested himself right now, but he can do that once he secure their next meal, despite his hunger being mild ever since he woke up, Lin felt his cells screaming for nutritions like starved ghosts.

Once he reached the area where he placed the traps, Lin was met with a school of large and small fishes swarming the area of his wooden boxes!, the ocean waters reddened by the blood of the weaker prey, the larger ones crunching, swallowing, gobbling up the smaller ones in their way!.

But all of the marine lives Lin saw in the waters were mad, eyes full of bloodlust and red with greed as they crammed into the narrow rocky cliff where the waters met the island!, Nibbling on the wooden boxes were the smaller ones who found this treasure first, yes treasure, these different organisms treated these wooden boxes like delicacies, those who stands in their way will be eaten.

"Did I waste these boxes?, Sigh, had I known such an aftereffect will follow then I wouldn't have wasted so much of these wooden boxes, let's haul them out of the waters and fill our coffers then." Lin frowned upon his obvious miscalculation then vented his frustration on the maddened swarm, after an hour his space ring was full of all kinds of marine life organisms.

Still, the madness in the water continues and larger creatures started to gather in the nearby waters, surely they were attracted to the blood that never diluted but spread further in a wider area!.

Feeling his safety nearby the waters being questionable, Lin climbed to the top and had a scare once he took a look downwards from the peak of the isand.

Further away from the shallow waters, where he thought the larger creatures lurked, there was a dozen or so of extra-larger creatures surrounding the island in a ring of terror.

"Sun shouldn't go play in the waters anymore, these guys will swallow him whole in a heartbeat." Lin muttered then went to sit next to the sleeping Sun to prepare their next meal, he himself was famished after all and wanted to start his first spirit cultivation session on a full belly.

"Is that.... A wing!, Do tigers grow wings in this life?, Why wasn't he born with it then?," Lin caught the sight of a small piece of leather flapping on Sun's shoulder when he was flipping the fish meat on the grill, tiny, with bones stretching through their leather and ending with cute claw-like tips and severing each wing into three segments. "They're a lot like a bat's wing!, This bloodred color is almost indistinguishable from his red fur, but they're too tiny to carry his weight in his original form. Maybe they can in his kitten form." Lin studied the strange wings on Sun's shoulders with his eyes and gave his verdict while folding them gently with his hands.

"Murrr...." Sun opened his eyes then sniffed once the mouthwatering aroma of the grilled fish meat hit his nose, curiously, he nudged Lin naughtily to give him a bite while licking his lips, but his eyes never left the prize.

"It's alright to eat them all buddy, there's more to come. Remember, don't go swimming in the water, look, there's danger in the water everywhere." Removing the crispy meat from the grill to a large plate, Lin offered them all to Sun to eat, then took him to the edge of the cliff, from there he saw Sun snaring in intimidation at these huge fellows.

"Growl...." Despite his unwillingness to appear timid, Sun nodded once to agree with Lin, he felt the same dangerous vibes from these underwater enemies, only the ones north of Lin's village gave Sun the same fear.

"Someday buddy, you and I won't fear them, eat up and grow stronger than them. Make them run and beat a hurried retreat in your presence, hehehe, you like that notion don't ya." Lin patted Sun and laughed when he saw him smirk a lot like Lily, "alright then, I need to eat too, otherwise you'll leave me in your dust." Walking towards the grill, Lin muttered as he threw another layer of fish meat and watched it's fat sizzle at the licks of fire below.

Sun shivered once he heard Lin, then he remembered how Lin ate almost everything yesterday, he ate every scrap of food on his plate then shamelessly brought the plate to Lin for more.

"Oi!, Why are you competing with me for food?, Huh!, Me a glutton? Are you kidding me," Lin snapped at Sun when he didn't get anything to eat but a few small bites from each patch of meat he prepared, only to find Sun's sneering gaze in return and his face reddened in bemused anger, "Ungrateful bastard, stop snatching my food you gigantic lump of fur, damnit, now you're eating it raw like sushi. You won't get away scot-free, Ill tickle you to oblivion." Lin finally had enough when Sun showed the full extent of his ravenous appetite, jumping at Sun's back he caught his tender wings and Sun succumbed at once.

"Humph, who's the boss?," Lin leaned over and looked at Sun's eyes from above triumphantly.

"Whine...."

Lin smiled when he received the confirmation then rolled over to make some more food, this time Sun ate what he was offered and pleaded for more, each time he thought Lin wouldn't be eating anymore, the tiger will stare widely at Lin as he ate and ate.

Loads and loads of fish meat disappeared as Lin annihilated them with his jaws, Sun kept marvelling at how could a small body eat that much!

Finally when Sun was at the brink of crying honest tears to make Lin stop eating anymore, Lin burped in satisfaction and used a small fishbone to remove meat shreds from between his teeth while patting his tummy, a cold hand of dread caught Sun below the stomach when he saw Lin smile his way.

'Buddy is scary, why does he feel a lot like his scary sister right now.' Sun thought while avoiding eye-contact with Lin.

If only Sun could see the future right now, then he would gawk at how much his current thought was spot-on.

But that's something our dear Lin will come to know in the near future, a secret which troubled his miraculous mind ever since he got rebirthed in this world.

"Sun, what's wrong?, Don't you like these ones?, You always liked the taste of barbecue sauce," Lin scratched Sun's back roughly and asked when he noticed how his plate was untouched.

"Murrr...." Sun hurried to remove his distracting thoughts and buried them with chunks of meat.

"You're the lookout buddy." Lin nodded when he saw Sun resume his feast and left him to sit cross-legged in the center of the spirit gathering formation after making sure to amass a tiny mountain of fish meat in front of his tiger.

"Time to see my dantian," Lin focused his senses and followed the gathering of light elements towards his groin, then his eyes saw his martial-spirit for the first time without being attached to his back. "That's it?, All this suffering and pain only to settle my wings in this dark gloomy place!, There's nothing at all.... Hrmmm, these strands turn into clouds once they enter my dantian just like the prime light technique mentioned, all kinds of spirit energy do turn into gaseous form once they're inside the dantians of spirit apprentice cultivators." Lin was mildly disappointed with his achievements after all that agonizing pain, his dantian was dark and empty, if it wasn't for his spirit being coozy in there then he would've questioned the need of the painful step of crossing the mundane, quickly his attention turned towards the strange transformation of the strands of light elements.

Lin was immersed in taking as much light element strands into his dantian as he can, according to the prime light cultivation technique he shouldn't attempt his first meridian clearing until the dantian reaches the saturation point.

Until then, Lin's cultivation is summarized in a single word "Accumulation" if his accumulated energy tank was of the white type of light element, then his difficulties in clearing his meridians will be harder than another person who filled his tank of energy with yellow strands, even better if it was gold or dark-gold strands.

Of course, that aforementioned saturation point means the peak of the first stage of the spirit apprentice realm, after that there's eight sub-realms and eight other saturation points.

Above that there's eight major realms separated into nine sub-realms each, and each realm requires finer details and more accumulation than the previous.

Cultivation was tedious, boring, and cumbersome.

One wrong step and cultivation deviation will be there to welcome you alongside mental demons, heart-demons, vitality deterioration, lifespan loss, and spirit energy poisoning which is the hardest to deal with.

Lin had to mind all these restrictions as he cultivates, and boy wonder is loving each and every piece of it, for Lin it felt like exploring the best maze quest of his life.

Lin watched each strand like a test subject, he studied them as they change from their shooting star shape into clouds of gaseous energy, the white clouds are the weakest of them all, and the dark-gold ones are the most badass gangesters, yellow ones are minions to the gold clouds. If Lin's dantian is compared to the sea, then the white clouds are shrimp, yellow clouds are small fish, gold clouds are sharks, dark-gold clouds are killer whales.

"Hrmmm.... After each dark-gold cloud reaches a certain degree of strength it has to offer a part of itself as a tribute to my wings, otherwise the cloud will be swallowed whole if it got cocky," Lin noticed how his wings were tyranically consuming the dark-gold clouds to supplement it's feathers, each time it happened one of the yellow feathers will receive a line of gold color.

Like a ruler, Lin's spirit wings were administering their command on the newcomer subjects in the dantian, any type of energy has to follow their laws in their domain or be removed.

Still, the count of the dark-gold clouds was the minority, gold clouds a bit more by a few dozen times, yellow clouds were a lot more than gold clouds but they only amounted to a third of the white clouds.

Finally after a while, Lin's dantian was separated into it's unique chain of command after a short period of chaos, Lin's wings had the dark-gold clouds orbiting it, outward from there the golden clouds each followed one of the dark-gold clouds and orbited them like planets orbit the sun, yellow clouds as the minions of the golden clouds gathered into different belts covering them, white clouds were the farthest from Lin's wings.

The variety of shapes and colors inside Lin's dantian looked a lot like stellar nebulas, and to Lin's delight, they changed shape, colors, and position almost every second, with each addition of new energy, Lin saw a different sight, felt stronger, understood a bit more about light element, became more curious about the light element and a lot passionate to reach the saturation point with the best type of light energy.

Finally Lin decided that he cultivated enough spirit energy for today when he noticed how his accumulation of light energy started to slow down into a snail's pace, from their previous mad rush into his dantian, the light elements seemed to start hesitating whether or not to join the others.

Despite his passion for the spirit energy cultivation, Lin didn't forget his priority of removing all doubts on the matter of Jin Bao's disappearance, his soul force was still shackled mysteriously last time he checked.

Opening his eyes, Lin never felt more refreshed or healthier in two lives, the air he breathed was accompanied by light element, these strands seemed to be satisfied with fusing with his innards, muscles, skin, bones, and marrow.

Unlike when he cultivated, this occurrence of light elements fusion with his flesh happened passively, on the other hand he had to actively concentrate on accumulating light energy in his dantian.

"Prime light technique didn't mention that side effect, is it because it is incomplete?," Lin looked around at the light elements everywhere with his eyes deliberately, unlike the other elements which hid themselves from his eyes, light element didn't shy away from his eyes anymore after his first session of cultivation. "Whatever, time to know the reason why my soul force is hindered." Shaking all these distracting thoughts, Lin closed his eyes and focused on the soul strengthening technique, seeking to enter his soul world and seeing soul body.

As if he's a blindfolded person touching his way home after losing his cane, Lin was in the dark and his soul body nowhere to be found, yes, it couldn't be found but it could be felt.

Somehow, Lin felt eyes watching every step he took in this darkness, he couldn't see them but his gut feeling was that they're somewhere nearby hidden from his eyes.

Lin had no fear whatsoever in this dark strange place, one imaginary step after another towards his soul body, he never hesitated once.

Every step towards where Lin's mental compass pointed out his soul body, his intuition told him that he's getting closer, and his gut feeling strengthened.

Finally after god knows how far he walked or how many steps he took, Lin saw at the end of his sight, the darkness kept at bay by thick silver clouds!.

As he got closer to them, Lin felt familiarity with these silver clouds, why did he feel that?, Lin couldn't quite grasp the reason why but the budding sorrow festering in his heart was unquestionable!.

As he entered these silver clouds Lin was met with grief, regret, anger, and various types of negative emotions.

Unfazed like always from the effect of all kinds of negative emotions, great sage Lin knows all about bipolar-consciousness and the games these negative emotions play on humans on the subconscious-level.

Guarding his mind, Lin moved in the thick silver clouds, deeper and deeper he went.

Finally his soul body was revealed when Lin was on the brink of giving up, these negative emotions were awfully thick and strong the deeper he went, thick to the degree of resembling a clingy swamp aiming to drag him into it's suffocatingly heavy mixture of various negative emotions.

Lin's soul body was worriedly faded, lines of violet and transparent strands were tied to his skin, like maggots to the bones they tried to suppress his soul body.

Only the back of his left hand seemed to be resisting this suppression, even his wings were not exempted from the fate his soul body received, only the golden feather on the left wing with the silver infinity symbol wasn't covered in violet or transparent lines.

"Old Jin once said that my martial-spirit has both an elemental and soul nature, the symbol of infinity on the left hand being visible inside this soul world and not in the material world must mean that it is related to the soul, while the wings symbol is related to the elemental nature of light energy," Lin concluded the most viable explanation to the natures of the strange symbols on his wings, and focused on the soul body which is currently struggling with these violet and transparent strands. "In here I can feel my soul force albeit very weakly, Mia said that her spirit energy and sword intent fused and assaulted me, while old Jin mentioned sacrificing his primordial soul force to save me, I got to witness Mia's sword intent energy when she materialized it then met the younger version of her when she gave me her space ring, then again when she -innocently according to what she said- smashed me from point-blank with that energy fusion and almost took my life, that violet color is her sword intent energy and these invisible strands acting like chains to my body should be the superior grade element of time," watching his soul body feebleness under these suppressive circumstances, Lin fused this weak strand of will with his soul body and tried to open his soul eye, "Aaaaah, uraaaah, ughhhh." But, Lin found a torturous pain from hell welcoming his arrival.

Squealing, screaming, shrieking, howling, and screeching like a ghost was the first reaction in the face of that unbelievable amount of pain!.

Lin had suffered an obnoxious death once, burned alive was the worst way to go and the most painful experience, he thought there was no higher level, now as he got to experience this soul torment, getting burned alive seemed like a prickle of a needle in comparison!.

Forget thinking straight, Lin was losing his sanity because of pain, and once the first lick of pain hit, he was begging for a release with the most soul-rending screams.

Not to mention that the pain kept accumulating, rising, increasing!.

While Lin suffered internally, Sun watched his best friend pale first then flush deeply red and blood trickle down from his lips!.

Then violet color appeared dotting his skin, followed by invisible spots inside each dot of violet.

Lin's wings activating, then from each feather on both wings, light energy covered these violet dots, from everywhere in the surrounding three hundred meters the light elements came willingly to aid in the tug of war between these conflicting types of energy.

The invisible energy inside the violet dots were the first to suffer under that onslaught from the light energy, but, that was at the cost of ten times the amount from the light elements, only the dark-gold strands of light energy could hold their ground against a transparent spot of the time element invading Lin's body.

That came at the cost of mutual destruction with the dark-gold energy of light and the transparent spot of time energy vanishing all the same.

But the light energy had the advantage of receiving aid from the wings of light and renewable support from the surrounding elements in the area, while the time energy had limited supply and besieged from all fronts.

One by one the time energy spots were removed, and the violet dots of the sword intent energy being held captive under a layer of gold colored light energy then led towards the area of Lin's right chest, from there the violet dots vanished alongside the light energy!.

Lin's spirit wings lost their luster gradually, from their previous yellow feathers mostly lined with a golden color, to completely yellow then faded yellow to murky yellowish-white until they became completely white except for the two golden feathers on the left and right wings, these two degraded into the murky yellowish-white color while the dark-gold symbol of the wings ended up getting dragged lower to the yellow grade, only a very thin line of golden color remained on the edge of the wings symbol, the same happened to the infinity symbol and it's shining silver color faded almost to the fadest degree of grey color!.

The only thing keeping Lin's struggle against the fused energy was the light energy racing to his aid from the environment three hundred meters around him.

In the worried eyes of Sun, Lin took one hour to finish this fight, but from Lin's perspective, that agonizing suffering stretched eternally to his despair with no end in sight.

Just like how the torturous pain from hell came unexpected, it vanished all the same.

Suddenly Lin was left gasping in disbelief, no more chains of any kind left to restrict his soul body, but his soul was left both weak, wounded, and as it seems his soul will be scarred for life.

Lin was sure that no joy in both lifes could remove this memory of getting his soul tortured.

Here he was gazing at the thick silver clouds around his soul body, Lin was sure that all the negative emotions emitted from them belonged once to Jin Bao, somehow, the Lin before experiencing soul torture was mature, calm and collected, but, the Lin after that experience was wiser, deeper and got eyes full of apathy.

Getting up lethargically, Lin stood ramrod straight with his soul body in that soul world for a minute silently and with eyes full of reverence and heartfelt-respect.

Looking at the silver dome of thick clouds protecting his feeble soul body from the blinding darkness outside, tears trickling uncontrollably from his golden eyes felt like burning lava on his cheeks, full of guilt and heavy regret seeking forgiveness from the remainder of soul force once belonging to old Jin.

"This one has wronged you senior Jin, you sacrificing yourself for my sake wasn't what we agreed upon when we first met, I swear to do my absolute best to get to the bottom of the case of your disappearance, once I am successful in reaching the soul clone realm let my soul shatter and my dao disperse if I hesitate once in sending a part of my soul inside that mysterious ring, I swear on my spirit, soul, and body to defy my firm moral conducts and basic principles as a human being to avenge you senior if it turned out that you no longer share this world with me. Yi Shirong, I promise to give him the suffering you wished he receives." Bowing down Lin shouted his oath, when he straightened his back his eyes no longer had any tears, but a gleam of cold apathy instead!.

No longer strong enough to remain in this soul world, and dog-tired beyond his capabilities by leagues and leagues, Lin quit his soul world only to find his clothes covered in his blood, his wings vastly different than before, his body breathing ruggedly and his eyes droopy.

Smiling weakly at the worried panicky sight of Sun who supported Lin's upper body from toppling to the side, Lin gave in to sleep to release his exhausted self.

In his sleep, Lin dreamed that he had two hearts!, One left pumping blood and vitality, one right but it was motionless-still and calm, colorless like see-through glass.

Then he woke up sweating bullets to the glaring sun at his body, Sun nearby chewing on a strange fish with grotesque feelers the size of an overly large shark and a small mountain of fishbones almost sixty meters high and a few dozen meters wide was there to the side!.

Looking at the plate he served Sun his last meal and his bloodstained clothes which got removed from his body and tossed to the side, the plate had mould covering the scraps of food Sun left after annihilating the small mountain of roasted fish meat Lin had left him, while the blood on his clothes passed the stage of coagulation, festering with disgusting maggots and had long dried but the faint trace still exists to prove the long time Lin spent in his sleep.

At least, Lin was out for a week, of that he was sure enough.

Supporting his upper body on his elbows, Lin sat up and held his head in both palms to ease the dizzying sway which hit out of nowhere, "Quite a mess you caused Mia, if I were you, I would pray for all that is sacred, that Lily never catches wind of what you did," muttering faintly with his hoarse voice through a dry parched throat, flipping his hand he brought out a globe of cold water to fall on his body, "huff, so thirsty," Lin took a bottle of water to drink with his obviously shrivled thin arm, Sun enthusiastically and unhesitatingly left the meat to drink water like a thirsty ghost.

Sun visibly lost a lot of weight despite the evidence of how much he ate while Lin slept, his joyful eyes looking at his best friend as he licked water were uplifting Lin's mood, smiling, Lin took out the bathtub and filled it with fresh water for Sun to drink his full.

"Sorry for making you so worried about me buddy, and thank you for taking care of me all the time." Lin rested his back on Sun's belly and said while feeling grateful for saving Sun one day from the carcass of his dead mother, just like how Sun depends on Lin, Lin was depending on him back all the same, and right now this fierce tiger is acting like great sage Lin's last safety net.

"Murrr...." Sun huged Lin to his body and rested there in the cool puddle, his previous days were filled with worry for his sick friend, he suffered for days from the hunger and thirst to guard Lin while he slept like the dead, finally Sun had to go hunt these fishes before his strength leaves him because of his hunger, not to mention that he rarely slept at all in a long time now, the creepy guys in the waters increased in number in the first few days of Lin's sleep, then they fought for two days and the island's shallow waters were turned red by the blood bath, Sun had to risk being attacked when he went down to hunt and almost got caught by a scary green octopus, thankfully he was careful not to go far from the shore and was quick enough to leave the waters at the first sign of danger.

Later he learned to watch them from above carefully and only hunt where there's few of the dangerous ones, and be careful if there was any of the fast ones nearby, one silver fish was crazy quick and had a pointy edge and a long pole like the baldy's staffs at it's head, Sun saw it later turn the scary green octopus into Swiss cheese before it ate it, despite being weaker than the scary ones in the deep waters, Sun saw it come and go gracefully and none of the other scary guys could catch it, it was fast and Sun avoided it like the blague.

Now Lin was awake, and for Sun that means that he can finally rest, yes, he was hungry, true, but, this tiredness and weakness can't be solved by food, he needed to sleep badly right now.

Lin ran his palms gently on Sun's neck and smiled apologetically as he caressed his dirty fur, obviously Sun has lost a lot of weight and was critically dehydrated, clearly he must've survived by slurping blood from his prey, but, nothing is comparable to fresh water after all.

Notable thing was the bat wings which grew larger and their bones and claws tougher and deadlier, folded at Sun's sides, his wings could no longer go unnoticeable by anyone, Lin was sure that in no time these wings will be able to support Sun's weight in prolonged flights.

Taking out some clothes from his space ring, Lin put them on and went to deal with the remainder of Sun's catch, cutting the fish meat, Lin made a stew with whatever seeds he had left from home.

His soul force no longer separated from his control, Lin couldn't stretch his soul sense farther than a few hundred meters unlike before with it's maximum range of three kilometers, but his soul view this time felt upgraded somehow it was different and more potent and thorough.

While eating Lin kept his soul sense out and experimented with it to get a feel for this new upgrade, this current soul sense caught every detail on miniscule level unlike how he had to shrink his soul sense previously to see the various types of spirit energy, the upgraded soul force was a very pleasant yet sad addition for Lin because Jin Bao's disappearance.

It felt like the farewell gift from that unfortunate senior.

"My spirit and soul had their fair share of hardships for a while now, my body is severely malnourished, I guess a recuperation period is a must." Lin looked at his wing's white feathers, his skinny arms, and short distance soul sense, he muttered sadly while hesitating whether or not should he try flying right now.

His reliance while flying is the soul sense's wide scanning range plus his soul force limitation on the wings of light themselves, his mind's lightning quick analysis of the flying trajectory and the surrounding space which is sent by his soul sense helps him avoid smashing face-first into any kind of obstacle before his eyes even get to react, if Lin had a slight delay of information while he flew because of the current situation with this upgraded yet small radius soul sense, then he could die without him even knowing how it happened.

Lin never forgot his first take off, that lesson made him prefer being careful than a meat patty on some rock.

The next thing he learned was to suppress his wings with soul force to make them slower!, Without doing that, then Lin is riding one ray of light hurling him wherever it was pointing.

Finally Lin found the right proportions and exact measurements to counter the reckless blind speed with soul powered controlled directions.

Now, after his wings seemed to loose all of it's weight and turn into one empty husk in the shape of white feathers, and his soul force got messed up.

Lin knew that he must learn to control his wings from scratch, again!.

Sighing, Lin deactivated his wings and dragged his soul sense back into his head.

He knew that these plans are to be initiated once his recuperation duration is over, right now he wanted to know what his body is capable of.

Old Jin, Mia, and some of the alchemy books in his ring had mentioned barbarians and their bloodline, from Mia, Lin learned that he must be a descendant of the barbarians and blessed with superiority in body refinement, from the alchemy books Lin learned the name of a few pills specifically helpful to make Qi refiners unblock some specific acupoints, some pills even help in forging a pathway for a group of connected acupoints to circulate Qi, from Mia he knew that other than loose cultivators chased into living in the land of forgetfulness for whatever reason the others are mostly barbarian descendants and that's because mortals don't get to live long in this land, only barbarians with their super strong bodies and strong vitality could survive the harshness of this land, she mentioned that his village is located in the very outer-circle and safest parts on this land for certain, deeper into the land there's many tales of beasts stronger than spirit kings counted by the millions!, And that's only once you cross a short distance deeper, not to mention how the climate starts to become chaotically horrible and harsh.

Lin didn't forget how his father Tai used to be freakishly powerful with fists stronger than solid rocks once he first witnessed it, then that freakishly strong person turned into a walking superman after Lily juiced him with protein, vitamin, etc coupled with a pre-calculated training regime.

Lin smiled when he remembered how the toughest bulletproof glass he made in this life lost to his father's skin in durability and strength, Lin was using these layers of fortified glass to test his wing's ability of melting matter in it's path.

As a person blessed with the same gene, Lin wanted to achieve greatness with his own physique as well, and he took his stance according to the pumma teaching then started to breathe deeply while doing his warm up ritual.

In the span of two years, Lin advanced in his training from the initial stages of the pumma training to the advanced then finally last time he checked, Lin was capable of storing energy in his skeleton by shivering his body's muscles, which means that his body no longer need to overextend his motions to deliver force, any compact move from his shoulders, twist of his waist, a shift of stance, knee raise, elbow flap, wrist snap, fist push or finger's press, would do a hundred times more damage to an enemy.

Lin was aware that his current bodily state wasn't the best it could be, but he had to remove the accumulated rust from his joints, such rust is caused by days without proper training or nourishment.

Lin was sure that light energy helped save his body from a much more unfortunate fate, spending all these days with no food or drink with weak soul, spirit, and body could be very fatal without the light energy taking care of him somehow.

While flexing his body Lin felt his previous stiffness get shaken off, like a polar bear scattering snow off his body after passing winter in hibernation, second by second Lin's arms and feet picked up speed in their movements, and his breathing never lacked a few dozen light energy strands which entered his lungs in his inhales but never got out.

While Lin exercised, the light energy that got inside his system hurried to join his blood stream and eagerly fused with any body cell that hadn't been occupied by other light energy strands!, If Lin had looked deeply with his upgraded soul sense inwards at his body instead of outwards at the world, then he would've seen light element energy strands treating his body cells like vacant houses.

However, Lin was immersed in his newfound power and enjoying the weightless feeling that accompanied it, his combinations flowing like a gentle river but the hidden force underneath each move could prove deadly to any person who receives it.

While he concentrated on shivering his muscles to better his control of that deadly technique, these was another tearing pain at his chest which he could not be more familiar with, the fourth time his impurities got washed Lin didn't even frown at the sudden arrival of the pain at his chest and continued his training, ever since his soul received a torture from hell that kind of pain was nothing more than child play, focusing on refining his use of shivering his muscles while washing his impurities, if Mia saw such sight then she'll certainly gawk at how emotionless Lin was right now.

Somehow Lin was able to perfect that shivering technique and found himself with nothing more in the pumma training technique, the rest there is was to strengthen his muscles in various ways.

Sighing, Lin knew that he had reached the point where pumma technique can't teach him anything else, now all he had to do was to train his body and raise it's strength while maintaining his current flexibility and control over the various techniques he learned from the pumma teachings, after power had started to slow down it's increase Lin needs to add stamina increase to his exercises then turn back to speed and flexibility and focus on them, despite how easy it seemed to finish learning everything from the pumma teachings, Lin did that without having to reach his body's maximum potential, he did it with his current capabilities and the trick to maintain his mastery of the pumma teachings in the future is to mutually raise his body's standards while keeping a firm control of what he learned, otherwise he can easily hurt himself with a move which he previously could do but due to a minor gain of strength or speed he destroys himself instead.

Finally Lin stopped and stood still to savor this wonderful feeling, no matter how hard he exercised Lin never felt like he truly mastered control over his body until now.

"Finally I can start building up strength, let's see how my statistics changed since the last time I checked." Lin muttered faintly while walking towards some rocks at the side, lifting them above head level starting from the smaller sized ones, he was surprised to find that he could raise a rock weighing two hundred and fifty kilograms easily above head level for more than a minute without his arms starting to shake!.

His previous speed and stamina records were likewise demolished by his current abilities to Lin's delight, he wished that Shue or old Ba were here to spar with him right now.

"Only six and I can do all that while not being in my top shape!, Just how far can my abilities go in this world I wonder," Lin took off his clothes drenched in sweat and stinky impurities then soaked in the bathtub after a quick thorough cleaning of his body, "I need to recover fast, the situation in the waters nearby is worriedly becoming chaotic, more and more of these marine life organisms is attracted towards this island." Looking down at the waters below, Lin decided to leave first thing once his wings are back under his control.

If some kind of beast capable of fighting on land arrived, then Lin and Sun will suffer if they couldn't protect their temporary post.

Not to mention if some kind of avian spotted this delicious gathering of marine life, he noticed the variety of birds of different sizes which were attracted here and started to nest the area below, only Sun made them wary of coming nearby the top.

After donning a new clean set of clothes, Lin went down to the shore and restocked his ring with some meat, some strange silver fish looking a lot similar to an enlarged swordfish attempted to sneak attack Lin but ended up being lodged in the rocks with it's large pointy edge, he slammed it's head with a punch and scooped it out from the water when it was dizzy.

Then severed it's head with Weisheng's short sword, that sword was very sharp and Lin was using it like kitchen knife for a while now, if the assassin called Weisheng saw Lin using his best weapon as a kitchenware then he would've coughed blood, god knows how he'll feel if he heard Lin's opinion on how light the short sword felt in his hands.

Despite being only seventy centimeters long and two fingers wide, that sword weighted one hundred kilograms!.

Once Lin arrived at the top and started to handle the carcass of the silver swordfish, Sun opened his eyes and stared wide at the fast fella which endangered him the last few days as Lin chopped it to large segments and was prepared to grill it, somehow Sun felt sorry for it.

Another layer of admiration for his best friend was added and Sun went to sit next to Lin as he prepared their meal in the dark, as long as Lin is awake and healthy, then Sun has no worry whatsoever for their next meals or any care for their next destination.

After handing out Sun's portion and eating his own, Lin went to sit down in the center of the formation and calmly meditated on the soul strengthening technique.

Despite it being made for spirit energy accumulation purpose, Lin still felt better connection with his soul force when he used it, at once his view was shifted towards his soul body and his previously faded soul body was a lot better.

The infinity symbol on his left hand was causing the silver clouds nearby to swirl as it sucked them, the same symbol on the left-wing feather was blinking in weak silver glow.

Lin's soul force rose up with each silver cloud disappearance, once he arrived in his inner soul world the swirling whirlwind tripled in size and the process of the infinity symbol inhalation picked up speed.

"I can feel your unwillingness senior Jin, like I promised and swore earlier, your sacrifice shall never go in vain," Lin spoke with the leftover soul force filled with Jin Bao's negative emotions peacefully, "heh, despite being few and far between, you always had my well-being on every step I took, I'm such a fool, you warned me constantly to keep my distance from Mia but I was so confident." While watching his soul force increase Lin kept replaying each advice the Jin Bao gave in his head, trying very hard to itch them on his mind.

Lin spent three days and nights on digesting these silver clouds, he noticed how the infinity symbol kept purifying these silver clouds composed of soul force, Jin Bao's negative emotions got minced away first before the symbol on the left wing ate them away to restore it's previous silver shiny color.

Sometimes Lin would see parts and pieces of Jin Bao's life, he saw him live his first years in poverty with a father working as a soldier in a small city's guard, his mother was a kind housewife helping her husband raise their two children and making some meagre money by creating some clothes with her needlework.

Later in his eighth year of life Jin Bao awakened his martial-spirit and his family saw him as their hope, only to end up greatly disappointed when his talents in spirit energy cultivation rose up very slowly and his attribute to water element was judged to be average at best.

It took him twelve years to reach the ninth stage of the spirit apprentice realm and the first calamity of his struck, his younger sister got snatched by some cultivator passing through their city and ended up raped then tossed aside like trash.

The man was two great realms higher than Jin Bao's own, add to that his sect backing him up and the city lord had nothing to do but to close an eye on the incident, his younger sister was a beauty and her being a mortal made cultivators sneer when they heard what befell her, "It's her honor to be taken by a cultivator and she should thank the gods he didn't slit her throat afterwards." That was one of the conversations he overheard from a few cultivators dinning in a restaurant nearby his house.

His sister changed from that moment onwards, she turned silent from her previous cheerful personality, she stopped eating and locked herself up in her room and finally Jin Bao returned from his work under formation grandmaster Han and was met with the sight of his wailing mother as she hugged the dead body of his sister.

A few days later his mother followed her daughter into death, and his father drank his grief in the solitude of the night alone, but Lin saw the look of blame in the father's eyes whenever he saw his son.

Finally Jin Bao couldn't stand this frustrating atmosphere and decided to leave, after years of experience in the world and some fortuitous encounters he found his right path in soul cultivation, he returned home to find his father no longer alive and had nothing else in that city but a few happy memories and a lot of sad ones.

He ended up massacring the whole sect to avenge his family and declared himself as a powerhouse of the younger generation, later he joined the mercenary guild and soon met Yi Shironsg.

He was a talented wind cultivator with a likable personality, smiling amiably all the time and always interacted with everyone politely.

After Jin Bao found the strange gold ring in the drowned realm, nobody witnessed it but Yi Shirong and he was quickly disinterested once he found that the ring was ordinary gold ring.

But, during a certain mission together Yi Shirong asked Jin Bao about it and smiled all the same when he heard from him how it turned out to be nothing but an ordinary gold ring, then sneak attacked Jin Bao and almost succeeded in killing him if it wasn't for his small success in soul cultivation a few months earlier.

Bloodied and mortally wounded, Jin Bao escaped towards the land of forgetfulness and succeeded in hiding the ring containing a tiny part of his soul from his former best friend and current enemy before he caught up and finished the job.

"Why?." Jin Bao asked weakly while supporting his body on the mountain walls deep inside the beast's territory within the land of forgetfulness, after a mad rush with no regard for his well-being and countless fights with the beasts the soul demon had reached the end of the road and couldn't fight anymore, "Give me the ring, the fourteenth pope of the church of light promised any kind of reward for it Jin," before the cold blade decapitated him, that was the last thing Yi Shirong said.

The rest was the ring changing hands a dozen times before it was found by Lin's first neighbor, who in turn met his end after getting blasted by his brother's (Lin's father Tai) arrow then he fought against the large bird which ended up eaten by Lin's village.

As Lin sat there looking at the great area covered in his soul force, Lin's tears trickling on his cheeks were grieving the unfortunate events of Jin Bao's life, after learning the ups and downs of his life they worked on furthering Lin's convection.

Now he was a thousand times more willing to defy his previous ways of life and avenge Jin Bao himself, only if the person himself turned out to be dead.

Somehow, Lin was hoping for Jin Bao to be alive so that he wouldn't need to cross the line for his sake.

Removing himself from the inner soul world, Lin opened his eyes and sent out his soul sense to the absolute limit, what faced him was amazement!.

Even Lin couldn't believe how far can his soul sense stretch right now.

Fifty kilometers radius of soul sense!.

Not only was his soul sense range further then before by a lot!, but also his vision maintained the microscopic view as well.

With such monstrous soul sense Lin had no fear whatsoever in using his wings, to his relief, the problem of leaving this island was no longer one of his worries.

"You're bored huh," seeing Sun crouching nearby and yawning lazily, Lin jumped on his back and said while rubbing his fur backwards, Sun squinted while nodding repeatedly, "Let's go down and catch some food before we go, I have a feeling that we can't afford to stay here anymore." Lin found Sun agreeing unhesitatingly when he heard him.

Sun tried to catch something to eat yesterday while Lin meditated, but down there was enemies which he couldn't fight without leaving the safety of the shallow waters.

Not taking that risk he had to go back empty-handed, after all the waters weren't the best environment for the tiger to unleash his powers.

Not to mention that his affinity for fire was suppressed in the waters and he had to use his teeth and claws to kill his enemies, after exiting the land of forgetfulness, Sun found himself able to use fire energy to coat his claws which made them deadlier.

Of course the sneaky tiger kept it a secret from his best friend and was planning to surprise him with it.

Lin shrunk his soul sense range into one kilometer from the previous fifty and was stunned to find that he could move a rock weighing fifty kilograms with a single thought, while Sun descended the cliff Lin hurled the stone at a monstrous fish lurking ten meters below and two hundred and thirty meters away from them.

Sun froze up in fear and looked at Lin to confirm if it was indeed him who caused that missile of a stone projectile, the fish was floating in the surface of the waters with the stone fragments lodged on it's side.

"Hehe, how do you like my new powers buddy?, Neat huh." Lin patted Sun's head and gave him a smile to ease his tention.

Sun was ecstatic and rewarded Lin with a wet lick with his barbed tongue, then he hurried to enter the water carelessly and swam towards the dead fish, he had no more fear whatsoever from the ones in the deep waters right now.

He was confident that Lin could carry him to safety at the first signs of danger, that made Sun release some frustrations on the cocky assholes who tried to drag him away from the safety of the shoreline.

"Come buddy it's time to go." Lin activated his wings and beckoned to Sun to change shape into his smaller version, hugging his tiger to his chest, Lin ascended higher into the sky and flew south leaving the island surrounded by marine life creatures.

His speed was noticably slower than before, these white wings were weaker than their yellow version, but, his control over them was vastly better.

Maybe that is caused by his soul force upgrade, maybe that is because he is using a weaker version of his wings, whatever the reason why, Lin slowly familiarized himself with them and slowly but gradually removed his soul force restrictions on his wings, finally he ended up completely freeing his wings from the restrictions of his soul force and his maximum speed was revealed, Lin ended up having to protect his and Sun's body as they flew with a layer of his soul force before breaking the sound barrier.

After flying for eight hours Lin met the second island and like the earlier one more than ten thousand kilometers away it was a parren island devoid of vegetation or life.

Sun left him to explore the island once he landed and Lin sat down cross-legged to cultivate his spirit, he could've used the advanced space talisman to head towards the southern continent but Lin wanted to do that when he's in tip-top form.

Better yet, if he concluded the matter of affirming Jin Bao's condition.

Shaking away his distractions, Lin simultaneously spread out his soul sense to the limit and opened the doors of his dantian to the light energy, the sight of his dantian was completely different from what he left it.

The dark-gold clouds were more than a dozen when he left it, now there was none at all.

Gold clouds?, None!.

Yellow clouds?, Only two remained and they were chasing the white clouds like wolves and consuming anyone that falls behind the fleeing horde.

White clouds were panick-running all over the dantian!, Their only safety from these bullying duo was in the feathers of Lin's spirit, however, the wings were consuming them when it wanted and Lin noticed how the feathers started to upgrade from white color to gain a yellowish faint color on a feather when it happened.

Any strand of light energy entering Lin's dantian was attracted towards the wings first before getting released to roam freely in the dantian's space, at once Lin noticed the difference between before and after these strands got attracted towards his spirit.

The light energy was unresponsive to his control before touching his wings, but after his wings released them they responded to his every command, even if he made other clouds consume them!.

"My spirit is branding them with some kind of a unique mark, I see now why the prime light cultivation technique warned against blindly storing energy without refining it first." Lin muttered faintly then controlled his attraction of light energy to go side by side with his spirit wings processing speed of each strand, the white clouds were the easiest to and fastest ones to be released from his wings, the higher grade light elements were taking longer and longer.

The new addition of light energy with various purities made the previous tyrants of Lin's dantian (the two yellow clouds) who suddenly met clouds of higher purity, it made them careful not to get swallowed by any stronger yellow clouds, gold or dark-gold clouds as they chased weaker white clouds.

Lin watched these two clouds which unlike their fellow yellow clouds who acted like minions to the gold clouds, these two maintained their independence and cautiously hunted white clouds.

He helped them by sending white clouds in their way and watched them grow stronger, from being yellow clouds they turned gold and once it happened they buzzed and drew some of the yellow clouds towards themselves and didn't tardy to consume them to raise to the next step and become dark-gold clouds.

Unlike the other dark-gold clouds which just arrived and didn't seem to know the rules of Lin's dantian, they hurried to occupy the closest place to his wings and willingly sent some energy as a tribute then orbited in a circle.

"Quite smart indeed," Lin commented on the couple clouds, "Being close to my wings enables them to take the first bite on whatever energy my spirit brands with it's special mark." He saw them devour clouds and grow stronger while giving his wings an endless stream of energy which made his feathers change into yellow one by one, whatever energy they didn't devour was forced to orbit them in turn.

End result was the consumption of the independent clouds outside of their circle gradually, finally Lin's dantian had his wings remaining in the center spot and only two dark-gold clouds orbiting it endlessly accompanied by their followers be that gold, yellow or white clouds.

Two nebulas of energy grew larger and stronger by the second, but these two smart dark-gold clouds made sure to maintain their dominance by willingly offering their tribute of energy to the wings which helped them suppress any gold cloud when it ascended to their level.

Lin sighed in relief when the final feather of his wings returned to it's original yellow color, "Should I help these two feathers return to their original gold color?," Lin delibrated the matter for a second then decided not to intervene when he saw the dark-gold clouds automatically send the largest amount of spirt energy yet, and like he assumed their intent was to strengthen these two feathers carrying the two symbols. "The energy required to return these two feathers to the gold color is great!, It must be caused by the symbols, it has to, otherwise they should be dark-gold by now according to my calculations, but why is the left feather requiring that much energy?, It has no relation to spirit energy and it's symbol is entirely soul oriented!, is my knowledge faulted?, This needs further information I'm like a blind person in a foreign environment with this cultivation, how I miss your advices and uptight answers old Jin." Lin sighed regretfully and watched the murky yellowish-white feathers turn yellow then gold gradually as they received the tributed energy from the dark-gold clouds, then the symbol of the wings on the right wing feather took the longest time to return to their original dark-gold color.

From that moment onwards all energy the wings received were redirected back to the rest of the feathers and various lines of gold color started to appear on them.

According to the prime light technique, the spirit should be soaked with the spirit energy as much as possible before starting to purify the accumulated spirit energy, of course you can ignore that step and even the step of purifying your spirit energy and directly attempt to unblock the meridians, simplifying that reckless hurrying of shortsighted gain in exchange for a long-term loss of accessable gain and possible potential termination or at least delay of future advancements.

Only once the spirit is fully nourished should you intervene and manually focus on raising the purity of your tank of spirit energy, after that it's a single-minded process of unblocking then fortifying the meridian walls.

But Lin was shocked by his wing's ability of swallowing energy!, Hours passed and his spirit were taking their bloody time to Lin's dissatisfaction, finally he was met with the hard choice of either patiently wait until they're finished soaking in all this light energy or prematurely stop his cultivation session and turn towards soul cultivation instead.

He wanted to reach the soul clone realm first before using the advanced space talisman, if Jin Bao was somehow alive, then Lin would head towards pearl harbor in the west of the southern continent to search for the first medicinal ingredient that could help the unfortunate soul trapped in the mysterious gold ring, that ingredient is called Deep Sea's Water Pearl and was a very famous and extremely rare type of soul healing miraculous medicine created by the camouflage clam living in the area at the West coast of the southern continent, if Jin Bao is dead, then Lin wouldn't need to gather any of the five ingredients and his destination will be the center of the southern continent instead of the west, from there he can pay some of his crystals and use any teleportation formation provided by the cultivation alliance and head for mercenary city to find Yi Shirong, know yourself, know your enemy, and you shall forever remain undefeated.

As long as he keeps taps on the person and hide his intentions, then Lin surly will find his chance to avenge old Jin.

Suppressing his eager thoughts about what will happen when he unblocks his meridians, Lin stopped his spirit cultivation and wished for a chance to do both kinds of cultivation sessions simultaneously, unfortunately, he couldn't and his spirit energy accumulation stops when he stopped using his soul sense to attract the light elements.

"This is somewhat frustrating, why does the spirit keep it's hands in it's pockets and watch from the sideline when I cultivate my soul force, and demand my soul assistance whenever I meditate on my spirit!, It doesn't help at all, sigh, whatever, later Ill unblock some parts of my first meridian and Ill get to see the effect of using spirit energy to strengthening the body, it is not like I'm going to do that soon from the look of the scary appetite my wings have for spirit energy anyway." Lin muttered begrudgingly then went according to the soul strengthening technique, soul cloning or soul shedding a clone realm meant severing your soul into two!, Approved by all soul cultivators as the most important and the most painful step of soul cultivation, Soul seeking realm made the soul body materialize in the soul realm, soul eye realm opens the third eye and expands the soul world (which in Lin's case was the lit area above and the clear golden waters below his soul body that kept expanding whenever he strengthened his soul sense), soul clone realm would separate the soul into two! (Which means better and finer control, higher possibility to gain sudden enlightenment, easier ability to process information, and fluid comprehension of foreign daos).

Yes doing that means hurting your soul temporarily, but, the existence of two compatible souls within the same physical body means the possibility of multitasking both soul force and spirit energy cultivations!, That's why soul cultivators were extremely fast in cultivation and mostly extremely dangerous when they reached that stage, after all just by using their soul force any soul clone realm freak can face against a spirit lord!, If they fused spirit energy then they can go head to head with spirit kings if their spirit energy cultivation was only in the spirit master realm!, if their spirit energy cultivation was in the spirit tyrant realm they could face a low stage spirit emperor with main affinity for one of the basic five elements!, if they're in the spirit lord realm then by fusing soul force and spirit energy they can lock horns and stand their ground against a mid-tier emperor with main affinity of the high grade elements!, If a dual soul clone and spirit king?, Then a high emperor with main affinity for a superior grade if bound to fail to suppress the dual cultivator, if a dual soul clone and spirit emperor met any spirit emperor in combat the end is always in favor of the dual cultivator.

That was proof of how awesome soul clone realm is and how much of an advantage it gave, especially if a fusion happened between the two types of energies held by the dual cultivator, there was a mention of a triple fusion between soul force, spirit energy, and vital Qi but that was only a legend, even a fantasy about a quadrupled fusion with intent added into the mix, one theory about faith power which could be added!.

Simplifying the whole process of breaking through to the clone realm, Lin had to compress his soul force inside his soul body (which gained material effect in this inmer soul world), what is hard can be broken what is touched can be teared apart, after his soul force compresses to the limit in his soul body Lin has to Will it that his soul body starts separate in two from the head downwards!, after momentary pain (which is bullshit, Lin has some fragments of Jin Bao's experience on that step, plus the fact that no soul pain is momentary, Lin tried it once and the fact that time doesn't work correctly in the soul world, somehow it seems like it stretches indefinitely!) You work on healing your soul bodies and first gain is triple the previous soul range and soul force, now instead of one soul body you get an extra one and one plus one doest mean two in the soul body's equation.

If one Lin with a peak-perfection soul eye realm cultivation can stretch his soul sense fifty kilometers outwards, then in the beginnings of the soul clone realm he'll have two soul bodies inside his soul world and each of them can do the same!, Not to mention that the amplification of both soul senses layered on top of each other gives the range a boost and the soul force a great ability to pry deeper and gaze upon the secrets of the dao.

That's why it was easy for soul clone realm cultivators could very tirelessly reach the spirit grandmaster level, it made it easier for them to understand the ongoings of the dao just by studying it, and most of those who get stuck in the spirit grandmaster realm had either very bad talents on spirit cultivation or too lazy to waste time on spirit energy cultivation for some reason.

Feeling a shudder of fear overtaking him from the toes to the top of the head, Lin was just reminded of his earlier suffering and hesitated once before grinding his teeth and willing his soul body to tear apart from the center of the scalp then downwards and severing his vertical silver third eye and upper skull in half followed by the nose, mouth, chin, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis.

Downright madness, Lin kept cursing and wailing for mercy as the everlasting agony ate away at his sanity, despite having tasted it before (Soul Pain) Lin begged sweet mercy over and over while the flames of soul suffering roasted him over and over.

Finally when two bodies missing a half gave each other one-eyed, half-mouthed, weak smiles of relief, Lin knew that he was finally successful in breaking through to the clone realm and gave the deepest sigh of his life.

First time he taster soul pain wasn't by choice, this time he had to jump in into this ocean of torment by choice!.

"Time to check on old Jin, please be alright, please let there be hope for him." Lin crossed his fingers and muttered faintly while exiting the soul world and making the gold ring appear, he sent and endless stream of soul force towards the ring and made sure the other soul clone stay it's soul force and remain seated in the soul world and heal itself back to a complete soul body.

"WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY SLUMBER?, THOU SHALL BE PUNISHED." Lin felt fear like never before merely by hearing those words explode inside his soul and shake it's foundations once he tried to enter the gold ring with a part of his soul, he felt suddenly faint and terribly dizzy almost a hairbreadth away from getting knocked out!.

"Whadafuuk did I do this time?," Lin opened his eyes and muttered as he pressed his temples with both palms to ease the enormous headache from splitting his skull, he saw Sun crouching nearby, no scratch that, he saw Sun groveling at the ground as he trembled like a shaking leaf in the middle of a storm from fear!, Yes, same as Lin, Sun was helpless in the face of the terribly fearful threat which appeared seemingly out of nowhere!.

"Prime Light Technique incomplete one though, Guiding Light Physique untapped whatsoever, Clones still hobbling one legged, Passable Vitality for an all rounder but what a waste of a good bloodline, Glass Heart devoid of intent, Faith Aura is the confusing thing about you little one, boy, who are you?." Lin disappeared from in front of Sun's eyes, to be exact he was taken somewhere and the words he heard, some were understood, some were guessed, some were completely confusing.

By the time he noticed the change of the environment, Lin foind himself standing in front of a standing raccoon one meter tall and pointing a finger at his nose arrogantly as he spoke with the most annoying smug on his face, that expression was begging for a short hook to the jaw but the alarm bells of his intuition told Lin of how dangerous that cocky raccoon can be.

Not to mention that he just dissected Lin's stats with his words, even the matter of the second heart was mentioned by him, as for that guiding light physique and faith aura Lin wanted to ask about them for further details but that raccoon looked to be in a very bad mood.

"This one is Lin, son of Tai the Mighty and Tian the beauty, Pleasure meeting you." Hurrying to answer after a very quick mental processing of the strange circumstances, Lin bowed politely while answering and his eyes took the scenery around him in a fleeting-quick cursory side-glance, he was amazed by how he was transported from a parren island in the middle of the ocean to a strange forest with gigantic trees!.

"Why did you disturb me?, Lin son of Tai." Squinting dangerously the raccoon asked, only this time he tapped the tip of Lin's nose a few times provocatively with his gleaming sharp claw at the end of the long thin finger.

"Excuse my ignorance, I don't actually know when I did that to be honest with you!." Lin awkwardly asked but he was expecting a few more nose-pokes from that raccoon when he gave that answer.