Kyril listened to every word of Zalea with interest and committed everything she said to his mind.

“Then what’s a Martial Pneuma?” Kyril asked.

“The Martial Pneuma is the core of all Practitioners and is the form that Martial Essence takes shape in the Practitioner’s Soul Space when it is absorbed and refined. And since it is located within the Soul Space, one can even say that the Martial Pneuma is the soul.”

“The soul of Practitioners? ...Could it be that it was due to my revival that this body could finally cultivate?” Kyril pondered.

“Martial Pneumas also have attributes that determine what Martial Essence Practitioners can absorb and refine. As Martial Essence is composed of the six elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, and Dark, a Practitioner should not cultivate any other Elemental Attribute other than the Element they have an affinity with!

Instead, one must ensure that they remove the other Elements they have no affinity with from the Martial Essence before absorbing it to avoid cultivating Elements that are not suited to them. Absorbing Martial Essence with no affinity to one’s Martial Pneuma would just cause more impurities to build up in the body which would later hinder development! I have witnessed countless Practitioners think that cultivating more Martial Essence would somehow be more beneficial than cultivating their compatible Elemental Attribute only to find out that their bodies became so full of impurities that they could no longer cultivate.”

Kyril’s head nodded several times as Zalea spoke. But when he heard about the six Elements, Kyril grew slightly confused.

“Six Elements? What about my Space attribute teacher said I had affinity with? Should there not at least be seven Elements?”

“Zalea, are there any other Elements other than the six you mentioned?”

At Kyril's sudden question, Zalea shuddered a bit before her eyes locked onto Kyril, “...Why do you ask?”

To others Zalea’s subtle falter may have been near undetectable, but who was Kyril? He was a person who has decades of experience from his past life. If he could not notice the slight reactions of Zalea then his past life would have been for naught.

“So there is another attribute… But why does she seem to want to hide it from me…?” Kyril thought for a while. “Come to think of it, from the stories I read about Practitioners in the library, there was nothing written about Practitioners who had an affinity with Space. Could it be related to that?”

Not bothering to wait for Kyril's response, Zalea stood up and walked to the back of her store and after several breaths of time, Zalea came back to the counter with a transparent crystal shaped like rough rocks found by the side of cliffs in her hands.

“This is a Testing Stone. It’ll be able see the shape of your Martial Pneuma as well as Elemental Attribute. Place your hand over it and inject some of your Martial Essence into it.” Zalea said and placed the Testing Stone onto the counter.

Kyril hesitated for a bit before resting his hand on top of the Testing Stone and injected some of the Martial Essence from inside his body into the Testing Stone.

When not even three seconds passed, a faint light flickered and then lit up from within the Testing Stone. In the middle of the stone a dark, hazy figure appeared.

Seeing this, Zalea moved closer and looked deep into it as if she was inspecting every nook and cranny. Kyril also looked at the Testing Stone and felt an overwhelming sense of mysteriousness from the fuzzy figure within the Testing Stone. It was as if the fuzzy figure was a hole that had no end, yet was filled with secrets that could cause the skies to fall and the heavens to crash.

Turning her head to look at Kyril, Zalea gave a complex look.

“From the Testing Stone, it seems that you do not have any affinity with any of the Elemental Attributes, but the Primal Attributes… and the Space Primal Attribute too…” Zalea said.

“Primal Attributes? Is that something different than the elements you mentioned before?” Kyril asked curiously.

Zalea placed her hand on her head. “It's completely different! If the Elemental Attributes were like water, then the Primal Attributes would be like fire! Heaven and Earth, light and dark, completely different!” Zalea sighed. “Now I don't know if the heavens have pitied you or wanted to play some tricks and games…”

“This…” Kyril hesitated.

If having an affinity with the Primal Attributes were as bad as Zalea made it out to be, how would it affect achieving his goal?

“Is having an affinity with the Primal Attributes really that bad?”

“It’s not bad, it's just… extremely wasteful. You should know that the Primal Attributes are much stronger than the Elemental Attributes, but also extremely difficult to cultivate. The amount of effort used to cultivate the Primal Attributes, can be used to cultivate the Elemental Attributes to a level four, even five times greater!”

“...? Then is it not just more difficult than cultivating the Elemental Attributes?” Kyril replied as if saying something that was so obvious that even newborn babies would know about it.

Zalea shook her head and moved the Testing Stone to the side so that only the wooden counter and air separated herself and Kyril.

“It's better for me just to explain it. Primal Attributes, unlike Elemental Attributes which comes from the Martial Essence of World Qi, come from Cosmic Qi. The Martial Essence of Cosmic Qi is composed of only four elements: Space, Time, Cosmos, and Chaos, and you have the Space attribute,” Zalea explained to Kyril.

And when Kyril heard about this he was immediately filled with excitement.

“Space… Time……” Kyril silently thought to himself, repeating the list of Primal Attributes to himself. Then his eyes lit up and his body lightly trembled. “These are the laws of the Universe! Does this mean that if I can get enlightenment in all of the Primal Attributes, I would be able to achieve my goal?”

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Kyril felt his mind floating, but  did not dare become distracted for too long and focused himself to listening to Zalea again.

“However, due to the difficulty of cultivating any of the Primal Attributes, the amount of Practitioners that can cultivate the Primal Attributes doesn’t exceed the number of fingers in my hand. In fact, you may be the only be left! Even counting the number of Primal Attributed Practitioners in all the billions, perhaps trillions, of years, it doesn’t even enter triple digits!”

Zalea gestured her fingers in the air.

“There are also very little records detailing anything about the Primal Attributes and the records that do record some information are at least millions of years old! Furthermore the only information they have is the lives and deaths of Practitioners who cultivated the Primal Attributes. These Practitioners were able to come and go like the wind. Unhindered and free. But their deaths are even more tragic,” Zalea said seriously. “Kyril you must remember something, unless your life is threatened, do not easily reveal that you can cultivate any of the Primal Attributes.”

“Why?” Kyril was confused.

“Humans are beings that get jealous by nature. Due to the lack of information about the Primal Attributes, if they see you using its power, they will think that you have a priceless treasure and will surely kill you to obtain it. And if powerful Practitioners knowledgeable of the Primal Attributes realise that you are able to cultivate the Primal Attributes, they will kill you before you become more powerful than them. Either way, revealing your Attribute can get you killed!” Zalea firmly said with concern evident in her eyes.

“Mmm…” Kyril nodded understandingly. With his life experiences, the emotion called jealousy, he was all too familiar with.

Then a sudden realisation dawned onto Kyril.

“Zalea, is it possible to be able to cultivate multiple Elements at the same time?”

“Of course it is. While cultivating one Element is the norm, there are always exceptions to the rules of the heavens. There have been Practitioners who were capable of cultivating two and even three Elements, but the possibility of this happening is very rare. Out of thousands of Practitioners, it's likely that not even one of them can cultivate two Elements. As for three… perhaps not even one in a million!”

Hearing this, Kyril's eyes burned. And when Zalea saw this, she froze.

“Wait… Don't tell me you want to cultivate more than one Primal Attribute…”

To this, Kyril only grinned. “Of course I do! It's the laws of the Universe, after all!”

“Not happening! Kyril, did you not hear me earlier? Cultivating the Primal Attributes can be five times harder than cultivating any of the Elemental Attributes! Moreover, cultivating multiple elements is also much harder - two elements would require twice the effort and three elements, three times the effort!” Zalea harshly said like a mother warning her child.

“And you can’t just gain an element, you’re born with it! If you try to cultivate elements you don’t have an affinity with, you’ll just fill your bodies with impurities! Now that you’re able to cultivate, don’t do something so wasteful!”

From Kyril, Zalea felt that if she did not say anything to restrain him, Kyril might end up making decisions he might regret in the future. But this only served to encourage Kyril.

The Primal Attributes basically meant understanding the Universe! This was Kyril’s ultimate goal in life, how could he face away from such an opportunity?

“Wasteful? Utter nonsense! This is a golden opportunity for me! A silver platter served right into my mouth! With this, my goal becomes one step closer!”

Kyril smirked at Zalea. “Didn’t you say that there are always exceptions to the rules?”

“No no no no no,” Zalea repeated. “Were you listening to me? Primal Attributed Cultivators are as rare as ice existing in volcanoes! And previous Practitioners are recorded to only cultivated one of the Primal Attributes! In fact, for the Cosmos and Chaos attributes, there are scarce amounts of records about them, if at all! And you want to cultivate all Primal Attributes? Boy, do I need to smack you to fix that head of yours?”

Looking at Zalea refuting him as if her life depended on it, Kyril was taken aback, but at the same time was quite amused.

“Does this old woman have two personalities? Where did the blushing go? The shyness and the timidness?” Kyril wondered, but pushed this to the back of his mind.

Instead, Kyril started staring deeply into Zalea.

Feeling this stare, it was as if the whole world was looking at her. The eyes of Kyril contained a worldly depth that would shame any ancient book causing Zalea to immediately shut her mouth.

“Zalea, let me tell you something.” Kyril’s voice grew deep. “When a person follows the crowd, that person will get no further than the crowd. But the person that walks alone will find themselves in places far and high; in places no one has ever been.”

Silence. Zalea did not know how to respond to such words teeming with wisdom.

“Is this really a twelve year old child?” Zalea thought in admiration.

After a while, Kyril broke his stare with a blink and slight shake of his head before finally revealing a smile.

“Thank you for your guidance Zalea, but don’t worry about me,” Kyril said.

With a light push of his legs, Kyril leaned closer to Zalea and whispered a few words.

“I will succeed.”

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