Castiel also fell asleep soon listening to her sister’s heartbeat. Today has been exhausting. In the morning, he started cultivating again. Sword practice had to be put on hold for a while he is still in the airbus. Removing all the impurities in his mana will still take a few months, he had no time to waste. Leo was still sleeping. It was weird that someone so powerful was sleeping for so long. Other passengers were eating and gossiping about yesterday’s events in the dining area.

At some time, Leo also woke up but he didn’t disturb Castiel. In the evening, Castiel heard an announcement.

Attention passengers. In two hours, we will enter the boundary of Atlantis. A few minutes after that, the airbus will dock at city #47.

-I will disembark at city #47. Even if someone tracks down my fake identity and investigates my destination, they will have a hard time figuring out that I disembarked before I reached city #1.- Castiel thought.

“Leo, I will drop off at city #47. You know my circumstances. City #1 is not my actual destination. I may also be too weak to survive in city #1. I don’t want to depend on you all the time. I hope someday in the future, I am powerful enough to walk shoulder to shoulder with you with my real face.” Castiel abruptly stopped his cultivation and said to Leo beside him. Leo’s expression changed a little as he heard Castiel talk about his real face.

“I understand Gray. I won’t try to stop you. But I will give you one last piece of knowledge that you won’t find anywhere. Not even in House of Desires, because you won’t know what question to ask.” Leo was very mild today compared to yesterday. He was behaving like a teacher who wanted to impart all his knowledge before parting with his student.

“There are many fields of cultivation like intent or laws that affect one’s combat power. There is one particular field that very few people actively practice or even know of. It is called mana control. Everyone senses mana in the air, be it any element. They induce it into their bodies and circulate it around their mana channel network using a cultivation method. The primary sensing of mana can be termed 1st level of mana control.

As you keep cultivating and fighting, you will start to have more control of mana in your body. At some point, you can manipulate the mana in your body to flow to specific channels. For example, your sword slash yesterday. What do you call it?”

“Quick draw and quick sheath.” Leo answered while listening attentively.

“For both these skills, you must be using the mana in your hips and right hand mana channels to send out an explosive slash and also to retract your sword immediately for camouflage. Am I right?” Leo asked again.

“Yes.” Castiel was a little astonished that Leo knew exactly which mana channels he was using for both skills. -He may have guessed it by looking at all the moving body parts for a skill and extrapolating from there.- He thought.

“Now imagine you can temporarily store all the mana in your body in only your hips and right hand. Now this will leave you vulnerable in other parts of the body but you can use the full mana in your body to send out a stronger slash. This level of mana control is considered the 2nd level.

You can usually output multiple times the power possible by a skill with 2nd level mana control. Usually all cultivators who have cultivated for decades can reach this level just by virtue of experience.” Leo gave some time to Castiel for processing this information.

“In the 3rd level of mana control, you can see mana inside your body and a radius around you even without a nascent soul. You can even use the mana that you see, directly in combat or any other use. Once you reach it, you can explore infinite more possibilities. Even though it won’t have that much impact in combat, I consider it to be of equal importance to a 50% comprehension in any law.

Let me show you some magic.” Leo was a little excited as he explained the 3rd level. He curled his right palm with his fingers wide open. On each of his finger tips, there was a rotating ice rhombohedron.

“This is a spell called ice prism. It can be used to freeze hundreds of living beings at once. It is one of the strongest skills among its level. The mana requirement to train in it is so high that only nascent souls can start learning it. Now there are five of these skills ready to go in my hand but with a fraction of the mana required to launch it. I can use this to freeze the heart of the man who killed my baby niece. Or maybe I already did that.” Leo explained. He was almost growling at the end.

“I am sorry.” Castiel didn’t know what to say to console Leo. He already had too much of his unresolved grief. He was still just a child.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“It’s alright bro. I know you are carrying around similar grief too. I hope you learn to control your rage, tame it, channel it, become stronger because of it but don’t let it control you. If you do, I hope you can live with the consequences.” Leo shaked his head.

“So where was I? Yes. 3rd level of mana control. You can use what I call mini-skills with 3rd level of mana control. You can start modifying skills according to your own mana channel network. You don’t need to be influenced by the author of a skill anymore.

With more control of mana, you can also see and manipulate mana lines of low level formations like temporary face-changing formation.” Leo winked at Castiel. Castiel was quite embarrassed to finally confirm that Leo indeed knew his real face and age.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Also you don’t have to worry that random people you meet will be able to see your face. There are more beings with 50% law comprehension than there are with 3rd level of mana control.” Leo consoled him when he saw his embarrassed face.

“Thank you, Leo….big brother.” Castiel stood up and bowed deeply towards Leo. It might be a small issue for Leo to explain all these cultivation knowledge to him but he was akin to an enlightenment teacher to him.

“My name is Castiel.” He whispered while bowing.

“I will call you Cass. Is that alright?” Leo straightened him and hugged him. Castiel trembled. The nickname reminded him of Mei. -I hope she is alright.- Castiel prayed.

“What happened? Did I strike a nerve?” Leo said in concern as he felt Castiel tremble.

“No, it’s fine. Just remember something. You can call me whatever you like.” Castiel sat back down and went silent. He was already missing Mei quite a bit. In the last year, she has been with him everyday for hours. In one day, he lost Amelia and lost Mei.

“Since you already called me big brother. I cannot let you leave without a gift.” Leo said as he took out a sword of thin air. Castiel was astonished. He had only ever heard of space containers. He had even heard of bloodbath between nascent soul cultivators for space containers.

The sword had the features of a knight sword. It was a double-edged pointed sword with a pulsating fire vein pattern. Its long handle was embroidered with fiery red feathers.

“Take this. Fire sparrow sword. This sword can help you till pinnacle golden core fights. It has been strengthened by 4th circle formation using an adult fire sparrow beast’s core. The feathers on the handle are from the body of the same fire sparrow, an early nascent soul fire sparrow.” Leo handed the sword to Castiel. He held the sword tremblingly. Even though a magnificent sword was on display in the open, other passengers were somehow not paying any attention here.

“Don’t use it unless absolutely necessary. You might attract the covetous eyes of a cultivator you can’t handle. Try using the sword. Don’t worry, nobody will pay attention here.” Leo encouraged him.

Castiel tried a few swings of the basic sword art. This sword didn’t feel as intimate to him as a katana. The balance and sharpness of the sword differed from a katana. It was more for heavy slashing and stabbing. But the worst part was he couldn’t activate the fire pattern in the sword at all. It’s like the formation was actively dodging his attempts at infusing it with mana. He knew there was a chance that he wouldn’t even be able to use external elemental mana objects.

He handed the sword back to Leo. There was not much disappointment in his face. He had already decided his path years ago when he learned his elemental affinity. It doesn’t make much difference now that he can’t use a powerful elemental sword.

“I cannot use this big brother. There are some special circumstances affecting my body.” Castiel said.

“Too high primordial law affinity?” Leo immediately guessed the reason.

“Yes. Immeasurable.” Even though this was currently a demerit, Castiel said proudly. The talent test machines that the empire currently has, are not even able to measure his affinity degree.

“Damn bro. Which law?” Leo jumped up in excitement. It has been a few hours since Castiel saw Leo so excited again. Castiel couldn’t answer. Learning his elemental affinity degree had been a traumatic event.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me.” Leo saw that Castiel was silent and assumed he wanted to keep it private.

“It’s space.” Castiel whispered after a while.

“I am sorry bro. But don’t give up. Even though there has never been a documented case of a person having too high primordial law affinity to break through to the nascent soul. You can always be the first.” Leo encouraged him.

“Thank you big brother. It is impossible for me to give up.” Castiel said with clenched fists. His mother’s revenge is still not accomplished. He also has to rescue his sister.

“That’s the spirit. Since you can’t use elemental law swords, take this.” Leo took out another sword. It was a jet black katana with a jet black handle. Even its blade edge was black. There were no patterns, no identifiers on the sword. It looked like a piece of obsidian.

“I don’t know its grade, nor what it’s made of. I just know that it is the sharpest weapon I have ever seen. I found this while exploring an ancient ruin. It cannot be infused with any elemental mana but I have not found any material that it cannot cut through yet.” Leo said as he cut through the tip of the fire sparrow sword using the black katana. The tip of the fire sword was gone leaving behind a buttery smooth surface. Leo didn’t care about the damaged fire sparrow sword.

“Only way to counter it is to have mana infusion.” Leo again tried cutting the fire sparrow sword with the black katana. This time the fire vein pattern was glowing red like oozing magma. A thin layer of ice appeared on the edges of the sword. Leo tried to repeatedly cut through the fire sparrow sword, only managing to remove a small chip after numerous tries.

Castiel was shocked that the katana even managed to dent the sword a little even after Leo’s mana protection and the sword’s own internal formation.