The night was deepening, and as time went by, I was feeling more and more relaxed. All the turmoil that I had in my mind was vanishing and my mind was approaching a peaceful state.

“Emphusa, I want to have my first Martial spirit.”, I said.

“Is it your father's?”

“Yes, It’s a knight grade martial spirit, Black Mamba. It has a sharp movement skill and a fast fist strike as far as I know. There might be more hidden skills but I have never seen them. But that movement skill is something that I need, I am not strong enough right now. So if I came across an opponent who is stronger than me, I will run away. As long as they don’t have same or higher level movement skills or have a tremendous higher cultivation, I will be able to flee.”

“You sure love your life, ensuring safety before everything, huh?”

“You can think of me as a scary cat if you want. But I know my priorities.”

“Well, you are not wrong in your particular approach. Besides after absorbing two martial spirits your cultivation speed will increase. And as you have multiple spirits, your cultivation speed will be faster and faster with times, so you will hardly reach any bottleneck. And in each level, you will have the ability to absorb more spirits, so ensuring your safety first is not a wrong approach.”

“Oh, so how to do it? I have not gained any instructions from you yet and I still need to practice.”

“Oh don’t worry, this is not a battle skill that needs more and more practice. As long as you can activate it, you will be able to utilize it. Your control over it will get better with times. After all your opponent might resist and you might end up sucking someone dry.”

“That’s rather a great problem, since the first person I want to use it on is my father.”

“Don’t worry, trust your instinct. It will work somehow. “

A few black line appeared on my forehead as I said, “Anybody ever told you before how terrible of a teacher you are?”

“….. No”

“……..”

I sighed and took a deep breath, asking her for help is not helping me at the moment, I will need to make it work myself. For some reason, I felt like, I would be able to execute this skill right now even if I never practiced it before. Is it because, the mental barrier I had with my father in the past vanished? May be, but one thing is true I am calm and focused than I ever was. My eyes became more determined as my thoughts proceeded.

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“I will do it, so what should I do?”

“That’s more like it. You don’t have to do too much. The moment you made a contact with me, your body already transformed itself through the contract. You just need to run your spirit energy throughout the body and release it slowly. Every pores in your body will act like a pump and suck out spirit. Since it’s your father, you need to have perfect focus and control over it. Otherwise, if you take too much, his foundation will be damaged. You need to absorb it, just like how a person absorbs natural spirit energy.”

“Alright”, I said and opened my eyes. The silent session between me and my father ended as I stand up. My father looked at me sensing my movements.

“You are leaving?, he asked.

“No, I want to talk about something. But before that, I want to see your martial spirit. Can you show it to me?”

“My martial spirit? Why do you want to see it?” my father frowned and said with confusion.

“I never checked it out from close. So, I just want to see how it looks like from the viewpoint of an opponent. I think, it will help me to maintain my composure against a powerful opponent.”

“Is it? Alright then.”, my father stood up as he said. And I could see tremendous spirit energy lurking around him. And just after a second a twelve to fifteen feet tall snake appeared behind him. As it open it's mouth, I saw a pitch black surface. "Strong and dominant", these two words were running in my head as I saw my father in this state. I didn’t waste my time and started releasing my own spirit energy. For some reason I was feeling like countless holes opened up in my body which were hungry for inhaling spirit.

“Stop absorbing and close your pores, when I told you to." , Emphusa said.

I nodded and activated my martial skill and the absorption started. The sensation I was feeling right now can not be described with words. If possible I would want to indulge myself in this pleasure but I didn’t lose my mind. I saw a frown appear on my father's face. Although he was not affected, he was feeling that something was wrong. As more and more spirit energy flowed to my body, my desire to continue this process was increasing.

“Enough”, I suddenly heard Emphusa Shouting and discarding every other thought I had in my mind. I immediately closed off my pores. I started huffing as sweats were dripping from my forehead.

“You okay?”, My father came quickly to my side and asked.

“I am, father. Rest assured. Can I meditate in your place for a while?”, I asked.

Although, more and more doubts were visible on his face, he still nodded and agreed to my request.

I took a corner and started meditating  . As I entered my martial domain, I saw a new blob like spirit energy lurking in front of Emphusa.

“You almost lost yourself there. That’s why you need to have proper control over that skill. Or else you will become a bloodthirsty fiend.”

“I know. Now, what should I do about this blob?”

“Well just cultivate normally here and instead of your dantian compress the energy into this blob. During this period, your cultivation won't improve though. These spirit energy you absorb, will be expanded in forming this spirit. But after you are done, your cultivation speed will increase.”

I nodded as I started doing how she suggested. I forget how much time I spend in cultivation and finally a movement was visible in the blob in front of me. It was slowly taking a shape of a snake, and finally a tiny baby black mamba appeared in front of me. It was yawning as it blinked here and there.

“Congratulations, you finally formed your first spirit. It’s in the basic grade and still an infant though. But it will grow strong with times.”

I smiled and looked at the tiny playful creature in front of me. From here on, my martial journey started it’s root.