an unknown amount of time later

~third person Pov~

Lord Erebus the God of darkness one of the few surviving members of the Olympian pantheon watched closely as

Davthanid held a spirit pen and drew the last stroke of the rune on the talisman paper.

Lord Erebus felt pride as he watched the human especially when he saw the human's eyes

In David's eyes, there was a scarlet red halo flickering, which enable him to see the

the element of spiritual power on the paper flowing along with the rune,

Erebus was at first surprised to see how talented the boy was only in a matter of days, he had master the runic arts and soul spirit arts which took years for normal people

meanwhile

David had smoothly and cautiously and without the slightest accident, had completed the rune and was now smiling like a man gone mad

"It took more than a month, but you can finally complete this type of talisman."

Lord Erebus boomed with pride dripping from his tone

"Let me try the effect,” David jumped and eagerly looked at his

Lord Erebus couldn't help but smile as he gave the go-ahead

David took the newly painted talisman into a his hands as a golden hue halo began covering his face like a golden mask formed on his face

Lord Erebus clicked his tongue in disgust he had very little love for the monks and their arts but he couldn't deny the advantages these Arts brought

With the halo of the mask, David would be able to see the power of the five elements flowing all around them endlessly.

And Lord Erebus did not have any equivalent technique for that power

If he had he would have forbid the child from ever using the Buddhist powers the orchid had left him long time ago

Even in death, that plant had ruined his mood

He so wanted to squash the use of Buddhist techniques which in his opinion were disgusting

and kid somehow gained an arsenal of these Buddhist arts which initiated lord Erebus to no end

"in my humble opinion, this really is a defensive talisman!" David chirped happily

David's smile had become more obvious.

Lord Erebus was also happy as

In the outside market, generally speaking, defensive types are more valuable than attack types, whether they are talismans or magical items or artefacts they are all sold at a very high rate.

"If the defensive effect is good then there will be one more card in your deck,” Lord Erebus said trying to suppress the strong dislike for the mask on David's face

David nodded and dismissed the golden mask as he placed the Talisman on a stone nearby

Then, he pinched his hand, and blue spiritual power began to form in his hands as a blast of pulse shot out from his hands

Lord Erebus still marvelled at the technique what had the kid called it yes

‘Electromagnetic pulse'

The kid was a genius in the soul arts in his opinion within months since he had been cleansed he found ways to manipulate the spiritual energy in ways he couldn’t even fathom in his wildest imagination and with ease that was if he had promised that arts for years

As the ball of energy made contact with the talisman a red shield made of electricity materialised and blocked the attack

And then instantly disappeared

Without waiting for permission David sprung as he waved his hand and spiritual energy shimmered as he launched another spell

This time it was a blue lance made up of spiritual energy

And just like last time a red shield appeared and blocked the attack

David did not back down have he urged the Rune inked on his wrist, the tattoed rune glowed with golden light, and a spell of ‘Golden Sword Technique' was immediately cut out and slashed at the talisman

The red shield easily blocked the golden blade

The Scarlet red halo in

David's eyes became brighter and brighter,

and he continued to urge his spiritual energy as runes formed in the air with black light, cyan light, red light, and yellow light sequentially lit up all around him

Water arrow, Earth thorn, fireball and shadow blade,

The Four spells of runic element attacked one by one, testing the defensive power of the red shield in all directions from top to bottom, left to right.

The effect was unexpectedly good.

Lord Erebus was shocked as he watched a 2nd-grade defensive talisman easily endure multiple 2nd-grade attacks

David was panting heavily but the scarlet red halo in his eyes never dimmed

David took out three there talismans from his sleeve and played the talisman in sequence.

A "Wind Blade", a "Lightning Strike", and a "Poison Cloud " respectively bombarded the red shield and finally, the Poison cloud melted the rock without the talisman activating and blocking the attack

Seeing this, Lord Erebus nodded slightly, becoming more satisfied.

"Although the effect is not as good as a defensive artefact this is still a general high-level second-grade defensive talisman ."

This newly created Red shield Talisman had an unexpectedly good defensive effect.

Lord Erebus was a little hesitant to praise the child for he feared that the child would grow more proud it will harm him In the long run so he could only prise him in a moderate way

Even though what he did was ingenious and way beyond any level he had ever seen in his long long life lord Erebus still did not praise him

At this moment, David suddenly felt a little dizzy in his head and little black spots appeared in front of his eyes.

He immediately dissipated Scarlet red halo in his eyes and stretched out his hand to gently rub his forehead.

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"The spiritual energy is about to run out you should sit down and meditate to gather some more"

Lord Erebus said as he waved his hand and a futon appeared next to David

David walked to the side, and sat cross-legged on the futon, holding his hands in his lap, his eyes slightly closed, and then began to chant

This was another thing Lord Erebus hated about David instead of closing his eyes and mediate the boy now chanted like the monks

And because once again he could not dispute the fast effects of the method he was left with a distasteful scene in front of him

It would take an hour for the boy to be back on his top form

Lord Erebus thought

he needed him to advance soon he had stayed at the 1st grade of the soul cultivation the awakening state for a long time it was now time for the next step and

the child's body was too weak he also needed to forge a new one for the boy

This was one of the good things that the stupid plant had done for the boy before his death

the soul of the boy was a now pure one without any elemental affinity that meant anybody will now be compatible with the boy's soul

and once he forms his new body he would fly up to the core formation stage in a blink of an eye

.................................................................

~David's POV~

as the chant began to resonate with me I felt

a warmth began spreading throughout my whole body and a soft warm blue glow began to form in front of now blue and white soul sitting in the centre of my lake

which was as I had just learned my soul space

even though I still did not feel any trust or connection to my new teachers but I did not have enough choice in the matter

the golden starving man according to silver had cleaned my soul not just of the dark element but also of the five-element now my soul was elements pure as the first term of a newborn baby unknown

he had also left me a golden orchid blooming right in front of my soul in my soul space

I had no idea how long it had been since I began my training

right after the golden hue which had engulfed me I had lost consciousness

and when I woke silver and lord Erebus had begun my training

first, they taught me how to gather energy through my soul

So instead of breathing exercises, I learned to absorb energy through meditating and guiding the ambient spiritual energy to my soul and then to my body

and then to guide it to my soul space and gather it there and compress it and then utilise as I saw fit

I had lost track of time as I learned to absorb manipulate and structure the spiritual energy according to my needs

I had named it energy manipulation and then I had learned about my mind root which safely wasn't change

each time I used my mind root I was filled with fear, saddens, Joy and anger but mainly it was anger

I learned how to guide and circle the spiritual throughout my body then I learned how to combine my spiritual energy and my mental energy

mental energy was the same as the spiritual energy only in the sense both were gathered by mediating

It took me months before I realised how to utilise my mind root

the answer was my emotions with each emotion my spiritual energy aspect changed fear turned into ice-cold allowing me to free anything sadness made heavy and solid joy turned it hot as molten lava and anger burned it like lightning

The first thing I did was find myself to practice meditation and meditation to release all my emotions according to my wishes

to have total absolute control over myself

I did not know where to start and like a fool, I started with the worst place which was to meditate on Anger and sadness but Lady Tong flew to my rescue literally flew down from her bell

she then taught me how to bind my emotions to my will it took some time but I finally managed to that now I did not need to get sad angry or happy to use my emotions to affect the spiritual energy

now it followed my will and did what I wanted

the training was hard arduous and exhausting

but it was worth it

because now, now I can use my emotional power

not just for defence but also for healing and improving

I now have my very own energy manipulation system

that is how I have learned to use my emotions to control the spiritual energy inside me

but it was time-consuming as I had spent twice the effort on mental energy and spiritual energy

but that had changed when a chant appeared in my mind that allowed me to gather and collect both spiritual energy and mental energy in a single sitting

I don't know where it came from because after the cleansing the golden buddha state had disappeared

but this wasn't the end no matter what I needed if wished for it in my mind a chant related to that appeared with the result it gave me was tremendous

But most importantly, I could now use both spiritual energy and mental energy together

That was how I learnt to do this, how much progress I had achieved

It was very small progress but a big leap forward.

with just my thoughts I was able to manipulate the energy into any construct and form that I want

With just my thoughts I can create and control any substance made with the energy

after that silver began my fighting training and lord Erebus began my rummage training

the fighting training was ten times worse than what Pollux had ever but for me through

It was simple enough I just had to fight Silver and there was one more thing the fights were to death

turns out Silver could draw us both into his void as he had called and there he literally a good controlling and creating anything he wanted

I could die in there without being dead in the real world but the pain was still there each day was a torture

every day like clockwork I would fight silver with all I had

it took me months to get used to the pain and it took me nearly two years to learn to master the technique

it was even harder after that as it takes years and years of practice

silver left no method he thought me how to fight with every way possible sword knife, quarterstaff, axe you name it was taught with pain and death

I tried to make this process easy for myself but Silver was always waiting for me

Whenever I try to escape Silver would appear in front of me with a deadly grin

I wasn't some master by the end of it but I was becoming better every day

every day I learned to survive by any means possible parrying stabbing pivoting dealing with anything to survive

as I struggled with Silver

it was so much easier to deal with lord Erebus

all I had was to understand various patterns, lay lines and symbols intersecting and connecting with each other to form the rune which in turn was used to form a spell

attacks, curses, hexes, charms and traps

all formed by various complex runes

it was hard I will not lie but it was so much easier than dying while fighting and once thank to the mysterious chant that randomly appeared in my head I learned to implant my will along with spiritual energy into any symbol, hieroglyph, image or random scribble of lines to convert it into a rune I was golden

want a shield rune just draw a while and embed it with my will fueled by my imagination and spiritual energy and bam one shield rune ready to go

and with the soul vision which was another thing lady tong taught me and the golden mask that came from the chants I was able to see the flow of the energies I was easily able to correct or manipulate the flow energies to my will

but drawing these runes each time I needed them was a hassle so I tried to find alternative

the first thing that came to my mind was the Talisman method but surprise surprise talisman past was a rare commodity and even my new teacher didn't give a too large inventory so even though that method was good because of supplies I tried to find another method

then came the igneous foolish idea of tattooing my skin with runes that was a colossally bad idea

the rune on my akin began to interfere with the flow of spiritual energy inside my body and not mention the pain it cause to draw the runes not to mention the pain that I suffered when I had to remove them

now I only had the only third-grade rune in my arsenal on both of my wrists

even that had chased massive among of discomfort despite the fact the tattoos were the size of a 2-inch long ruler

then Lady bring one randomly appeared next to me with a loud

"HOOT!"

she began giving me a lecture on how to draw the rune through my mental power on bloody air

it took me a long time before I was able to even project the simplest rune on the sir

but once I was proficient in the method I no longer fought with hands much to the displeasure of silver

I now just blasted spells at silver while dodging and jumping all around like a monkey staying away from silver

everyday

my body was so sore from the constant use of my energy and spiritual energy and dying

but I could hardly complain

when I had first learned how to do this my body was completely destroyed from the abuse I was receiving by the cleansing

at the time

it felt like I had been beaten by a thousand men at once

it was much worse but at least I was conscious for this punishment

and even with all the deaths and injuries, I sustain my body kept on going back to health and strength every morning

it seemed as if my physical injuries were healing themselves but the mental damage was not

as my body was slowly improving

my mind was deteriorating

every day I would wake in tears and sweat afraid of what the day held for me

so one day I decided to leave this place

I had been here for almost many years now and had never seen my pupil Xu Lin again

I had hoped he was doing much better than me

but lady Tong stopped me and told me that I could not leave until I defeated silver which much to my dismay I hadn't been able to do

I had never even come close

to matching Silver' level in my abilities and training

and then she had taken over my earning from Lord Erebus and she began working me by throwing me into nightmares to mentally strengthen me

and that's how I spent my days when I was awake I was a living punching bag for silver and when I was asleep I was walking among my worst fears and desires in form of dreams

again and again,

until yesterday when she had informed me to go back to lord Erebus and rest for

they are going to prepare me for the next step

and here I was sitting cross alleged on a futon changing waiting for whatever came next